Jan 31

Today’s News 31st January 2017

  • Say Hello To China's ICBMs

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via SputnikNews.com,

    China's alleged deployment of a DF-41 strategic ballistic missile brigade to Heilongjiang province, bordering Russia, triggered a fascinating spectacle; how to spin – or not to spin – what necessarily represents a milestone in Russia-China's strategic partnership.

    The Global Times stressed Hong Kong and Taiwan media interpreted pictures of the DF-41 were taken in Heilongjiang, admitting there was no official confirmation from Beijing while hoping the "strategic edge" would soon be confirmed.

    Russian media was way more explicit, with military analyst Konstantin Sivkov stressing that the DF-41, as positioned, would not be able to target Russia's Far East and most of Eastern Siberia; and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noting that "if the reports prove correct, the military build-up in China is not perceived as a threat to our country."

    Of course not. The Russia-China strategic partnership, which, as I argued, needs to be broken according to Trump's shadow foreign policy adviser Henry Kissinger's strategy, is a very serious business. If there were indeed a deployment, Russian intelligence would have been fully aware. Peskov's response also pre-empted the notion this might represent a Chinese response to potential US-Russia negotiations over nuclear disarmament.

    Still, all of the above did not prevent the Chinese Foreign Ministry to issue an attempt at a non-denial denial, describing the alleged deployment as "speculation and crude guesses".

    Go West, young missile

    The timing of the alleged deployment, with Team Trump doubling down on anti-Chinese rhetoric on their war of positioning geared to extract further trade concessions, may indeed betray a very graphic Beijing message.

    The DF-41, a three-stage solid-propellant missile, with a range of up to 15,000 km and capable of delivering up to 10 MIRVed nuclear warheads, is one of the most sophisticated – and secret — ICBMS on earth. Virtually everything about it is classified. Positioning in Heilongjiang, near the city of Daqing, close to the Russian border, implies a huge "dead zone" around it. So call it a mix of nuclear deterrence and a "message" to the ultimate target — the West Coast of the United States.

    This propels the matter to an even more serious sphere than a possible upcoming crisis in the South China Sea, where the Pentagon, under the pretext of "freedom of navigation", is obsessed in maintaining "access", Trump or no Trump.

    If there ever were an attempted American blockade in the South China Sea, it would be easy to take out the Chinese-developed islands/islets/rocks/shoals. But far from easy to grapple with the Chinese response; submarines with "carrier killer" missiles able to take out anything the US Navy may come up with.

    Islands/islets/rocks/shoals in the South China Sea have no inherent strategic significance for the US. What their upgrading – the Beltway would say "militarization" — does represent is China's progressive attempt to eventually deny access to the US Navy.

    Enter the "messenger" DF-41. The technical reasons why Russia does not see the DF-41 as a threat are simple – and may unveil the rationale behind the alleged deployment.

    Beijing has been able to deploy its predecessor, the DF-31 – which is able to target Russia — for more than a decade now. And a simple analysis of distance and trajectory reveals that Heilongjiang province is the optimum location for the DF-41 to target the whole of the continental US.

    It's virtually guaranteed that an official Chinese confirmation of the DF-41 deployment will accelerate a nuclear arms race, involving all players from Russia, China and the US to India and Pakistan and even North Korea.

    But more than this, it will be yet another lethal blow to the Beltway's master strategy – first deployed by Dr. Zbig "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski – of trying to prevent the emergence of any peer competitor, or worse, an alliance of peer competitors such as Russia-China.

    Just at the start of the Trump era, the new reality could not be more striking. Not long ago, it was "say hello to Russia-China". Now it's "say hello to China's ICBMs."

  • FaKe TeaRS…

    FAKE TEARS

  • Dallas Fed Gives The Best Forecast Of What The Trump Economy Will Look Like

    One of the least convoluted, most insightful and thus best forecasts of what the first few months of the Trump administration will look like, came from one of the respondents of today’s Dallas Fed manufacturing survey. This is what the respondent said:

    President Trump looks to do things that will be favorable for business, which would improve employment and growth if successful. However, protesters are all over the place, so I tend to think that will cause trouble for the country and for business.

    Those 42 words, with a sufficient margin of error on either side, pretty much summarize everything that will happen in the next 6-12 months: a push to improve the economic growth (perhaps leading to overstimulation and a Fed that is far behind the inflationary curve, resulting in a sharp move higher in rates), offset by protesters who are “all over the place.”

    In addition to the above snippet, the Dallas Fed respondents, among the most outspoken of all regional Feds, had several other notable comments on the state of the US economy. Here are some highlights, first regarding the Trump administration:

    • We feel if the news of the new administration holds, we should be on an uptrend throughout the Trump presidency.
    • One of our manufacturing facilities is in Mexico. There is some uncertainty around potential impacts related to NAFTA and other policy changes from the Trump administration. Several large chain customers are asking for backup plans should there be any supply chain disruption.
    • We expect President Trump’s policies towards NAFTA and Mexico will have a negative impact in the borderland in the next six months.
    • We are expecting President Trump to have a very positive impact on the business environment. We need less regulation, less red tape, better trade deals and lower taxes.
    • We are waiting to see whether the new administration in Washington follows through on the threats to place additional tariffs on parts imported from Mexico and Asian countries. That could cause the price of our finished products to increase.
    • Generally, since the election, all activity has increased and quote activity for projects down the road has increased.

    And then, on various other secular trends within the US, and global, economy:

    • The global economies and U.S. economy are very weak and uncertain.
    • We have seen an improvement since the election.
    • Imports coming from Asia continue to plague the drilling equipment market. Foreign-governmental subsidized products are being brought over and sold at unprecedented low prices (prices not seen in the last 35 years).
    • The printing industry has been hurting for a long time and continues to decline. At the end of December we purchased a small print shop in order to increase sales, but we also increased overhead. Our lost sales have been a result of mergers and companies selling off divisions that are not profitable. We are still hopeful that a change in the economy will help increase sales.
    • Equipment purchases remain sluggish with a “wait and see” approach being taken by the refinery operators regarding crack spreads and available cash flow.
    • An unchanged outlook means it is still not good. I still seem to be in a secular 2–3 percent decline in sales. We are working to diversify, and while such efforts have been successful, they aren’t big enough yet to move the needle.
    • Order and shipment volumes have increased from low fourth-quarter levels across most industry sectors. We are experiencing some material price pressure.
    • Maybe it’s because we have hit the January doldrums that can occur for us this time of year, but it seems way slower with much less activity both in order entering and in quoting. It’s as if our customers are still out on vacation or taking a wait and see to the new president this Friday.

    But perhaps the best recent Dallas Fed response had nothing to do with either Trump, or the economy, but instead was in response to a special question from last month’s survey, dealing with “transactions in the Permian Basin”, which had received significant attention in the second half of the year, with some reports of acreage being overvalued, according to the Dallas Fed. The following comment expressing concern over acreage prices stood out for obvious reasons:

    “The Permian transactions are approaching price multiples associated with a bubble or a Ponzi scheme. Multiple private equity (PE)-backed buyers are simply trading assets from one to the other—very similar to transactions we witnessed in the early ‘80s real estate bubble, the tech bubble of ‘98–‘01 when venture capital firms co-invested with each other to drive up paper gains, and the oil transactions prior to 2014 when every PE fund, pension and endowment manager needed shale in their portfolios.”

    Let’s hope that this time it’s different.

  • The Left Is Self-Destructing: Paul Craig Roberts Rages "The Mindlessness Is Unbearable"

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    The mindlessness is unbearable.

    Amnesty International tells us that we must “fight the Muslim ban” because Trump’s bigotry is wrecking lives.

     

    Anthony Dimaggio at CounterPunch says Trump should be impeached because his Islamophobia is a threat to the Constitution.

    This is not to single out these two as the mindlessness is everywhere among those whose worldview is defined by Identity Politics.

    One might think that Amnesty International should be fighting against the Bush/Cheney/Obama regime wars that have produced the refugees by killing and displacing millions of Muslims. For example, the ongoing war that Obama inflicted on Yemen results in the death of one Yemeni child every 10 minutes, according to UNICEF. Where is Amnesty International?

    Clearly America’s wars on Muslims wreck far more lives than Trump’s ban on immigrants. Why the focus on an immigration ban and not on wars that produce refugees? Is it because Obama is responsible for war and Trump for the ban? Is the liberal/progressive/left projecting Obama’s monstrous crimes onto Trump? Is it that we must hate Trump and not Obama?

    Immigration is not a right protected by the US Constitution. Where was Dimaggio when in the name of “the war on terror” the Bush/Obama regime destroyed the civil liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution? If Dimaggio is an American citizen, he should try immigrating to the UK, Germany, or France and see how far he gets.

    The easiest and surest way for the Trump administration to stop the refugee problem, not only for the US but also for Europe and the West in general, is to stop the wars against Muslim countries that his predecessors started. The enormous sums of money squandered on gratuitous wars could instead be given to the countries that the US and NATO have destroyed. The simplest way to end the refugee problem is to stop producing refugees. This should be the focus of Trump, Amnesty, and Dimaggio.

    Is everyone too busy hating to do anything sensible?

    It is very disturbing that the liberal/progressive/left prefers to oppose Trump than to oppose war. Indeed, they want a war on Trump. How does this differ from the Bush/Obama war on Muslims?

    The liberal/progressive/left is demonstrating a mindless hatred of the American people and the President that the people chose. This mindless hatred can achieve nothing but the discrediting of an alternative voice and the opening of the future to the least attractive elements of the right-wing.

    The liberal/progressive/left will end up discrediting all critics, thereby empowering those to whom the liberal/progressive/left are most opposed.

  • Koch Brothers Hint Support For Trump's SCOTUS Pick While Blasting Border Tax And Immigration Ban

    The Koch Brothers and their political advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, held a meeting this weekend in Indian Wells, California for their army of $100,000+ donors that collectively support several conservative groups backed by the brothers.  Among other topics, the Koch donor network, helmed by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, discussed plans to rally support for Trump’s SCOTUS pick.  According to Axios, top Koch officials said they’re waiting for the nominee’s identity to be revealed, but they liked the initial list of names Trump released. 

    The comments came just as Trump has confirmed his intention to reveal his pick for the Supreme Court tomorrow at 8pm EST.

     

    Meanwhile, as we’ve noted before, Trump’s pick is expected to come amid vows from Democrats to block any nominee put forward by his administration.  Appearing on Rachel Maddow last week, Schumer said the open SCOTUS seat was ‘stolen’ by Republicans and that “it’s hard to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose, that would get Republican support, that we could support.”

     

    Under current rules, Republicans will need at least eight Democrats to support Trump’s nominee to overcome the 60-vote filibuster hurdle.  That said, Ted Cruz, among other Republicans, has already started lobbying for the “nuclear option” that would lower the confirmation vote threshold to a simple majority and pave the way for Republicans to confirm any Justice put forward, without Democrat support.  Per The Hill:

    Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) said Republicans should fight to get President Trump’s coming Supreme Court nominee confirmed by any means necessary.

     

    Trump has said he will be announcing his choice to fill the late Antonin Scalia’s seat on the bench next week.

     

    Republicans will need at least eight Democrats to support Trump’s nominee to overcome the 60-vote filibuster hurdle. But Cruz suggested the GOP shouldn’t rule out the so-called “nuclear option” to reduce the threshold to a majority. The move would be a gamble, setting a precedent that could weaken the GOP’s position if Democrats come back into power.

     

    “I think we should do whatever it takes to get him confirmed,” the former presidential candidate said on Fox News’ “Hannity” Tuesday night.

     

    When pressed about whether Republicans would employ the nuclear option this week, McConnell simply said: “The nominee will be confirmed.”

    But while the billionaire brothers may be aligned with Trump on his conservative SCOTUS picks, they have made no qualms about publicly opposing the new administration’s stance on the proposed “border tax” and immigration ban.  Per Fortune:

    AFP Chief Executive Officer Luke Hilgemann, in an interview, called the measure “a massive tax increase” on U.S. consumers, who would pay more for foreign goods. He urged Ryan to “go back to the drawing board.”

     

    AFP and its offshoot organizations have become a powerful force in U.S. politics, bolstering candidates and issues on federal and state levels.

     

    Besides defying Republican leaders on the border tax, the Koch-led organization on Sunday challenged Trump on a policy he implemented on Friday to stop the movement of people from countries with large Muslim populations from traveling to the United States.

     

    “The travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive,” said an official of the Koch network.

    Finally, the brothers also vowed to increase their spending in the 2018 election cycle to $300-$400 million, up from $250 million in 2016…apparently they didn’t waste enough money opposing Trump last year…but we’re sure another $150 million should definitely guarantee success.

  • Tucker Carlson Challenges Head of Refugee Placement Agency (HIAS) to Explain American Values

    HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) head, Mark Hetfield, debated Tucker Carlson this evening on the merits of accepting refugees into the country — declaring it was the responsibility of the United States to accept anyone in need — citing the plight of jews in 1921 and how we, as a nation, horribly failed them — which contributed to the death toll during World War 2.
     
    Tucker called him out for applying a straw man, revisionist, argument — asking Mark to explain what are ‘American values’ and how many refugees are we supposed to take in, considering there are upwards of 60 million, globally.
     
    I am sure you could imagine where this went.
     

     
    It’s important to note that organizations like HIAS make a living off admittance of refugees into the country. They aren’t honest brokers on the subject matter, since their livelihoods are dependent on government funds quantified off a number of refugees entering the country. In recent years, they’ve enjoyed solid growth, with revenues surging from $25m in 2012 to $40m in 2015, according to their 990 form filed with the IRS.
     
    More to that end, the directors of HIAS have enjoyed a prosperous living off the recent influx of refugees, allocating upwards of $17m (~50%) of revenues towards salaries and compensation.
     
    HIAS
     
    At the end of the day, they’re crony capitalists, sucking off the tit of government handouts — fueled by idealogues.
     

     

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  • Trump On A Roll, Fires Director Of Immigration And Customs Enforcement

    Having said the infamous words “you’re fired” once already this evening, when President Trump relieved acting AG Sally Yates of her duties just after 9pm Eastern, and perhaps realizing just how much he missed the sound, moments ago Trump also relieved acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Daniel Ragsdale, who was replaced with Thomas Homan, who previously led ICE’s “efforts to identify, arrest, detain, and remove illegal aliens, including those who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety, as well as those who enter the United States illegally or otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration laws and our border control efforts.”

    There was no immediate reason given for Ragsdale’s dismissal.

    The full statement from DHS Secretary Kelly announcing Homan taking over as ICE Director is below.

    STATEMENT FROM SECRETARY KELLY ON THE PRESIDENT’S  APPOINTMENT OF THOMAS D. HOMAN AS ACTING ICE  DIRECTOR

     

    WASHINGTON — Today, the president appointed Thomas D. Homan acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

     

    Since 2013 Homan has served as the executive associate director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). In this capacity, he led ICE’s efforts to identify, arrest, detain, and remove illegal aliens, including those who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety, as well as those who enter the United States illegally or otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration laws and our border control efforts.

     

    Homan is a 33-year veteran of law enforcement and has nearly 30 years of immigration enforcement experience. He has served as a police officer in New York; a U.S. Border Patrol agent: a special agent with the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service; as well as supervisory special agent and deputy assistant director for investigations at ICE. In 1999, Mr. Homan became the assistant district director for investigations (ADDI) in San Antonio, Texas, and three years later transferred to the ADDI position in Dallas, Texas.

     

    Upon the creation of ICE Homan was named as the assistant agent in charge in Dallas. In March 2009, Homan accepted the position of assistant director for enforcement within ERO at ICE headquarters and was subsequently promoted to deputy executive associate director of ERO.

     

    Mr. Homan holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and received the Presidential Rank Award in 2015 for his exemplary leadership and extensive accomplishments in the area of immigration enforcement.

     

    I am confident that he will continue to serve as a strong, effective leader for the men and women of ICE. I look forward to working alongside him to ensure that we enforce our immigration laws in the interior of the United States consistent with the national interest.

    Can Trump make it a Monday termination trifecta? We will find out soon enough.

  • Hated By Those Who Hate Russia

    Authored by Iben Thranholm, originally posted at The Saker,

    Recently Marie Krarup, a member of the Danish Parliament for the Danish People’s Party – contacted me to say that the EU task force East Stratcom has placed me on a list branding me as a pro-Russian propagandist and is accusing me of spreading Russian disinformation.

    This organisation was set up in March 2015 by the European Council to implement an action plan on strategic communication to address what it labels ”Russia’s on-going disinformation campaigns”, allegedly aiming to destabilize European democracy. To this end, East StratCom ”publishes two public weekly newsletters to stay up to date with the latest disinformation stores and narratives”. Have a look at EastStratcoms website.

    This was shocking news to me. Marie Krarup requested a consultation with Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Anders Samuelsen. She found that the task force accusation violated my constitutional rights under Danish law to exercise freedom of speech, and found this to be stark evidence of the EU usurping undemocratic and totalitarian privilege to list commentators, pundits and journalists that criticize EU policies and EU leaders.

    The minister disagreed. He stated that Iben Thranholm deserved her listing as a pro-Russian agent and should remain so listed. He indicated that I was hired by the Kremlin to destabilize Europe. Despite the consultation, this remains his position. No action has been taken to amend the list. No further comment has been offered on the case in the media.

    The consequences may be dire. If the conflict with Russia escalates, the state will have the right to imprison me as an enemy of the state. Already now I have been branded a traitor and unpatriotic. Many opinion leaders and colleagues have composed and published an open letter criticizing the ministry. Social media have been brimming with support, but my government remains stubborn in its accusation that I am a Russian agent. This means that I am no longer protected by the state of which I am a national.

    For the last couple of years, I have used Russian English-language media like RT op-ed section and Russia Insider for publishing my thoughts on the way the Western elites’ hatred of Christianity weakens and undermines Western culture.

    My choice of non-Western media like RT as a platform is certainly not motivated by any payment from Putin. No, it is rooted in the fact that as a conservative Christian Catholic, my thoughts and views are simply increasingly difficult to get published in Europe.

    For years now I have had to work as an independent journalist. No editor will take on the risk of employing a person who is open and outspoken about his or her Christian faith, let alone Catholic faith, the way I am. Christians are socially marginalized, derided, and viewed with suspicion if not actually as mentally disturbed. The few Christians left are either secularized – gone native by agreeing with the establishment – or have taken a vow of silence for fear of the political correctness storm troopers. They have no impact on European culture. Their salt has lost its power to keep society from putrefaction.

    The article that landed me on the East Stratcom list dealt precisely with the way the elite abused arguments of Christian charity to abandon registration of the identity of who entered which country and for adopting a blanket open-border policy when the tsunami of refugees and immigrants flooded across Europe’s borders in 2015. Their hatred of Christianity certainly does not keep them from abusing arguments of Christian charity divorced from its context when it suits their own agenda.

    Allow me to quote some passages from the article, entitled “Misguided Compassion Threatens to Become the Downfall of Europe”

    “Europe is like Judas, betraying its Christian tradition with the traitorous kiss of false compassion in order to obliterate the last vestige of Christian civilization in Europe. True charity always springs from a higher moral absolute, a clear distinction between right and wrong, good and evil. False charity offers compassion for the criminal and not the victim. No charity for the woman who is victimized by rape but pity for the perpetrator, the rapist. Such pity is a gross perversion.”

     

    “In spite of their use – or rather abuse – of “loving one’s neighbor”, politicians are devoid of the Christian basis for distinguishing good from evil. Our politicians promote the forces of evil and utterly abandon their victims. This is merely an extension of the policies of the West in the Middle East since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Western politicians consistently identify evil as good, and good as evil. They unleash destructive forces to rampage unimpeded and oppress good wherever the West enters the scene with its military or economic warfare.”

     

    “The fierce hatred of the Western political elite for Christianity has robbed Europe of its moral compass. Using Christian arguments for waging war on Christianity and Christian culture is a vile demonic parody. From a spiritual perspective, it is clear that Europe has made an unholy alliance with islamism in order to annihilate its Christian civilisation. This diabolical scam wears a cloak of goodness and humanitarianism, but it is really a manifestation of moral decay and false altruism that threatens to bring about Die Untergang des Abendlandes, the end of Christian Europe”.

    At the consultation in the parliamentary committee meeting, the minister alleged that my article contained lies and myths that fitted into a Kremlin narrative of the decline of the West, and that my arguments bore no relation to reality.

    One may agree or disagree with this interpretation. The question is whether this makes me a Russian agent or an enemy of the state. The task force offers no proof of an agreement between the Kremlin and me. For the good reason that no such contract exists. It is an allegation, pure and simple. At the consultation, the minister refuses to take a position on the matter of principle involved in placing participants in the social debate on the list. He merely dismisses my statements as lies.

    It is highly revealing that the task force pounces on this article on this subject, because it deals precisely with distinguishing between the truth and lies, and points out that the political elite has entirely lost its ability to distinguish between the truth and lies. This abandonment of truth is far and away the greatest threat to world peace in this day. Russia is not.

    Today’s politics are entirely beyond the irrelevant left/right and red/blue paradigm.The real issue is truth v lies, good v evil, right v wrong.

    The American election campaign blew this truth wide open. There was hardly any real policy debate, but reams of lies were revealed as masquerading as truth. In its wake, the unspeak designers launched the phenomenon of “fake news” in order to regain control of the narrative. The EU task force has also been set up for achieving a monopoly for the EU version of acceptable reality. The war on truth rages on after President Trump’s inauguration, and the presstitute media now intensify their campaign to brand Trump as a liar.

    What irony that a very long epoch of relativism of values, during which the political elite and intellectuals decided that there is no truth, has now ended abruptly with a frenzied claim that truth is all that matters. What immense irony that those who taught young people that there is no truth now exalt themselves as truth tellers, and then hurls accusations of lying against any who does not toe the line of their pragmatic version of truth. The pinnacle of sad irony is that generations reared on the absence of truth from reality now clamor for truth. They have lost faith in the assumption that the media they trusted blindly are telling them the truth.

    The media have been roundly exposed as liars. Yet the media claim that the exposure of their lies is a lie and that people who want the truth are lying. Those who tell the truth are blamed as liars, while the media adamantly maintain that they are the truth tellers. Confused? The world has moved from the usual conflicts in the realm of geopolitics and economics to moral and spiritual warfare. The world now witnesses an epic confrontation between the truth and lies, light and darkness, that was kept invisible for so long.  A spiritual war is raging between those who choose good and those who choose to call good what is evil.

    Yet who is prepared and equipped for this epic battle of our day? Relativism of values has rendered many, if not most, completely without solid ground and the first idea of what is good and what is evil, utterly unable to recognize truth and defend themselves against lies. They have learned no rudiments on discerning because they have grown up with no spiritual foundation and no inkling of Christian truth. This is a big problem, as it is impossible to understand the world today if one has no spiritual eyes with which to see.

    No one can fight for truth, which is spiritual without the ability to recognize truth and distinguish it from the lie. Without the spiritual understanding, no one has the weapons to fight against evil and lies. The chaotic struggle raging in journalism and social media today is a visible expression of this spiritual war.

    Alexander Solzhenitsyn said that “godlessness is the first step to the Gulag”. When EU politicians adopt unconstitutional methods for listing political opponents or people who publish moral truth, they declare their godlessness before God and man, and wage war against Christianity and Christian culture. When the state and its ideology place themselves in God’s seat, all hell breaks loose. Democracy offers no guarantee: collectivism can exercise totalitarianism under democracy’s banner. The freedom of speech is now violated in Europe and there is now no freedom for journalists to speak the truth as they see it.

    In the 1940s, George Orwell wrote “during times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” This is our precise position today. Journalists must therefore accept it as a badge of honor and courage when the establishment brands them as liars and pro-Russian propagandists, for this is the highest evidence that they are speaking the truth. They must see themselves as freedom fighters and find comfort and strength in the words of Christ in the Gospel: “truth will set you free.”

  • The United States Is On The Precipice Of Widespread Civil Unrest

    Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    It doesn’t take much of a trigger to push extremely large crowds of very angry protesters into committing acts of rioting and violence.  And rioting and violence can ultimately lead to widespread civil unrest and calls for “revolution”.  The election of Donald Trump was perhaps the single most galvanizing moment for the radical left in modern American history, and we have already seen that a single move by Trump can literally cause protests to erupt from coast to coast within 48 hours.  On Friday, Trump signed an executive order that banned refugees from Syria indefinitely and that placed a 90 day ban on travel to the United States for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.  Within hours, protesters began to storm major airports, and by Sunday very large crowds were taking to the streets all over the country…

    From Seattle to Newark, Houston to Boston, hundreds jammed airport terminals — lawyers, immigration advocates, ordinary citizens compelled to the front lines, many refusing to leave until those who had been detained by U.S. Customs had been freed or had obtained legal counsel.

     

    On Sunday, the movement caught fire and demonstrations and rallies erupted in communities across the U.S. from city halls to airports to parks. In the nation’s capital, the site of the march that drew a crushing 500,000 people Jan. 21, Pennsylvania Avenue was shut down Sunday as thousands trekked from the White House to the U.S. Capitol. An energized crowd stopped outside Trump’s showcase hotel along the avenue to shake fists and chant “shame.”

    You can see some really good pictures of the protests going on around the nation right here.

    As I was going through articles about these protests today, I remember one woman holding up a sign that said “Remove Trump By Any Means Necessary”.

    It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what she was suggesting.

    Visions of violence are dancing in the heads of these very frustrated people, and they are being egged on by top members of Congress such as Chuck Schumer…

    ‘These orders go against what America has always been about,’ Schumer told the crowd in Battery Park according to the New York Daily News. ‘The orders make us less humanitarian, less safe, less American and when it comes to making us less safe people forget this, that’s why so many of our military, intelligence, security, and law enforcement leaders are opposed to this order and all those like it.’

     

    Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Trump’s presidential rival, Hillary, tweeted a picture from the rally. It was captioned: ‘Yes. We will keep standing up for a country that matches our values and ideals for all. #NewYork #NoBanNoWall.’

    On Sunday, President Trump attempted to clarify what his executive order was really about and make it clear that it was not a ban on all Muslims.  The following comes from CNN…

    President Donald Trump insisted Sunday his travel ban on certain Muslim-majority nations would protect the United States from terrorists, after a weekend of outrage and confusion over the move.

     

    In an afternoon statement, Trump wrote the country would continue showing “compassion to those fleeing oppression.”

    Unfortunately, polls show that somewhere around a third of the country greatly dislikes Trump, and those people are more than ready to believe that Trump is a racist bigot that hates all Muslims.

    But the truth is that Trump does not hate any group of people.  His target is simply Islamic terror, and he is actually pro-immigration as long as it is legal immigration.

    Let us not forget that his wife is a legal immigrant.

    I know that Trump is quite eager to get things done, but putting out this executive order at this particular moment was definitely a case of poor timing.

    We are a nation that is deeply, deeply divided, and now this latest controversy threatens to divide us even further.

    When I was out earlier today, I saw a pro-Trump billboard that some business owner had put up that was urging liberals to quit their whining.

    On the surface that may sound funny, but it definitely doesn’t do anything to bring us together.

    If you give anger enough fuel, eventually it leads to violence.  I am certainly not suggesting that we should ever compromise on what we believe, but what I am suggesting is that there is a wise way to handle things and an unwise way to handle things.

    Someday, widespread civil unrest is going to sweep across the United States and major American cities will burn.

    My hope is that we can put this off for as long as possible.

    In fact, I sincerely hope that this will not happen at all during the Trump/Pence era.

    But you would have to be blind not to see the hate, anger and frustration that are all growing like cancer in the hearts of our young people.

    This is a time for the peacemakers.  If there are any left in Washington, we need them to rise up now and try to bring healing before it is too late.

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Jan 30

Today’s News 30th January 2017

  • Despite Attackers Yelling "Allahu Akbar", Politicians Blame "Years Of Demonizing Muslims" For "Barbaric, Terrorist Act" In Quebec City Mosque

    Update: One day after the prime minister welcome Muslims into the country, it appears Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard calls mosque shooting a "terrorist act", and Greg Fergus, an MP in Quebec blamed "years of demonising Muslims" for the massacre…

    Quebec police confirm: "The premises are secure and the occupants have been evacuated. The investigation continues," the SPVQ wrote on Twitter.

    A witness, who asked to remain anonymous, told CBC's French-language service Radio-Canada that two masked individuals entered the mosque.

    "It seemed to me that they had a Quebecois accent. They started to fire, and as they shot they yelled, 'Allahu akbar!' The bullets hit people that were praying. People who were praying lost their lives. A bullet passed right over my head," said the witness.

    Additionally, NYPD is steeping up patrol at all mosque/house-of-worship locations citywide, due to the shooting at a mosque in Quebec.

    *  *  *

    As we detailed earlier, five people were killed after gunmen opened fire in a Quebec City mosque during evening prayers, the mosque's president told reporters on Sunday Reuters reported. Police confirmed the shooting at a Quebec mosque in a tweet, confirming numerous fatalities.

    "There are many victims … there are deaths," a Quebec police‎ spokesman told reporters.

    Quebec City Constable Étienne Doyon told reporters that police received a call around 7:55 p.m. on Sunday, stating that shots had been heard at the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec on Sainte-Foy St.

    "Why is this happening here? This is barbaric,” said the mosque's president, Mohamed Yangui. In June 2016, a pig’s head was left on the doorstep of the cultural centre, Reuters added. Yangui, who luckily was not inside the mosque during the shooting, said he received frantic calls from people at evening prayers. He said the injured had been taken to different hospitals across Quebec City.

    According to local authorities, one of the shooters at the mosque used an AK-47.

    Police launched an investigation last June after the severed head of a pig was left in front of one of the doors of the mosque, wrapped in cellophane with bows, ribbon and a card that read, “bonne appétit.” The incident took place during Ramadan, a month-long celebration during which Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset. Muslim dietary laws forbid eating pork at any time. Three weeks later, an Islamophobic letter entitled “What is the most serious: a pig’s head or a genocide” was distributed in the vicinity.

    In the neighboring province of Ontario, a mosque was set on fire in 2015, a day after an attack by gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris.

    As a reminder, just yesterday Canada's PM defied Trump's immigration order, and openly welcomed all those "fleeing prosecution" to Canada.

    As Canada's CBC reports, two suspects have been arre sted, but so far there are scant details about the identity of the shooters.

  • First Big Shock For Wall Street: Republicans Warn No Trump Tax Reform Until Spring 2018

    When it comes to Wall Street, Trump can launch martial law, suspend habeas corpus and/or use the Constitution for kindling and the market could care less as stocks will still go up. However, threaten some of Trump’s core economic stimulus projects like infrastructure spending (i.e., more public debt to fund corporate bottom lines) or tax reform (even more public debt flowing through to EPS), and suddenly stocks will pay very close attention.

    It now appears that this particular “worst case” for stocks may be playing out. As we cautioned in our previous post looking at the impact of Trump tax reform on corporate earnings, the biggest risk for the controversial president is that “at this rate Trump may spend much of his first year dealing with immigration reform and Obamacare.”

    However, as Paul Ryan warned last week during the Republicans’ outing in Philadelphia, Trump’s “#1 priority”, repealing and replacing Obamacare may not take place for several months. To wit:

    House Speaker Paul Ryan told House and Senate Republicans that lawmakers likely won’t repeal and replace Obamacare until March or April. Speaking in the first major session of GOP lawmakers’ joint retreat in the City of Brotherly Love, Ryan said Wednesday that the health care law wouldn’t be repealed and subsequently replaced until spring.

     

    “What we heard today was Obamacare is front and center,” Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., told reporters, referring to the first session of the retreat, which outlined President Donald Trump’s first 200 days in office, or the “200 Day Plan.”  “Repeal and replace,” Collins added. “The word was by the springtime.”

    And so the topic of eliminating Obamacare, which we explicitly warned could take up to two years to be replaced, is starting to drift off into the future.

    Ok fine, repealing and replacing Obamacare may be on hiatus, but at least Trump’s massive infrastructure project is still on track, and will be executed shortly. Guess again. According to Politico, the great bipartisan hope of 2017 – a massive public works initiative that would allow Donald Trump and Democrats to show they’re serious about putting blue-collar workers back to work – “may be in trouble before negotiations even begin.”

    Trump will almost certainly need Senate Democrats to get any infrastructure legislation through Congress, and this week they laid out a $1 trillion proposal this week that neatly matches the price tag of Trump’s own plan. But the similarities end there: If anything, Democrats set a mark that will be nearly impossible for the White House to meet. 

     

    The gaping disparity between the two approaches, and huge unanswered questions about where the money would come from, are serious warning signs for one of Trump’s top priorities. The biggest difference: Senate Democrats want to build on existing government programs and consider adding to the deficit, while Trump has emphasized tax credits that his advisers argue would pay for themselves.

     

    The politics of a bipartisan infrastructure deal were already rough for Trump, with GOP leaders wary of any new spending and more interested in tackling health care and tax reform. So this week’s Democratic infrastructure proposal, billed as a “challenge” to the new president, is a troubling sign as Trump pushes to make good on his frequent vow to be “the greatest jobs producer that God ever created.”

    Considering that a massive infrastructure spending stimulus has been one of the main drivers behind the recent surge in stocks, and especially behind industrial and material stocks, the encroachment of reality over “hope” may leave a sour taste in the mouths of a big subset of stock market bulls.

    But the worst news for Trump’s Wall Street supporters is neither the Obamacare delay, nor infrastructure spending hiatus, but his tax reform, arguably the single biggest driver behind the powerful market rally. Alas, as Reuters reports, things here too may be about to get indefinitely delayed into the future, to the point where the market may finally start asking itself if it has gone up too high, too fast.

    The reason for this was revealed last week in Philadelphia, when the reality of Trump’s aggressive fiscal spending agenda hit the brick wall of Congressional Republicans. According to Reuters, “as congressional Republicans gathered for an annual policy retreat in Philadelphia on Wednesday, the 100-day goal morphed into 200 days. As the week wore on, leaders were saying it could take until the end of 2017 – or possibly longer – for passage of final legislation.“

    And while Trump had a different idea when he spoke to lawmakers in Philadelphia, “telling them: Enough talk. Time to deliver”, he may have no recourse when dealing with the bitterly polarized and fragmented House of representatives:

    barely visible in Philadelphia, there are potential flashpoints of disagreement within the Republican rank-and-file in Congress as well as between Republican lawmakers and the unorthodox new president.

     

    These include how and when to replace Obamacare if Republicans succeed in their quest to repeal it; how to revamp the multi-layered tax code, whether to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and the nature of the U.S. relationship with Russia.

    But the most troubling revelations was the following: “When it comes to tax reform, senior congressional aides said the spring of 2018 might be a more likely time than this year for the passage of legislation.“

    For thousands of financial professionals, the shattered illusion that Trump would somehow be able to channel through trillions in spending with little to no delay, may end up costing them dearly. Furthermore, now that Trump has managed to infuriate even more politicians, including at least 11 GOP members, with his recent flurry of executive orders, it is likely that the “due date” on tax reform was pushed even further back.

    Ultimately, the reason for the delay is the same one we warned about just days after Trump’s election: a republican party that is simply unprepared to authorize the kind of spending demanded by the president: “some also voiced fears that his big agenda would drive up deficits and said they were still searching for details on his plans.”

    Several Republican lawmakers and aides said they were wary of the cost of his plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico. Republican leaders have said the wall proposal under discussion would cost $12 billion to $15 billion cost but some congressional aides say it could end up easily topping $20 billion.

     

    Republican Representative Will Hurd, whose Texas district partially borders Mexico, went a step further, calling the wall an ineffective tool for stopping illegal immigration.

     

    Others warned a border adjustment tax on foreign goods to pay for that wall could hurt U.S. companies’ profits, raise costs for American consumers and spark retaliation by foreign trading partners.

    Not just others, but the billionaire Koch brothers, who as reported previously have emerged as the bigest opnnents of the proposed Border Tax due to concerns about the profitability of their various business operations.

    But before Trump even gets to tax reform, which he can not “fix” with an executive order, he has to figure out what to do with Obamacare, and even here things are slowly grinding to a halt.

    Some lawmakers also worry that some of their constituents could be at risk of losing healthcare coverage if the push to repeal Obamacare moves too quickly.

     

    “You don’t want to be the reason why we weren’t successful in getting these things done,” he said. Still, Cole said Republicans are taking stock of the potential cost of the biggest items on Trump’s agenda such as the wall, infrastructure projects, tax cuts and beefing up military spending. “I think they worry about it,” Cole said.

     

    Following Trump’s speech to the lawmakers on Thursday, Senator James Risch said that no decisions had been made on the replacement of Obamacare, a complex law that has expanded healthcare insurance to millions of Americans. “It’s going to take a while to resolve it,” Risch said. Asked by reporters whether Republicans had a clear idea of what Trump would like to replace Obamacare with, Risch responded, “In detail, no.”

    The problem for Trump, especially now that he has embraced the market as an indicator of his job success, is that with every passing day, the ‘detail’ will be demanded by those would buy stocks. And in its absence, instead of buying, we may finally see a period of aggressive stock selling to remind the president just what his promises to Wall Street were.

  • "I'm A Woman Who Went To The Women's March And The March For Life. The Differences Were Stunning"

    Submitted by Antonia Okafor via Independent Journal Review,

    A week after the Inauguration of Donald Trump, politically active women across America could choose to make themselves heard at two major rallies revolving around women's issues. They could attend a pro-choice, feminist march known as the Women's March or they could wait one week and attend the 44th annual pro-life, March for Life.

    Some lucky few, such as myself, were able to attend both.

    The marches had their similarities. Both marches were held in D.C. Both marches were heavily attended by women. And both marches attracted people from all over the country to participate. But each march was not made equal.

    Being physically at the marches, it is easy to recognize differences between the two. In fact, some of the differences were downright stunning. Take a look for yourself, perhaps you will agree.

    Young Adults at the March for Life

    Image Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

     

    Young Adults at the Women's March

    Image credit: Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images

     

    Examples of inclusion at The March for Life

    Image Credit: Destiny Herndon-de La Rosa/New Wave Feminists, used with permission

     

    Examples of “inclusion” at the Women's March

     

     

     

    Signs at the March for Life

    Image credit: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
     

    Image Credit: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
     

    Image Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

     

    Signs at the Women's March

    Image Credit: Ebet Roberts/Getty Images

     

    Image Credit: Cynthia Edorh/Getty Images

     

    Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

     

    Attire at The March for Life

    Image Credit: ZACH GIBSON/AFP/Getty Images
     

    Image Credit:TASOS KATOPODIS/AFP/Getty Images

    Attire at the Women's March

    Image Credit:Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
     

    Image Credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

     

    Speakers at the March for Life

    Image Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
     

    Image Credit: Tasos Katopodis/AFP/Getty Images
     

    Image Credit: Somodevilla/Getty Images

     

    Speakers at the Women's March

    Image Credit: by Araya Diaz/Getty Images
     

    Image Credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images

     

    Men at the March for Life

    Image Credit: ZACH GIBSON/AFP/Getty Images
     

    Image Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

     

    Men at the Women's March

    Image Credit: Ebet Roberts/Archive Photos/Getty Images
     

    Image Credit: JASON CONNOLLY/AFP/Getty Images

     

    The main reason for the 1st Annual Women's March.

    Image Credit: Cynthia Edorh/Getty Images

     

    The main reason for the 44th Annual March for Life.

    Image credit: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images

    Only one march persuaded me to attend again.

     

  • Trump Administration takes a step back on executive order, Dept of Homeland Security states entry of LPRs allowed

    Legal residents holding green cards will now be allowed legal entry into the United States. In an apparent attempt to reach a realistic compromise on President Trump’s executive orders concerning immigration from countries compromised by terrorism, Secretary John Kelly from the Department of Homeland Security issued the following statement:

    In applying the provisions of the president’s executive order, I hereby deem the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest.

    Accordingly, absent the receipt of significant derogatory information indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare, lawful permanent resident status will be a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations.

    This statement came at around 4:30pm EST and shortly followed another statement by Secretary John Kelly which affirmed the departments intentions on complying with both the President’s executive orders as well as court orders. The second DHS statement ended with the following affirmation:

    We are and will remain in compliance with judicial orders. We are and will continue to enforce President Trump’s executive order humanely and with professionalism. DHS will continue to protect the homeland.

    The clarification comes after widespread concern that lawful permanent residents might be denied entry to the United States under the new ban.

    This article was originally posted at www.disobedientmedia.com

  • Remember The Time Bill Clinton Got A Standing Ovation For "Cracking Down On Illegal Aliens"

    Before Trump, there was President Obama's Iraqi refugee ban and seven nations of terror proclamation.

    But before Obama there was Bill Clinton who received a standing ovation for demanding stronger border defenses, and deporting criminal illegal immigrants.

    "We are a nation of immigrants.. but we are a nation of laws"

     

    "Our nation is rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country…

     

    Illegal immigrants take jobs from citizens or legal immigrants, they impose burdens on our taxpayers…

     

    That is why we are doubling the number of border guards, deporting more illegal immigrants than ever before, cracking down on illegal hiring, barring benefits to illegal aliens, and we will do more to speed the deportation of illegal immigrants arrest for crimes…

     

    It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws that has occurred in the last few years.. and we must do more to stop it."

     

    [Standing Ovation]

    It's starting to get a little awkward for the identity politics of the left to defend their own history while denigrating Trump's actions.

  • NYC Plans New Facial Recognition Cameras At Bridges, Tunnels (& Here's How To Dodge Them)

    The state of New York has privately asked surveillance companies to pitch a vast camera system that would scan and identify people who drive in and out of New York City, according to a December memo obtained by Vocativ. As big brother tactics continue to creep quietly into Americans' everyday lives, here are six ways to dodge biometric verification…

    As Vocativ.com reports, the call for private companies to submit plans is part of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s major infrastructure package, which he introduced in October.

    Though much of the related proposals would be indisputably welcome to most New Yorkers — renovating airports and improving public transportation — a little-noticed detail included installing cameras to “test emerging facial recognition software and equipment.”

     

    “This is a highly advanced system they’re asking for,” said Clare Garvie, an associate at Georgetown University’s Center for Privacy and Technology, and who specializes in police use of face recognition technologies. “This is going to be terabytes — if not petabytes — of data, and multiple cameras running 24 hours a day. In order to be face recognition compliant they probably have to be pretty high definition.”

     

    Cuomo’s office didn’t respond to multiple requests for clarification in the ensuing weeks after his announcement. But a memo from the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Bridges and Tunnels division, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows that on December 12, the MTA put out a call to an unknown group of private vendors of surveillance equipment. The proposed system would both scan drivers as they approached or crossed most of the city’s bridges and tunnels at high speeds, and would also capture and pair those photos with the license plates of their cars.

     

    “The biggest risk that comes with a system like this is its ability to track people, by location, by their face,” Garvie said. “So what needs to be put in place is a prohibition on the use of these cameras and the technology as a location tracking tool.”

     

    The proposed system would be massive, the memo reads:

     

    The Authority is interested in implementing a Facial Detection System, in a free-flow highway environment, where vehicle movement is unimpeded at highway speeds as well as bumper-to-bumper traffic, and license plate images are taken and matched to occupants of the vehicles (via license plate number) with Facial Detection and Recognition methods from a gantry-based or road-side monitoring location.

     

    All seven of the MTA’s bridges and both its tunnels are named in the proposal.

    New York City wouldn’t be the first in the U.S. to have a network of facial recognition cameras for law enforcement. In 2013, for instance, the Los Angeles Police Department admitted it had deployed 16 cameras equipped with face recognition software, designed to search for particular suspects.

    If all of this big brotherly love is too much for you, Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) explains, via ReadyNutrition.com, how you can dodge facial recognition software…

    Helen of Troy, according to the Odyssey, was “the face that launched a thousand ships,” prior to the Greek invasion of Troy.  You and I, on the other hand, are the faces that launch an army of CCTV cameras ready to capture our images when we walk past them.  ReadyNutrition Readers, we just covered winter camouflage tips and techniques.  Camouflage is an important part of your prepping, in terms of being able to effectively hide yourself and your supplies from prying eyes.

    One of the biggest problems that we encounter is not blending in with the terrain in a wilderness environment, however, but what we face in an urban and suburban environment.  As mentioned in previous articles, you have to camouflage in accordance with the environment you find yourself within.  It would not be intelligent to stroll down the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard dressed up in Realtree-patterned garb with a holstered sidearm and a hunting knife.  You would undoubtedly be “noticed,” and probably take a ride in a black and white, courtesy of the police department.

    There’s an article that gives some very stark details about the 250 million security cameras in existence throughout the world.  The article entitled “Opinion: Facial recognition will soon end your anonymity,” written by Tarun Wadwha on 6/4/2016 explains this in detail and how new developments in software and the ever-growing number of cameras everywhere are reducing your chances to remain anonymous.  Chances are that your face has already been scanned and entered into a database without your knowledge. Knowing these things, there are a few measures that we can take…and these are directed toward urban and suburban dwellers to give them an edge.

    What these Statists are trying to do is to create a “map” of where you are and what you’re doing, along with the times and dates of your activities.  Go and see (or rent out) the latest “Jason Bourne” movie to really get a feel for the intricacies of how these Law Enforcement agencies, the government, and other interests utilize the public domains to tie into their surveillance of you and your family.

    6 Ways to Dodge Biometric Verification

    Here are some things you can do, and keep in mind to help lower your signature:

    1. Wear sunglasses during the daylight hours…breaking up the potential to photograph your eyes, the way they are set into your face, and any eye movements that might give away what you are doing (what you’re getting ready to do).
    2. Wear a hat, especially one that covers up the ears. Baseball caps are fine, but they really focus on the ears – their shape and proximity to the side of your head – for identification purposes.  The caps also bust up the curvature of your head and also hide the hair and hair patterns.
    3. Wear scarves, turtlenecks, and other clothing such as balaclavas to break up the outline of the neck.
    4. Gloves: hide the hands, your marital status, and scars, fingernails, or other prominent features…even the fingerprints can be photographed.
    5. Layered clothing: yes, this is great to protect from the cold, but I’ll give you another reason to wear it. The Doctrine of Contrasting Colors.  For a “real-time” view of this look no further than the movie “The Recruit” with Colin Farrell and Al Pacino.  Farrell escaped from his pursuers by shedding the outer layer of his clothing and reversing the jacket.  You can do the same.  Make the green sweatshirt disappear when the need arises with a change to a tan polypro top with a zippered neck.
    6. Rule of Thumb: “When the Need Arises.”  Yes, you can pack yourself a small “kit” with darker-toned makeup/lighter-toned makeup such as skin cream, and also hats of various types different from the ones you normally use.  A wig may be a quick fix to turn your hair from brown to blonde.  There are also movie supply sites you can visit that will sell you real mustaches actually made from human hair.  Sound stupid?  It won’t if you use it and it keeps you out of a cell.  This measure is for when it’s really hitting the fan…not for “day to day” activities.

    Another big problem to overcome with all of this surveillance is the fact that most people have their constantly clicking and snapping little phone-cameras to take pictures of every single thing on the planet within their “biome,” and it’s these individuals who serve as “silent witnesses” to help the surveillance state gather as much info as they can.  In addition, let’s not forget that every photo you post, twitter, place on Facebook, or download in any capacity does indeed become “scarfed up” by the government.  That $50-billion-dollar facility in Utah wasn’t built to help out Olan Mills with their photography work.

    Be aware, and not just of others but of yourself.  Reduce the “footprint” you put out by learning where the cameras are where you work and on your trips back and forth to your house.  Disable the little camera-dot on the top edge of your laptop with 2 layers of aluminum HVAC duct tape pieces.  Disable the microphone within it as well.  Bottom line: you have to pull security for yourself and on yourself to reduce the chances of them cataloguing your every move.  Don’t give them what they need to build up their files.

    We are entering into a phase in our country with a moment of decision to come with the U.S. elections.  Martial law is always just around the corner, waiting to be inflicted on us.  These are techniques you’ll have to incorporate into your daily routine and they’ll take some practice.  Awareness and the ability to act on what is happening around you are the keys you’ll need to be able to make it all work.  We’d like to hear any suggestions you have on the matter that may work for others.  Keep fighting that good fight, and stay away from those cameras!

  • Delta Lifts Stop Grounding All Domestic Flights For Over Two Hours Due To Computer Glitch

    Update: as of 9:30pm ET, Delta said in an advisory that the ground stop has been lifted.

    * * *

    One week after United Continental was forced to ground its flights for nearly three hours due to a computer failure, on Sunday around 7pm Eastern, Delta Air Lines – the second-largest US airline  – halted all U.S. flights because of another technology glitch.

    “Our systems are down,” Delta tweeted, adding “the IT department is working to rectify the situation as soon as possible,” said Atlanta-based Delta.

    The company’s international flights are exempt from the grounding, which was caused by “automation issues,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

    The second consecutive froced grounding at Delta struck as airlines struggled to comply with new travel restrictions following President Trump’s executive order blocking travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations. As Bloomberg adds, last year, a rash of computer failures disrupted flight operations at U.S. airlines. Thousands of passengers were stranded as carriers struggled to keep older information systems working. 

    Delta took a $100 million hit to sales after a power-control module at the company’s Atlanta command center caught fire in August, cutting power to computers. Southwest Airlines Co. had to halt flights the month before that because of issues with “multiple technology systems.”

     

    Ground stops, as the FAA calls them, are relatively common reactions to thunderstorms and other disruptions in the U.S. aviation system. They are typically short-lived and narrowly drawn, such as halting departures to a congested airport for an hour or two.

    Nearly two hours after the FAA first notified about the ground halt, Delta still has to resolve the system outage.

  • Visualizing The Global Weapons Trade

    The following visualization sums up the global weapons trade during the Obama era. It was created by data scientist Hai Nguyen Mau, and each relationship plots the value of the weapons trade between two countries based on data from SIPRI.

    As VisualCapitalist's Jeff Desjardins points out, it’s important to note that while this data includes major weaponry transfers such as tanks, jets, missiles, and ships, it excludes guns and ammunition or military aid. Lastly, the thickness of each line represents the total value of each trade relationship, while the proximity of two linked countries shows how close each relationship is. (i.e. if a country only imports from Russia, they will be much closer to Russia than the U.S.)

    The above visualization sums up the global weapons trade during the Obama era, minus data from 2016. It was created by data scientist Hai Nguyen Mau, and each relationship plots the value of the weapons trade between two countries based on data from SIPRI.

    To see the full version of this visualization click here.

    A LONGTAIL DISTRIBUTION

    The global weapons trade is dominated by a few major exporters, such as United States, EU, and Russia:

    Together, the United States, European Union, and Russia combine for over 80% of weapons exports, while the rest of the world fills out the “longtail” of the exporter distribution.

    From the perspective of imports, the field is much more equal because almost every country aims to spend at least some money on defense. India is the largest importer of weapons in the world with a 14% share of the market.

    TWO DISTINCT BLOCS

    The picture behind the global weapons trade gets much more interesting as it is broken up into relationships. It’s easy to see that there are two distinct blocs of trade:

    • The West: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, most of the EU, and other countries
    • The East: Russia, China, India, Nigeria, and other countries

    As an example, Singapore imports 71% of its weapons from the United States along with significant amounts from Germany (10%) and Sweden (6%). As such, it is very close to the United States in these visualizations.

    Meanwhile, India imports 70% of its arms from Russia, with the U.S. (12%) and Israel (7%) as other major partners.

    Here’s another look from Hai Nguyen Mau that just focuses on U.S. and Russian relationships:

    An oversimplication, to be sure – but these visualizations hint at the broader tensions that have recently surfaced to the forefront of geopolitical discourse.

  • Here Are The Latest Updates On Trump's Refugee Ban

    Less than 48 hours after announcing his executive order on refugees, global opposition to Trump intensified on Sunday as world leaders, US (mostly tech) companies and civil rights groups condemned the move to temporarily limit entry from predominantly Muslim countries.

    Here are the latest updates in the ongoing saga as of noon on Sunday:

    • Global government lash out at order. Governments from London and Berlin to Jakarta and Tehran spoke out against Trump’s order. A spokesman for the U.K.’s Theresa May, who visited Trump on Friday and hadn’t commented during the day yesterday, told the AP May does “not agree” with the order. Canada PM Trudeau, in a tweet, said on Saturday Canada would welcome those fleeing “persecution, terror and war. Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith.” Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon endorsed Trudea’s tweet. A similar message was sent by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who said refugees deserve a safe haven regardless of their background or religion. Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said the decision was unfair.  Germany pledged to play a bigger role on the international stage.
    • US tech companies “do not support:” Netflix Inc.’s chief executive officer said the changes were “un-American”; Alphabet Inc.’s Google advised staff who may be impacted by the order to return to the U.S. immediately; commeting on the order, Apple’s Tim Cook said “It is not a policy we support”
    • Lyft donates $1 million to ACLU. In an email from Lyft to users, the company noted that the executive order is “antithetical to both Lyft’s and our nation’s core values. We stand firmly against these actions, and will not be silent on issues that threaten the values of our community.” The release went on to note that the company pledged to donate “$1,000,000 over the next four years to the ACLU to defend our constitution.”
    • Uber slammed. Lyft’s response to the protests contrasted to that of its rival, Uber. While Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick pledged to compensate drivers stranded overseas due to the executive order, he did not specifically condemn the executive order.  The company was criticized for the tone-deaf response from its CEO, prompting a new hashtag on Twitter: #DeleteUber.
    • Trump refuses to relent. Despite the global criticism, Trump was steadfast as of Sunday morning, tweeting twice on the topic, first saying that “our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW. Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world – a horrible mess!”  following it up with “Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!”
    • Federal Judge issues nationwide stay, partially blocking the Trump immigration order. A Brooklyn judge temporarily blocked Trump’s administration late Saturday from enforcing portions of his order, however neither ruling strikes down the executive order, which will now be subject to court hearings.
    • Another ruling: A Boston judge ruled to release two Iranian professors from Logan International Airport, according to the Boston Globe. The decision also stated that travelers could not be removed OR detained for 7 days.
    • White House comments on judge’s ruling: “Nothing in the Brooklyn judge’s order in anyway impedes or prevents the implementation of the president’s executive order which remains in full, complete and total effect,” White House adviser Stephen Miller told reporters.
    • White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus “we apologize for nothing”: Priebus told “Meet the Press” the situation yesterday “wasn’t chaos.” He appeared to contradict an official clarification by the White House, when he said on Sunday green-card holders won’t be impacted by the order going forward, but could face additional screening at CBP “discretion.” Other countries could be added to order.
    • DHS continues to enforce the travel ban. Despite the ruling, the DHS vowed early on Sunday to continue implementing the order, stating it will “enforce all of the president’s executive orders in a manner that ensures the safety and security of the American people.” It added that “President Trump’s Executive Orders remain in place — prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety.”
    • The initial statistics: A DHS official told CNN that there were 109 travelers barred from entry to the U.S. when Trump signed the order. It was unclear how many were deported vs. detained.
    • Opening for democrats: As Axios points out, after spending nearly two months back on their heels. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey showed up at Dulles airport, then tweeted last night: “I am driving North now from Virginia. I will check in on things at Newark airport tomorrow.” Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe held a press conference on a concourse at Dulles, calling the order “antithetical to the values that make America great. It will not make our country safer.” @HillaryClinton tweeted: “I stand with the people gathered across the country tonight defending our values & our Constitution. This is not who we are.”
    • Republicans revolt: As Axios also notes so far 10 GOPers have announced opposition to or questioned Trump’s executive order. These include Sen. John McCain; Rep. Carlos Curbelo; Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; Rep. Charlie Dent; Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick; Rep. Justin Amash; Rep. Barbara Comstock; Sen. Susan Collins; Sen. Jeff Flake; Sen. Ben Sasse.
    • Protests continue. Demonstrations against the ban continued for a second day across the US including Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, Phoenix, according to ThinkProgress. Here’s the scene at the White House:
    • “This Is Not A Muslim Ban.” On Sunday afternoon, seeking to “explain” his Executive Orders, Trump issued a statement denying once again he has implemented a Muslim ban, and instead said that “my policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.” He added that “America has always been the land of the free and home of the brave. We will keep it free and keep it safe, as the media knows, but refuses to say.”
    • Green card holders welcome. DHS Secretary John Kelly issued a statement that lawful permanent residents from 7 banned countries are now allowed into the U.S., overturning a part of the previous ban which prohibited entry into the US by permanent residents from the 7 mostly-Muslim nations.

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Jan 29

Today’s News 29th January 2017

  • Paul Craig Roberts: "Bannon Is 100% Right – The Media Is Now The Opposition"

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    Bannon is correct that the US media – indeed, the entire Western print and TV media – is nothing but a propaganda machine for the ruling elite. The presstitutes are devoid of integrity, moral conscience, and respect for truth.

     

    Who else but the despicable Western media justified the enormous war crimes committed against millions of peoples by the Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes in nine countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, and the Russian areas of Ukraine?

    Who else but the despicable Western media justified the domestic police states that have been erected in the Western world in the name of the “war on terror”?

    Along with the war criminals that comprised the Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes, the Western media should be tried for their complicity in the massive crimes against humanity.

    The Western media’s effort to sustain the high level of tension between the West and Russia is a danger to all mankind, a direct threat to life on earth. Gorbachev’s warnings are correct…

    The world today is overwhelmed with problems. Policymakers seem to be confused and at a loss.

     

    But no problem is more urgent today than the militarization of politics and the new arms race. Stopping and reversing this ruinous race must be our top priority.

     

    The current situation is too dangerous.

     

    …Politicians and military leaders sound increasingly belligerent and defense doctrines more dangerous. Commentators and TV personalities are joining the bellicose chorus. It all looks as if the world is preparing for war.

    Yet presstitutes declare that if Trump lifts the sanctions it proves that Trump is a Russian agent. It is paradoxical that the Democrats and the liberal-progressive-left are mobilizing the anti-war movement to oppose Trump’s anti-war policy!

    By refusing to acknowledge and to apologize for its lies, euphemistically called “fake news,” the Western media has failed humanity in a number of other ways. For example, by consciously telling lies, the media has legitimized the suborning of perjury and false testimony used to convict innocent defendants (such as Walter McMillian in Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy) in America’s “justice” system, which has about the same relation to justice as genocide has to mercy. If the media can lie about world events, police and prosecutors can lie about crimes.

    By taking the role of the political opposition to Trump, the media has discredited itself as an honest critic on topics where Trump needs criticism, such as the environment and his tolerance of oppressive methods used by police. The presstitutes have ended all chance of improving Trump’s performance with reports and criticism.

    Trump needs moderating on the environment, on the police, and on the war on terror. Trump needs to understand that “the Muslim threat” is a hoax created by the neoconservatives and the military/security complex with the complicity of the presstitutes to serve the hegemony agenda and the budget and power of the CIA, Pentagon, and military industries. If the US stops bombing and slaughtering Muslims and training and equiping forces to overthrow non-compliant Muslim governments such as Syria, Iraq, and Libya, “the Muslim threat” will disappear.

    Maybe Trump will add to his agenda breaking into hundreds of pieces the six mega-media companies that own 90% of the US media and selling the pieces to seperate independent owners who have no connection to the ruling elites. Then America would again have a media that can constrain the government with truth rather than use lies to act for or against the government.

  • Why Unwinding The Fed's Balance Sheet Could Get Messy

    With former Fed chair Ben Bernanke becoming the latest academic to opine on the potential unwind of the Fed’s balance sheet last week (naturally, he was against it realizing the potentially dire implications such a move could have on asset prices), here is the same topic as viewed from the perspective of an actual trader, in this case FX strategist (who writes for Bloomberg) Vincent Cignarella, and who believes that “unwinding the Fed’s balance sheet could get messy.”

    Cignarella explains why the Fed better beware what it wishes for in his analysis below.

    The Federal Reserve should watch what it says about its $4.5t balance sheet. With so much uncertainty in the market about how it will be reduced, a few mistimed words could roil markets faster than you can mouth “taper tantrum.”

     

    The topic is hot. The Fed’s Bullard and Rosengren have recently said the central bank could use the balance sheet to help tighten policy and other bank presidents have also talked about tapering.  Ex-Chairman Bernanke just blogged about it, arguing there’s no need to rush.

     

    Hopefully they’re trying to avoid the past. Bernanke surprised the markets in mid-2013 when he said the Fed might cut back on monthly bond and mortgage-backed securities purchases by $10b. The result, traders panicked and pushed the 10-year yield to nearly 3% from below 2% in four months, sparking a crisis in emerging markets.

     

    If they mess it up this time, it could be worse. The Fed may announce a taper while they are increasing rates and in a bearish bond market, which could exacerbate any move because there are fewer buyers to absorb supply. Tapering a balance sheet of this size has never been done.

     

    The Fed will also be tightening for the first time in more than a decade — raising the Fed Funds rate without draining reserves is repricing the curve, it isn’t tightening. Increasing rates changes the price of money in circulation, tapering reduces it.

     

    The Fed’s Williams said last week the central bank “won’t be disruptive at all” when it starts to let the balance sheet roll off because it will cause rates to go up, which is “desirable.” How much is desirable?

     

    But if markets don’t get the message or a gradual message isn’t gradual enough, traders won’t wait. They will want to get ahead of the curve and that could lead to a surge in yields.

     

    Some analysts predict yields will rise 15 to 20 basis points, but a fixed-income trader I spoke with said that may just be the reaction on the first day.

     

    As traders will tell you, getting into a long position is easier than getting out.

    * * *

    We hope that this time the Fed invites the opinions of more actual traders in advance of what could be the most momentuous decision in Fed history, instead of just relying on academics and economists, especially since this could be the one event that leads to immense rewards for those bears who managed to survive the past 8 years of activist central banks pushing the stock market higher at all costs.

  • Federal Judge Grants Partial Block Of Trump Immigration Order

    Symbolic war broke out between the Judicial and Executive branches shortly before 9pm on Saturday evening, when federal judge Ann Donnelly in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn issued an emergency stay halting Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from seven mostly Muslim nations entering the US, and temporarily letting people who landed in U.S. with valid visa to remain on US territory, saying removing the refugees could cause “irreparable harm”.

    The court’s ruling was in response to a petition filed on Saturday morning by the ACLU on behalf of the two Iraqi men who were initially detained at JFK International Airport on Friday night after Trump’s ban, and were subsequently granted entry into the US.

    The ACLU issued the following statement following the court ruling:

    A federal judge tonight granted the American Civil Liberties Union’s request for a nationwide temporary injunction that will block the deportation of all people stranded in U.S. airports under President Trump’s new Muslim ban. The ACLU and other legal organizations filed a lawsuit on behalf of individuals subject to President Trump’s Muslim ban. The lead plaintiffs have been detained by the U.S. government and threatened with deportation even though they have valid visas to enter the United States.

     

    Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project who argued the case, said:

     

    “This ruling preserves the status quo and ensures that people who have been granted permission to be in this country are not illegally removed off U.S. soil.”

     

    ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero, had this reaction to the ruling:

     

    “Clearly the judge understood the possibility for irreparable harm to hundreds of immigrants and lawful visitors to this country. Our courts today worked as they should as bulwarks against government abuse or unconstitutional policies and orders. On week one, Donald Trump suffered his first loss in court.

    However, while some media reports present the court ruling as a wholesale victory over Trump’s order, the stay only covers the airport detainees and those currently in transit, and it does not change the ban going forward.

    In summary, the state of affairs as of this moment is that the executive order is now frozen for the next few days, until the case can be briefed. The court has ruled that no one who is currently being held can be sent back to their country of origin, but it remains unclear if they will be released is unclear.

    Judge Donnelly has ordered the federal government to provide a list of all people currently held in detention. Where the stay falls short is that according to the ACLU’s lawyer, there still can be no new arrivals from countries under the ban, but the ACLU and other organizations are working to file additional suits to roll back other portions of the order.

    * * *

    A detailed read of Judge Donnelly’s ruling, per Josh Blackman, reveals that the order states that petitioners have shown a “strong likelihood of success” and that their removal would violate the Due Process and Equal Protection clause, and cause irreparable injury. (Note, this order only applies to those already in the country, and thus protected by the Constitution; the same analysis does not apply to those outside the United States).

    As a result, the court issues what is effectively a nationwide stay, enjoining all of the named respondents, including President Trump, Secretary Kelly, and the acting director of the CBP, from the “commission of further acts and misconduct  in violation of the Constitution as described in the Emergency Motion for Stay of Removal.”

    The key part is what they are enjoined from doing:

    ENJOINED AND RESTRAINED from, in any manner or by any means, removing individuals with refugee applications approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, holders of valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and other individuals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen, legally authorized to enter the United States.

    Further, the court orders the Marshal for the Eastern District of New York to “take those actions deemed necessary to enforce the provisions and prohibitions set forth in this Order.”

    What will disappoint civil rights advocates, is that this opinion only affects the small number of people who were in-transit when the order was issued, and arrived after it went into effect. The Constitution attaches to their status, and they cannot be held in violation of the Due Process Clause. The same analysis does not apply to aliens outside the United States.

    * * *

    We now look forward to Trump’s reaction to this act of defiance by a US Court which has partially – and painfully – voided his most controversial executive order to date, and whether the Supreme Court will be forced to opine on this most divisive of topics in the coming days. If anything, the risk to the latter may accelerate the prompt appointment of a conservative SCOTUS judge to fill the vacant Scalia spot.

  • The Trump Doctrine

    Submitted by Matthew Jamison via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The Inauguration of the billionaire property developer and businessman Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States has ushered in a new era in American politics and international standing. It was a surreal moment due to the fact so many believed it would never happen. Mr. Trump must be credited with the fact he possess unique political and charismatic skills that a man with zero experience of running a political campaign, running for political office or having ever served in government, could have got himself elected President at the outset of his very first political campaign, is quite remarkable.

    What is more remarkable is that Mr. Trump largely drove his campaign and success with the capturing of the Republican nomination and subsequently the White House, largely through the sheer force and theatrical, flamboyant personality of his character, a deep understanding of his audience/market and an uncanny ability to utilise and harness mass media to attract attention to himself and his campaign. He did all this in the face of stiff resistance from many within his own party and the Establishment and mainstream media. As a performer he is extremely captivating and this in many ways fuelled his rise to the Presidency. 

    President Trump's inaugural address was quite unlike any in recent American Presidential history. He returned to the dark and pessimistic vision of America and the world originally outlined with vigour at the Republican National Convention. President Trump dubbed the state of America in graphic terms as an «American carnage», in which the nations elite Establishment in Washington DC had allowed the country to rot as they themselves flourished. It was a full scale onslaught against the members of the DC political Establishment both Republican and Democrat and the ushering in of a so-called new way of getting the best for the American people from their political institutions.

    What was must striking in policy and political terms was the overtly nationalist doctrine that President Trump enunciated in his Inaugural Address. It would seem for the first time in decades an American administration will be openly and philosophically Protectionist in its actions, policies, rhetoric and thinking advocating for «smart trade» not «free trade» and moving away from free trade type agreements such as NAFTA or the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. The nationalism is striking for its isolationism. 

    There is no place in the Trump Doctrine for George W. Bush style messianic, neoconservative interventionism in the name of democratic nation building around the world. The Trump Doctrine is neither liberal internationalist nor American exceptionalism or neoconservative hawkishness rather a traditional form of nationalist isolationism redolent of the 1930s Republican Party of Wendell Willkie who opposed US involvement in the European World War II.

    The Trump Doctrine emphasizes American greatness through a heavy focus on nationalism to express the pride in national power and is hostile towards attempts at or achieved restrictions upon national sovereignty to act as an independent nation state rather than in a collective, multi-lateral fashion through organisations such as NATO, United Nations, the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran Nuclear Agreement etc.

    This nationalist isolationism is most starkly revealed and will have the most radical impact in terms of international trade policy. It will be fascinating to see just how far under the Trump administration America moves away from Free Trade in the international economic architecture of the Western IMF/World Bank system and embraces protectionism with the possibility of trade wars and an undermining of organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and the globalized framework of manufacturing. In terms of Great Power Superpower politics the Trump Doctrine will position American global leadership as more of a Chairman of the Board style of leadership rather than the activist World Policeman CEO figure of past administrations post-World War II. Trump wants America to remain dominant and number one but refuses to follow a set of international policies which could bankrupt America for paying for Global hegemony of the Kennedy/Reagan/Clinton/Bush administrations. 

    At home a brand of patriotism will be used to attempt to create greater internal cohesion and unity despite the profound divisions within the country and large opposition to the Trump victory. Be prepared to see a wave of America First hyperbole and hyper-nationalism unleashed in an attempt to quell dissent and wrap the Trump Presidency in the American flag in a powerfully emotional appeal to the countries most sensitive sensibilities. This will in all likelihood be abused for political purposes of the Trump administration to silence critics and dilute opposition and it is likely to widen the gulf between small town middle America and the coastal big city liberal metropolises stoking even greater social tensions.

    The Inaugural Speech was a tour de force in raw emotion powered by a fiery and telegenic, charismatic and motivational, persuasive though hyperbolic public personality and speaker. It was a master class act in mass manipulation and it remains to be seen whether a policy platform for Government fashioned out of this individual driven political insurrection will indeed cure some of the problems facing the United States or whether they will in fact create even bigger problems both for Americans and the rest of the world.

  • The Trap Is Set: "Both Sides Are Utterly Unprepared For What's Coming"

    Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

    If there’s one thing that should be absolutely clear in the current political environment in America, it’s that  there exists a deep division between the people of this nation. Both of sides of the aisle argue vehemently about what’s best going forward, sometimes to the point of physical violence. And though the election of President Donald Trump speaks volumes about the sentiment of Americans, the following video report from Storm Clouds Gathering warns that both sides are utterly unprepared for what’s coming.

    Is Trump going to usher in a new era of prosperity and innovation?

     

    Or is he going to be the one standing in the center ring when the circus tent comes down?

     

    …

     

    Some voted for Trump as a political Molotov cocktail… Trump is a business man, you say… He’s going to make things happen… cut taxes…cut regulation… invest a trillion dollar in infrastructure… punish companies that move factories overseas… rebuild the military… restore relations with Russia… start a trade war with China… and a new arms race would create jobs… there’s a lot to unpack there… and those debates are worth having.

     

    However, much of this hinges on a variable that Trump doesn’t control… The Federal Reserve.

     

    …Word is, the Fed is leaning towards increasing interest rates aggressively in 2017 and may engage in anti-inflationary measures to offset Trump’s infrastructure plans… that means the flow of money and credit is about to be tightened…

     

    It also means the Fed is setting itself up for a showdown.

    Watch the full video:

  • The One Chart That America's Corporate Elite Don't Want You To See

    The message from America's ruling elite is, as always – "do as I say, not as I do" – and nowhere is that more evident in the following chart. Simply put, follow the money!

    As we detailed last week, as US financial stocks have soared in the post-election Trumphoria, so bankers have been dumping over $100 million in personal stock holdings…

     

    But, as Barron's details, it's not just the bankers that are bailing out of US stocks (just as the corporate elite and their mainstream media lackeys cajole you and your hard-earned retirement funds back into the most-expensive market ever), it's everyone!!

     

    The massive spike in insider-selling (relative to buying) is broad-based…

     

    Still – listen to CNBC, buy some more NFLX or TSLA or the latest Biotech stock, we have reached a new permanantly high plateau…

  • "Refugees In, Racists Out" Protestors Storm JFK, O'Hare Airports After Trump's 'Muslim Ban' – Live Feed

    With banners and chants proclaiming "build a wall… we'll tear it down", "let them in", "hey, hey, JFK, no more fascists USA", and "refugees in, racists out", hundreds of protestors are assembled at JFK airport (and Chicago O'Hare) following President Trump's 'Muslim' ban.

     

     

    As NBC4New York reports,

    With chants of "No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here," protesters gathered at John F. Kennedy Airport where 12 refugees were detained Saturday under President Donald Trump's executive order to ban refugees from entering the United States for four months.

     

    More than 300 demonstrators held homemade signs that read "No ban, no wall" and "Refugees welcome" in front of Terminal 4's international arrivals area. One sign called for President Trump's impeachment and the deportation of the first lady.

     

    "We're here to tell Trump that we are not going anywhere," said lawyer and refugee advocate Jacki Esposito, who helped organize the protest. "Today is the beginning of a long opposition from us, and our neighbors all over the country."

    The crowds are growing.

    Additionally, the NYC Taxi Workers just called for a work stoppage, starting at 6 pm. No pick ups or drop offs to JFK.

    From 6 to 7 p.m., drivers are not picking up passengers at Terminal 4.

     

    "As an organization whose membership is largely Muslim, a workforce that's almost universally immigrant, and a working-class movement that is rooted in the defense of the oppressed, we say no to this inhumane and unconstitutional ban," the NYTWA said in a statement. There are approximately 19,000 drivers in the union including yellow cab drivers, green car and black car drivers. The union also represents Uber and Lyft drivers.
     

    The protests will be coming to other airports…

    Protestors have arrived at Chicago's O'Hare airport…

    …

    Live Feed:

    Alternate Live Feed:

  • Homeland Confirms Trump Immigration Ban Will Include Green-Card Holders & Dual-Nationalities

    With the world (apart from Israel) in uproar over President Trump’s decision to ban immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, Department of Homeland Security official Gillian Christensen just confirmed “[the order] will bar green card holders” and those who hold dual nationality also will be barred.

    Green cards serve as proof of an individual’s permanent legal residence in the U.S.

    In a statement that the State Department is due to release, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the 90-day visa moratorium extends beyond just citizens of Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen.

    It also applies to people who originally hail from those countries but are traveling on a passport issued by any other nation, the statement notes. That means Iraqis seeking to enter the U.S. on a British passport, for instance, will be barred, according to a U.S. official. British citizens don’t normally require a visa to enter the U.S.

     

    “Travelers who have nationality or dual nationality of one of these countries will not be permitted for 90 days to enter the United States or be issued an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa,” the statement said. “Those nationals or dual nationals holding valid immigrant or nonimmigrant visas will not be permitted to enter the United States during this period.  Visa interviews will generally not be scheduled for nationals of these countries during this period.”

     

    The dual-citizenship ban doesn’t apply to U.S. citizens who are also citizens of the seven nations singled out by Mr. Trump.

    In a briefing with reporters, officials defended the scope and execution of the new executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Friday. Asked about lawsuits filed against the order, the officials declined specific comment, but said foreigners do not have a right to enter into the united States, and dismissed as “ludicrous” the notion that the move amounted to a “Muslim ban.”

    As The Hill reports, Trump signed an executive action Friday halting the country’s Syrian refugee resettlement program for 120 days and barring people from certain Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the U.S. The administration says the halt in the resettlement program is designed to give it time to tighten the vetting process for refugees. The order also gives Christian refugees priority in the resettlement process.

    “If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair, everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians,” Trump said in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network on Friday.

     

    “And I thought it was very, very unfair,” he continued. “So we are going to help them.”

    While most of the world is in uproar over Trump’s decisions to “build the wall” and “ban muslims” – Iran’s government proclaimed “Trump’s visa ban is an insult to all Muslims” –  Israel’s Prime Minister was supportive…

    Finally of the seven countries that are on the banned list, we note that the United States is actvely bombing five of them.

     

  • Why Did The Media Fail So Badly In Its Efforts To Elect Hillary?

    Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    Yesterday in Taki's Magazine, David Cole suggested that maybe, just maybe, Hollywood isn't as powerful in swaying public opinion as many people assume it is. 

    This belief is shared not only by the "stars" of Hollywood itself — who naturally fancy themselves as great "thought leaders" — but also by conservatives themselves, including the late Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart, as Cole points out, was even rather obsessed with the issue, and harped on the need to create a right wing rival to Hollywood. 

    Cole, however, wonders if this all is really based on an accurate appraisal of the situation. After all, if Hollywood is so good at convincing people of its own point of view, why is it that Republicans keep winning so many elections? Cole notes: 

    But wait…even with all that Hollywood “interference,” didn’t we just win the last presidential election? Don’t we have the House and Senate, too? Haven’t we also won an unprecedented number of statewide legislative seats and governorships?

    This doesn't prove Hollywood has no effect on behavior and ideology, of course. But, it is entirely plausible that its power is not nearly as great as assumed. 

    Indeed, when it comes to discussing the effects of marketing, messaging, advertising, and propaganda, "assumed" is certainly a key word. There are a great many assumptions being made, but precious little evidence to back these assumptions up. 

    This appears to apply well beyond the field of mere Hollywood-created propaganda, as well. Both the legacy media and Hollywood gave full-throated endorsements to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and yet, the best Clinton managed was what can, at best, be called a tie with Donald Trump. 

    It seems the media's power may not be any more far-reaching than Hollywood's. Moreover, given than both the media and Hollywood portray media journalists in only the best possible light over and over and over again, why is it that only 32 percent of Americans report that they trust the media? If the media wants to be trusted, shouldn't they need do nothing more than simply tell us they're trustworthy. After all, it must be true if we see it on TV. 

    All it takes a slick ad campaign, we are told, and people will believe whatever you tell them to believe. 

    The problem is that this has never been shown to be true.

    There is growing evidence, it seems, that suggests the under-thirty demographic simply doesn't respond to advertisements, and that brand loyalty is becoming virtually non-existent in an age when consumers rely more and more on third-party evaluators such as Yelp and Amazon to provide insight into whether or not a product is worth one's time and money.

    Many of these discussions about how ads don't work anymore, however, continue to rely on what is probably an incorrect assumption — namely that advertisements have worked perfectly well in the past.

    Indeed, the evidence has always been rather sketchy as to how much advertisers can actually influence the public's thoughts about goods and services, and consumers have never been at the mercy of advertisers as many seem to think.

     

    Do Tobacco Companies Trick Us Into Smoking? 

    Nevertheless, our faith in the power of propaganda — and it's non-political form, known as " advertising" — has long been nearly unshakable.

    An often repeated anecdote used to support this view is the one in which we are told that the whole world opposed female use of cigarettes until some advertising campaigns convinced everyone to abandon their long-held social views and embrace tobacco for all. This story usually claims that Edward Bernays, the "father of public relations" devised ingenious advertising methods that manipulated people into abandoning their own existing value systems in favor of whatever advertisers put forward. 

    But, as Bill Wirtz recently demonstrated, the rise of female smoking also accompanied enormous social changes brought on by the Great War and new physical and economic conditions imposed on women. Rather than revolutionizing social thought, as is often assumed to be the case with Bernays and the tobacco ads, it is also entirely plausible that Bernays simply rode the wave of social change. 

    Indeed, Ludwig von Mises was certainly skeptical of the idea that advertisers are able to manipulate people into doing whatever the advertisers want. Mises writes: 

    It is a widespread fallacy that skillful advertising can talk the consumers into buying everything that the advertiser wants them to buy. The consumer is, according to this legend, simply defenseless against "high-pressure" advertising. If this were true, success or failure in business would depend on the mode of advertising only.

     

    However, nobody believes that any kind of advertising would have succeeded in making the candle makers hold the field against the electric bulb, the horse drivers against the motorcars, the goose quill against the steel pen and later against the fountain pen. But whoever admits this implies that the quality of the commodity advertised is instrumental in bringing about the success of an advertising campaign. Then there is no reason to maintain that advertising is a method of cheating the gullible public.

    In other words, real-world conditions are a key factor in forming people's ideas and attitudes, and simply telling them things isn't enough. 

    But what about when those tricky advertisers use more subtle methods such as subliminal messaging? Bernays himself was said to use these, and the issue of control-through-subliminal messages has long been popular, and perhaps peaked in conspiracy-themed popular culture of the 1960s and 70 — as with The Manchurian Candidate and The Parallax View — when characters were controlled by implanted thoughts and subliminal messages. On the other hand, according to Randall Rothenberg: 

    [T]here was — and still is — little proof that these efforts to engineer action through manipulation of the unconscious led to any behavioral changes favorable to specific marketers. As for James Vicary's experiment in subliminal advertising — it was a hoax: Vicary later admitted that he hadn't done what he'd claimed. Several subsequent studies of the effectiveness of embedded messages have shown it to be virtually impossible to use them to produce specific, predictable responses. Still, faith in the power of the media to induce millions of people to act contrary to their better judgment or conscious desires remains profound.

    Indeed, even outside the realm of ultra-subtle messaging, the evidence has been contradictory. Rothenberg continues: 

    Time and again researchers have found it difficult to correlate the content of advertising campaigns with long-term economic effects. Some advertising content, notably price and product information, undeniably moves consumers, but only temporarily and in limited numbers. The ability of advertising to persuade large masses of people to change their attitudes and induce action that permanently alters a company's fortunes — no one really knows how that works. In the conclusion to his 1942 study The Economic Effects of Advertising the Harvard professor Neil Borden reached a series of judgments that must have unsettled his industry sponsors. "Does advertising increase demand for individual concerns?" he asked. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Does it affect production or distribution costs? "Indeterminate." Does it lead to a concentration of supply and anti-competitive pricing? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. 

    This isn't to say that advertising has no effect. It is fairly clear that it has an effect of some kind. But, those effects are often not what the crafters of the messages intended. Moreover, consumer behavior appears to correlate at least as much with real-world changes in physical and economic conditions as with the efforts of marketing executives. The Institute for Economic affairs reports:

    [A]nother study confirmed what economists have always known. Looking at sales of alcoholic beverages in the US over 40 years, it found ‘changes significantly correlated to fluctuations in demography, taxation and income levels – not advertising. Despite other macro-level studies with consistent findings, the perception that advertising increases consumption exists. The findings here indicate that there is either no relationship or a weak one between advertising and aggregate category sales. 

    So, did Bernays convince women to go against their own beliefs and start smoking? There's no more reason to look to Bernays's alleged marketing "genius" than to changes in income levels and urbanization rates among women in the 1920s. 

    Now, some readers at this point may say, "well, McMaken, look at how successful Nazi propaganda was."

    In this line of thinking, the advocate often trots out the often-used line of Hermann Göring: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

    Of course, if it were really as simple as Göring says it is, then Lyndon Johnson could have easily made himself and the Vietnam War both immensely popular just in time for re-election in 1968 by simply telling the American population that the Americans were in danger of being attacked by Communists. 

    Now, there is no doubt that this line was used, and was believed by some in the population. But, the fact remains that many concluded that the real-world realities simply didn't match up with what they were being told by government and media propagandists. 

    Similarly, when the Obama Administration was advocating for more military action in Syria, why did the White House not just tell the population that the Syrian state was coming to get it, and that immediate action — including carpet bombing of the entire country — was necessary. In fact, the Adminstration hinted at this very thing, and failed to convince.

    Maybe Göring 's tactics do work on an impoverished population ravaged by the Great War and hyper inflation, and poisoned with generations of Prussian militaristic ideology. But clearly, Göring's methods to not work "the same way in every country" nor do they likely work even in the same country during different time periods.  

    The weakness of elite propaganda was hard to ignore in 2016 when millions of voters chose to ignore the messages of Hollywood and the media and chose to not vote for Hillary — even though they were being told that the very existence of human decency and civilization were riding on their support for Clinton. 

    We're Not All Helpless in the Face of Propaganda 

    A more balanced view of advertising and propaganda remains important today for two reasons. 

    First of all, keeping a more sophisticated view of how opinion is shaped is important because it belies the often parroted line by anti-capitalists that consumers are mere putty in the hands of advertisers, and that wicked capitalists can convince consumers to do whatever the advertisers say. 

    We are told by the anti-capitalists that everyone feels they must spend every last dime on consumer good such as expensive cars and oversized houses. The "defenseless " consumer — to use Mises's term — simply must spend endlessly because some Madison Avenue firm told him to. What's more, that same consumer is even tricked into buying an inferior or damaging product against his own better judgment. The only solution, we are told, is to impose government regulations protecting us from the diabolical corporations who manipulate us.  

    As so much evidence shows, this view of advertising has never been true, but it is all the more untrue in the age of social media and an endless array of third-party reviewers of products and services. There is mounting evidence that advertisers are only becoming weaker and weaker, and the more evidence we collect, the more it appears that the variables that act upon a person's choices are far more complex and unknown that we suspect. 

    But what of government propaganda? 

    Again, in this case, the power of state propaganda appears to be less powerful that we might suppose it to be. Perhaps far more important is the simple fact that governments have police and military powers that impose a high cost on refusing to go along. 

    Do people consider the state to be as valuable as many assume they do? There is no doubt that many do, but it is also entirely plausible that many simply opt to not oppose states because states can impose a high cost on those who disobey. 

    In fact, if the propaganda churned out daily by government schools and media arms were as successful as we assume it to be, then why are there so many dissidents, tax evaders, and prisoners? If propaganda can be successfully executed to force compliance so effortlessly as we're told, should not the prisons be empty and the tax payments always be honestly paid? 

    It could be there are other forces at work, and it may be that saying things on TV isn't quite the panacea many assume it to be.

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Jan 28

Today’s News 28th January 2017

  • How To Defeat The Globalist System

    Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    In my last two articles, 'How Globalists Predict Your Behavior' and 'How To Predict The Behavior Of Globalists', I explained the base fundamentals behind a concept with which most people are unfamiliar. They are so unfamiliar with it, in fact, that I didn’t bother to name it. In this article I hope to explain it, but I highly recommend people read the previous articles in this series before moving forward.

    What I outlined, essentially, was a beginners course on 4th Generation Warfare. This methodology is difficult to summarize, but here I will list what I believe are some of its core tenets.

    Fourth Gen warfare is based on a primary lesson within Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War. Sun Tzu argues in the classical military tome that the greatest strategists win wars by NOT fighting, or at least, by not fighting their opponents openly and directly. That is to say, they win by convincing their opponents that fighting back is futile and that surrender is preferable, or, they convince their opponents to destroy themselves through internal conflict and psychological sabotage. Sun Tzu felt this method was far superior to engaging in direct combat in a real world battle space.

    While this might sound bizarre to some, it is becoming more and more apparent (in my view) that 4th Gen warfare is now the go-to weapon for globalists. Defeating the system established by the globalists, a system prevalent for decades, is an impossible task unless 4th Gen warfare is understood.

    A classic example of a tried and true form of 4th Gen attack is to initiate a civil war within a target population, and in most cases, control the leadership on both sides of that conflict. Another method is to conjure an enemy, an outside threat which may be legitimate or entirely fabricated, and use that enemy to push a target population to unify under a particular banner that benefits the globalist cabal in the long run. Fourth Gen requires patience above all else.

    In fact, I would say 4th Gen is the weaponization of patience.

    A 4th Gen attack is not carried out over days, or months, but years. To find a comparable experience is difficult, but I would suggest people who have the tenacity set out to learn how military snipers operate. Can you train for years mastering long distance marksmanship, crawl for hours from an insertion point to an observation point, then sit in a hole in the ground (if you are lucky enough to have a hole in the ground) for days waiting to take just one shot, perhaps the only important shot you will ever take in combat, at a vital target, and do it with certainty that you will not miss?

    The amount of planning, intense precision and foresight that goes into a sniper operation is much like the kind of effort and calm needed to complete a 4th Gen psy-ops mission. This kind of warfare is dominated by the “think tanks”, and anyone hoping to counter such tactics look into the history of one particular think tank — RAND Corporation, and their premier psy-ops tool — rational choice theory.

    Whenever I hear someone argue that a conspiracy of globalists could not exist because “such plans would be too elaborate and require too much power to carry out in real life,” I have to laugh and bring up RAND, which has had almost limitless funding from globalist foundations like the Ford Foundation and was built specifically to develop not only next gen weapons, but 4th Gen psychological warfare schemes. RAND's influence is everywhere, from politics, to the social sciences, to military applications and even in Hollywood. After studying their efforts for many years now I can say that these people are indeed smart. Some of them may not be aware of the greater consequences as they war game ideas for dominating the public, and some of them are undoubtedly morally bankrupt, but they are still smart, and should not be underestimated.

    Another reference point I would suggest to researchers would be a document called From Psyop To Mindwar: The Psychology Of Victory written by Michael Aquino and Paul Vallely for the Pentagon. In it, they make it clear that the methods of 4th Generation warfare are not limited to foreign enemies. In fact, they are recommended for use by governments against their own populations. Again, the thrust of the methodology was to manipulate a target population into subduing itself, so that force was not necessary. Aquino and Vallely note that this would be a better outcome for everyone involved, because it would help to avoid the bloodshed of insurgency and counterinsurgency.

    I am skeptical that these people care at all about bloodshed or collateral damage, but I do think they would very much like the process of totalitarian centralization to be less tedious. The elites hope to streamline tyranny by convincing the public that globalization must be embraced for “the greater good of the greater number.” But, in order to accomplish this vast change in society and the collective unconscious, they need crisis and calamity. They see themselves as creators, but for them, creation is about destruction. In other words, the old world must be destroyed so that they can use the leftover building blocks to make something new.

    If we do not embrace their solution of global centralization rising from the ashes, they believe they have a response for that problem too. Read my article 'When Elites Wage War On America, This Is How They Will Do It'; more specifically, the section on Max Boot from the Council On Foreign Relations. Boot is the CFR’s resident “insurgency expert,” and while I question his ability to apply academic models to real word conflicts as if theory is akin to practice in war, it is enough to know the mindset of these elitists.

    Boot’s work focuses on a particular model of quarantining insurgencies from the non-combative population, based on the methods the British used against communist guerrillas in Malaysia. In fact, Max seems to revel in the British efforts to catalog Malaysian citizens and relocate them into large cities that amounted to concentration camps. This made recruitment difficult for the insurgents and stopped them from hiding among civilian centers. It also focused food production into highly managed areas and gave the British leverage over the population. With this separation, it was much easier for the authorities to “educate” the locals on the threats of the insurgency and gain their support.

    So, the question is, if this array of tactics is going to be aimed at liberty proponents and free peoples within the U.S. in particular, with an increasing potential for things to become far worse in the near term, how do we fight back?

    Firstly, I need to point out a disturbing trend within the liberty movement, which is the propensity for activists to show far more interest talking about the problem than talking about solutions. Over the years I have noticed a consistent lower readership on articles having to do with specific solutions and strategies; not just my own articles, but many other analysts as well. It is much more popular to write on the reality of looming crisis rather than to write about what individuals can do to blunt the edge of the event. I would not be surprised if this article receives only half of the readership my other articles receive.

    The first step in fighting back in a 4th Gen war is to acknowledge that there is no easy way out. There is no way to change the corrupt system from within. There is no way to use politics and government to our advantage. Despite all the hopes activists have, Trump is not going to save you, or America. The Republican controlled House and Senate is not going to save us. There is nothing they could do even if they wanted to.

    I will write in more detail on this in my next article, but actions such as shutting down the Fed alone are half measures that will actually exacerbate a crisis in the short term, rather than defuse one. A debt jubilee (another commonly mentioned false solution) is meaningless when the value of your world reserve currency on the global market is still destroyed in the process and your treasury bonds are no longer desirable.  Pushing corporations to create a few thousand manufacturing jobs here and there is a drop in the bucket when considering the 95 million people no longer counted in the U.S. labor force on top of the millions still officially considered unemployed. There is no stopping the ongoing economic collapse from running its course.  We will be required to take our medicine eventually, and this will happen sooner rather than later.

    Here is what can be done, though, to mitigate the damage and fight back against the establishment…

    Separation From The System

    People are always looking for grand and cinematic solutions to fighting the globalists, but the real solutions are far less romantic. Defeating the “new world order” requires individuals to take smaller actions in their day-to-day lives. Becoming more self sufficient, the ability to provide one’s own necessities, the ability to defend one’s self and family, the move away from grid dependence, homeschooling your children, a healthy skepticism of web tied technologies and the “internet of things,” etc.

    This does not mean you have to go build a cabin in the woods and start typing up a manifesto, but it does mean that you will have to sacrifice certain modern comforts and amenities and manage your life in a way that might feel strange at first. To put it simply, it means you will have to learn to start doing most things for yourself and perhaps learn to live with less “things” and less mainstream stimulation.

    I know many people that have undertaken this effort while still living what you might call “normal lives.” The bottom line is, if you are dependent on the system, you will never be able to fight the system.

    Separation From Invasive Technologies

    Remove active surveillance from your life. Stop carrying a cell phone around with you everywhere you go, or at least pull the battery until you need it. Cover or remove computer cameras. Deactivate microphones when not in use. Refuse to purchase appliances with built-in web connectivity. Refuse to participate in smart grid programs. Remove GPS modules from your vehicles. Stop posting photos constantly to Facebook and sharing your entire life on social media. Give the enemy less information to work with.

    Build Real Community

    Stop trying to build hollow friendships with people on the other side of the country through a cold medium like the internet and start building relationships with the people that live right in your own neighborhood or town. The one thing the elites fear more than anything else is people organizing groups that are outside of their influence. The more community groups there are, big and small, the more effort, money and resources are required to keep tabs on them all. With localized groups populated by members that know each other and have lived in one place for a long time, infiltration is a strenuous prospect and co-option is nearly impossible.

    Establish Alternative Communications

    Make sure your group or community has at least one ham radio expert. Resistance to tyranny requires independent communications. Without this ability you will have no access to information in the event of a crisis and thus, you will have nothing. Ham radio can be used to spread information across the country and can even reach out to other parts of the world. In the event of a breakdown in civility, ham can be used to send digital mail and files, and these files can be encrypted.

    The founding fathers had the midnight ride, we have ham radio.

    Refuse To Participate In Resource Management

    In the event of a greater collapse, resource management will be the name of the game. For the elites to gain a stranglehold on a population, they need to isolate the insurgency (freedom loving people) from the regular (subdued) citizenry, and then they need to confiscate as many resources as possible to supply “loyalists” while starving out undesirables.

    I believe a successful rebellion would require rural communities to maintain complete control over their resources and refuse to allow government to dictate how these resources are dispersed. Ultimately, in order to break an establishment stranglehold over the population through Max Boot’s method of “friendly” concentration camps, the tactic would have to be reversed. Resources may need to be cut off to these places entirely. This would remove the leverage governments would have in terms of necessities, leaving no reason for anyone to want to stay in these sorts of green zones again.

    Vigilante Justice

    I am not condoning OR criticizing this kind of development, but I am pointing out that it is inevitable. If top globalists continue to engage in the use of economics as a nuclear option against the public, along with their many other crimes, then individuals with the right skill-sets will likely seek them out with the intention of ventilating them. I think the danger of lone-wolf vigilantes acting without group contact and without warning is terrifying to the globalists.

    They are used to being able to co-opt enemy groups or exploit informants to infiltrate and relay information. With a lone wolf, there is no trail to follow and individuals are decidedly harder to predict in their behavior and plans than groups are. I would not be surprised to see prominent globalists living in the U.S. suddenly leave the country en masse just as social unrest becomes heightened.  And, I would not be surprised to see some globalists killed anyway by fed up citizens who suddenly snap and take matters into their own hands.

    Our Window Of Time Is Short

    Keep in mind that the millennial generation is about 10 years away from becoming the dominant cultural force in this country, and those precious snowflakes are like another species. The majority of them long for collectivism, and they work diligently to stifle dissent in colleges and public schools. The great danger is that in ten to fifteen years many of the people within conservative movements might be too old to effectively fight back, and while we deal with economic disaster it will be millennials steeped in cultural Marxism that are elevated as part of the globalist solution.

    Whatever we end up doing, I believe we have about 10 years before hitting the point of no return (with ample crisis and struggle from now until then). After this, we will either have the globalists in prison or in the ground, or, we will have a massive economic reset and a new world order. The choice is up to us, even though some people don’t want to accept it.

  • Retail Sector – Doomed as Doomed Can Be

    From the Slope of Hope: Being an equity bear has been brutal for, oh, nearly eight years now. With the S&P up about 250% since bottoming in March 2009, equities have been, on the whole, raging higher, with some sectors in particular benefiting tremendously from the Trumpgasm. One area, though, seems to be recognizing a bitterly cold chill of reality, and that is retail.

    Not everything retail is weak, of course, Amazon has had an astonishing run (and we’ll see if it holds together when they report next week), and some stocks such as Autozone (AZO) and O’Reilly Auto Parts (ORLY) have cranked out multi-hundred percent gains for years now. But many retail companies, particularly those having to do with clothing, have been getting whacked. Take, for instance, Abercrombie & Fitch, which I’ve picked on endlessly: it is actually lower than it was at the greatest depths of the financial crisis. For how many stocks could you make that statement?

    0128-ANF

    Bed Bath & Beyond has a quite well-formed head and shoulders pattern (whose neckline is shown with a red horizontal below) that suggests much lower prices to come.

    0128-BBBBY

    Be careful not to confuse this with a very similar symbol, however – Best Buy – which, competition from Amazon be damned, is defying gravity and broke above resistance this year.

    0128-BBBY

    Let’s get back to the bearish charts, though: Shoe retailer Finish Line has been trending lower for months, and the analog is going beautifully:

    0128-FINL

    Another storefront at your local luxury mall is Kate Spade. It found strength off and on recently due to buyout chatter (they are desperately trying to sell themselves), but the pattern is bearish, and just so you are clear, just because a company is for sale doesn’t mean there will be any buyers. Just ask Twitter.

    0128-KATE

    Speaking of analogs, take a look at Macy’s. Even though the stock has lost over half its value, if history is any guide, there are doomed as doomed can be (this is more impressive if you say it in an Ed Grimley voice).

    0128-M

    Hold on there……..it’s another analog……and from another company I pick on a lot: Pier One, purveyor of scented candles, throw pillows, and monkeys carved from coconuts. This is another fine example of how just because a stock has already suffered a momentous collapse (about 65% so far) doesn’t mean it isn’t just going to keep collapsing. Firm support exists at $0.00.

    0128-PIR

    Overpriced seller of kitchenware, Williams Sonoma, is setting itself up for a big fall. It has found support for years in the mid 40s, but don’t count on that surviving the year intact.

    0128-WSM

    I will say, however, that some retailers are so far gone, the opportunity has already passed by. Stage Stores is a good example of a ship that’s already sailed.

    0128-SSI

    On the other hand, Deckers Outdoor (makers of the UGG shoe line, among others) has plenty of juice left to squeeze.

    0128-DECK

    Dillard’s is another stock which has lost about 60% of its value already but doesn’t look anywhere close to being done falling.

    0128-DDS

    What got me thinking about all this was my best-performing short position, CBL Associates. I wasn’t sure what they did, but it turns out they are a big player in retail real estate – – hence their stock is also in a terrific analog and appears to be screwed and tattooed.

    0128-CBL

    If anyone is looking for rumblings to signal the kind of break in 2006/2007 that preceded the financial crisis, look no further than the charts above.

  • Ohio State Offers Class On How To Detect Microaggressions And Be "Self-Aware Of White Privilege"

    This spring, Ohio State University will launch a new course entitled “Crossing Identity Boundaries” which will empower America’s precious snowflakes with all of the tools they need to detect microaggressions and become “self-aware” of their inherent “white privilege.”  Unfortunately, this isn’t a joke.

    According to the class homepage, at the end of the course, students should be able to “identify micro-aggressions within their daily lives and within society as a whole” and “identify ways in which they can challenge or address systems of power and privilege.”

    Moreover, although it seems a little off topic for this particular course, students will also apparently be taught whether or not it’s appropriate for guys to always pay on a date.  And even though it’s not explicitly addressed on the course syllabus, we presume it’s a given that such a question would only be asked after determining one’s preferred pronoun because otherwise we’re just not sure how young people would go about confirming they’re actually on a date with a “guy.”  It’s also very unclear whether the mere discussion of stereotypical gender roles, like who should pay for a date, might be a “micro-aggression” in and of itself…dicey territory for sure.

    OSU

     

    For those of you who may want to do some personal, private study, here is a list of a couple of books/articles from the course’s required reading list:

    • Waking up White: What it means to accept your legacy, for better and worse
    • White privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack
    • Here’s the perfect explanation for why White people need to stop saying #AllLivesMatter
    • 3 examples of everyday cissexism
    • The science behind why people fear refugees
    • Creating identity-safe spaces on college campuses for Muslim students
    • Christian privilege: Breaking a sacred taboo

    Meanwhile, per College Fix, homework assignments include, among other things, taking two “implicit bias tests” and finding at least 12 example of micro-aggressions on social media.

    Taking the course, offered through the Department of Educational Studies, is one way students can fulfill the university’s mandatory diversity requirement, and many sections are offered throughout the school year.

     

    Part of the homework includes taking two “implicit bias tests,” and writing journals on prompts such as “power/privilege in your life” or calling on Christians to write about what it might feel like to be Muslim, or males on what it’s like to be female, and “reflecting on how this new identity would have impacted your day.”

     

    One big part of the class is a microaggressions group presentation and reflective paper.

     

    The assignment, according to a syllabus, calls on students to “find at least 12 examples of microaggressions using at least 3 different types of social media (e.g., Yik Yak, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest). Explain who the target of the microaggression is and why your group believes it is an example of a negative remark. Provide an example of how you might respond to such a comment.”

     

    The assignment’s goal is for students to “evaluate the impact that power and privilege have within social media,” a syllabus states. Students are graded on the “quality of microaggresion chosen (do they clearly articulate why they are microaggressions and which group is targeted” and “quality of response (did they address the microaggression in an appropriate and meaningful way?)”

    Amazingly, American parents can get all of this for the bargain basement price of just $44,784 per year.  Just an amazing value.

  • Trump Can't Do It All Alone – Six Things Americans Must Do To Make Real Change Happen

    Submitted by Jeremish Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces ) via SHTFPlan.com,

    One of the best things is the fact that we can now say “President Trump.”  Fawning media pundits and those armies of liberals who worship propriety will use the term “president” to address his predecessor; however, he is just “Obama,” plain and simple.  It’s good to be rid of him.  Now the real work can be done.

    The primary focus of the American people from a perspective of priorities should be to convince the president to rally the Congress on one hand, and to use executive orders on the other to reverse the damage done by Obama over the past eight years.  This is where it will take the American citizens to get the ball rolling on this.  For those who may think it cannot be done, look at Prohibition.  That heinous law was repealed, and in this light so can the evils pushed through Congress when the Democrats controlled it and the bureaucratic and executive fiats ramrodded upon us also may be negated.

    Such actions as repealing all the hideous quackeries and Draconian edicts follow a logical series of steps to complete.  The President has enough time, however, he and Congress need to work swiftly.  Here’s how it can proceed:

    1. The most pressing issues (such as Obamacare, the border fence for the illegal aliens, etc.) must be brought toward both the Congress and the President…in a listed format…a petition
    2. This petitioning must also be supplemented by letters, e-mails, and telephone calls to each and every Congressman and Senator regarding these issues.
    3. Organizations that are nationwide must carry out these “campaigns” of changing the existing legislation and heinous pieces of bureaucratic rules and statutes…in the manner they campaigned for the President before the election. With the unity of different groups (such as voting groups, veterans’ organizations, and political party associations), the attention of Congress and the President can be obtained
    4. The petitions and letters must be sent to the President in duplicate, so that he will be aware of these issues that need to be changed, and that Congress (Representatives and Senators) is requested to act upon these matters
    5. Legislation can be initiated, and action can proceed, on repealing Obamacare, for example.
    6. If it should hit a stall in some way, the President can influence it, and possibly take those same Executive Actions that Obama brandished for almost a decade with impunity.

    The bottom line is that the President promised to repeal existing legislation and initiate the changes himself, but he is not solely responsible for this: the American people (who hold him accountable at the booths) must not forget it is their job to monitor his progress and to help it along.

    Here’s the deal.  Around November, the Congressmen and Senators will begin to campaign.  They will be a year out, and in order to keep their seats in the midterm election in November of 2018, there will have to be a good track record for the next year, with visible results within 6 to 8 months.  There is also no excuse, now.  The Republican party holds the House and the Senate.  There is nothing from a legislative perspective that the President cannot accomplish, at least for the next year and nine months.

    Of course, this will take solidarity within the Republican Party, and the Republicans have not had a very good track record in this department…with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan being the prime example.  Ryan refused to back the President before the elections when Hillary Clinton was conducting the “smear” campaign with the closet conga line of “damsels in distress” videos and “boo-hoo” interviews.  Then when the President won, Ryan did a complete-180.

    That solidarity may not be able to be coaxed, but it can be coerced, by the people with the power of their votes.  This will take action: by individuals writing and phoning en masse, and by groups (as mentioned earlier) and organizations.

    When these Representatives and Senators realize their jobs are on the line, they’ll act: not for the good of the issue, but to keep their job.

    So, the President is off to a good start.  We need to wish him as much success as possible.  We also need to help him out.  How?  By being proactive with the Congressmen and Senators of our States to bring matters to their attention.  The election is over, and Donald Trump is now the President, but the real work is just beginning.  If the people do not push these politicos with correspondence backed with the power of the vote, then the politicos will take a Merovingian stance and sit around idly.  We the people have a chance to make a change, and it’s in our hands.  The president is off and running, but even a champion racehorse needs a jockey for direction, and the jockey in this case is an informed and active public that keep him on the right course: the one to reflect the will of the people.

  • CRA: The "Regulatory Game Changer" That Could Wipe Out 8 Years Of Obama Regs In An Hour

    After a pompous, liberal agenda was crammed down the throats of the American people during his first two years in office, President Obama suffered staggering losses in Congress for the next six years that cost Democrats control of both houses.  But, heavy Democrat losses, courtesy of an electorate that vehemently rejected a far-left agenda, didn’t stop Obama from continuing to push through countless new rules and regulations from the White House all while pushing his authority to the brink of every Constitutional boundary known to man. 

    Of course, the problem with “legislating from the White House” is that all those rules and regulations can be undone by the next administration.  And, as Kimberley Strassel points out in a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece today, a little know tool within the Congressional Review Act could allow Republicans to wipe out 8 full years of Obama’s liberal agenda, with a simple majority vote, all while preventing similar rules from every being recreated by future administrations.

    Todd Gaziano on Wednesday stepped into a meeting of free-market attorneys, think tankers and Republican congressional staff to unveil a big idea. By the time he stepped out, he had reset Washington’s regulatory battle lines.

     

    These days Mr. Gaziano is a senior fellow in constitutional law at the Pacific Legal Foundation. But in 1996 he was counsel to then-Republican Rep. David McIntosh. He was intimately involved in drafting and passing a bill Mr. McIntosh sponsored: the Congressional Review Act. No one knows the law better.

     

    Everyone right now is talking about the CRA, which gives Congress the ability, with simple majorities, to overrule regulations from the executive branch. Republicans are eager to use the law, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy this week unveiled the first five Obama rules that his chamber intends to nix.

    Obama

     

    So, here’s how it works:

    But what Mr. Gaziano told Republicans on Wednesday was that the CRA grants them far greater powers, including the extraordinary ability to overrule regulations even back to the start of the Obama administration. The CRA also would allow the GOP to dismantle these regulations quickly, and to ensure those rules can’t come back, even under a future Democratic president. No kidding.

     

    Here’s how it works: It turns out that the first line of the CRA requires any federal agency promulgating a rule to submit a “report” on it to the House and Senate. The 60-day clock starts either when the rule is published or when Congress receives the report—whichever comes later.

     

    “There was always intended to be consequences if agencies didn’t deliver these reports,” Mr. Gaziano tells me. “And while some Obama agencies may have been better at sending reports, others, through incompetence or spite, likely didn’t.” Bottom line: There are rules for which there are no reports. And if the Trump administration were now to submit those reports—for rules implemented long ago—Congress would be free to vote the regulations down.

    But, it gets even better:

    There’s more. It turns out the CRA has a expansive definition of what counts as a “rule”—and it isn’t limited to those published in the Federal Register. The CRA also applies to “guidance” that agencies issue. Think the Obama administration’s controversial guidance on transgender bathrooms in schools or on Title IX and campus sexual assault. It is highly unlikely agencies submitted reports to lawmakers on these actions.

     

    “If they haven’t reported it to Congress, it can now be challenged,” says Paul Larkin, a senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Mr. Larkin, also at Wednesday’s meeting, told me challenges could be leveled against any rule or guidance back to 1996, when the CRA was passed.

     

    The best part? Once Congress overrides a rule, agencies cannot reissue it in “substantially the same form” unless specifically authorized by future legislation. The CRA can keep bad regs and guidance off the books even in future Democratic administrations—a far safer approach than if the Mr. Trump simply rescinded them.

    As Strassel points out: “The entire point of the CRA was to help legislators rein in administrations that ignored statutes and the will of Congress. Few White House occupants ever showed more contempt for the law and lawmakers than Mr. Obama. Republicans if anything should take pride in using a duly passed statue to dispose of his wayward regulatory regime. It’d be a fitting and just end to Mr. Obama’s abuse of authority—and one of the better investments of time this Congress could ever make.”

    Obama Legacy

  • War Gaming – Part 2: Cyberwarfare & Disinformation

    Submitted by Bill O'Grady via Confluence Investment Management,

    Yesterday, we began this two-part report by examining America’s geographic situation and how it is conducive to superpower status. This condition is problematic for foreign powers because it can be almost impossible to significantly damage America’s industrial base in a conventional war with the U.S. In addition, it would be very difficult to launch a conventional attack against the U.S. (a) with any element of surprise, and (b) without significant logistical challenges. The premise of this report is a “thought experiment” of sorts that examines the unconventional options foreign nations have to attack the U.S. Although these may not lead to regime change in America, such attacks may distract U.S. policymakers enough that foreign powers could engage in regional hegemonic actions that would otherwise be opposed by the U.S.

    In Part I of this report, we discussed two potential tactics to attack the U.S., a nuclear strike and a terrorist attack. Today, we will examine cyberwarfare and disinformation. We will conclude with market effects.

    #3: Cyberwarfare

    Cyberwarfare is a broad tactical category, ranging from the use of computer technology in conventional warfare to hacking enemies’ industrial, financial, media, utility and social networks to gain information, monitor behavior, spread disinformation and disrupt operations of these networks. Both state and non-state actors are active in cyber activities. There is a significant criminal element as well.

    The best known cyberattack was allegedly jointly created by Israel and the U.S. Dubbed “Stuxnet,” it was a computer virus which took control of systems that monitored Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. The virus returned information to its handlers and eventually was able to adversely affect the operation of the machinery itself, causing some of the centrifuges to spin out of control. Although Iran’s nuclear facilities were not directly connected to the internet, the bug was apparently introduced through a flash drive. This means that either a spy plugged a drive into Iran’s system or an innocent Iranian did it by mistake.

    Initially, as reports from Iran began emerging about problems in its nuclear facilities, it was generally assumed that the Persians simply didn’t know what they were doing or had purchased faulty equipment. Eventually, Stuxnet ruined about 20% of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. The virus turned out to be rather pervasive, spreading to Indonesia, India, Azerbaijan and Pakistan, and, interestingly enough, also infecting about 1.6% of American computers.

    There are numerous other examples of cyberwarfare. The U.S. hacked insurgents’ cell phones in Iraq, allowing the American military to track their movements and even send them texts with false orders that may have led to their capture or demise. China has become notorious in its hacking of U.S. government and defense sites. Criminals routinely use “phishing” emails to gain control of individual and business computers, sometimes to “kidnap” their data (ransomware) or to simply gain their information.

    Cyberwarfare carries numerous risks. As seen with Stuxnet, once released, a virus can become uncontrollable, harming friends and foes alike. It is relatively easy to conceal as it can be difficult to determine where an attack originated. In other words, a state actor could make it appear that a criminal group was responsible for the hack. Or, the criminal group could act as a mercenary for a state, giving the government plausible deniability. Governments have an incentive to co-opt and coerce technology firms to build in “back doors” that allow them to monitor information from citizens. This deliberate defect makes the product less attractive to consumers. On the other hand, an impregnable information system would be a very attractive tool for terrorists and criminals. Essentially, personal privacy is always at risk in a world where cyberattacks are possible.

    Technology, for the most part, improves efficiency. Recently, my family traveled to the Caribbean which required a tour through U.S. Customs upon our return. We were checked into the country using an automated kiosk that scanned our passports, took a picture and sent us to a border agent. The following day the system crashed and what took us about 45 minutes to navigate took others up to six hours to clear. Payment systems have become increasingly electronic. This allows households to carry less cash and lets banks and other financial institutions move funds more easily through the economy. However, it also makes the system vulnerable to hackers. Banks are constantly facing threats from criminals trying to gain access to accounts.

    Fraudulent purchases on credit cards are common. These acts are more easily facilitated due to technology.

    In financial services, technology has changed how orders are handled. Trade execution is nearly instantaneous. The futures pits used to be populated with wildly waving traders in colorful jackets; now, these trades are executed via terminals and, in many cases, ordered by algorithm. Although this has lowered execution costs, it also makes financial markets susceptible to “flash crashes” that occasionally roil the markets.

    Essentially, technology has been eliminating the number of people directly involved in processing transactions, everything from financial markets to retailing and government services. Although this makes the economy more efficient, it also makes it more fragile. If a system crashes, it can cause widespread disruptions and close firms, government agencies and markets. The U.S. economy, due to its technological advances, may be more vulnerable to cyberattacks than other nations.

    Although cyberattacks won’t likely cause regime change in the U.S., it could seriously disrupt the American economy, giving a foreign power time to use conventional military means to establish regional hegemony. Thus, if China wanted to capture Taiwan or if Russia wanted to invade the Baltics, a major cyberattack, such as bringing down the electrical grid, causing dams to malfunction or disrupting air traffic control, may be enough to shift security and other officials’ attention in order to improve the odds of a successful attack.

    Cyberwarfare is a significant threat to U.S. security and has very attractive characteristics. It is stealthy; the origin of the attack can be disguised and it can cause significant damage to an economy. Although the U.S. may be vulnerable to such an attack, it should be noted that American intelligence agencies and the military have significant firepower in this area as well. The difference is that disrupting the Russian economy might not matter all that much because it’s already in poor shape. But, in the U.S., shutting down the electrical grid for several days would be considered catastrophic; in fact, simply bringing down the internet might be just as bad. The U.S. faces a constant threat from cyberattacks. The key concern is what a foreign power would do with a disruption. China has already captured defense plans and personal information. So far, it has used this information to improve its own defense materials and to create countermeasures to U.S. defense goods. But the threat of a cyberattack as cover for a regional military operation is perhaps the greatest threat the U.S. currently faces.

    #4: Disinformation

    Disinformation is nothing new. From time immemorial, governments have tried to fool their adversaries. From America’s perspective, Radio Free Europe was broadcasting the truth to those behind the Iron Curtain. To the communists, it was pure propaganda.

    There are two changes that make disinformation more dangerous. First, the technology behind news flow has changed dramatically. During the era of print media, disseminating news was rather expensive. Printing needed to occur. Journalists needed to be hired. The journalists were usually trained and there were standards of conduct that acted as a screen for reports. Although there was a “yellow press” in American history, the Cold War period was probably the golden age of journalism.

    By the 1980s, cable news became an alternative to the major networks. The cable news companies discovered that they were able to capture a more reliable viewership by taking a definite slant toward the news. AM radio, as an older technology and because of its low cost, became an avenue of more extreme views. But the real change agent was the internet and social media. The internet allowed for news to be disseminated almost instantly. Social media allows common citizens to post items and videos for all to see. Regular media companies suddenly found themselves competing with citizens and their cell phones. From 1981 to 2014, the number of daily newspapers declined by 25.3%. Social media and news aggregators have the ability to screen news flow based on the viewing habits of the reader. Essentially, if one reads off the internet uncritically, they can live in a virtual news echo chamber. Thus, news, “facts” and viewpoints become hardened.

    The changes in news dissemination dovetailed with changes in political polarization.

    This chart is a measure of party polarization; essentially, it measures partisanship. The higher the reading on the chart, the more the political structure is partisan and polarized. Before the U.S. emerged on the world stage, there were strong disagreements on policy. There was less polarization by WWI, and during the Cold War the degree of polarization reached historical lows. In other words, regardless of political party, there was a high degree of bipartisanship.

    When the Cold War ended, bipartisanship also deteriorated. Currently, the country is probably the most polarized it has been since the Civil War. Unfortunately, this degree of disunity is dangerous for a superpower because it creates conditions that can distract policymakers from global concerns.

    Perhaps the greatest risk to the evolution of American hegemony was the Civil War. Although the British were the undisputed global superpower at the time, the leadership of that nation was watching the explosive economic growth in the U.S. warily. The British probably made a strategic mistake in not supporting the Confederacy because if it had survived the U.S. would have been divided and would never have achieved the same degree of power. According to historians, the political elites favored supporting the South but the public opposed it because of slavery. In addition, Queen Victoria also supported abolition and opposed the Confederacy. The British did offer some support but never enough to turn the tide.

    An America divided is susceptible to disinformation. We are living in an era where “false news” is routinely disseminated. In addition, facts have become increasingly tied to social and political positions; in other words, no fact seems to exist outside a social and political context. During the Cold War, the losing political party in an election was in opposition but did work with the winner; in the current environment, the losing party believes catastrophic events are likely and the only way to ensure a better future is to resist the policy goals of the other party.

    This environment allows foreign powers to influence social and political beliefs. It is clear the Russians tried to influence the U.S. presidential election. This should not come as a shock to anyone. The U.S. has done this for years; what Americans see as supporting democracy-loving activists in foreign nations looks much like meddling to foreign governments. In addition, it is routine for other nations to have lobbying efforts in the U.S., ostensibly to affect American policy.

    What is surprising is that the Russians seem to have had some success, although we would argue that it probably wasn’t as significant as the media is suggesting. We believe the reason the Russians were able to find some traction with the leaks and its behavior is that the political environment allowed it to occur. A political environment in which the other party isn’t seen as merely an American with a different political position but one that is perhaps evil allows leaks and disinformation to have power.

    Essentially, it appears that our current highly partisan climate has created an environment where disinformation is more likely to be accepted. If this process makes America more divided, it will reduce our ability to project power and exercise hegemony. Although disinformation probably won’t bring regime change, it can create conditions under which an aspiring regional hegemon can try to influence American public opinion in a fashion that will reduce the likelihood that the U.S. responds negatively to the aspiring regional hegemon’s encroachment. In other words, if Russia wanted to take the Baltics, it may try to use false news and internet dissemination to sway Americans to oppose U.S. and NATO intervention.

    Ramifications

    This report is something of a thought experiment about how foreign nations can attack a hegemon with extraordinarily favorable geographic conditions. We identified four primary methods—a nuclear strike, terrorism, cyberattack and disinformation. These are not the only methods, but we suspect these are the most likely. Two others that deserve mention are biological/chemical warfare and space. The reason we didn’t explore the former is that it is probably similar to a nuclear attack if done in scale; we would know who did it and we would not be surprised to see a state-sponsored biological attack met with a nuclear strike or a massive conventional attack. Of course, a terrorist attack using these methods could be effective but these weapons are notoriously difficult to deploy effectively. And, the U.S. has an advanced medical sector that would probably be able to cope with a small biological attack. A space attack, which could range from attacking satellites to launching weapons, is possible. However, the U.S. is probably as well prepared as any nation for such conflicts and so a pre-emptive strike would probably be met in kind. Thus, for considerations of length, we didn’t explore either of these methods in detail.

    We are not likely to face a nuclear attack but the other three are quite likely and, in fact, have occurred and will likely continue to occur. Of the remaining three, we are most worried about the two discussed this week. Computer hacking by China and Russia is common; although it hasn’t led to anything that threatens civil order, the potential does exist that it could at some point.

    Disinformation is another rising concern. Although this method has existed for centuries, the internet allows dissemination without filters. Thus, the ability to affect the unity of the nation and America’s capacity to mobilize against enemies to support allies could be compromised.

    As noted, we believe a conventional military attack on the continental U.S. is highly unlikely. However, that doesn’t mean that aspiring regional hegemons won’t use the last three methods to improve their odds of success in local actions. The Russian concept of “hybrid war” uses the last three in combination to undermine nations in its near abroad and weaken any opposition to Russian goals of regional domination. The U.S. may become a more likely target of similar actions in order to distract America from opposing the aims of aspiring regional hegemons to expand their areas of control.

    The market ramifications are complicated. Technology security firms should find steady business from the private and public sector. Media companies may face additional burdens of screening news for potential “false news” stories. Overall, though, the biggest impact may be that these factors are part of a trend where the U.S. continues to move away from the superpower role it has played since the end of WWII. We have documented and discussed these issues at length. The bottom line is that a G-0 world is one that is negative for foreign investment but probably bullish for commodities. The dollar and U.S. financial assets will likely benefit relative to foreign assets.
     

  • Protesters Plot "Border Wall" Rally For Tomorrow…At Zuckerberg's Sprawling $100mm Hawaiian Estate

    Back in 2014 Mark Zuckerberg paid $100 million to purchase 700 acres of beachfront property on the North Shore of Kauai.  The estate includes 1,000’s of feet of pristine shoreline providing the perfect “safe space” for the 30-year-old Silicon Valley Billionaire and his family.

    Zuckerberg

     

    Unfortunately, there was just one little problem with the purchase…technically the sellers didn’t own the title to all of that land due to the so-called Kuleana Act, a Hawaiian law established in 1850 that for the first time gave natives the right to own the land that they lived on. 

    So now, according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser, the Facebook billionaire sued a few hundred Hawaiians who still have legal-ownership claims to parts of his vacation estate through their ancestors.  Per Yahoo Finance:

    Three holding companies controlled by Zuckerberg filed eight lawsuits in local court on December 30 against families who collectively inherited 14 parcels of land through the Kuleana Act, a Hawaiian law established in 1850 that for the first time gave natives the right to own the land that they lived on.

     

    The 14 parcels total just 8.04 of the 700 acres Zuckerberg owns, but the law gives any direct family member of a parcel’s original owner the right to enter the otherwise private compound.

    And while Zuckerberg’s lawyer attempted to downplay the lawsuits as a common practice in Hawaii, we suspect the idea of defending your private property rights against one of the top 10 richest people in the world is somewhat intimidating and slightly less than “normal.”

    The quiet-title suits filed are designed to identify all property owners and give them the ability to sell their ownership stakes at auction, according to Keoni Shultz, an attorney representing Zuckerberg. Because the ownership stakes are passed down and divided among family descendants by the state, many people don’t realize they have a claim until action is taken against them in court.

     

    “It is common in Hawaii to have small parcels of land within the boundaries of a larger tract, and for the title to these smaller parcels to have become broken or clouded over time,” Shultz told Business Insider in a statement. “In some cases, co-owners may not even be aware of their interests. Quiet title actions are the standard and prescribed process to identify all potential co-owners, determine ownership, and ensure that, if there are other co-owners, each receives appropriate value for their ownership share.”

    Of course, the pompous dismissal of property rights isn’t the only thing riling up Hawaiian natives regarding Zuckerberg’s estate.  As The Garden Island pointed out, residents are also slightly less than ecstatic about a massive, 6 foot rock wall erected around the estate and blocking the “view that’s been available and appreciative by the community here for years.”

    “The feeling of it is really oppressive. It’s immense,” Hall said. “It’s really sad that somebody would come in, and buy a huge piece of land and the first thing they do is cut off this view that’s been available and appreciative by the community here for years.”

     

    “It’s hot behind that wall. Because it’s up on a berm, there’s not a breath of air on this side from the ocean,” Chantara said. “You take a solid wall that’s 10 or more feet above the road level; the breeze can’t go through.”

     

    Another Kilauea resident, Donna Mcmillen, calls the wall a “monstrosity.”

     

    “I’m super unhappy about that. I know that land belongs to Zuckerberg. Money is no option for him. I’m 5’8” and when I’m walking, I see nothing but wall,” Mcmillen said. “It just doesn’t fit in with the natural beauty that we have here. There are people on the island who money can pay for anything. These kind of things that they do take away what Kauai is all about.”

     

    Zuckerberg

     

    Over the past couple of weeks, intense public backlash over the lawsuit and “immense, oppressive” wall has caused Zuckerberg to backtrack on his plans. Earlier today he published a note to residents in The Garden Island announcing his intentions to drop his litigation saying that “upon reflection, it’s clear we made a mistake.”

    We’ve heard from many in the community and learned more about the cultural and historical significance of this land. Over the past week, we’ve spoken with community leaders and shared that our intention is to achieve an outcome that preserves the environment, respects local traditions, and is fair to those with kuleana lands.

     

    To find a better path forward, we are dropping our quiet title actions and will work together with the community on a new approach. We understand that for native Hawaiians, kuleana are sacred and the quiet title process can be difficult. We want to make this right, talk with the community, and find a better approach.

     

    Upon reflection, I regret that I did not take the time to fully understand the quiet title process and its history before we moved ahead. Now that I understand the issues better, it’s clear we made a mistake.

     

    The right path is to sit down and discuss how to best move forward. We will continue to speak with community leaders that represent different groups, including native Hawaiians and environmentalists, to find the best path.

     

    Beyond this process, we are also looking for more ways to support the community as neighbors. We have contributed to community organizations and will continue to do so. We work with wildlife experts to preserve endangered species. We hope to do much more in the future.

     

    We love Kaua`i and we want to be good members of the community for the long term. Thank you for welcoming our family into your community.

    But, a local farmer, Joe Hart says that Zuckerberg’s retreat isn’t sufficient and, as of now, vows that the mass protest planned for tomorrow will move forward as “people are furious down here with him.”  Per McClatchey:

    “People are furious down here with him,” Hart, a local farmer told Business Insider. “We just want to bring this issue to light. He’s made his money stealing everyone’s information, which we’ve let him do, but to come down here and start suing everyone, that’s not going to fly down here.”

    Alas, in the end we’re sure Zuckerberg will have his way.  After all, what fun is billions of dollars if you can’t buy expansive swaths of entire states and trample on the private property rights of some little people?

  • US Auto Industry In Crisis Amid "Inventory Bubble"

    Despite record U.S. auto sales last year, the number of vehicles on car-dealer lots remains near record highs, and, as J.D.Power analyst Thomas King warned this week, 2016 ended with an inventory "bubble" that will require less production or more incentives to clear.

    With near record high inventories of 3.9 million vehicles…

     

    U.S. auto inventory finished 2016 at about 66 days supply, up from 60 days a year earlier. Inventory would last 2.23 months at the November sales pace, according to the latest available data from the Census Bureau. The stock-to-sales ratio in 2016 is extremely elevated compared to historical norms…

    More problematically, King warns, about one-third of inventory were older model-year vehicles, rather than more typical level of less than a quarter.

    Of course this massive stockpile hits just as President Trump pressures the auto-industry to onshore more jobs and more production…

    But as the industry automates, factories don’t create jobs like they used to, said Marina Whitman, a professor of business administration and public policy at the University of Michigan.

     

    “The American auto industry last year produced more cars than it ever had before, but they did it with somewhere between one-third and one-half the number of workers that they had decades ago,” said Whitman, who was an adviser to President Richard Nixon and GM’s chief economist from 1978 to 1992.

     

    “The last thing the auto industry needs is more capacity.” she said.

    So – produce more to employ more people and please President Trump (only to dramatically worsen the inevitable collapse), or cut workforces and productin further (as we have already seen) and face the wrath of Trump's tweets?

  • Are Sanctuary Cities More Violent?

    Submitted by Salil Mehta via Statistical Ideas blog,

    With the battle growing in sanctuary cities to deviate from President Trump’s strategy on immigration law, it is worth seeing another topic that we have been following closely: violent crime rate across major U.S. cities.  This of course comes as President Trump menacingly engages with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, in a twitter exchange that reiterates the use of the term “carnage” to suggest the warfare-style chaos that is occurring there.

    By definition sanctuary cities are generally liberal (Democratic) cities or regions that oppose the current conservative policies to oppress most immigrants.  The 14 most-populated U.S. cities represent 30 million Americans (or 9% of the 319 million U.S. population).  Of these 14 cities, 9 are sanctuary cities (64%) and 5 are non-sanctuary cities (36%).  As we prove below, one is significantly safer from violent crimes in sanctuary cities, but for a couple notable exceptions (i.e., Chicago, Philadelphia). Below we’ll distinguish between these two types of cities:

    • Nearly 2 thousand murders occur annually in these sanctuary cities (>70%), while less than a thousand murders occur in the non-sanctuary cities (<30%).
    • While each taken life is too many, mortality statistics drive these large death numbers into probability context.  So with the much larger population from the sanctuary cities (collectively or on average), the homicide rate (per 100k) there is “just” 5, while it is 9 in non-sanctuary cities!
    • It is true that the murder rates have come in most cities across the U.S., but again these rates are unacceptably high, particularly as some cities are many times more ferocious versus their peers!
    • The blended murder rate from the 14 large cities meanwhile is in-between at 8, and this is also just less than twice the national average is 4.

    Now we can see a chart of these 14 cities on this map below, where the size of the circular-marker is related to the population of the city, and the text color of the murder rate is blue for sanctuary cities; red for non-sanctuary cities.  The blue on the map regions represents areas who mostly voted for Hillary Clinton (as noted above this was mostly limited to mega-cities), while red indicates the rest of the country where Donald Trump completely dominated the popular vote.

    Using a mathematical practice similar to boot-strapping, we show further below, the population-weighted murder rate distribution for the 14 cities.  Also 4 of the 9 (44%) sanctuary cities have had an above-average murder rate among the large cities, while 2 of the 5 (40%) of the non-sanctuary cities had an above-average murder rate.  Though this difference -skewing towards sanctuary cities- is not statistically significant (less than ½ standard deviation, or ?).

    Meanwhile the murder rate difference of 4 (9 v 5), between non-sanctuary cities and sanctuary cities, is highly statistically significant, given the population in millions discussed early in this article.  But the chance any given non-sanctuary city is more murderous versus a sanctuary city is not statistically significant (less than 1 ?). Predominantly with such benign jumbo-metropolises, such as New York with their “low” murder rate of 4 (despite sky-high homelessness), versus Houston (the county’s largest non-sanctuary city) with their murder rate of 11.

    The bottom line is there is a minor bias towards more violence in non-sanctuary cities, areas generally aligned to conservative policies and gun-friendly.  This is where Americans will typically have a higher probability of being slain (expressly young Black males in the inner-cities who are gunned down by others in the same community, as opposed to the police – many directors of which nationally follow this site).  Though the large cities are not easily separable into such mass generalizations, this is also why it happens to be easy for President Donald Trump to censure the worst areas of the country.  Since there we have heterogeneously diverse characteristics of violence, from our large sanctuary cities.

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Jan 27

Today’s News 27th January 2017

  • Democratic Congresswoman Destroys CNN Narrative on Syria

    Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is a combat veteran, and member of the House Armed Services Committee.

    She recently introduced a bill to stop funding terrorists (what a novel idea!).

    She just came back from a fact-finding mission to Syria … and destroyed CNN’s tired propaganda on “moderate rebels”:

  • Abandoned Wal-Mart To Reopen As Shelter For Illegal Immigrants With Tax-Dollar Funding

    An abandoned Walmart in Brownsville, Texas will soon be home to 100’s of illegal immigrant “minors”, many of them late in their teen years, thanks to your federal tax dollars.  According to a report from a local ABC affiliate in Brownsville, the facility is currently being converted into a shelter by a nonprofit organization called Southwest Key, which receives the majority of its funding from federal tax dollars via the Office of Refugees Resettlement.

    A Southwest Key spokeswoman confirmed the facility is set to open on March. They said it’ll be to welcome unaccompanied minors who crossed into the U.S. illegally.

     

    It will be the 4th facility in Brownsville to shelter children, under the age of 17, who have crossed into the U.S. without an adult.

     

    Southwest Key is federally funded by the Office of Refugees Resettlement. The group’s mission is to provide a safe environment for unaccompanied children while they wait to be reunited with a sponsor or relative in the U.S.

     

    Southwest Key officials said children are supervised during their stay. The program ensures youngsters have a safe place to sleep, are fed, educated and also have access to healthcare and counseling services.

    Of course, the report drew a lot of criticism from local Brownsville residents, many of whom questioned whether the money shouldn’t be redirected to fund a shelter for veterans and/or the homeless.

    FB

     

    As background, according to WND, Southwest Key has an annual budget of $150 million and operates 27 shelters for illegal immigrants in Texas, Arizona and California.  Per the Southwest Key website:

    Southwest Key Programs is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1987 to keep young people out of institutions and empower them with the skills, knowledge and tools they need to succeed. Through an exceptionally competent and diverse staff, Southwest Key empowers youth and their families to make positive changes in their lives including at our 27 immigrant children’s shelters in Texas, Arizona and California.

     

    Southwest Key Unaccompanied Minor shelters operate as a self-contained unit, delivering shelter, food, healthcare, education, recreation, case management and legal services to the children in our care. We are required by the federal government to provide everything that a child needs in order to thrive in a humane and homelike environment. As a result, there is little interaction between the children in our services and the surrounding community, save for those businesses and employees engaged in their care on-site.

     

    Healthcare: The overwhelming majority of medical services are done on site by Southwest Key’s fully-staffed, licensed medical professionals who ensure the health of the children in our shelters. Every child receives a full, medical exam by a doctor within 24 to 48 hours of entering our facilities, including receiving all the CDC recommended immunizations and being screened for any infectious diseases.

     

    Education: While in our care, all unaccompanied minors receive educational services. Our presence in a community does not impact children in the local school system as our kids receive all educational services separate and distinct from local children and they never have an opportunity to interact with one another.

    Southwest Key

     

    If Southwest Key sounds familiar, it’s probably because it’s the same Southwest Key that drew criticism from Senator Chuck Grassley back in 2014 for using taxpayer money to provide a petting zoo and guitar lessons to their illegal immigrant residents at a cost of over $300 per child per day.  Per the Washington Times:

    One of the contractors housing some of the surge of illegal immigrant children from this summer offers them a petting zoo with miniature ponies, a tilapia fish farm operation and guitar lessons, according to documents released Thursday by a senator who questioned whether the plush accommodations were a good use of taxpayers’ money.

     

    Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, said it seemed excessive to pay the $329 that Southwest Key Programs, the contractor, charged per child per day at one of its California facilities in Lemon Grove, California. Another facility in El Cajon cost taxpayers $316 per child per day.

    Here is the original report from KRGV-TV in Brownsville, TX:

  • Bannon Declares War On The Media: "You Are The Opposition; Keep Your Mouth Shut"

    Not one to mince words, Steve Bannon, Trump’s Chief White House strategist, eviscerated the mainstream media during an interview last night.  Commenting on their coverage of the Trump campaign, Bannon lambasted the disconnect of the media from everyday Americans saying, “They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”  Per Axios:

    “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile,” Mr. Bannon said during a telephone call. “I want you to quote this,” Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”

    “The elite media got it dead wrong, 100 percent dead wrong,” Mr. Bannon said of the election, calling it “a humiliating defeat that they will never wash away, that will always be there.”

    Bannon

     

    But that attacks didn’t end there as Bannon went on describe the media as “the opposition party.”

    “The mainstream media has not fired or terminated anyone associated with following our campaign,” Mr. Bannon said. “Look at the Twitter feeds of those people: they were outright activists of the Clinton campaign.” (He did not name specific reporters or editors.) “That’s why you have no power,” Mr. Bannon added. “You were humiliated.”

     

    “You’re the opposition party,” Mr. Bannon said. “Not the Democratic Party. You’re the opposition party. The media’s the opposition party.”

    Finally, asked whether he was concerned that Sean Spicer had lost credibility with the press after his debate over crowd sizes, Bannon had a similarly pointed answer:

    “Are you kidding me?” he said. “We think that’s a badge of honor. ‘Questioning his integrity’ — are you kidding me? The media has zero integrity, zero intelligence, and no hard work.”

    Any remaining questions on what Steve Bannon thinks of the mainstream media?

  • White House Misspells UK Prime Minister's Name In Official Memo (Multiple Times)

    A White House memo detailing President Trump’s Friday schedule offered what some might call ‘alternative letters’ in the spelling of UK Prime Minister T(h)eresa May’s name… mutliple times.

    As The Hill reports, May’s name was spelled “Teresa” three times in the daily guidance and press schedule email, which was sent Thursday evening with an hourly breakdown of the president’s schedule.

    The White House sent out an updated guidance with corrected spelling about a half-hour later, shortly before Vice President Pence’s office released its own guidance that misspelled May’s name once. That was also corrected about 20 minutes later.

    *  *  *

    Not a great start as Trump’s team put the ‘special’ in “special relationship.”

  • "When Will It End?" BofAML's 10-Point Checklist

    So "when will it end?" BofAML's best guess remains sometime in the summer.

    The current rally started in February 2016 on the 2nd day of Yellen's Humphrey-Hawkins testimony. The inflection was caused by a. uber-bearish Positioning, b. uber-bearish profit expectations, c. Policy easing. And thus BofAML believe the rally will end with a. bullish Positioning, b. bullish Profit expectations, c. Policy tightening.

    We’re not there yet.

    Here's Michael Hartnett's checklist of Positioning, Profit & Policy data to indicate we are in the Last 100 days of the rally, perhaps also the Last 100 Days of the secular upswing that began in March 2009:

    Extreme bullish Positioning would be signaled by…

    1. BofAML Bull & Bear indicator (up from 0 in Feb’16 to 5.3 today) >8; VIX approaching all-time low reading of 9.3 (Dec’93)

    2. BofAML Global Flow Trading Rule triggering risk “sell signal" following high yield bond & global equity inflows >1% AUM in 4 weeks

    3. BofAML Global Breadth Rule signaling “overbought” with 90% of MSCI markets trading >200-day & 50-day moving averages

    4. BofAML FMS cash levels <4% (currently 5.1%, down from 5.8% in Oct); BofAML GWIM asset allocation to equities >64%, i.e. at new highs

    Extreme bullish Profit expectations would be signaled by…

    5. US ISM >58, i.e. a level above which EPS growth normally peaks (e.g. 1997, 1999, 2003, 2014)

    6. Surge in wage data (e.g. US average hourly earnings >3%) or producer prices (>2%, PPI’s now positive in developed markets for first time in 2 years) that hurt margins

    7. Markets signaling “peak macro” via US high yield bond spreads (currently 400bp) dropping below 350bp; real rates jumping roughly 100bps in the next 6-9 months

     

    Policy hawkishness would be signaled by…

    8. Bear flattening of yield curves as markets discount Fed playing catch-up (see Investment Clock analysis Chart 5); rate volatility (MOVE index >90)

    9. ECB & BoJ QE tapering announcements

    10. Fed announces an end to the "reinvestment" of their balance sheet (Chart 6) which would be the big signal that the QE era had come to a close, and is likely to become a much bigger story for markets as the year progresses

    The Big Top

    At this stage we see the potential in 2018 for rising rates & falling EPS, a complete reversal of the era of falling interest rates & rising profit margins that has caused risk assets to do so stunningly well since 2009. In the absence of an acceleration in labor productivity, the incoming President will find it tougher to engender the 2nd greatest bull market (2870), or the greatest ever (3504 – although should Trump match the historic 1st term annualized equity gain of 11% p.a. then 4 years of Trump would take the S&P500 to 3480.), or the longest ever (Sept 1st 2018). More likely risk assets will make a major top later in 2017.

  • Paul Craig Roberts On "The Demise Of The Left"

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    On several occasions I have asked in my columns the rhetorical question: What became of the left? Today I answer my question.

    The answer is that the European and American left, which traditionally stood for the working class and peace (bread and peace) no longer exists. The cause championed by those who pretend to be the “left” of today is identity politics.  The “left” no longer champions the working class, which the “left” dismisses as “Trump deplorables,” consisting of “racist, misogynist, homophobic, gun nuts.” Instead, the “left” champions alleged victimized and marginalized groups – blacks, homosexuals, women and the transgendered. Tranny bathrooms, a cause unlikely to mobilize many Americans, are more important to the “left” than the working class 

    All white-skinned peoples except leftists, including apparently victimized women, are racist by definition.  Racism and victimization are the explanations of everything, all of history, all institutions, even the US Constitution. This program of the left cuts the left off from the working class, who have been abandoned by both political parties, and has terminated the left’s connection to the people.

    The collapse of the left as an effective and real political force followed the Soviet collapse. The underclass had resisted their exploitation before the publication of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital in 1867. But Marx raised the exploitation of labor to a fighting cause on whose side was History. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia seemed to validate Marx with its overthrow of the existing order and proclamation of Soviet Communism.

    Soviet practices deflated left-wing hopes and expectations, but nevertheless an alternative system which continued to speak against capitalist exploitation existed. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, neoconservatives and neoliberals declared that History had chosen capitalism over the working class, and Marx’s prediction of the triumph of the working class had been proven wrong.

    The Soviet collapse caused communist China and socialist India to change their economic policy and to open their economies to foreign capital. With no rival, capitalism no longer had to restrain itself and allow widespread access to the growth of income and wealth. Capitalists began collecting it all for themselves.  Many studies have concluded that the productivity gains which formerly went mainly to the work force are now monopolized by the mega-rich.

    One avenue to the concentration of income and wealth is the financialization of the economy (emphasized by Michael Hudson and by Marx in the third volume of Capital). The financial sector has been able to divert the discretionary income of the working class into interest and fees to banks (mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, student loans).  

    The other avenue is the offshoring of American jobs to which Donald Trump is strongly opposed.  Here is what happened:

    Wall Street told US manufacturers to move their production to China in order to increase profits from lower labor and regulatory costs, or Wall Street would finance takeovers of the companies, and the new owners would raise the firms’ profitability by moving production offshore. Large retailers, such as Walmart, ordered suppliers “to meet the Chinese price.”

    When the jobs were in the US, most of the gains in productivity went to labor.  Therefore, real median family incomes rose through time, and the consumer purchasing power this income growth provided drove the US economy to success for ever more people.

    When the jobs were moved to Asia, the growth in real median US family incomes stopped and declined. The large excess supplies of labor and lower cost of living in Asia meant that Asian workers did not have to be paid in wages the value of their contribution to output. The difference between the US wage and Asian wage was large and went into corporate profits, thus driving up executives’ “performance bonuses” and capital gains (rising stock prices from higher profits) for shareholders.  In my book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism published in 2013, I was able to calculate that based on current information at that time, every 1,000 manufacturing jobs moved to China resulted in a labor cost saving for the US company of $32,000 per hour.  These hourly savings did not translate into lower prices for US consumers of the offshored production.  The labor cost savings translated directly into the incomes of the executives and shareholders.

    Thus, jobs offshoring permitted the productivity gains to be monopolized by corporate owners and executives.

    Instead of responding to Trump’s support of the working class and his actions on their behalf during the first week of his presidency – Trump’s termination of TPP and his demand to auto manufacturers to bring manufacturing back to America – the “left” has rallied around a victim group – illegal immigrants. The “left” even elevates non-US citizens above the US working class.

    Trump was elected by the working class. If the left is defined historically as the champion of the working class, then Donald Trump is their champion and the “left” is their enemy.

    Throughout the contest for the Republican presidential nomination and the contest for the presidency, the “left” was allied with the ruling establishment of mega-rich capitalist oligarchs and the warmonger military/security complex against Trump. As Trump’s presidency begins, it is the “left” that wants Trump impeached and delegitimized, precisely the goals of the war- mongers and the mega-rich and their presstitutes.

    Even environmental groups, such as NRDC of which I am a member, have joined the identity politics against Trump. Rhea Suh, NRDC’s president, has just sent me an email in which she declares NRDC, supposedly a champion of wildlife and the environment, to be standing with women in the Women’s March on Washington against Trump “in defense of our most basic rights as women.” “Women matter,” Rhea declares, and proceeds to blame Trump for Flint Michigan’s polluted water.

    I am convinced that it is a mistake for Trump to emphasize jobs at the expense of the environment. Whether or not global warming is a hoax, environmental destruction is not. It is real, and the working class, as in Flint, are suffering from it as well as from the offshoring of their jobs.

    The Democratic Party died during the Clinton regime when Clinton allied with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) founded in 1985 by Al From. I have often wondered who funded the DLC. It could just as well have been the Koch brothers as the DLC turned the Democratic Party into a second Republican Party.

    The DLC convinced Democrats that the defeat of the presidential campaigns of George McGovern and Walter Mondale proved that economic populism is not politically viable. Democrats had to turn away from the left and embrace “mainstream values” and “market-based solutions.” The DLC was a big supporter of NAFTA. Reportedly, the DLC’s Will Marshall regarded pacifists and Iraq war protesters as anti-American and advised Democrats to keep their distance.

    In short, the message was: compete with the Republicans for the big corporate and financial sector money. It certainly worked for the Clintons, but not for the Democratic Party.

    As “market-based solutions” offshored US manufacturing jobs, the Democratic Party’s finances declined with union membership and power. Today Democrats and Republicans are dependent on the same interest groups for campaign funds. Thus ended the Democratic Party’s connection with the working class.

    The question is: Can Trump stand for the working class when both political parties and the presstitute media, the think tanks, universities, environmental organizations, military/security complex, Wall Street, and courts stand against the working class?

    Who is going to help Trump help the working class?

  • White House Reveals How Mexico May Pay For The Wall: A 20% Border Tax

    Update 2:

    Some more clarity from Spicer, who is now backtracking on his words, telling reporters that slapping a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico is just one of several options on the table for paying for a wall along the southern border.

    Spicer said President Donald Trump has yet to make a final decision about how the U.S. will recoup the costs of his proposed border wall. Earlier Thursday that Trump wanted to slap a 20 percent tax on all imports from Mexico and predicted the tax would generate $10 billion a year.

    He had told reporters on Air Force One that Trump has discussed the idea with congressional leaders and wanted to include the measure in a comprehensive tax reform package. But Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus said later that the administration has “a buffet of options” to pay for the wall.

    Importantly, Spicer said the White House was not ready to roll out any border tax at this time, and that it will will continue to have open line of communication with Mexico after Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled plans to meet with President Trump; Spicer says cancellation was mutual decision.

    It would seem that the Kochs – who are fervently opposed to the BAT proposal – made a few phonecalls.

    * * *

    Update:

    Another story whch needs to be appended, because as NBC’s Peter Alexander tweets, According to Spicer the 20% tax on Mexican imports is not a policy proposal but merely an example of options how to pay for the wall.

    * * *

    Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that as part of its plans to make Mexico “pay for the wall”, the Trump administration is considering a 20% border tax on Mexican imports.

    In a brief gaggle on the way back from Philadelphia, Spicer said that POTUS has decided how to pay for the border wall: “by imposing a 20 percent tax on all imports from Mexico.”

    He did not give any details about that tax, how it would work, and he described it as a beginning of a process that would be part of overall tax reform. But he did describe this as a decision that POTUS has made.

    “When you look at the plan that’s taking shape now, using comprehensive tax reform as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit from, like Mexico. If you tax that $50 billion at 20 percent of imports — which is by the way a practice that 160 other countries do — right now our country’s policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous. By doing it that we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone. That’s really going to provide the funding.”

    The proposal, as explained by Spicer, appears to be similar to the Border-Adjustment Tax provision floated previously, that would tax U.S. businesses’ imports included in a House Republican tax plan.  The so-called border adjustment provision is part of a broader plan to bring the corporate tax rate down from 35 percent and 20 percent.  Trump previously dismissed the plan in an interview with The Wall Street Journal as being “too complicated.” While benefiting exporters, such as U.S.-based aerospace companies, it could hurt retailers and other American companies that manufacture goods overseas to sell in the U.S. That would result in higher prices for American consumer goods.

    “This is something that we’ve been in close contact with both houses in moving forward and creating a plan. It clearly provides the funding and does so in a way that the American taxpayer is wholly respected.”

    Spicer said that “we are probably the only major country that doesn’t treat imports this way” and added “this gets us in line frankly with the policies that the other countries around the world treat our products.”

    The highly sensitive subject of payment for the “wall” is the reason why president Pena Nieto cancelled a trip to the US on January 31 to discusses the renegotiation of NAFTA.

    While Nieto has said Mexico will not pay for the wall, Trump has repeatedly said that Mexico will end up paying, even if the US makes the initial payment; as reported earlier, Republicans have estimated the wall will cost between $12 billion to $15 billion.

    Since roughly 80% of Mexican exports go to the US, (representing around 13% of US imports, or amounting to $295 billion in 2015) Mexico finds itself in a very difficult negotiating position, in which Trump has all the leverage. On the other hand, since a 20% tax would inevitably result in a similar surge in prices of imported goods, no matter who ends up winning this particular negotiation, it will be the US consumer who foots the bill.

    * * *

    As a result of the barrage of today’s Mexico-related headlines, peso traders have had a, how shall we put it, stressful day.

  • Hedgies Panic As Hamptons Luxury Home Prices Crash 43% Year-Over-Year

    As U.S. equity markets continue to surge to new all-time highs with each passing day, something you would expect to benefit the titans of high finance in Manhattan, demand for luxurious, multi-million dollar weekend getaways in the Hamptons has all but completely disappeared.

    According to a new 4Q report from Douglas Elliman, the Hamptons real estate market is in full-on crash mode with average prices down 29.7% YoY in 4Q16 and volumes down 14.5%. 

    Hamptons

     

    Meanwhile, the “luxury” market in the Hamptons, which apparently includes homes with an average price tag of ~$7 million, is faring even worse with prices down 42.6% YoY and volumes down 14.5%. 

    Hamptons

     

    Seems that New York’s hedge fund billionaires just can’t seem to make money at work or on their homes.

    As the Wall Street Journal noted, Jonathan Miller of Douglas Elliman doesn’t expect the carnage in the Hamptons to slow anytime soon as he says there is still ““too much overpriced inventory—and it is rising.”

    Brokers said the luxury market was particularly weak in 2016, despite some trophy sales reflecting the last gasp of a stronger market that surged at the end of 2014.

     

    “Softness at the top continues,” Mr. Miller said. There is “too much overpriced inventory—and it is rising.”

    Of course, the soft market didn’t stop the hedgies from recording a couple of trophy sales in 2016.  Per Douglas Elliman, the most expensive sale of the year was $109.8 million with the second highest sale a mere $70 million…must have been a dump.

    The top transaction of the year was the $109.8 million sale of three parcels on Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton by hedge-fund manager Scott Bommer. Mr. Bommer had paid $93.9 million for the properties several years earlier. The buyer, brokers said, was Michael S. Smith, a natural-gas executive and investor.

     

    The second-most-expensive sale was a waterfront home just down the street, at 199 Lily Pond Lane. The price was $70 million.

    Oh well, on the bright side, all of these real estate losses can quickly be wiped away with less than 1 year of management fees charged to America’s insolvent pension funds in return for below-S&P performance…life is good!

  • War Gaming – Part 1: Nukes & Terrorism

    Submitted by Bill O'Grady via Confluence Investment Management,

    One of the key elements of global hegemony is the ability of a nation to project power. Ideally, this means a potential hegemon needs local security. In other words, a nation that faces significant proximate threats will struggle to project power globally. As a general rule, it’s easier to attack via land compared to the sea.

    Rome’s power base was the Italian peninsula. It only needed to defend the northern part of the land mass. Spain had a similar situation. The Netherlands was the global hegemon for a while but was always facing a land threat from France. Britain, being an island, was geographically ideal for superpower status; the last successful invasion of the British Isles was in 1066. Finally, the U.S. has managed to create an island effect on a larger land mass giving America more access to natural resources compared to Britain, making the U.S. a nearly ideal hegemon.

    In Part I of this report, we will examine American hegemony from a foreign nation’s perspective. In other words, if a nation wanted to attack the U.S. to either replace the U.S. as global superpower or to create conditions that would allow it to act freely to establish regional hegemony, how would this be accomplished? This analysis will begin by examining America’s geopolitical position. As part of this week’s report, we will examine the likelihood of a nuclear attack and a terrorist strike against the U.S. In Part II, we will examine the remaining two methods, cyberwarfare and disinformation, discussing their likelihood along with the costs and benefits of these tactics. We will also conclude in Part II with potential market effects.

    America’s Geopolitics

    The Americans are truly a lucky people. They are bordered to the north and south by weak neighbors and to the east and west by fish.

    — Otto von Bismarck

    (Source: Wikipedia)

    Although Bismarck’s quote is accurate in terms of borders, this circumstance was less due to luck than design. Successive presidents took great care to expand U.S. territory in such a manner as to leave Canada and Mexico with less hospitable border environments. This can be observed on a map of North American population density. The map below shows population density in North America. Note the low density along most of the Canadian/U.S. frontier as well as the lack of density along the Mexican border.

    (Source: Wikipedia)

    The U.S. pushed its northern border into areas that were less conducive to human development. Canada’s population mostly rests along the border with the U.S. and rapidly declines the further north one travels. The U.S. population is over nine times larger than Canada’s; Canada has 9.4 persons per square mile compared to 85.6 persons per square mile in the U.S. The opposite situation occurs with Mexico. Most of Mexico’s population lives in the southern parts of the state, with the northern desert region relatively unpopulated.

    Essentially, the U.S. is surrounded by two neighbors that are no military threat and two oceans. Any nation attempting to launch a conventional military attack on the U.S. would not have any element of surprise. Attacking through either Mexico or Canada would be relatively easy to see coming and force the invader to cross difficult territory on the way to the battle theater. Coming by sea requires a long voyage that would likely be detected as well.

    Since 1812, the U.S. has been able to engage the world without significant concern about an attack on the mainland. Japan was able to successfully attack Hawaii and also capture islands that were part of Alaska. But, neither event was enough to seriously threaten the mainland. In the two world wars, the U.S. was able to launch sustained military operations against its enemies with little fear that its industrial base would be attacked.

    The isolation of the U.S. makes it an ideal superpower. The U.S. can focus on power projection and use fewer resources for homeland defense. This gives America great power to influence the world and reduces potential enemies’ ability to prevent the U.S. from becoming involved in thwarting their goals.

    So, if a foreign power wanted to dethrone the U.S., or, probably more likely, establish itself as a regional hegemon without U.S. interference, what attack options are available to such a power and what are the odds of success? We will examine four different options, assuming that a conventional attack isn’t possible, at least for the foreseeable future.

    #1: Nuclear Strike

    Since the U.S. used atomic weapons on Japan at the close of WWII, no other power has launched a similar attack. The world came close on a few occasions to a nuclear war—the Cuban Missile Crisis was a near miss—but, for the most part, global leaders have refrained from using these weapons.

    During the Cold War, nuclear war doctrine evolved into one where the weapon became purely defensive. Essentially, nuclear powers can never be forced into unconditional surrender. If a nuclear power was facing defeat in conventional warfare, it could prevent complete capitulation though a nuclear attack.

    The primary concern of nuclear powers was to ensure that they had systems that would allow for a “second strike” capacity. Thus, if a nuclear power found itself facing a first strike, the goal was to have the ability to retaliate in kind. This model, known as “Mutually Assured Destruction,” required that no side could reliably win a nuclear exchange.

    Nuclear powers usually have at least two of three delivery systems: missiles, submarines or bombers. A nation relying solely on land-based missiles could be vulnerable to a first strike. Usually, if a nation only has land-based missiles, they develop mobile launch systems that make conventional attacks on nuclear facilities more difficult.

    The key deterrent to a first strike nuclear attack is the second strike response. At the same time, a full-scale nuclear exchange could have catastrophic effects on human life. The spread of radiation could poison the atmosphere. Some scientists theorize that even a modest exchange could trigger a nuclear winter that could have serious effects on the climate; recent studies have suggested it might even trigger a “little ice age.”

    The decision process for an American president is fairly straightforward if facing an attack from a major nuclear power such as China or Russia. One would expect a first strike of such magnitude that the ill effects would be global; thus, the damage to the global ecology would probably already be done, prompting an American president to retaliate in kind. In addition, the desire for revenge would be very strong and likely bring a retaliatory second strike. Where the decision becomes difficult is if a minor nuclear power launches a limited nuclear strike on the U.S. The most likely candidate for such an attack would be North Korea. If the Kim regime launched a limited strike on the Western U.S., would an American president risk ending human life on the planet to retaliate, especially if he feared that China or Russia would defend North Korea? On the other hand, allowing the U.S. to be attacked without retaliation seems unlikely due to the loss of American lives and the precedent it would set that may encourage other smaller nuclear powers (e.g., Iran) to engage in their own limited strikes.

    Overall, any foreign power attacking the U.S. with nuclear weapons is probably ensuring they will face retaliation that ends the existence of the attacking nation. Thus, this isn’t a likely option.

    #2: Terrorism

    Terrorism, a form of asymmetric warfare, is a constant threat. However, it has serious limitations as a strategy if used by a foreign nation state. Although terrorism can take many forms, the goal is to “terrorize” a population. If successful, the fear paralyzes a power and renders it incapable to respond to a foreign threat. In other words, a terrorist act can force a nation to focus inward, spend resources on security and perhaps change its foreign policy.

    However, this tactic for a foreign government is risky. It can be a bit like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Terrorism generally won’t lead to a regime change. It harms the target and often can force the target nation to retaliate strongly. In other words, a nation can launch a terrorist strike against the U.S. only to then find itself facing a significant conventional attack.

    This is why terrorism tends to be the preferred tactic of non-state actors. Al Qaeda’s attacks on the U.S. were a clear tactical victory. In fact, they probably succeeded far beyond expectations. However, the Bush administration reacted strongly with both conventional warfare and Special Forces, severely restricting the group. President Obama eventually attacked Osama bin Laden’s compound, killing al Qaeda’s leader.

    There is a temptation for nation states to support non-state actors in attacking a superpower. However, even this cover has hazards. First, the state supporter of terrorism has to take great care to ensure that it has no obvious ties to the terrorist group. Otherwise, it invites retaliation by the superpower. Second, terrorist groups can be difficult to control. They usually have their own agendas which may not coincide with the state sponsor’s objectives. Even Iran, who sponsors Hezbollah, has tried to guide the group into fewer terrorist acts and toward a focus on political control in Lebanon and more conventional fighters in the Syrian conflict. This adjustment has not always been smooth.

    Attacking the U.S. using terrorist tactics is a viable option. However, it has two serious drawbacks. First, it could invite a disproportionately harsh response. For example, we doubt the Taliban anticipated that the U.S. would oust its government because it didn’t turn over Osama bin Laden. Second, it is highly unlikely that terrorism would either lead to a regime change in the U.S. or deter America from a key foreign policy goal.

    In Part II, we will examine the two remaining tactics for attacking a superpower, namely, cyberwarfare and propaganda.

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Jan 26

Today’s News 26th January 2017

  • Trump Redpills ABC’s David Muir: “The World is as Angry as it Gets”

    In an interview with ABC’s David Muir, Trump addressed his policy to restrict immigration from certain muslim nations, with a God hammer filled with redpills. Muir brought his bag filled with liberal care trolls, asking Trump if restricting muslims from entering the United States would cause ‘more anger among muslims around the world’ and Trump took said bag and ripped it to shreds.

    Watch.

    Aside from that, Trump discussed Obamacare, waterboarding, Chicago, the inauguration crowd size, voter fraud, the border wall, and the fucking nuclear codes.

    The wall: Mexico will pay for the wall, 100%.

    Obamacare: My plan will take care of everybody. ‘Obamacare is a disaster.’

    Trump on waterboarding: We’re not fighting on an even playing field. Waterboarding works.

    Chicago murder rate: This is worst than Afghanistan. Chicago is a warzone. Maybe it’s ok if someone else is President. Not on my watch.

    Voter fraud: We’re gonna launch an investigation. None of the illegal votes go to republicans. Wanton democrat chicanery.

    Inaugural crowd size: We had the biggest audience in the history of inagugural speeches. I won’t let the media demean me or the people who came.

    Nuclear codes: Sobering and scary.

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  • Top U.S. Secret Service Agent Rages: "I Wouldn't Take A Bullet For Trump"

    Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

    (Pictured: Secret Service Denver District Chief Kerry O’Grady)

    As the last line of defense for the leader of the world, America’s Secret Service agents are tasked with risking their lives and even standing in the way of a bullet should it be headed towards the President.

    But after a tumultuous election year some in the agency are not prepared to do their sworn duty.

    In a series of recent Facebook posts Kerry O’Grady, reportedly one of the nation’s top Secret Service agents, said she would not be willing to take a bullet for the President.

    Kerry O’Grady, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Denver district, oversees coordination with Washington-based advance teams for all presidential candidate and presidential trips to the area, including all upcoming or future trips by the president, vice president or Trump administration officials.

     

    Despite her senior security role, she has made her disdain for Trump and his incoming administration clear to her Facebook followers, who included current and former Secret Service agents and other people who were employees at the time of the posts.

     

    Via: The Washington Examiner

    The posts, written during the heat of the campaign in late 2016, show that O’Grady was a Clinton supporter and likely assumed Hillary would be elected to the Presidency. Such a move may have done wonders for her career had Clinton become her boss.

    In her initial post O’Grady raged about how she is “horrified and dismayed” by Trump and his supporters moving “our civil rights into a period of bigotry, misogyny and racism that this country has not tolerated for decades.”

    She quickly followed up with another post, in which she claimed she’d rather go to jail than to take a bullet for President Trump:

    …this world has changed and I have changed. And I would take jail time over a bullet or an endorsement for what I believe to be disaster to this country and the strong and amazing women and minorities who reside here.

    The full Facebook post was captured by The Washington Examiner and was subsequently deleted when the news organization reported it this Tuesday:

    secretservice1

    While her actions are certainly being applauded, albeit behind closed doors, by mainstream media pundits who have previously joked about the assassination of President Trump, The Washington Examiner notes that while America’s First Amendment protects our free speech, Secret Service employees agree to enhanced restrictions when joining the agency, including the following two rules:

    • May not post a comment to a blog or a social media site that advocates for or against a partisan political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.
    • May not use any email account or social media to distribute, send or forward content that advocates for or against a partisan political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.

    Though O’Grady now claims that she would uphold her duty and protect the President, the cat is out of the bag and it is clear that neither the President or his family would be safe in her presence.

    The Secret Service said on Tuesday that they are “aware of the postings and the agency is taking quick and appropriate action.”

    We suspect Ms. O’Grady’s career with the Secret Service will be coming to an end in short order:

  • Americans Are Flipping Houses Like It's 2006 All Over Again

    How quickly the sins of the past are forgotten.

    Roughly 10 years ago, a Mexican immigrant working as a strawberry picker in Bakersfield, California, making $14,000 per year, was lent every single penny he needed to purchase a $720,000 home.  And, as crazy as that sounds to most of us, stories such as that were all too common leading up to the 2008 housing crash as everyone, and their brothers, became expert real estate investors buying and flipping multiple houses every month…which worked really well, until it didn’t.

    Now, and quite unfortunately for those of us that prefer not to day trade our primary residence, America’s home flippers are making a come back.  According to a new study from Trulia, home flips accounted for 6.1% of all U.S. home sales in 2016, which is the highest share since 2006, when flips accounted for 7.3% of sales.

    House Flipping

     

    As Bloomberg points out, the cities where home flipping seems to be the most pervasive are all the same ones that suffered the biggest boom/bust during the last cycle.  Perhaps we could suggest that the people of Las Vegas need to just do all their gambling INSIDE the casinos from now on.

    House Flipping Volume

     

    Of course, rising home prices are responsible for luring Americans back into the home flipping game…because everyone gets to look like a genius real estate investor in a rising market.

    Flipping has become more common as home prices have increased, said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at Trulia. Whether that’s cause for concern is an open question.

     

    Local housing market investors can bid up prices in a speculative frenzy, as recent history has shown. When flippers crowd into a market, meanwhile, they compete with buyers seeking a home to live in, deferring the availability of listings and pushing homes out of some buyers’ price range.

     

    But flippers can also provide a valuable service to the housing market by investing in needed improvements that owner-occupiers might not have time for, McLaughlin said. Trulia’s report shows that flippers in Las Vegas are seeking building permits at the highest rate since 2000, suggesting that they’re making substantial repairs and not simply buying homes to ride local price appreciation.

     

    “Is the market going to flip out again?” he said. “I don’t think the signs are there yet.”

    But maybe it will all work out this time around.  After all, as a Bear Stearns RMBS trader told us back in 2007, “these structures will never break because home prices have never fallen more than a few percent in the history of the United States”…well, except that one time that they did.

  • Google Permanently Bans 200 "Fake News" Sites

    The crackdown has begun.

    In a blog post by Scott Spencer, director of product management for sustainable ads, posted on Wednesday, Google said it has banned 200 publishers from accessing its Adsense advertising service for posting fake news stories. Google said it had cracked down on sites which contained 1) Ads for illegal products; 2) Misleading ads; 3) Bad ads on mobile; 4) Ads trying to game the system and, 5) Promoting and profiting from bad sites. But the emphasis was on the so-called “fake news” category which has dominated media buzz for the past two months.

    This is how Spencer explained his action:

    In 2016, we saw the rise of tabloid cloakers, a new type of scammer that tries to game our system by pretending to be news. Cloakers often take advantage of timely topics—a government election, a trending news story or a popular celebrity—and their ads can look like headlines on a news website. But when people click on that story about Ellen DeGeneres and aliens, they go to a site selling weight-loss products, not a news story.

    * * *

    We’ve had long-standing policies prohibiting AdSense publishers from running ads on sites that help people deceive others, like a site where you buy fake diplomas or plagiarized term papers. In November, we expanded on these policies, introducing a new AdSense misrepresentative content policy, that helps us to take action against website owners misrepresenting who they are and that deceive people with their content.

    Google has faced criticism over its handling of fake news stories, including allowing a fake news website to rise to the top of its results displaying an incorrect story claiming that President Trump had won the popular vote.

    In his post explaining how Google attempted to crack down on “bad ads, sites and scammers,” Spencer explained that Google had expanded its policies against misleading websites in November, leading to the crackdown.

    From November to December 2016, we reviewed 550 sites that were suspected of misrepresenting content to users, including impersonating news organizations.  We took action against 340 of them for violating our policies, both misrepresentation and other offenses, and nearly 200 publishers were kicked out of our network permanently.

    In total, Google took down 1.7 billion ads that they found in violation of their policies in 2016, more than double the 780 million they removed in 2015.

    It wasn’t just fake news: Google provided the following examples of common policy violations among bad sites in 2016:

    • We took action on 47,000 sites for promoting content and products related to weight-loss scams.
    • We took action on more than 15,000 sites for unwanted software and disabled 900,000 ads for containing malware.
    • And we suspended around 6,000 sites and 6,000 accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods, like imitation designer watches.

    Some of the more conventional bans were the result of Google adding a policy mid-year prohibiting ads for payday loans, considered predatory. Roughly five million payday loan ads were disabled over the latter six months of 2016. Also among those the removed ads were what Google calls “tabloid cloakers.” These advertisers run what look like links to news headlines, but when the user clicks, an ad for a product such as a weight loss supplement pops up. Google suspended 1,300 accounts engaged in tabloid cloaking in 2016.

    Spencer concludes:

    In addition to all the above, we support industry efforts like the Coalition for Better Ads to protect people from bad experiences across the web. While we took down more bad ads in 2016 than ever before, the battle doesn’t end here. As we invest in better detection, the scammers invest in more elaborate attempts to trick our systems. Continuing to find and fight them is essential to protecting people online and ensuring you get the very best from the open web.

    Google has not disclosed the list of 200 sites it had permanently banned.

  • Trump & Yellen's Collision Course

    Submitted by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist,

    Although the stock market is giddy from President Trump’s pro-growth policies, there is another constituent not quite so enamoured with recent developments. Although a few years ago Fed officials were begging for some help from fiscal policy, with employment now running at a “perceived” tight pace, FOMC participants have switched to viewing fiscal stimulus as a potential inflationary concern that needs to be offset with tighter monetary policy.

    Case in point – have a look at the comments from the most dovish member of the FOMC – über dove Lael Brainard (all quotes from Bloomberg):

    September 16, 2016

    “The case to tighten policy preemptively is less compelling” in an environment where declining unemployment has been slow to spur faster inflation, Brainard said Monday, according to the text of her prepared remarks in Chicago. She made no reference to a specific meeting of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.

     

    Brainard’s comments are the last before the Fed enters its quiet period, during which officials abstain from publicly speaking about monetary policy in the run-up to an FOMC meeting. Policy makers will gather in Washington Sept. 20-21 to discuss their monetary policy stance. Recent comments from the committee’s voters have not projected a cohesive signal about whether they will lift interest rates or stay on hold.

     

    “Asymmetry in risk management in today’s new normal counsels prudence in the removal of policy accommodation,” Brainard said, arguing that with interest rates near zero, it’s easier for the Fed to react to faster-than-expected demand than to a negative surprise that upsets the economy. “I believe this approach has served us well in recent months.”

    January 17th, 2017

    Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said the U.S. central bank may accelerate interest-rate increases and measures to shrink its balance sheet if Congress approves a sustained, material increase in fiscal stimulus that pressures inflation without lifting productivity.

     

    “Based on recent spending indicators, we might expect progress to continue to be gradual and steady,” Brainard said Tuesday in Washington. “However, if fiscal policy changes lead to a more rapid elimination of slack, policy adjustment would, all else being equal, likely be more rapid than otherwise.”

    Brainard is the most dovish member of the Federal Open Market Committee, yet she is openly warning about higher rates. Other FOMC members are even going so far as to signal upcoming balance sheet reductions and even higher rates than the market has currently priced in.

    Chair Yellen is also making some hawkish chirping noises. Have a look at the first paragraph from her recent Stanford speech:

    In my remarks today, I will review the considerable progress the economy has made toward the attainment of the two objectives that the Congress has assigned to the Federal Reserve–maximum employment and price stability. The upshot is that labor utilization is close to its estimated longer-run normal level, and we are closing in on our 2 percent inflation objective. I will then discuss the prospects for adjusting monetary policy in the manner needed to sustain a strong job market while maintaining low and stable inflation

    “Labour utilization is close to its estimated longer-run normal level, and we are closing in on our 2 percent inflation objective” is the key line. In this speech, Yellen then goes on to sketch out the basic formula for setting rates. It’s a boring econometrics discussion, but the important point is that she is setting out how the Federal Reserve will go about raising rates.

    Make no mistake – rates are going higher. Probably a lot higher than the market realizes. Just look at this comment buried in Yellen’s speech:

    That said, I think that allowing the economy to run markedly and persistently “hot” would be risky and unwise. Waiting too long to remove accommodation could cause inflation expectations to begin ratcheting up, driving actual inflation higher and making it harder to control. The combination of persistently low interest rates and strong labor market conditions could lead to undesirable increases in leverage and other financial imbalances, although such risks would likely take time to emerge. Finally waiting too long to tighten policy could require the FOMC to eventually raise interest rates rapidly, which could risk disrupting financial markets and pushing the economy into recession. For these reasons, I consider it prudent to adjust the stance of monetary policy gradually over time–a strategy that should improve the prospects that the economy will achieve sustainable growth with the labor market operating at full employment and inflation running at about 2 percent.

    In the coming quarters, the Federal Reserve will march rates higher. But more importantly, the more Trump pushes on the fiscal accelerator, the harder the Fed will lean on the brake.

    The stock market has risen on each pro-business executive order Trump signs. In fact, this latest push to new highs is the direct result of Trump’s following through with his promised plans.

    Although the stock market is screaming higher, the bond market is not at all happy. Not only does the bond market need to deal with the threat of increased inflation from Trump’s policies, but also a Federal Reserve intent on tightening monetary policy to offset the fiscal stimulus.

    I think the Federal Reserve is too eager to raise rates (and also reduce the size of the balance sheet). They continue to fight the last battle and don’t realize that in a balance sheet constrained global financial system, inflation is not the main worry. They run the risk of becoming another Japan with an economy littered with false starts. I don’t know if it is a political bias, or they would have been just as quick on the trigger for a Democratic President, but it really doesn’t matter. Nor does my opinion about the Fed being better off letting the economy run hot for a while mean two shits. All of these thoughts should just be discarded in the dustbin of not worrying about what should be and instead focusing on trading what will be.

    It seems obvious the Federal Reserve is intent on withdrawing monetary accommodation until something breaks. There is no sense fighting it.

    And it is also clear President Trump will follow through with his fiscal stimulus plans. Many pundits thought Trump’s actions might not follow his rhetoric, but the market is quickly realizing that Trump means what he says.

    These two different forces are on a collision course. More fiscal stimulus translates into more monetary tightness. And Trump isn’t going to back down anytime soon, so all that is left is an expanding fiscal environment with a Federal Reserve desperately trying to apply some brakes.

    This economic expansion is already running long in the tooth, and there is a pattern of recessions occurring in the first year of office for newly elected Presidents, so an overly aggressive Fed is a worrisome development. Ironically, Trump’s fiscal stimulus might be the trigger that ushers in the next economic slowdown.

    Many strategists believed Trump might ask Yellen to step down and appoint someone more hawkish. They mistakenly confused Trump’s campaign complaint about low interest rates killing the economy as future policy.

    Well, Trump will do no such thing. In fact, I suspect before Yellen’s term is complete in 2018, Trump will be blaming her for all his problems when the economy rolls over. I am not sure if Trump is this smart, but keeping Yellen around for exactly this task would be the wise move.

    In the mean time, Trump will keep pushing forward with more fiscal stimulus, and Yellen & Co. will push back with tighter monetary policy.

    This interplay between Trump and Yellen makes for a shitty environment for bonds, and also as real rates head higher, gold and other commodities. Eventually this giant debt disaster will need to be inflated away, but I am afraid this FOMC is not yet scared enough to let that happen.

    As this plays out, be careful with your precious metals and other commodity long positions.

    http://themacrotourist.com/images/2017/01/GoldJan2517.png

    Higher real rates are not conducive for precious metal bull markets. As long as the Fed keeps pressing on the brake, it will be tough for these commodities to get up off the mat. It won’t be until something breaks in the financial system that you want to own them. But at that point, you should be buying with both fists.

  • Dear Bernie, Meet the "Big Mac ATM" That Will Replace All Of Your $15 Per Hour Fast Food Workers

    Dear Bernie, as you continue in your never-ending “Fight for $15“, we thought you might benefit from a simple example of how economics work in a real life, functioning, capitalistic society.  You see, Bernie, labor, much like your daily serving of crunchy granola, is just another “good” that businesses can choose to consume more or less of, depending on price.  And, just to be crystal clear, when the price of labor (i.e. wages) increases, businesses tend to consume less of it.  Finally, our dearest Bernie, when misinformed politicians radically disrupt labor markets by setting artificially high base prices, like your proposed $15 federal minimum wage, then businesses simply stop consuming labor completely and instead replace that labor with this “Big Mac ATM Machine.”

     

    So, you see Bernie, pretty soon all those McDonald’s workers that you promised a “fair living wage” to make Big Macs, will have absolutely no wages at all courtesy of your “Fight for $15.”

    Of course, as the Daily Caller points out, the “Big Mac ATM” is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to low-skilled jobs that will be automated as a result of the $15 minimum wage that has already been passed in several states across the country.

    Wendy’s, another popular fast-food establishment, announced plans in May to start installing self-serving kiosks at some of its over 6,000 locations later in the year. The chain is replacing cashiers and other low-skilled jobs with computers and automated machines because, as Wendy’s president Todd Penegor told Investor’s Business Daily, it has to compensate for wage hikes.

     

    McDonald’s Europe president Steve Easterbrook announced in 2011 that the fast-food restaurant was planning on “hiring” 7,000 touch-screen cashiers to be installed across the continent, according to CNET and the Financial Times. Easterbrook said it would make transactions more efficient — namely lowering the average interaction three to four seconds each.

    Kiosk

     

    So, congrats on getting all those fast food workers fired, we’re sure they really appreciate all your hard work. 

    Minimum Wage

  • Here Are 2.3 Billion Reasons Why Sanctuary Cities Are So Upset At Trump

    While we are sure Mayors de Blasio (New York), Emanuel (Chicago), and Garcetti (LA) are compassionate men who want nothing more than to ensure the safety of illegal immigrants in their cities, we couldn’t help but notice that, following Trump’s decision to defund so-called Sanctuary cities, the sound and fury spewing forth from various municipalities today was perfectly correlated with the size of taxpayer-money they received from Obama.

    Not smiling today…

    As Reuters reports, U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempt to strip municipalities of federal dollars for shielding illegal immigrants threatens $2.27 billion in annual funds for the nation’s ten largest cities, a Reuters analysis of federal grants found. While Trump has the authority to cut some kinds of funding to the cities, cuts to other federal funding would require an act of Congress. The total amount remains unclear, as federal money can be filtered through state governments or granted directly to social-service organizations or other groups. The numbers do not include federal money for law enforcement, which was excluded in the executive order, and programs like Medicaid, which are administered by state governments.

    Mayors and city councils of those cities have said that they will not be pressured to report illegal immigrants to federal agents…

    Local governments in Los Angeles County, for example, received $582 million in federal aid in the most recent fiscal year. That aid included $207 million for the Head Start preschool program, $70 million last year for airport improvements, and $114 million for community development funds used for housing and other needs.

     

    New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, on Tuesday, said he is going to put an additional $250 million a year away in reserves for four years because of a “huge amount of uncertainty” emanating from Washington.

     

    If the Trump administration actually moved to cut funding, “we would be in court immediately to stop it,” de Blasio told reporters.

     

    Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel reiterated the city would remain a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. In December he pledged $1 million to assist immigrant families.

     

    “(Trump) has vastly overstated the funding that could be at issue with these sanctuary policies. Any attempts to withhold funds will certainly be the source of litigation and the courts, not the president, will be the ultimate arbitrator,” said Peter Markowitz, a professor at New York’s Cardozo School of Law, who focuses on immigration.

    Trump plans to make good on his campaign pledge to block federal funding
    to states and cities where local law enforcement refuse to report
    undocumented immigrants they encounter to federal authorities, White
    House press secretary Sean Spicer said.

    “The American people are no longer going to have to be forced to subsidize this disregard for our laws,” Spicer said.

    Spicer said an executive order signed by Trump on Wednesday directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to look at federal funding to cities to figure out “how we can defund those streams.”

  • Trump Promises Supreme Court Pick Next Week As Cruz Threatens "Nuclear Option" To Bypass Dems

    Yesterday we previewed 3 potential picks that seem to be emerging as front-runners to fill Justice Scalia’s vacant seat on the Supreme Court (see “Obama Sets Record For Lowest Supreme Court Win Rate Since Zachary Taylor In 1850“).  While various media outlets reported that William Pryor of Alabama, Neil Gorsuch of Colorado and Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania are the 3 mostly likely people to get the nod, the Los Angeles Times went one step further by declaring Gorsuch the most likely ultimate winner. 

    But while speculation will undoubtedly continue to swirl, earlier this morning Trump promised that his pick will be announced next Thursday. 

     

    Of course, the real fight will begin after Trump’s pick is announced as Democrats in the Senate, now led by Chuck Schumer, have vowed to block any candidate not deemed “mainstream.”  However, appearing on Rachel Maddow, Schumer pretty much vowed to fight any Trump pick put forward, mainstream or not.

    “It’s hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose, that would get Republican support, that we could support.”

     

    Under current rules, Republicans will need at least eight Democrats to support Trump’s nominee to overcome the 60-vote filibuster hurdle.  That said, Ted Cruz has already started lobbying for the “nuclear option” that would lower the confirmation vote threshold to a simple majority and pave the way for Republicans to confirm any Justice put forward, without Democrat support.  Per The Hill:

    Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) said Republicans should fight to get President Trump’s coming Supreme Court nominee confirmed by any means necessary.

     

    Trump has said he will be announcing his choice to fill the late Antonin Scalia’s seat on the bench next week.

     

    Republicans will need at least eight Democrats to support Trump’s nominee to overcome the 60-vote filibuster hurdle. But Cruz suggested the GOP shouldn’t rule out the so-called “nuclear option” to reduce the threshold to a majority. The move would be a gamble, setting a precedent that could weaken the GOP’s position if Democrats come back into power.

     

    “I think we should do whatever it takes to get him confirmed,” the former presidential candidate said on Fox News’ “Hannity” Tuesday night.

     

    When pressed about whether Republicans would employ the nuclear option this week, McConnell simply said: “The nominee will be confirmed.”

    While Democrats will undoubtedly blast the proposed rule change, we suspect they’ll conveniently forget that they first employed the “nuclear option” in 2013 to confirm several of President Obama’s nominations, via simple majority votes, over the objection of Republicans.

    In 2013, Democrats, who at the time held the majority in the Senate, triggered the nuclear option to confirm several of President Obama’s nominees. The move did not apply to the Supreme Court.

     

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said recently he regrets Democrats’ 2013 decision, which is now easing the confirmation of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

    We would also point out that Democrats “changed the rules” in 2010, after losing their filibuster proof majority on the death of Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy, to ram through one of the destructive pieces of legislation in recent history, Obamacare.

    Live by the sword, die by the sword as they say.

  • Are You Ready For An Inflationary Depression?

    Submitted by Tom Chatham via Project Chesapeake,

    We are heading into a new depression. It is not coming. It is already here but we are only in the beginning so it may not be easy for many people to see just yet. Once it is easy to see it will be too late for any meaningful actions to mitigate the effects. Just as you must prepare for a tornado ahead of time, you must prepare for economic conditions early.

    We have 20 trillion in debt, over 200 trillion in unfunded liabilities and over a quadrillion in derivatives held by the banks. Our GDP is only about 17 trillion a year and world GDP is only about 60 trillion. It does not take a math wiz to realize that even if we are not paying any interest at all on this massive debt, there is no way to ever pay it all back short of some type of default.

    That is what depressions do. They wipe out all of the misallocation of resources and bad debt and provide a reset for the economy. These resets can be relatively easy or they can be very destructive depending on the amount of misallocation that is present in the system. The amount of debt, brought on by decades of unrestricted credit creation, is the largest in history. That means we are in for a very bad ride in the near future.

    Much of the money that people think they have is really only made up of digits in some computer somewhere. The banking industry has already taken this money for its own use. To eliminate the need to ever give it back to the rightful owners they must destroy these digits. That is what the new bail-ins are all about. They can at some point just wipe all of those digits out of existence and say tough luck suckers.

    The depression of the 1930’s was a deflationary one in nature. People lost their jobs, prices fell and cash was king. People holding bonds did very well. In an inflationary depression, prices rise, people will get paid in increasingly worthless paper and bonds will collapse. Banks will enact bail-ins to stay solvent and people will go broke while holding piles of cash.

    In the end the inflationary depression will end with the currency collapsing and people losing everything they have that is not fully owned. Eventually we will see deflation as prices fall due to the destruction of the monetary system. At this point most people will be financially devastated. Those that make it to this point with their wealth in tact will be the new wealthy class.

    So how can a person survive something like this? You simply need to focus on the needs of your family over this period of time. If you can provide the needs of your family regardless of the prices at the time, you will make it through the worst of times, This means you need a plan to provide these items to your family whether prices are rising or falling. If you have a years supply of food, it does not matter what the current price is, you will have the means to feed them.

    If your home is paid for, your car is paid for and you have a supply of energy or a way to produce it yourself, it will not matter to you how fast prices are changing or how much money you bring home every week. You will be able to live outside of the rapidly changing economy. The rapid changes that will destroy others will only provide you a glancing blow.

    Those that survive on credit will be devastated as their access to credit is cut off and they become unable to continue making payments on their possessions. They will be devastated even if they still have a paying job. For those that expect to survive on their savings and pensions, they will find those accounts empty following any bail-ins.

    Where you live will also play a major role in how well you survive the depression. What do you think will happen when those dependent multi generational families lose their welfare and food stamps following the breakdown of the credit system and prices rise faster than benefits? The ability to produce some items yourself will also depend on your location and the ability to stay safe.

    The whole of the production and distribution system depends on 30 day credit. When the credit system ceases to function, goods will stop being produced and transported. This will lead to high prices and few goods to buy. So even if you have a bag full of money you may not be able to buy what you want at some point.

    Just like a tornado that tears through a community, a depression can leave the people without the resources they need unless they have them hidden away safely for future use following the event. This is why having resources, real physical goods, put away now will allow you to thrive when the system fails. When the system resets, you will not get a second chance to do it right. You only have one shot and that requires you to finalize your preparations now while you still can make a difference.

    The whole point of preparing for this type of upheaval is to maintain a standard of living that you find acceptable. Lack of preparation in this type of event will likely find you living much poorer than you would like. If you are successful in maintaining your standard of living and preserving your wealth throughout this event you will have won the battle and set yourself up for a better future when things stabilize.

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Jan 25

Today’s News 25th January 2017

  • Talk Radio Host, Dr. Michael Savage, Goes on Epic Rant Over DNC Candidate Sally Boynton Brown and Anti-White Democrats

    In response to  poor Sally Boynton Brown’s anti-white rhetoric, who is vying for leadership of the DNC by promising to shut her fellow white people down, Dr. Michael Savage offered poignant commentary — hearkening back to when Amy Biehl was killed by S. African retrogrades —  bridging the two anti-white women together by describing them as being afflicted by an acute mental malady — bordering on self-immolation.

    Listen to the clip. I promise you it’s worth your time.

    As a party trying to govern all Americans, one has to theorize the democrats are merely pandering to demographic trends — hoping to solidify their standing with latinos and black Americans — by casting hideous aspersions and division in white communities — attempting to marginalize them — in an effort to secure long term power over the American economy and military apparatus.

    This is purposeful, deceitful and hateful policies — directed by them, employing identity politics and fomenting discord in people from an early age — using Hollywood and media as channels to direct their propaganda, so that they could profit from it when the scales tip in favor of their voting block.

     

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  • Has The American Dream Become The American Nightmare?

    Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “Most Germans, so far as I could see, did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their splendid culture was being destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work were being regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation … On the whole, people did not seem to feel that they were being cowed and held down by an unscrupulous tyranny. On the contrary, they appeared to support it with genuine enthusiasm.”

     

    -William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years 1930-40

    For too long now, the American people have allowed themselves to be persuaded that the government’s job is to take care of us: to feed us, clothe us, house us, educate us, raise our children, heal our infirmities, manage our finances, protect us from our enemies, guard us against all dangers (real and imaginary), and provide for our every need.

    Where Americans go wrong is in failing to recognize that there’s always a catch to such devil’s bargains purportedly carried out for the good of all society.

    You want free education for your children? The government can take care of it. In exchange for free public schools, however, your children will be molded and indoctrinated into compliant, obedient citizens who reflect the government’s values rather than your own.

    You want free health care? The government can take care of that, too. In exchange, your medical decisions—how you live and die—will ultimately be determined by corporations to whom you are little more than a line item impacting their profit and loss margins.

    You want to be insulated from all things that might cause offense? That’s not a problem for the government. Its thought police will use hate crime laws to criminalize speech, thought and actions that may be politically incorrect.

    You want a guarantee of safety? Sure, but your local police will also have to be militarized and trained in battlefield tactics, your communities and communications will be subjected to round-the-clock surveillance, and you—the citizenry—will be treated as suspects and enemy combatants.

    You want to root out domestic extremism and terrorism? That’s just fine. But in the process of identifying and targeting terrorists, the government will have the power to label anyone who disagrees with its policies as an extremist/terrorist and subject them to indefinite detentions.

    Are you starting to get the picture?

    This is the terrible price—the loss of our freedoms and the enslavement of future generations—that must eventually be paid for the goods and services rendered by a government whose priorities are the acquisition of ever-more power, control and money.

    As the old adage warns: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”

    Unfortunately, we’ve been on the receiving end of the government’s taxpayer-funded handouts—and its deceptively well-intended dictates—for so long that many Americans have forgotten what it is to think for themselves, provide for themselves, and govern themselves.

    Indeed, this age of entitlement is a far cry from the kind of constitutional republic America’s founders envisioned.

    Gone is the proud, independent-minded, pioneering spirit of early Americans like my parents who rejected what they called “hand-outs,” worked hard for whatever they had, protected their homes and families, and believed the government’s job was to govern based on the consent of the governed and not dictate.

    Contrast those fiercely-independent, early Americans who took to heart James Madison’s admonition to distrust all those in power with today’s citizens who not only expect the government to care for their needs but have blindly entrusted the government with vast, growing powers.

    By giving the government the green light to act in loco parentis and treat the citizenry as children in need of caretakers, “we the people” have allowed ourselves to be demoted and infantilized, reduced from knowledgeable, independent-minded, capable masters of a republic to wayward, undisciplined, dependent, vulnerable children incapable of caring for ourselves.

    It’s time to grow up.

    Incredibly, despite the fact that we allowed the government to become all-knowing, all-powerful and all-mighty in the mistaken belief that it would make our lives safer, easier and more affluent, we’re still shocked when that power and might is used against us.

    It’s time to stop being so gullible and so trusting.

    Even when the headlines blare out the news about SWAT team raids gone awry, police shootings of unarmed citizens, roadside cavity searches of young women, children being shackled and tasered, and Americans jailed for profit in private prisons, we still somehow maintain our state of denial until suddenly we’re the ones in the firing line being treated like suspects and criminals, having our skulls cracked, our doors smashed, our pets shot, our children terrorized, and our loved ones jailed for non-offenses.

    It’s time to remove those rose-colored, partisan-tinted glasses and wake up to the fact that our nation of sheep has given rise to a government of wolves.

    Even though, deep down, we have suspected that the system is run by an elite who views the citizenry as little more than cattle destined for the slaughterhouse, we’re still shocked to find ourselves treated like slaves and economic units.

    How could we not have seen it coming?

    How long has the writing been on the wall?

    How could we have been so blind, deaf and dumb to the warnings all around us?

    Unfortunately, it happens this way in every age, in every place where freedom falls and tyranny flourishes.

    As Aldous Huxley recognized in his foreword to Brave New World: “A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.”

    This is how the seeds of authoritarianism are planted and watered and cultivated into aggressive, invasive growths that can quickly dominate an environment.

    Remember, tyrants don’t always come to power in a show of force. Often, they sweet-talk their way to absolute power, buoyed along by a wave of populist demand for someone to save the country from economic, military and political crises.

    As historian Jim Powell writes for Forbes:

    Hitler didn’t take over a small government with an effective separation of enumerated, delegated and limited powers.  He took over a large welfare state… He dealt with unemployment by introducing forced labor for both men and women.  Government  control of the economy made it virtually impossible for anyone to seriously threaten his regime. Hitler added secret police, death camps and another war machine. The German educational system, which had inspired so many American progressives, played a major role in all this… the government gained complete control of schools and universities, and their top priority was teaching obedience. The professorial elite promoted collectivism.  The highest calling was working for the government.

    It can easily happen here.

    In fact, the early signs of this downshift are all around us if you only know where to look.

    You can smell it in the air: there’s danger coming. A recent New Yorker article reveals the lengths some of the wealthiest in America are going to in order to survive an apocalyptic breakdown of society: isolated refuges, bunkers, gas masks, generators, solar panels, ammunition, etc.

    You can see it in the changes taking place all around you: the government is preparing for something ominous. For example, the Pentagon is using a dystopian training video to prepare special forces to deal with the urban challenges of megacities: criminal networks, illicit economies, decentralized syndicates of crime, substandard infrastructure, religious and ethnic tensions, impoverishment, economic inequality, protesters, slums, open landfills, over-burdened sewers, and a “growing mass of unemployed.”

    You can hear it in the news coming out of the independent media: the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches have already weakened our long-established bulwarks against tyranny by their constant undermining of the Constitution and the president’s amassing of imperial power.

    We are no longer a constitutional republic.

    The American dream is turning into a living nightmare.

    We are fast moving towards full-blown fascism.

    So what’s the answer?

    The powers that be can—and will—continue to distract us with electronic gadgets and entertainment news, they can seduce us with promises they have no intention of keeping, they can drug us with politics packaged to resemble religion, and they can use the schools to breed a populace of compliant slaves.

    In the end, however, the choice of whether to keep drinking the Kool-Aid or reject the false prophets and promises of the police state—a.k.a. fascism or totalitarianism or tyranny—rests with “we the people.”

    After all, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it was “we the people” who struck this devil’s bargain in the first place, trading our liberties for dubious promises of prosperity, security and advancement.

    Through our inaction, our apathy and our unwillingness to do the hard work of holding the government accountable, perhaps “we the people” have been the greatest menace to freedom.

    Perhaps all of this is our fault.

    My parents’ advice was that if you made a mess, you had to clean it up.

    No one else is going to clean this mess up for us, certainly not anyone on the government’s payroll.

    As Jim Powell rightly concludes: “Ultimately, liberty can be protected only if people care enough to fight for it, because everywhere governments push for more power, and they never give it up willingly.”

    So let’s stop buying into the fairytale that politicians are saviors, capable of fixing what’s wrong with our communities and our lives.

    Let’s stop expecting the government to solve all our problems.

    Stop playing the partisan game that paints anyone not of your political persuasion as evil.

    Stop defending the insanity of an immoral system of government that sees nothing wrong with bombing innocent civilians, jailing innocent citizens, and treating human beings as little more than cattle.

    Stop validating a system of laws, tactics and policies that are illegitimate, egregious or blatantly unconstitutional.

    While you’re at it, start taking responsibility for your lives—and your freedoms—again. And maybe, just maybe, there will be some hope for tomorrow.

  • Malls Owners Rush For The Exits As Mall-Backed CMBS Defaults Soar

    Last week we wrote about the epic collapse of the Galleria Mall at Pittsburgh Mills which sold for $100 after once being appraised for $190 million shortly after being opened in 2005 (see “Pittsburgh Mall Once Worth $190 Million Sells For $100“).  Unfortunately for mall owners, while the Pittsburgh Mills Galleria is an extreme example, crashing mall valuations are hardly an anomaly these days.  In fact, just a few weeks ago Commercial Real Estate Direct wrote about the Foothills Mall in Tuscon, Arizona which was valued at $115mm in 2006 and backs a $75mm CMBS loan but recently appraised for just $18mm…or just a slight 75% loss for lenders.

    As pointed out by the Wall Street Journal earlier today, mall CMBS defaults are up all across the country with liquidations up 11% YoY.

    In the period from January to November 2016, 314 loans secured by retail property were liquidated, up 11% from the same period a year earlier, according to data from Morningstar Credit Ratings.

     

    “We’re seeing a boatload of these kinds of properties coming to market,” said James Hull, managing principal of Augusta, Ga.-based Hull Property Group, which purchased five malls from foreclosure sales in 2016. “There have been some draconian losses for the enclosed mall business.”

    Malls

     

    And while we’re frequently reminded of the stunning “Obama recovery” by the mainstream media, retailers seem to represent the one ‘tiny segment’ of the U.S. economy that failed to participate in that recovery as evidenced by the soaring delinquency rates of loans backing retail properties.

    Despite a strengthening economy in 2016, the delinquency rate for loans backing retail property rose by 0.6 percentage point last year to 5.76%, according to Trepp LLC, a real-estate data service. Special servicers, which deal with troubled commercial mortgage securities, managed $3.1 billion worth of mall-backed loans last year, up from $2.9 billion in 2015, according to Trepp.

     

    This year is off to a shaky start. Earlier this month, Sears said it would close 150 stores, and Macy’s gave more details of a plan to close 100 stores.

     

    Limited Stores Co. said it plans to close all 250 stores and filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week.

    Meanwhile, as Barclays’ U.S. REIT team points out, the key question for mall owners in 2017 isn’t whether rent concessions will be granted to tenants, but rather, just how deep the cuts will have to be in order to maintain occupancy.

    A key topic going forward will be the extent of rent concessions provided in order for malls to maintain occupancy.  We think rent concessions could accelerate in 2017 as retailers continue to prune their store bases and at the margin, restaurant openings slow.  Many malls backfilled space in recent years with non-apparel offerings, like restaurants – which increase mall traffic, without cannibalizing sales.

     

    Overall, we expect mall REITs to issue cautious outlooks for 2017, with a wait and see approach to the year.  This will be against the backdrop of many retailers also reporting their holiday results and 2017 guidance, which are likely to be conservative.  We believe both these factors will contribute to negative investor sentiment.

    Alas, while mega malls were once the destination of choice for America’s misunderstood youth, we fear that they’re bound to suffer the same fate as the big hair, hoop earrings and creepy mustaches that once frequented their food courts in the 80s.

    Malls

  • "Frightened" Democrats Propose Bill To Limit Trump's Ability To Launch A Nuclear Strike

    “Frightened” Democrat lawmakers introduced a bill Tuesday that would prevent the president from launching a nuclear first strike without a congressional declaration of war. The bill – proposed by Rep. Ted W. Lieu and Sen. Edward J. Markey – follows through on a policy that was long debated – but never seriously pursued – during the Obama administration.

    As FP reports, this isn’t the first mention of such legislation – the idea of it has been mentioned on and off for years, advocated by groups such as the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. At a January event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said he is “confident we can deter and defend ourselves and our allies against non-nuclear threats through other means,” adding that he “strongly believes” that “deterring and if necessary retaliating against a nuclear attack should be the sole purpose for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.”

    But now the idea is anything but academic as the bill overtly questions President Trump’s judgment, with the lawmakers saying in a joint release:

    “the crucial issue of nuclear ‘first use’ is more urgent than ever now that President Donald Trump has the power to launch a nuclear war at a moment’s notice.”

    Congresman Ted Lieu, who has a paper sign reading, “Alternative Fact Free Zone” outside his office, took aim at Trump’s ignorance…

    “It is a frightening reality that the U.S. now has a Commander-in-Chief who has demonstrated ignorance of the nuclear triad, stated his desire to be ‘unpredictable’ with nuclear weapons, and as President-elect was making sweeping statements about U.S. nuclear policy over Twitter. Congress must act to preserve global stability by restricting the circumstances under which the U.S. would be the first nation to use a nuclear weapon.

     

    Our Founders created a system of checks and balances, and it is essential for that standard to be applied to the potentially civilization-ending threat of nuclear war. I am proud to introduce the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017 with Sen. Markey to realign our nation’s nuclear weapons launch policy with the Constitution and work towards a safer world.”

    Senator Edward J. Markey issued the following statement:

    “Nuclear war poses the gravest risk to human survival. Yet, President Trump has suggested that he would consider launching nuclear attacks against terrorists. Unfortunately, by maintaining the option of using nuclear weapons first in a conflict, U.S. policy provides him with that power. In a crisis with another nuclear-armed country, this policy drastically increases the risk of unintended nuclear escalation.

     

    Neither President Trump, nor any other president, should be allowed to use nuclear weapons except in response to a nuclear attack. By restricting the first use of nuclear weapons, this legislation enshrines that simple principle into law. I thank Rep. Lieu for his partnership on this common-sense bill during this critical time in our nation’s history.”

    Markey and Lieu introduced their bill immediately following those September remarks, but brought it up again in the first week of Trump becoming president, receiving more press coverage. The bill has support from former Defense Secretary William Perry as well as five other prominent pro-disarmament groups.:

    William J. Perry, Former Secretary of Defense – “During my period as Secretary of Defense, I never confronted a situation, or could even imagine a situation, in which I would recommend that the President make a first strike with nuclear weapons—understanding that such an action, whatever the provocation, would likely bring about the end of civilization.  I believe that the legislation proposed by Congressman Lieu and Senator Markey recognizes that terrible reality.  Certainly a decision that momentous for all of civilization should have the kind of checks and balances on Executive powers called for by our Constitution.”

     

    Tom Z. Collina, Policy Director of Ploughshares Fund – “President Trump now has the keys to the nuclear arsenal, the most deadly killing machine ever created. Within minutes, President Trump could unleash up to 1,000 nuclear weapons, each one many times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Yet Congress has no voice in the most important decision the United States government can make. As it stands now, Congress has a larger role in deciding on the number of military bands than in preventing nuclear catastrophe.”

     

    Derek Johnson, Executive Director of Global Zero – “One modern nuclear weapon is more destructive than all of the bombs detonated in World War II combined. Yet there is no check on a president’s ability to launch the thousands of nuclear weapons at his command. In the wake of the election, the American people are more concerned than ever about the terrible prospect of nuclear war — and what the next commander-in-chief will do with the proverbial ‘red button.’ That such devastating power is concentrated in one person is an affront to our democracy’s founding principles. The proposed legislation is an important first step to reining in this autocratic system and making the world safer from a nuclear catastrophe.”

     

    Megan Amundson, Executive Director of Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND) – “Rep. Lieu and Sen. Markey have rightly called out the dangers of only one person having his or her finger on the nuclear button. The potential misuse of this power in the current global climate has only magnified this concern. It is time to make real progress toward lowering the risk that nuclear weapons are ever used again, and this legislation is a good start.”

     

    Jeff Carter, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility – “Nuclear weapons pose an unacceptable risk to our national security. Even a “limited” use of nuclear weapons would cause catastrophic climate disruption around the world, including here in the United States. They are simply too profoundly dangerous for one person to be trusted with the power to introduce them into a conflict. Grounded in the fundamental constitutional provision that only Congress has the power to declare war, the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017 is a wise and necessary step to lessen the chance these weapons will ever be used.”

     

    Diane Randall, Executive Secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers) – “Restricting first-use of nuclear weapons is an urgent priority. Congress should support the Markey-Lieu legislation.”

    Well if you weren’t terrified before, you sure are now. But of course, the Congressman and Senator are just doing this to ensure your safety… because to them, with all that is going on, the decision to reintroduce this bill and gain more press coverage is the highest priority.

    Ironically, Trump tweeted this afternoon that tomorrow is a big day for national security…

  • Ted Cruz Trolls Deadspin Editor Ashley Feinberg Over Stupid Basketball Challenge, Deadspin's Response: "Go Eat $hit"

    After spending much of the 2016 campaign known as “Lyin’ Ted” while spitting venom in Donald Trump’s general direction, Senator Ted Cruz traversed a tenuous road to redemption – earning his way back into Trump’s good graces, helping with the cause, and clearly learning much about trolling along the way.

    The target of Cruz’s hijinks is Univision owned Deadspin and Senior Reporter, Ashley Feinberg. Hours after Politico ran an article mentioning that Cruz was was trying to improve relations within the GOP, Feinberg latched onto this tidbit:

    Cruz appears intent on building—and in some cases repairing—personal relationships with Republican senators. He started a weekly basketball game in the Russell Building, for example, and has been urging colleagues to attend. (Cruz is said to be a surprisingly good jump-shooter with miserable form.) Tim Scott has played, and Marco Rubio is said to be joining soon.

     

    The Deadspin editor immediately put out the call for undercover pictures, hoping of course for some shots of Ted lookin’ like an old white guy playing basketball – when Cruz himself, or Barron Trump pretending to be Ted, stopped by with an offering:

    What follows is comedy gold as Deadspin loses their cool and Cruz responds:

    Feinberg then swats Buzzfeed reporter Matthew Zeitlin:

     

    Other reactions were hilarious:

    Conservative review entered stage right with the comic stylings of the guy running their Twitter account:

     This is the best timeline.

    qjr8oyvjxcpx

  • Chinese Bitcoin Trading Volumes Crash 90% Overnight

    As we reported yesterday, there was one reason why bitcoin quickly became the darling of HFT and various high speed algo traders operating out of China – which is home to about 10 significant bitcoin venues, with a majority of trades executed on the top three, and which recently accounted for as much as 98% of global bitcoin trading: domestic transactions were “frictionless”, as there were no fees on buys or sells. However, that changed on Sunday night because as China’s three largest bitcoin exchanges, BTCC, Huobi and OkCoin, all said in separate statements on their websites, starting Tuesday they will charge traders a flat fee of 0.2% per transaction. The move was meant to “further curb market manipulation and extreme volatility.”

    As expected, the impact was immediate and on the day the new fees went into effect, trading volumes crashed by roughly 90% across most Chinese exchanges.

    According to Bloomberg, the same high-speed traders who had dominated bitcoin trading in China for the past year, are pulling out of China’s bitcoin market after the three biggest venues started charging transaction fees on Tuesday. One-hour volume at OkCoin fell 89% to 1,026 bitcoins at 1 p.m. local time, from 10,062 during the same period on Monday, according to the venue’s website. Huobi and BTC China saw declines of 92% and 82% respectively.

    According to data from Bitcoinity there were roughly 4,800 trades on OKCoin between the hours of 11pm and midnight EST. In the following hour, the exchange registered just over 1,000 trades, denominated in CNY: a comparable fall of more than 80%.

    Data pulled from Bitcoinity for BTCChina also demonstrates the apparent effect the new trading fees have had on volume. After registering more than 37,000 trades between the hours of 7 and 8pm EST, that amount had fallen to less than 1,000 between the hours of midnight and 1am EST

    As discussed previously, and as Bloomberg noted, the lack of fees was seen as the main reason why as much as 80 percent of bitcoin trading in China was automated, with professionals using strategies such as “cross-exchange arbitrage” also known as frontrunning of major order blocks. The platforms made money by charging clients to withdraw bitcoin, but Tuesday’s changes may have ended that system for good. The moves came after the Chinese central bank made on-site inspections of the exchanges and reportedly found a number of violations.

    “The exchanges are cutting their arms off to stay alive,” said Zhou Shuoji, whose Fintech Blockchain Group runs a bitcoin hedge fund and venture capital fund. The venues are proactively weeding out speculative trading to appease regulators, said Zhou. The fees, introduced by all three venues at midday on Tuesday, made market-making unprofitable, he said.

    And while HFT traders, frontrunners and other “liquidity providing market makers” are furious that their business model in China was just crushed, the good news is that much of the inherent volatility in bitcoin may now be gone.

    The good news is that bitcoin prices today were little changed, at around 6,300 yuan per bitcoin. Ultimately, any stability in bitcoin prices as a result of the elimination of HFT-driven volatility may be just what the digital currency needs to rise above $1000 and stay there.

  • Trump Orders Media Blackout At Government Agencies: Bans Use Of Social Media, Bars New EPA Contracts

    It wasn’t just the EPA.

    Earlier today, we reported that the Trump administration instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants.

    Emails sent to EPA staff since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday and reviewed by The Associated Press, detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts. On Monday, the Huffington Post reported that EPA grants had been frozen, with agency employees barred from speaking of the matter.  The memo ordering the social media blackout is shown below.

    Cited by The Hill, Myron Ebell, who leads the Trump EPA transition, confirmed the freeze to ProPublica.  “They’re trying to freeze things to make sure nothing happens they don’t want to have happen, so any regulations going forward, contracts, grants, hires, they want to make sure to look at them first,” Ebell told ProPublica. Trump’s pick for EPA director, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has frequently challenged agency policy in court. 

    The Trump administration reportedly told the Department of the Interior to stop tweeting from its accounts over the weekend after the National Park Service’s Twitter account retweeted a post about the crowd sizes at Trump’s inauguration Friday. The agency brought back its accounts on Saturday.

    Asked if the EPA had been gagged, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday: “I don’t know … we’re looking into it … I don’t think it’s a surprise we’re going to review the policies but I don’t have any info at this time.”

    According to Reuters sources, the move “reinforced concerns that Trump, a climate change doubter, could seek to sideline scientific research showing that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels contributes to global warming, as well as the career staffers at the agencies that conduct much of this research.”

    The agency also was asked by the White House on Monday to temporarily halt all contracts, grants and interagency agreements pending a review, according to multiple sources. The EPA awards billions of dollars worth of grants and contracts every year to support programs around environmental testing, cleanups and research. According to Reuters,
    the White House sent a letter to the EPA’s Office of Administration and Resources Management ordering the freeze on Monday. “Basically no money moving anywhere until they can take a look,” the staffer said, asking not to be named.

    * * *

    Now, as Reuters adds, other agencies were also impacted, and the Trump’s administration has put staff at a slew of government agencies on notice – “be careful what you say.”

    In addition to the EPA, the Interior Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture also has seen efforts to curb communication. On Monday, staff at the department’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) were asked in an email to suspend the release of “any public-facing documents.”

    “This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,” the email said.

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture disavowed the email on Tuesday, saying in a statement that it was released without “departmental direction and prior to departmental guidance being issued.”

    “ARS will be providing updated direction to its staff,” according to the statement.

    The ARS focuses on scientific research into the main issues facing agriculture, including long-term climate change.

    Last week, staff at the Interior Department were told to stop posting on Twitter after an employee retweeted posts about the relatively low attendance at Trump’s inauguration, and about how the issues of climate change and civil rights had disappeared from the White House website.

    The department has since resumed tweeting.

  • Trump Threatens To "Send In The Feds" If Chicago "Doesn't Fix This Horrible Carnage"

    President Trump has seen the data and threatens to "send in the Feds"…

    *  *  *

    As we detailed earlier, those Chicagoans hoping that 2017 would bring with it a new era of peace and civility among residents after the city suffered an incredibly violent 2016 in which homicides claimed the lives of over 800 people, it may be time to reset those expectations.  So far in 2017, Chicago is on track to record  the most violent opening month of the past two decades, even exceeding the extremely violent 2016 levels.

    According to the Chicago Tribune, at least 228 people have already been shot in 2017, compared to 216 during the same period last year, with 44 homicides per data from HeyJackAss!.

    Shootings and homicides in Chicago are higher than this time last January, a month that marked the deadliest start to a year in the city in nearly two decades.

     

    As of early Monday, at least 228 people had been shot in Chicago so far this year, a 5.5 percent increase from the 216 shot in the same period time last year. There have been at least 42 homicides, up 23.5 percent from the 34 homicides from the same period in 2016.

     

    Last January closed with 50 homicides, the most for that month in the city in at least 16 years, according to police statistics. The year ended with 783 homicides, the most since 1996, according to data collected by the Tribune.

     

    This January has seen several violent weekends. Over the New Year's weekend, 55 people were shot, five of them fatally. The next weekend saw a sharp drop, two killed and seven wounded. Over the following Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, 39 people were shot, 10 of them fatally.

     

    This past weekend 54 people were shot, six of them fatally. There were seven attacks that wounded three or more people, according to police.

    Aside from a 7-day period in early January, when temperatures plunged to record low levels, the cold weather hasn't seemed to deter Chicago's violent criminals. 

    Chicago Murders

     

    With 44 homicides already recorded, Chicago is on pace for 60 murders in the opening month of January which would exceed the two-decade record high set last year.

    Chicago Murders

     

    Just like 2016, Chicago's 2017 violence is concentrated in a handful of west and south side neighborhoods where gangs are prevalent. 

    Chicago Murders

     

    Of course, Trump has vowed numerous times to empower police forces around the country to crack down on drug and gang-related violence.  In a tweet from earlier this year, Trump even invited Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to seek federal help to address his city's epidemic of violence.

     

    And while only time will tell how/if Trump will follow through on his campaign promises to crack down on rising violence in America's inner-cities, we suspect any approach taken by the new administration will be a welcome change from the Obama administration's parting efforts to delegitimize Chicago's police force by effectively labeling it as a racist organization that the habitually resorts to the use of "deadly force" in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

  • The Democratic Party Is Out Of Ideas And About To Quadruple-Down On Failed Identity Politics

    Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    Yes, of course, Trump winning the GOP nomination marks the end of the party as we know it. After all, some neocons are already publicly and actively throwing their support behind Hillary. While this undoubtably represents a major turning point in U.S. political history, many pundits have yet to appreciate that the exact same thing is happening within the Democratic Party. It’s just not completely obvious yet.

     

    While it might sound strange, a coronation of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary will mark the end of the party as we know it. There’s been a lot written about the “Sanders surge,” with much of it revolving around Hillary Clinton’s extreme personal weakness as a candidate. While this is indisputable, it’s also a convenient way for the status quo to exempt itself from fault and discount genuine grassroots anger. I’m of the view that Sanders’ support is more about people liking him than them disliking Hillary, particularly when it comes to registered Democrats. He’s not merely seen as the “least bad choice.” People really do like him.

     

    – From the February 2016 post:  It’s Not Just the GOP – The Democratic Party is Also Imploding

    By now, most of you have heard about the DNC candidate forum hosted by certifiably insane MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid, as well as the racially charged comments which vomited from the mouth of Sally Boynton Brown. We’ll get to that later, but first I want to prove to you that the Democratic Party has learned absolutely zero lessons from the 2016 contest, and will continue to focus on winning elections based on demographics alone, as opposed to confronting the actual issues. It is a carcass of a political party.

    Let’s start with an article written by Steve Phillips a few days ago in The Nation, to explain what I mean. First, who is Steve Phillips?

    Steve Phillips is a national political leader, civil-rights lawyer, author, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and the founder and editor in chief of Democracy in Color, a multimedia platform on race and politics. He is the author of the New York Times best seller, Brown Is the New White: How a Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority (New Press). He is a regular contributor to The Nation.

    He’s also one of the people who helped organize the DNC candidate forum mentioned above. What follows are a few excerpts from his article, The Next DNC Chair Must Abandon Color-Blind Politics:

     The single greatest force shaping American politics today is the demographic revolution that is transforming the racial composition of the US population. Since passage of the 1965 Voting Rights and Immigration and Nationality Acts, tens of millions of people of color have joined the electorate, rapidly swelling the ranks of people of color from 12 percent of the population in 1965 to 38.4 percent today. The force of that revolution propelled a black man into the White House, and then Donald Trump rode the backlash to that revolution to his apparent narrow Electoral College win. If the Democratic Party is going to effectively rebuild from the ashes of this defeat and reclaim control of the federal government, it must put in place new leadership that has the lived experience, cultural competence, and electoral sophistication to build power and win elections in a highly racially charged environment.

     

    That is the context for the contest for new DNC chair, and it is the framework for the Democracy in Color Chair Candidates Forum that will be held on Monday in Washington, DC, at George Washington University. I am helping to organize the forum, along with the teams at Democracy in Color, mitú, and Inclusv. We will explore three areas that demand immediate attention and complete rethinking if we are going to win in the years ahead.

    Notice how this man’s entire focus is on demographics, assuming that people of color have nowhere to turn but to the Democrats. There’s no emphasis on any of the issues that allowed a reality tv star to win the Presidency against one of the most well-funded and media supported candidates in American history. The entirety of the above is obsessed with winning elections based on identity politics as opposed to making lives better for tens of millions of suffering Americans. In today’s environment, this is a recipe for political oblivion.

    Let’s take a look at some more of Mr. Phillips’ insights.

    Cultural competence within the Democratic Party must extend to all areas of the operation, not just the rhetoric of the chair. It must manifest itself in the composition of the staff and top leadership she or he hires, the expertise and experience of the consultants retained, and the strategic priority and focus of the party’s financial expenditures. How much of the resources and money will go towards chasing the shrinking sector of the electorate made up of the conservative white working class, and how much will go to maximizing the power and potential of the most rapidly growing sectors of the population—the country’s communities of color, who make up 46 percent of all Democratic voters?

    Again, he’s explicitly saying, let’s pretty much ignore the conservative white working class and just focus on people within the demographics of those who we think owe us their vote. This is not simply cynical calculating, and gross, it’s a recipe for continued disaster not just for the Democratic Party, but the nation as a whole.

    Meanwhile, the following paragraph proves he learned absolutely nothing from Trump’s victory, which should be obvious by now anyway.

    The first step the next chair should take to fix this problem is to conduct a transparent and brutally honest assessment of exactly what happened in 2016. There are a lot of misunderstandings, incorrect conclusions, and false and facile assumptions floating around and influencing preliminary plans for progressives in the future. One such myth, for example, is that millions of voters abandoned Democrats and flocked to the Trump campaign, when in fact Clinton got just about the same number of votes that Obama did in 2012 (Trump exceeded Romney’s 2012 numbers by 2 million votes, and third-party candidates received 5 million more votes than they did in 2016). Understanding exactly what happened and why is an essential first step to winning back the White House.

    In other words, no fundamental change is needed here. We just failed to make sure certain people within the demographics who owe us their vote get off their asses next time and vote blue. He also once again makes it perfectly clear that the key is to win, as opposed to win on the actual issues.

    Now here’s his final paragraph, and it’s the most important one in the entire piece. He accidentally exposes the key flaw in his strategy and why it is doomed to failure.

    These are dark days in American politics, but Democrats and progressives must never forget that we are in fact the majority of people in this country. Each of the last three presidential elections have proved that there is a new American majority consisting of the overwhelming majority of people of color and a meaningful minority of whites who vote progressive. The mission of the DNC and its next chair is to start now to put in place the infrastructure to translate that population majority into an electoral majority in enough states to win back the White House and Congress so that we can continue to build a vibrant, just, inclusive multiracial society. That journey begins with making sure the next DNC chair has the skills, experience, strategy and sophistication to lead us on that journey. We’ll ask them these questions and more on Monday. 

    He claims “Democrats and progressives must never forget that we are in fact the majority of people in this country.” Note, the key part of this statement is “Democrats and progressives.” If Democrats aren’t progressives, what are they? Neoliberals of course, but he doesn’t want to say that for obvious reasons. Ultimately, this betrays the core flaw in his logic. You can’t say “Democrats and progressives are the majority” if those two groups ideologically clash on everything. At the end of the day, this majority coalition he expects to win elections based on demographics isn’t really a coalition at all.

    To summarize, nowhere in this article is there any sort of discussion about economic decay, corporate power, militarism, etc. Why is that? The reason is that the Democrats (ie, neoliberals) don’t want to focus on issues their donors won’t like. Identity politics is perfect for a corporate-Wall Street based Democratic Party. The truly rich and powerful in this country love identity politics and fund it like mad, because identity politics diverts attention away from economic populism, and poses no real threat to them.

    Finally, let’s end with the comments of Sally Boynton Brown, a white woman running for chair of the Democratic National Committee.

    Makes you wonder, is she trying to become DNC chair, or auditioning for a job at MTV?

    Perhaps this is her strategy for getting invited to the cool kids identity politics table, but it’s certainly not going to be a winning strategy for Democrats.

    Good luck donkeys, you’re going to need it.

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Jan 24

Today’s News 24th January 2017

  • Paul Craig Roberts Asks "Are Americans Racists?"

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    “Racist” is the favorite epithet of the left. Every white person (except leftists) is a racist by definition. As we are defined as racists based on our skin color, I am puzzled why we are called racists a second, third, and fourth time due to specific acts, such as favoring the enforcement of immigration laws. For example, President Donald Trump says he is going to enforce the immigration laws. For the left this is proof that Trump has put on the White Sheet and joined the KKK.

    The left doesn’t say what a president is who does not enforce the laws on the books. But let’s look at this from the standpoint of the immigration laws themselves. In 1965 a bill passed by the “racist” Congress and signed by the “racist” President Lyndon Johnson completely changed the racial composition of US legal immigration.

    In 1960 75% of US legal immigration was European, 5% was Asian, and 19% was from Americas (Mexico, Central and South America and Caribbean Islands).

     

    In 2013 10% of legal immigrants were European, 30% were Asian, 55% were from Americas, and 5% from Africa.

    The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act is a very strange law for racists to have enacted. Would racists pass a law, which has been on the books for 52 years, that fundamentally transformed the racial profile of the US by limiting white immigration, thereby ultimately consigning whites to minority status?

    We could say the racists did not know what they were doing, or thought they were doing something else. However, the results have been obvious at least since 1980, and the law is still on the books.

    We live during a time when there is an abundance of information, but facts seldom seem to inform opinions. The left delights in branding the Founding Fathers racists. The left was ecstatic when a 1998 DNA study concluded that Thomas Jefferson was one of eight possible ancestors of Eston Hemings, a descent of Jefferson’s slave Sally Hemings. The left seized on the implied sexual relationship as proof of Thomas Jefferson’s racism.

    Let’s assume Jefferson had a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings. Does this prove he was a racist, or does it prove the opposite? Why is it a sign of racism for a white to have sex with a black? Does this prove that James Bond was a racist in the film “Die Another Day”? Do we really want to define racially mixed marriages as racist, as a white conquest over a black, Asian, or Hispanic?

    The left has declared the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to be racist documents and, therefore, proof that the US was founded on racism. The left is particularly incensed that the Constitution counts enslaved blacks as three-fifths of a white person. Is the three-fifths clause a sign or racism, or was it a compromise to get an agreement on representation in the House of Representatives?

    It was the latter. Indeed southerners, such as James Madison and Edmund Randolph, wanted blacks to be counted one to one with whites. It was northerners, such as Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, who wanted blacks to count as fractions of a person. Why was this?

    The issue was whether the North or the South would have majority representation in the House. The country already had different economic interests which came to conflict in the War of Southern Secession, which is mischaracterized as a civil war. (A civil war is when two sides fight for control of the government. The Confederacy was not fighting for control of the government in Washington. The South was fighting to secede from the union in order to avoid economic exploitation.)

    The southern states were agricultural, and from early colonial times long before there was a United States or a Confederate States of America the absence of a work force meant that the agricultural labor force was imported as slaves. For the South slavery was an inherited institution, and from the South’s standpoint, if blacks were not included in the population on which US representation in Congress would be based, the South would have a minority voice in Congress and would not agree to the Constitution. The three-fifths clause was a compromise in order to move the Constitution toward agreement. It had nothing to do with racism. It was about achieving balance in regional representation in Congress. 

    The Southern Secession resulted from divergent economic interests and was not fought over slavery. In former times when the left had real intellects, such as Charles A. Beard, a historian who stressed class conflict and a founder of the New School for Social Research and president of both the American Political Science Association and the American Historical Association, the left understood the divergence of interests between northern industry and southern agriculture. Those who think Lincoln invaded the South in order to free slaves need to read Thomas DiLorenzo’s books on Lincoln. DiLorenzo establishes beyond all doubt that Lincoln invaded the Confederacy in order to preserve the Union, that is, the American Empire, which has continued its growth into the 21st century.

    The preponderance of war correspondence on both sides shows that few were fighting for or against slavery. According to the 1860 US census, slave owners were a small fraction of the Southern population.  The Confederate Army consisted almost entirely of non-slave owners who fought because they were invaded by Union armies.

    The large agricultural interests (slave owners) had the money necessary for raising armies and were represented in the governing bodies. So naturally, their interests would be represented in the articles of secession.

    As the war began with Lincoln’s invasion of the South, we should look to see Lincoln’s explanation for the war. The reason he gave repeatedly was to preserve the Union. Most historians understood this until “racism” became the explanation of all white history and institutions.

    As for Thomas Jefferson, he was opposed to slavery, but he understood that the agricultural South was trapped in slavery. The “discovery” of the New World provided lands for exploitation but no labor force. The first slaves were white prisoners, but whites could not survive the malaria. Native Indians were tried, but they were not only as susceptible to malaria as whites but also used their native knowledge of the terrain to resist those who would enslave them. Blacks became the work force of choice because of genetic superiority in resistance to malaria. As Charles C. Mann reports in his book, 1493, “About 97 percent of the people in West and Central Africa are Duffy negative, and hence immune to vivax malaria.”

    Thus, the real “racist” reason that blacks became the labor force was their survivability rate due to genetic superiority from their immunity to malaria, not white racists determined to oppress blacks for racial reasons.

    The myth has taken hold that black slavery originated in white attitudes of racial superiority. In fact, as a large numbers of historians have documented, including Charles C. Mann and the socialist economic historian Karl Polanyi, brother of my Oxford University professor, the physical chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi, black slavery originated and flourished in Africa where tribes fought one another for slaves. The victorious would market their captives to Arabs and eventually as time passed to Europeans for transport to the new world to fill the vacuum of a missing labor force. (See for example, Karl Polanyi, Dahomey and the Slave Trade.)

    It is a mystery how the myth of Thomas Jefferson’s alleged racism and love for slavery survives his drafts of the Declaration of Independence. One of Jefferson’s drafts that was abandoned in compromise over the document includes this in Jefferson’s list of King George’s offenses:

    “he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

    Jefferson’s attack on King George sounds like the left’s racist attack on Jefferson.

    It is amazing how proud some Americans are of their ignorance and how quick they are to hate based on their ignorance. In America the level of public discourse is so far below the gutter level that a person who ventures forth to tell the truth can expect to be met with violent hatred and every epithet in the book. Criticize ever so slightly the Israeli government’s theft of Palestine, and the Israel Lobby will immediately brand you an “anti-semite,” that is, a hater of Jews who wants to send them to the gas chamber. If you don’t denounce whites, especially Southern whites, as racists, you are not only a racist but also a member of the KKK who wants to lynch blacks.

    Yes, I know. It works also in the other direction. If you don’t hate the left, you are one of them. Because I criticized the George W. Bush regime for its war crimes, conservatives branded me a “pinko-liberal-commie” and ceased to publish my columns.

    Hardly anyone, even southerners, understands that racism in the South originated in the horrors that were inflicted on the South during the Reconstruction era that followed the military defeat of the Confederacy. The North inflicted blacks on southerners in ways that harmed prospects for relations between the races and gave rise to the KKK as a resistance movement. As Reconstruction faded, so did the KKK. It was later revived as a shadow of its former self by poor whites who were ambitious for personal power.

    The question remains: How can President Trump or anyone unite a country in which historical understanding is buried in myths, lies, and the teaching of hate?

    Try to imagine the expressions of hatred and the denunciations that this factual article will bring to me.

    If we care about humanity and the creatures on Earth, our task is to find and to speak the truth. That is what I endeavor to do.

    When the left abandoned Marxism and the working class, the left died. It has no doctrine to sustain itself, just hatreds based on historical ignorance and misunderstanding of the limits within which life is lived. Humans are not superheros or magicians who can reconstruct humanity by waving a wand or smashing evil. Everyone lives within limitations, and the many submit more than do the few.

    It is the few who fight against the limits to whom we owe the defense of our humanity.

    It is the haters who are the barriers to moral and social progress.

  • Pro Immigration Advocate to Americans: You Do A lot of Drugs, Therefore You Do Not Deserve Borders

    Listen up border fags: because of your wanton proclivity for doing drugs, snorting cocaine through straws and/or inhaling crack smoke through glass pipes, you don’t get to have a country. Your borders are meaningless and you should permit any Mexican or Central American pavement slob into your country — because of your sins and because your government conducts wars abroad.

    This is, essentially, what Enrique Morones, head of Border Angels, said to Tucker Carlson tonight — exposing his 2nd grade IQ level and childish penchant to say stupid things.

    There is no argument that could assuage the American people into believing it should not control its borders. Only high level retard ‘thinkers’ on the left, communist shills, and anti-American anarchists believe unfettered immigration into cash-strapped border towns is a good idea. Ergo, anyone who suggests otherwise is instantly reduced to looking like Barney Rubble ‘motoring’ his vehicle over rugged terrain.

    In short, quit doing coke and bombing brown people, then you can enjoy a national border.

     

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  • Mexican Protesters Seize Control Of U.S. Border Crossing In Tijuana

    A couple of weeks ago we highlighted the protests that had engulfed Mexico after the finance ministry announced plans to raise gasoline prices by 20.1% starting January 1st.  While many people have looted gas stations and/or threatened to burn them down altogether, the latest protesting strategy of pissed off Mexican motorists is to seize control of border crossings with the United States and allow for a free flow of motorists into Mexico.  According to the AP, over the weekend roughly 50 protesters were able to take control of the Otay Mesa crossing that connects San Diego to Tijuana as border officials abandoned their posts.

    Protesters took control of vehicle lanes at one of the busiest crossings on the U.S. border Sunday to oppose Mexican gasoline price hikes, waving through motorists into Mexico after Mexican authorities abandoned their posts.

     

    Motorists headed to Mexico zipped by about 50 demonstrators at the Otay Mesa port of entry connecting San Diego and Tijuana, many of them honking to show support. The demonstrators waved signs to protest gas hikes and air other grievances against the government of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

     

    Other protests closed southbound traffic for hours at the San Diego-Tijuana San Ysidro port of entry, the busiest crossing along the 2,000-mile border, and halted southbound traffic at one of two crossings in Nogales, Arizona. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and California Highway Patrol officers closed southbound Interstate 5 to block access to the San Ysidro crossing, diverting traffic several miles east to the Otay Mesa port of entry.

    border

     

    Despite a free flow of motorists into Mexico,  U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials confirmed that inspections were normal for all travelers entering the U.S. from Mexico.

    Of course these latest protests follow reports from last week that Mexico’s drug cartels have been looting Pemex oil and gas pipelines in an effort to create their own brand new black market for petroleum products.  With a modest upfront capital investment of $5,000 – $8,000, the cartels have realized they can tap directly into state-owned gas pipelines and withdraw seemingly unlimited supplies of gasoline which they then sell along the highway at a discount to official government prices.  It’s a win-win situation whereby the drug cartels make 100% profit margins and citizens get “cheap” fuel.

    The black market is booming. Several states experienced gasoline shortages at the end of last year as more thieves tapped into state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) pipelines. The pilfered fuel was sold to drivers hoping to save money. Pipeline theft in 2015 increased sevenfold, to more than 5,500 taps, from just 710 in 2010. Pemex attributes the company’s 12-year slide in crude production in part to the growth in illegal taps.

     

    The drug cartels have turned to fuel theft as a side business worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and crime groups focused solely on gasoline robbery have sprung up, says Alejandro Schtulmann, president of Empra, a political-risk consulting firm in Mexico City. “You only need to invest $5,000 or $8,000 to buy some specific equipment, and the outcome of that is huge earnings.”

     

    Fuel theft creates a vicious cycle: The theft increases costs for Pemex and makes the official gasoline supply more scarce, contributing to higher prices for legal consumers. Theft amounts to about $1 billion a year, says Luis Miguel Labardini, an energy consultant at Marcos y Asociados and senior adviser to Pemex’s chief financial officer in the 1990s. “If Pemex were a public company, they would be in financial trouble just because of the theft of fuel,” he says. “It’s that bad.”

    Gas Looting

    Of course, the biggest loser in this whole situation continues to be Enrique Peña Nieto who has basically become the least popular President in Mexico since one-party rule ended in 2000.

    All this is creating headaches for Enrique Peña Nieto, whose popularity was already the lowest of any president since one-party rule ended in 2000. Peña Nieto is limited to a single term, and polls show potential candidates from his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) trail populist opposition leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the race for the mid-2018 presidential election. López Obrador has made the jump in gasoline prices his latest rallying cry against the administration.

     

    “This is definitely going to have consequences for the PRI,” says Jorge Chabat, a political scientist at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, a university based in Mexico City. “Frankly, I don’t see any way that they can win in 2018.”

    If all else fails, we hear that the tequila served in Tijuana is a very good, cheap and highly combustible alternative to gasoline.

  • Building a financial defense line strategically

    This important topic we cover in our book Splitting Pennies is possibly THE MOST importact topic in teaching personal finance, and probably the most misleading concept peddled by Wall St. 

    Let’s face it – Wall St. has a reason to mislead investors, especially retail investors – because they’re on the other side of the trade!  That’s right.  When you lose – they win.  And due to hedging, they can’t actually lose.  

    The secret world of hedging – Wall St. doesn’t want you to know about because like the insurance industry, it allows investors to protect themselves.  “Options” are thought of as “Risky” which is a highly potent meme that is reinforced by the regulators:

    THE RISK OF LOSS IN TRADING COMMODITY INTERESTS CAN BE SUBSTANTIAL. YOU SHOULD

    THEREFORE CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF

    YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER TO TRADE OR TO AUTHORIZE

    SOMEONE ELSE TO TRADE FOR YOU, YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF THE FOLLOWING:

    IF YOU PURCHASE A COMMODITY OPTION YOU MAY SUSTAIN A TOTAL LOSS OF THE PREMIUM

    AND OF ALL TRANSACTION COSTS.

    IF YOU PURCHASE OR SELL A COMMODITY FUTURES CONTRACT OR SELL A COMMODITY OPTION

    OR ENGAGE IN OFF-EXCHANGE FOREIGN CURRENCY TRADING YOU MAY SUSTAIN A TOTAL LOSS

    OF THE INITIAL MARGIN FUNDS OR SECURITY DEPOSIT AND ANY ADDITIONAL FUNDS THAT

    YOU DEPOSIT WITH YOUR BROKER TO ESTABLISH OR MAINTAIN YOUR POSITION. IF THE

    MARKET MOVES AGAINST YOUR POSITION, YOU MAY BE CALLED UPON BY YOUR BROKER TO

    DEPOSIT A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF ADDITIONAL MARGIN FUNDS, ON SHORT NOTICE, IN

    ORDER TO MAINTAIN YOUR POSITION. IF YOU DO NOT PROVIDE THE REQUESTED FUNDS

    WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME, YOUR POSITION MAY BE LIQUIDATED AT A LOSS, AND YOU WILL

    BE LIABLE FOR ANY RESULTING DEFICIT IN YOUR ACCOUNT.

    UNDER CERTAIN MARKET CONDITIONS, YOU MAY FIND IT DIFFICULT OR IMPOSSIBLE TO

    LIQUIDATE A POSITION. THIS CAN OCCUR, FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN THE MARKET MAKES A “LIMIT

    MOVE.”

    THE PLACEMENT OF CONTINGENT ORDERS BY YOU OR YOUR TRADING ADVISOR, SUCH AS A

    “STOP-LOSS” OR “STOP-LIMIT” ORDER, WILL NOT NECESSARILY LIMIT YOUR LOSSES TO THE

    INTENDED AMOUNTS, SINCE MARKET CONDITIONS MAY MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO EXECUTE

    SUCH ORDERS.

    A “SPREAD” POSITION MAY NOT BE LESS RISKY THAN A SIMPLE “LONG” OR “SHORT” POSITION.

    THE HIGH DEGREE OF LEVERAGE THAT IS OFTEN OBTAINABLE IN COMMODITY INTEREST

    TRADING CAN WORK AGAINST YOU AS WELL AS FOR YOU. THE USE OF LEVERAGE CAN LEAD TO

    LARGE LOSSES AS WELL AS GAINS.

    IN SOME CASES, MANAGED COMMODITY ACCOUNTS ARE SUBJECT TO SUBSTANTIAL CHARGES

    FOR MANAGEMENT AND ADVISORY FEES. IT MAY BE NECESSARY FOR THOSE ACCOUNTS THAT

    ARE SUBJECT TO THESE CHARGES TO MAKE SUBSTANTIAL TRADING PROFITS TO AVOID

    DEPLETION OR EXHAUSTION OF THEIR ASSETS. THIS DISCLOSURE DOCUMENT CONTAINS A

    COMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF EACH FEE TO BE CHARGED TO YOUR ACCOUNT BY THE

    COMMODITY TRADING ADVISOR.

    THIS BRIEF STATEMENT CANNOT DISCLOSE ALL THE RISKS AND OTHER SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS

    OF THE COMMODITY INTEREST MARKETS. YOU SHOULD THEREFORE CAREFULLY STUDY THIS

    DISCLOSURE DOCUMENT AND COMMODITY INTEREST TRADING BEFORE YOU TRADE,

    INCLUDING THE DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL RISK FACTORS OF THIS INVESTMENT.

    THIS COMMODITY TRADING ADVISOR IS PROHIBITED BY LAW FROM ACCEPTING FUNDS IN THE

    TRADING ADVISOR’S NAME FROM A CLIENT FOR TRADING COMMODITY INTERESTS. YOU MUST

    PLACE ALL FUNDS FOR TRADING IN THIS TRADING PROGRAM DIRECTLY WITH A FUTURES

    COMMISSION MERCHANT OR RETAIL FOREIGN EXCHANGE DEALER, AS APPLICABLE.

    Whoa- where do I sign?  This is an example of how regulators manipulate the presentation of options in order to mislead investors away from something which can protect them from disaster.

    Financial tools like options are like any tools, they can be used like insurance, or they can be used as weapons.  Take simple construction tools.  A hammer can be used to build furniture, or destroy furniture.  A hammer can break a window, kill someone – but also it can be used for decades to build fine woodwork (if you are a craftsman).  

    Building a financial defense line

    This is the personal finance equivalent of hedging.  Hedging with options for example – should be used like an insurance policy.  It’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.  

    Your financial defense line can be a property that’s paid for cash that you can live on for the rest of your life, it could be if you are in the car business an inventory of valuable used cars, it could be a pile of gold bars.  Preppers are one group that understands this concept well – it’s the underlying ethos of prepping.  

    But the majority of Americans are one paycheck away from disaster.  They ‘spend money on things they don’t need, with money they don’t have – to impress people they don’t know’

    And of course, the problem with writing such an article is the paradox of education.  Those who understand this concept, are already doing it, and those who don’t understand – they don’t believe that they need to know it – they have another opinion!  Such thinking is never without punishment in the markets.  

    Hedging is all about paying for something you do not need, but may need one day, should an unexpected event happen.  It’s a form of insurance.  

    There’s one kind of insurance that takes this concept too far – life insurance.  But that’s a topic for another article.  Common insurance like homeowners insurance, professional insurances like directors’ liability insurance, and others; are a type of financial defense line.  For example, did you know in large class action cases where big corporations are involved in fraud – shareholders are settled financially primarily through insurance claims made by plaintiffs attorneys?  Commonly it’s thought that companies pay out these big settlements but actually, it’s mostly insurance companies.  Wall St. is a huge user of insurance, and hedging – which is why at companies like AIG, the lines between derivatives trading, opaque contracts, and insurance – was widely blurred.

    But you don’t need a Wall St. bank in order to create a financial defense line, it can be as simple as investing in something for cash that you may need one day ‘just in case’ but don’t need right now, like a property, a container full of canned food – whatever it is to you.

    When you HAVE the financial defense line IN PLACE – THEN and ONLY THEN can you go out into the risky market and take risks.  There’s a phenomenon that’s difficult to quantify, but the fact that you have the defense line, it seems that those investors usually don’t lose on the risks they take in the market.  The only analogy that can explain this is a Sierra Club study about bears and men carrying guns; it seems that men who hike in the mountains who carry loaded guns are almost never attacked by bears – but also they never shot any bears, which means the men must emit a pheromone that the bears can sniff.  

    Practically, it’s better not to enter the market and take risks if you don’t have a defense line.  Another example is ‘investing money you can afford to lose’ – many advisors recommend investing only a percentage of a portfolio (like 5% or 10%) that if the investment is wiped out, the portfolio will remain intact.  There’s a few demographics that understand this other than preppers – Texas Oil Investors and Silicon Valley VCs.

    In Oil Investing, 9 out of 10 wells may be dry, or just barely break even.  But 1 out of 10 can be a gusher – 1,000% returns, which make up for the dry and average wells.  

    Average investors, even if you don’t have any retirement or pension, can build a financial defense line – it can mean getting an extra job, doing something for extra income (like selling stuff online) or applying for a research grant you always dreamt of.  It’s a myth that you need money to invest.  In fact, most startups are started with 99% persperation and 1% inspiration.  Without money though, you’ll have to put MAJOR WORK into your project to really build equity.  In a simple example of a housing project, that means doing the labor yourself which can be 60% – 70% of the costs.  In a business, it means you’ll have to do 10 jobs, instead of hiring an accountant, a webmaster, and other things.

    Fortress Capital provides hedging, alternative investments, and portfolio consulting – visit www.fortresscapitalinc.com to learn more.

    Or checkout Fortress Capital Trading Academy to learn how to build a defense line, specifically.

    Hey – it’s better than sticking a crayon up your nose.  Extended warranty?  How can I lose?

  • MeeT FaKe NeWS BoB…

    CNN BOB

  • 80% Of Central Banks Plan To Buy More Stocks

    Regular readers remember how, when we first reported around the time of our launch eight years ago that central banks buy stocks, intervene and prop up markets, and generally manipulate equities in order to maintain confidence in a collapsing system, and avoid a liquidation panic and bank runs, it was branded “fake news” by the established financial “kommentariat.” What a difference eight years makes, because today none other than the WSJ writes that “by keeping interest rates low and in some cases negative, central banks have prompted some of the most conservative investors to join the hunt for higher returns: Other central banks.”

    To be sure, nothing that the WSJ reports is news to our readers, who have known for years how central banks overtly, in the case of the BOJ, PBOC and SNB most prominently, and covertly, as the infamous “leave no trace behind” symbiosis between the NY Fed and Citadel, however we find it particularly enjoyable every time the financial paper of record reports what until only a few years ago was considered “conspiracy theory”, and wonder what other current “fake news” will be gospel in 2020.

    Meanwhile, for those few who are still unfamiliar, this is how central banks who create fiat money out of thin air and for whom “acquisition cost” is a meaningless term, are increasingly nationalizing the equity capital markets. As the WSJ puts it “these central banks care relatively little about whether such investments make profits or losses—though they can matter politically—because they can always print more of their currency. So risk is less important, analysts say.” And since risk was no longer part of the equation, leaving only return, central banks started buying stocks.

    “When yields started to get really low and closer to zero in 2014, we decided to start equity investments,” said Jarno Ilves, head of investments at the Bank of Finland, who said he plans to increase his allocation to stocks.

    But if you think the farce is bad now, wait until next year. According to a recent study by Invesco on central- bank investment which polled 18 reserve managers, some 80% and 43% of respondents to questions on asset allocation said they planned to invest more in stocks and corporate debt, respectively. Low government-bond returns were behind the moves to diversify, said 12 out of 15 respondents, while three declined to answer.

     

    So between central banks outbidding each other to buy “risky” assets with “money” that is constantly created at no cost, very soon all other private investors will be crowded out but not before every stock is trading at valuations that even CNBC guests won’t be able to justify.

    The good news is that instead of focusing on Ultra High Net Worth clients, a desperate for revenue Wall Street can just advise central banks on which stocks to buy.

    The shift has significant implications for markets and the global economy, analysts say. Many central banks are hiring outside managers to handle the nontraditional assets in their portfolios, presenting an opportunity to a financial industry struggling with stagnant revenue growth.

     

    “We see more and more appetite by central banks for riskier strategies,” said Jean-Jacques Barberis, ‎who manages central-bank money for Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager.

    The bad news, is that as more people realize that a free “market” now only exists in textbooks, and that Soviet-style central planning is the only game in town, confident in price formation will evaporate, in turn pushing even more market participants out of the quote-unquote market, until only central banks are left bidding on each other’s otherwise worthless stock certificates.

    At the same time, efforts to invest reserve funds more broadly mean that more markets will be subject to what some critics describe as central-bank distortion, as large and often price-insensitive buyers run the risk of driving up prices and reducing prospective returns for other market participants.

    For virtually all central banks, however, the grotesque central planning shift of the past decade means that instead of engaging in monetary policy, the world’s central banks are now activist hedge funds, who are focused first and foremost on “investment management”:

    The South African Reserve Bank’s growing piggy bank drove it to switch “from being a liquidity manager to focusing on investment management,” said Daniel Mminele, its deputy governor.

     

    In the third quarter of 2016, global foreign-exchange reserves totaled $11 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund, up from $1.4 trillion at the end of 1995.

    But in the world of central bank hedge funds, no other bank comes even remotely close to the (publically-traded) Swiss National Bank, which has taken risky investing to a whole new level.

    In 2013, the SNB opened a branch in Singapore to manage its Asia-Pacific assets, which as of 2015 include emerging-market equities and Chinese government bonds. It was a necessity, since the SNB now manages a mammoth 645 billion franc ($643 billion) in foreign reserves, a pile that grew as the bank tried to push down the value of its currency in a bid to fight deflation and help exporters.

     

    In 2009, equities only made up 7% of the SNB’s reserves, four years after it started buying them. Now they are 20%, including investments of $1.7 billion in Apple Inc., $1.08 billion in Exxon Mobil Corp., and $1.2 billion in Microsoft Corp., according to third-quarter Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

    Having bought hundreds of billions in equities carries risks even for central banks, if only on paper: in 2015, the SNB booked a loss of 23.3 billion francs, when officials stopped maintaining a ceiling on the value of their currency. As the currency jumped by as much as 22% against the euro, the value of their foreign assets fell. Last year, it offset those losses with a 24 billion-franc profit, as its equity investments paid off.

    Others did not fare quite as well: “the Czech National Bank started buying stocks in June 2008 just before the financial crisis. The subsequent stock market crash wiped out a third of its equity investment that year, then roughly 2.5% of its total reserves.”

    * * *

    By now it is common knowledge that central banks openly intervene in markets, the most vivid and recent example of which is the BOJ, which as of this moment owns two-thirds of all Japanes ETFs…

    … and at the current rate of expansion, within a few years the world’s monetary authorities who are tasked with “financial stability”, will have acquired a majority of the world’s equity tranche, effectively nationalizing it. We bring it up in light of recent ridiculous allegations that “Russia hacked the US elections” – we wonder, will the liberal press blame the USSR after it dawns upon the world’s intrepid press that while it was busy comparing the Obama and Trump crowds, the world’s greatest wealth transfer was taking place right below everyone’s nose.

  • Here Are The World's 10 Least Affordable Cities Of 2017

    In recent months, we’ve spent a lot of time writing about the various housing bubbles all over the world with an emphasis on Vancouver, Sydney and Melbourne (see here, here and here).  Now, courtesy of the “13th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey“, we have a comprehensive comparison of just how bubbly some of the world’s least affordable housing markets have become. 

    The study, which analyzed 406 metropolitan housing markets around the world, compared affordability on the basis of a ratio of median homes prices to median gross incomes with anything over 5x considered “Severely Unaffordable.”  And while there are obvious flaws in the methodology, including the fact that income isn’t adjusted for local taxing policies and building quality, the study at least provides a basis for comparison.

    Expensive Housing

     

    Not surprisingly, Hong Kong and Sydney maintained their “lead” as the least affordable housing markets in 2016 with Vancouver moving into the number 3 spot with home prices there increasing by the equivalent of a full year’s median income in just a single year.

    Least Affordable Housing

     

    Meanwhile, of the 94 “severely unaffordable markets” in the world, nearly 40% of them were located in the U.S. and another one-third were in Australia.

    There are 26 severely unaffordable major housing markets in 2016. Again, Hong Kong is the least affordable, with a Median Multiple of 18.1, down from 19.0 last year. Sydney is again second, at 12.2 (the same Median Multiple as last year). Vancouver is third least affordable, at 11.8, where house prices rose the equivalent of a full year’s household income in only a year. Auckland is fourth least affordable, at 10.0 and San Jose has a Median Multiple of 9.6.

     

    The least affordable 10 also includes Melbourne (9.5), Honolulu (9.4), Los Angeles (9.3), where house prices rose the equivalent of 14 months in household income in only 12 months. San Francisco has a Median Multiple of 9.2 and Bournemouth & Dorsett is 8.9.

     

    There are 94 severely unaffordable markets, with 36 (of 262) in the United States, 33 (of 54) in Australia, 11 (of 33) in the United Kingdom, 7 (of 40) in Canada, 6 (of 8) in New Zealand and the one market in China. Singapore, Japan and Ireland have no severely unaffordable housing markets.

     

    The least affordable among the smaller markets is Santa Cruz (CA) in the United States, with a Median Multiple of 11.6.

    Expensive Housing

     

    Of course, for anyone who still doubts the source of the 2006/2007 U.S. housing bubble, the relationship between median incomes and housing prices remained fairly constant in the U.S. right up until the Fed decided to utilize near-zero interest rates to manage stock prices shortly after the 2000 tech bubble burst… 

    Expensive Housing

     

    …a mistake that Yellen & Co. seems to be on a path to repeating.

  • Soaring Lease Returns Set To Wreak Havoc Used Car Pricing and Auto Industry Profits

    For months we’ve warned that declining used car prices could spell disaster for subprime auto securitizations (see “Slumping Used Car Prices Spell Disaster For Subprime Auto Securitizations“).  While it’s always difficult to predict the exact timing of when bubbles will burst, a combination of record-high lease returns in 2017 and 2018, combined with rising interest rates could imply that the auto bubble is on the precipice.

    As Bloomberg recently pointed out, strong used car pricing is a critical component required to prop up the overall auto market.  While American’s love their brand new cars, if used car prices become too soft then substitution can hurt new car sales.  Add to that the impact of falling residual values on the finance arms of the auto OEMs and you have all the ingredients required for an auto market meltdown.

    A glut of used vehicles has started to depress prices. That trend will intensify as Americans will return 3.36 million leased cars and trucks this year, another jump after a 33 percent surge in 2016, according to J.D. Power. The fallout has already begun, with Ford Motor Co. shaving $300 million from its financial-services arm’s profit forecast for this year.

     

    “Ford is the canary in the coal mine,” said Maryann Keller, a former Wall Street analyst who’s now an auto industry consultant in Stamford, Connecticut.

     

    This drag may be hitting the rest of the industry, too. A National Automobile Dealers Association index of used-vehicle prices declined each of the last six months of last year. If used values weaken more than anticipated, it can lead to losses across the industry, hitting carmakers, auto lenders and rental companies.

     

    Lease

     

    Unfortunately, the volume of lease returns is only expected to grow even more in 2018 with returns expected to approach 4mm units.

    Auto Leases

     

    As J.D. Power points out in it’s most recent “NADA Used Car Guide Industry Update,” the flood of lease returns is driving used car prices lower.

    Used Car Prices

     

    Of course, how we got here is fairly obvious.  The majority of Americans buy cars based on one factor: monthly payment.  And when it comes to managing your monthly payment to the lowest level possible, leasing is the way to go.  Per the Bank Rate calculator below, buying a $30,000 car comes with a monthly payment of around $600 while leasing the same vehicle might only cost $420 per month. 

    Bankrate

     

    Of course, why buy a $30,000 Ford for a $600 monthly payment when you could lease a $40,000 BMW for $560?  You can afford it so long as you can cover the monthly payment, right?

    Bankrate

     

    Not surprisingly, these dynamics have caused lease share of U.S. vehicles to skyrocket in the wake of the “great recession” as people seek to maintain their excessive lifestyles on smaller budgets.

    Auto Lease

     

    Of course, the problem is that leased vehicles get returned to their originating lenders every 3 years for brand new leases…we wouldn’t want anyone driving around in a 5-year-old clunker now would we?  But, as we all know, vehicles have useful lives of 15-20 years.  Therefore, it doesn’t take too many excessive lease cycles to flood the market with used supply and bring the whole ponzi crashing down. 

  • "Common Sense" Part 2 – Addressed To The Inhabitants Of 2017 America

    Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

    In Part One of this article I explored Thomas Paine’s critical role in the creation of our nation. His Common Sense pamphlets inspired the common people to uncommon acts of courage and heroic feats of valor; leading to the great experiment we call the United States of America. Paine, Franklin and the other Founding Fathers produced a republic, if we could keep it.

    John Adams championed the new Constitution precisely because it would not create a democracy, as he knew a democracy “soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.” Their herculean efforts, sacrifices, and bloodshed have been for naught as we allowed our republic to devolve into a democracy and ultimately into our current corporate fascist warfare/welfare surveillance state. Sadly, we were unable to keep the republic Franklin and his fellow revolutionaries gave us.

    “From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

    Some might contend Paine’s Common Sense arguments against a despotic monarchy two and a half centuries ago, with an audience of two and a half million colonists, couldn’t be pertinent today in a divided nation of 325 million people. But when you examine the events, actions and catalysts inspiring Paine to pen Common Sense, you see the parallels with the events, decisions and facilitators of our current Crisis.

    For more than a decade before the eruption of open hostilities, tensions had been building between colonists and the British authorities. An overbearing far flung British Empire began to pillage the colonies to pay for their corrupt kingdom by shaking them down through the Stamp Act of 1765, the Quartering Act of 1765, the Townshend Tariffs of 1767 and the Tea Act of 1773.

    This taxation without representation was met with passionate protest among many colonists, who resented their lack of representation in Parliament and demanded the same rights as other British subjects. These demands were met with arrogant indifference by the monarchy and a haughty parliament. Forcing colonists to feed and house the very soldiers who were being paid with their taxes to repress them was the ultimate insult.

    Initially, the colonists just fumed at the domineering disrespect shown them by the British ruling establishment. The pillaging of their hard earned wealth by distant oppressors prompted the colonists to initially organize nonviolent resistance and embargoing British luxury goods. As anger against their authoritarian overseers boiled over, the British cracked down harder in their version of a colonial surveillance state. Colonial resistance eventually led to bloodshed in 1770, when British soldiers opened fire on a mob of colonists, killing five men in what became known as the Boston Massacre.

    Parliament eventually backed down and repealed all of the duties except for one symbolic duty on tea. In December 1773 the Samuel Adams inspired Sons of Liberty, dressed as Mohawk Indians, boarded British ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. An outraged Parliament passed a series of measures known as the Intolerable or Coercive Acts, designed to reassert imperial authority in Massachusetts. In response, a group of colonial delegates (including George Washington of Virginia, John and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, Patrick Henry of Virginia and John Jay of New York) met in Philadelphia in September 1774 to give voice to their grievances against the British crown.

    This First Continental Congress did not mandate liberation from Britain, but it denounced taxation without representation, maintenance of the British army in the colonies without their consent, and issued a declaration of the rights due every citizen, including life, liberty, property, assembly and trial by jury. The Continental Congress voted to meet again in May 1775 to consider further action, but before it convened again Paul Revere made his fateful ride and local militiamen fired the first shots of the Revolutionary War at Lexington & Concord. These events set in motion Paine’s call to arms and the Declaration of Independence shortly thereafter.

    The First American Revolution was the result of at least a decade of government overreach, excessive taxation, disregard for the rights of citizens, elitist arrogance of empire builders, and thuggish intimidation of colonists by the British military. The Americans, most of whom had been born on American soil, felt only vague allegiance to a monarchy across the seas imposing their iron fist of taxation and intimidation upon citizens and their means of livelihood.

    There had been growing discontent for decades and the Boston Tea Party catalyst triggered a dramatic change in the colonial mood. The chain reactions happened rapidly thereafter and there was no turning back. Paine realized independence was the only true option and proceeded to inspire that result with his Common Sense pamphlets.

    “Until an independence is declared the continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

    With this potent image, Paine concluded Common Sense. This illustration captured Paine’s central point throughout the pamphlets that America must break away from Britain. The only question that remained was when the colonies were to become free. Paine believed the time for action was now rather than later, and exhorted his fellow Americans to rise to arms and vanquish their British oppressors.

    The moment for transformation had come. It was time for the American people to take back their country from an overbearing, corrupt, evil establishment. The Crisis had reached its regeneracy with Paine’s Common Sense and Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, two of the most important documents in America history.

    Society is a Blessing/Government a Necessary Evil

    “Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer…” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

    If you are blind to the parallels with our current position in this Fourth Turning, you are either wallowing in willful ignorance or you are a functionary within the debased establishment. One of Paine’s main themes was society was a blessing while government was, at best, a necessary evil.

    Paine believed in the power of the people. Society constitutes everything constructive people create through working together. The creation of businesses, inventions, scientific discoveries, art, and literature has never required government. Collaboration among individuals brings about positive outcomes and the advancement of society. People transact business, cooperate, follow societal norms, and live their lives on a daily basis with absolutely no intervention or oversight from an oppressive threatening government entity.

    Human beings are fallible creatures with a weakness for the vices of greed, envy, lust, pride and a few others. The only true purpose of government is the protection of life, liberty and property. Paine presented government as an organization whose lone function was to inhibit the wickedness in man.

    Government’s fundamental purpose is to provide security from foreign invaders and insure property rights are protected. The success of a government should be judged by the extent to which it fulfills these roles. Society is a force which promotes our happiness positively, while government is a coercive force, which at best has a neutral impact on our lives and at its worse, hampers our lives through coercion.

    Paine believed the British monarchy had too much power over the lives of the colonists. The hereditary succession of the monarchy led to the elevation of asses to the throne while pretending he was a lion. King George III was just such an ass.

    The purposeful complexity of the British system of government was designed to centralize power in the hands of the few, unlawfully and unjustifiably seizing control from the people. A government should be judged on whether it improves society or makes it worse. If the government does not represent the will of the people then it needs to be discarded or overthrown. The larger the government bureaucracy, the more disordered its decision making, and more likely corruption, tyranny, and taxation will burden the citizens.

    Paine scoffed at the absurdity of branches of government checking each other. Once entrenched in power the aristocratic civil servants only served themselves and their financial benefactors. The happiness and well-being of the people was not their concern. Every government, even if its initial design had a noble purpose, devolves into a fetid swamp of control freaks, the tyrannical power hungry, egomaniacal sociopaths, and feckless apparatchiks. It becomes a bane and punisher of the people.

    “Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

    Government of the People, By the People, For the People

    “I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.” – Thomas Paine

    “We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

    Three generations have passed since Paine’s words inspired a revolution, but they ring as true today as they did during that fateful year of 1776. We have been ruled by an oppressive tyrannical establishment, bent on controlling and regulating every aspect of our lives, over-taxing hard working Americans to pay for its welfare/warfare surveillance state, indebting unborn generations with over $200 trillion of unfunded promises, enriching themselves and their Deep State benefactors, impoverishing the people through systematic inflation, globalizing their jobs to Asia, and treating hard working Americans with utter contempt.

    The 2008 Federal Reserve/Wall Street created global financial collapse and subsequent banker bailout, while throwing senior citizens and the common man under the bus catalyzed this Fourth Turning. Main Street and flyover America did not participate in the faux economic recovery flogged by Obama, his minions, and their media mouthpieces.

    Propaganda, fake economic data, and a vacuous divisive empty suit Deep State pawn president, running up the national debt by $9.3 trillion while enriching Wall Street, the military industrial complex, and the sickcare complex, did nothing to benefit average Americans. The result of this blatant disregard for the well-being of millions has backfired on the establishment.

    The elevation of Donald Trump to the presidency has marked the regeneracy moment of this Fourth Turning. The mood of the country has taken a dramatic turn, with the normal people attempting to take back control of the government from malevolent Deep State financial, military, media, and corporate interests. This invisible government establishment is far more entrenched and malignant than the British monarchy confronted by Thomas Paine.

    Just as the Loyalists supported the armed clampdown upon the liberty seeking revolutionaries by the redcoats, the deranged leftist useful idiots rioting in DC and in the liberal urban bastions around the country this past week are at war against normalcy, self-reliance, fiscal responsibility, the family values that built this nation, and the geographic will of 85% of the country.

    Despite the wailing, gnashing of teeth, breaking of windows, setting limousines on fire, dressing as vaginas, calling for the assassination of Donald Trump, and overall infantile behavior of the losers in this recent election, the fact remains Trump won the popular vote in 30 states, accumulated an electoral landslide victory, and struck a chord with normal average family people who have been left behind by a government designed to benefit an autocratic few and buy off special interests for their votes.

    These supposedly grass roots rallies representing all women were nothing more than another George Soros/Democrat Party funded propaganda effort to discredit Trump’s overwhelming victory. The dying left wing media mouthpieces for the establishment felt a tingle up their legs as they breathlessly reported on the prodigious hatred for a man who has been in office for one day.

    Where were these patriots for the last eight years as their savior president droned wedding parties, blew up hospitals in the Middle East, and oversaw the unlawful collection of personal data by his rogue NSA spies? You didn’t hear any of the fake news pundits on CNN or MSNBC mention that 30 million deplorable women had voted for Trump and he crushed Hillary among white women with 53% of the vote.

    The vitriolic, unhinged reaction to Trump’s victory by a fearful establishment, their fake news corporate media hacks, and the parasitical special interests dependent upon free shit, should be a wake-up call for the normal, hard-working, tax paying, self-reliant, liberty minded people in this country. The deeply rooted evil establishment and their feckless, toady, easily manipulated, useful idiot minions have declared war on Trump and the normals (aka deplorables) who voted for him.

    After the battles of Lexington & Concord the British Empire declared war on the colonies. Many colonists still longed for reconciliation, but Thomas Paine and his fellow patriots knew that was impossible. This was going to be a fight to the death. If they lost, Paine and his brethren would be hanged.

    Paine’s simple facts, plain words and common sense bolstered the morale of the American colonists, provided backbone to those on the fence, appealed to the English people’s consideration of the war with America, clarified the issues at stake in the war, and denounced the advocates of a negotiated peace. There was no time to be a summer soldier or sunshine patriot in 1776. We now stand on the precipice of another era of revolution. These are new times, but they will also try our souls. Words do matter. This really is a war and must be fought on all fronts.

    The dumbing down of the American populace through the government run public education system results in tens of millions being intellectually incapable of resisting the never ending onslaught of Deep State propaganda through critical thought. Restoring the public’s ability to use common sense, sound reasoning, and good judgement is a virtual impossibility today, as a vast swath of the populace couldn’t name a Founding Father, why we celebrate July 4, or even voted in this past election. There were approximately 231 million eligible voters on November 8 and only 136 million voted. The apathy of the 95 million non-voters is a reflection of our iGadget addicted, debauched, feeble minded, bread and circuses distracted, confederacy of fools culture.

    With a population of 325 million, versus the 2.5 million in Paine’s day, the question is how many patriots will be required to vanquish the Deep State sycophants and their useful idiot followers. It has been noted only 3% of colonists truly fought for independence during the American Revolution. One third remained loyal to the crown, one third passively supported independence and another third didn’t support either side. We have a similar dynamic today with about 30% supporting Trump’s revolution, 30% supporting the corrupt establishment, and 40% choosing to not participate. If the 3% still applies, it will only take 7 million out of Trump’s 63 million voters to successfully see the revolution through to its conclusion.

    The venomous reaction from the fake news corporate media to Trump’s plain spoken, direct, and truthful, common sense inaugural address reveals his opponents true nature. They called the speech dark, gloomy, scary, and Hitler like. Trump derangement syndrome has clearly infected this insane clown posse of brainless talking heads and vacuous spokesmodels as they mouth the lines written by their establishment employers.

    He directly confronted his establishment enemies as they sat in front of him by declaring war on their petty world of corruption, malfeasance, idolatry of power, world domination, globalization, and disregard for the lives of the common people. Just as Paine had declared in 1776, Trump declared this week – there will be no reconciliation, no negotiated peace, and no truce. His war on the establishment will be fought to the finish, with a clear winner and a clear loser. His address is the new Common Sense for common people looking to take back control of their government.

    Trump immediately struck at the heart of the Washington DC beltway beast. The people out in the hinterlands, beyond the DC, NYC, LA, SF elitist enclaves, have been left behind and discarded while the connected few reaped unwarranted riches.

    “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.”

    Just as Paine delineated between the liberty seeking patriots and the despotic monarchical regime of King George III, Trump doesn’t play the standard political party games. This is a revolutionary movement. It’s the forgotten men and women versus the non-responsive imperious government.

    “What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction that a nation exists to serve its citizens.”

    Trump demolished the fake news storylines of economic advancement, low unemployment, reduced crime rates, and a thriving middle class. The media pundits were aghast when he told the truth about a nation in decay. After 50 years and $10 trillion of Great Society welfare programs, the poverty rate is near all-time highs; 43 million (up by 12 million since recession officially ended in 2009) people depend on food stamps to survive; over 100 million working age Americans aren’t working; real wages are lower than they were thirty years ago; and millions of family sustaining blue collar jobs have been off-shored to Asia in the name of globalization.

    Our government run public schools are nothing more than social engineering indoctrination centers wasting $12,000 per student by having mediocre overpaid union teachers flog common core pabulum to disinterested students. They graduate functionally illiterate morons into society, further degrading the civic character of our nation, while in liberal run cities, like Chicago, murder rates skyrocket as black communities implode due to the breakdown of the family unit, welfare mentality, drugs, and placing no value on education. Trump’s assessment of this carnage is dead on.

    “But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

    Trump scorched the globalization acolytes and neo-cons with his common sense appraisal of how we’ve wasted our wealth benefiting other countries and global corporations, while disregarding our own decaying infrastructure and families’ dependent upon decent paying jobs to make an honest living. The priorities of the establishment have enriched their corporate masters while destroying a once thriving middle class.

    “We spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We’ve made other countries rich, while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon. One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world.”

    It is telling how low we’ve sunk as a nation when the intellectual elitists reference Hitler when pandering to their disturbed demagogues of despair while describing Trump’s speech. I guess the author of the Declaration of Independence would be classified as a Nazi by today’s standards, as his words were directly echoed by Trump:

    “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations…entangling alliances with none” – Thomas Jefferson

    “We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.” – Donald Trump

    If CNN, MSNBC, or the Washington Post had existed in 1776, they would have classified Thomas Paine as a terrorist, exposing his failed business ventures, failed marriages, and revealing him to be too pugnacious and nasty to be taken seriously. They couldn’t demand that he release his tax returns, since the individual income tax didn’t get enacted until 137 years later in the dreadful year of 1913. They would have glorified King George III as a benevolent father figure and boldly predicted a landslide victory for the British Army against Washington’s ragtag army of farmers.

    The dying legacy media are the propaganda arm of the establishment and will need to be crushed without impunity by the Trump administration and the hundreds of alternative truth telling media websites representing the Thomas Paines of today. One Thomas Paine cannot influence 200 million people the way he influenced 2.5 million in 1776, but an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men, can make an impact during the most crucial period of this Fourth Turning Crisis.

    Trump has pointed out what is wrong with our government. The outcry from those comfortable with the status quo has been spiteful, lashing out irrationally in a crazed manner, which will surely bring more normal people over to Trump’s side. Time and results will convert more to the right side of history.

    “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

    Just as the British levied taxes on the colonies to pay the debts of their French & Indian War adventures and their sprawling empire, our malevolent surveillance state wages undeclared wars across the globe, having wasted over $6 trillion in the Middle East since 2003, and extracts taxes from our paychecks at the point of a gun to pay for these neo-con wet dreams. The $20 trillion of accumulated debts and the $200 trillion of unfunded future obligations are nothing but tax obligations of our children and unborn generations.

    Just as the British military invaded the homes of American colonists, police state thugs roam our streets with impunity, intimidating, shaking down and acting as the truncheon for the establishment. The Fourth Amendment has been gutted by the powers that be, with the First and Second under constant attack.

    Paine believed in the common sense golden rule.

    “When I was teaching children I began every day writing this on the blackboard: “Do to others what you would like them to do to you”, telling them how much better the world would be if everybody lived by this rule.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

    But he realized everyone does not live by that rule. In fact, very few people live by that rule. They believe they are owed something for being born. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness isn’t good enough. The leftists fighting Trump tooth and nail believe they are entitled to special rights, privileges, and benefits. These special snowflakes have been triggered by the big bad mean talking Trump and after getting their paychecks from Soros will angrily protest within their liberal urban blue safe zones. If they ever violently venture into the 85% of the country colored red, the carnage will be instantaneous.

    The contemptible fake news media continues to flog the popular vote drivel of a country divided. This map shows a much unified country, unified against the liberal elite and their enslaved welfare state dregs occupying the miniscule blue areas on the map. Those in the blue believe it is their right to subdue the will of those in the red. We disagree. Let the hostilities commence. Over 90% of the legally owned firearms reside in the red areas.

    “Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavored to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense

    Donald Trump had much more to lose than to gain by putting himself through the gauntlet of a presidential campaign. He was ridiculed, scorned, attacked, and dismissed by the ruling oligarchy and their prodigious array of propaganda mechanisms. The surveillance state used all their unlawful powers to discredit him.

    He has taken on the thankless task of trying to rectify decades of bad decisions, bad policy, bad finance, bad people, and an entrenched bureaucracy of DC swamp creatures. Trump is a billionaire and could have spent his waning years golfing, mentoring his sons, and enjoying the fruits of his labor. But, like the wealthy colonial landowners Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, Trump has taken a huge risk in fighting the Washington Deep State establishment to make government work for the people again.

    His inauguration speech was the first salvo in what will be a long and bloody fight. Common Sense was written in 1776 and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution was still thirteen bloody years in the future. Fourth Turnings never end in compromise. They end with a clear victor and a clear loser. The next eight years will surely try men’s souls.

    Trump is fighting against a half a century of establishment rule. As we have seen already, they will not go down without a fight. Are we ready to stand and fight, or will we be summer soldiers and sunshine patriots during this crisis, shrinking from the service of our country? The future of our country depends upon our answer.

    Aldous Huxley foretold the willful loss of our freedoms back in 1959. Our chance to vanquish the oligarchs has arrived.

    “Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms—elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but Democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.”

    – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

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Jan 23

Today’s News 23rd January 2017

  • Watch: Bigoted Turtleneck-Wearing Liberal Gets Tossed Off Plane For Harassing Trump Supporter!

    File this under Justice Porn…

    A miserable seething bitch and her browbeaten husband are the stars of a new video making it’s way around the internet after the woman, a horrible human being, decided to berate a Trump supporter on an airplane. First, here’s what happened from the guy it happened to:

    scott

     

    The first flight attendant to deal with his bigot isn’t having any of her shit:

    Attendant #1: “Is there going to be a problem?”

    Woman: “There will be, I would like for him to change seats with somebody who did not put us all in harm’s way”

    Attendant #1: “Well, you don’t have that right!”

    [mic drop, goes to get other flight attendant]

    When the second flight attendant breaks the news of her impending ejection, this ivory tower liberal starts throwing her dead mother in law out to try and gain some sympathy:

    Woman: “I’m going home now. My mother in law, his mother, died. And we had to be here. I’m going home now, there is no way I’m getting off this plane.”

    Attendant #2: “I’m terribly sorry for that, but that does not give you the right to treat people the way you’ve been treating them.

    [indignancy intensifies]

    Husband: “What if we trade seats and she quiets down? How would that be?”

    Attendant #2: “Unfortunately the captain has already made the call…”

    DENIED

    Enjoy the show: 

     

    And a potato quality recording of her actually getting tossed:

     

     

    Note the applause…

    nostep

  • Treasuries Besieged by 'Idiot Money': Record Shorts in Treasuries Paint an Ominous Picture for Bond Bears

    As some of you might recall, in December of 2015, I went long treasuries, due to my belief that negative interest rates would wreak havoc across the investment landscape — bringing with it a deflationary vortex that would consume all whole — especially equity holders. For the better part of 2016, this was the single best trade to be in — and I had it before anyone deemed it to be fashionable.

    Then the elections came and a gigantic Trump induced squeeze commenced — helping rout bonds and buoy equities in record fashion. Looking back on that rally, it was a fucking month — literally nothing in the big scheme of things. Should bonds rally again, recapturing some of its former glory, no one will remember the faux inflation days of November-January — post Hillary annihilation.

    Looking at the bond trade, it’s ripe for a reversion to the mean. After all, the most reprehensible people around, pavement apes and the like, are short bonds. These are the ‘Fast Money’ people — the same lads who bought mortgage bonds in 2007 and dot com hand grenades in the spring of 2000.

    Via CFTC:

    The amount of speculators’ bearish, or short, positions in
    10-year Treasury futures exceeded bullish, or long, positions by
    394,689 contracts on Jan. 10, according to the CFTC’s latest
    Commitments of Traders data.

    A week earlier, speculators held 344,931 net short positions
    in 10-year T-note futures.

    Net shorts in five-year T-note futures and Eurodollar
    futures among speculators also climbed to record highs in the
    latest week, while speculative T-bond net shorts rose to their
    highest level since March 2012, according to CFTC data.

    Net shorts in federal funds futures among speculators rose
    to their highest since August 2015.

    The rise in net shorts among these futures contracts
    suggested this group of market participants believes bond prices
    will resume their fall despite their rebound since mid-December.

    Juxtaposing short data with actual yield action, proves, in fact, that the shorts are literally pavement apes — idiots devoid of reason — slaves to the basest instincts that require zero thinking. These are horrible people.

    IMG_6188

    IMG_6189

    Yields on the 5 year treasury have doubled since our glorious leader, Donald J. Trump, seized power, to 1.94%. Short contracts now outstrip longs by a record 1.1 million — making this Tower of Pisa trade indelibly lopsided.

    In the end, “real money always wins,” said Tom di Galoma, the managing director of government trading and strategy at Seaport Global Holdings. “Speculators tend to get taken out. We’ve seen this occur several times in the last 10 to 15 years, where everybody thinks rates are too low.”

    A shift back into Treasuries may already be starting. Fixed-income managers who oversee a combined $225 billion held 24.7 percent of their assets in U.S. government debt in the week through Jan. 17, according to Stone & McCarthy Research Associates client survey. That’s higher than the average of 24.2 percent in 2016.

    However, signs of even a slightly more aggressive Fed can still make the bearish trades worthwhile. Last week, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said rates could rise “a few times a year” from now through 2019. That caused five-year yields to soar by the most since the central bank raised rates Dec. 14.

    In the past, the Fed has been notorious for being too confident about growth and the pace of rate increases. Jason Evans, co-founder of hedge fund NineAlpha Capital LP and the former head of U.S. government bond trading at Deutsche Bank AG, believes this time the central bank will stick to its projections and lift rates three times in 2017.

    “It’s understandable that there’s going to be a little ebb and flow,” said Evans, who said his firm put on short positions this month. Even so, “we’ll have higher yields later this year. We at least know the direction we’re heading in.”

    The expectations for the Federal Reserve is for 3 hikes in 2017, then more in 2018. However, that hope is predicated on economic growth expansion — which cannot happen without the cooperation from a Congress who has only, at this time, approved 2 of Trump’s 21 cabinet appointees and appear to be ready to fight him, tooth and nail, every step of the way. Couple that with the fact that the dollar is at 14 year highs and the cost to borrow funds has spiked, dramatically, since election day — making Trump’s fiscal dreams increasingly difficult to attain, I think it’s fair to say higher rates isn’t a foregone conclusion.

    I am long zeroes, via $ZROZ.

     

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  • How To Predict The Behavior Of Globalists

    Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    In my last article, 'How Globalists Predict Your Behavior', I outlined the primary method globalists use to measure public consent, or, public dissent. The use of macro-analytics and the hyper-monitoring of web traffic is a powerful tool at the disposal of the establishment for gauging shifts in public consciousness in real time.

    For example, in early 2016 the elites were entirely aware of the rise of conservative and sovereignty movements in the U.S. and Europe. In fact, the dangers of growing “populism” were all that elitists and their publications talked about for the first six months of the year. At first, this notion seemed a little odd to me. Generally, when globalists are attempting to manage public opinion, they are careful not to reveal the slightest hint that conservative movements exist beyond an “extremist fringe”. They certainly never suggest that there is a massive undercurrent of nationalism ready to topple the globalist structure.

    In fact, whenever such movements do arise the establishment is swift to obstruct them or co-opt them. I witnessed this first hand during the Ron Paul campaign in 2008 and 2012 – the mainstream deliberately refused to acknowledge Ron Paul's existence, because attacking him repeatedly would have been a zero sum strategy that would have given him greater public attention and free publicity.

    I saw it during the Neo-con co-option of the Tea Party, a movement that I was involved in long before Fox News latched onto it and long before mainstream RINO Republicans not only jumped on the bandwagon but hijacked the horse. In a matter of months the Tea Party became a defunct entity, a shell of its former self. Luckily, most liberty activists simply left it behind and started their own separate groups and projects rather than being absorbed into the Neo-con fold.

    I also saw establishment interference on a local and state level during elections in Montana. An associate of mine was running for state office on a liberty platform and was doing rather well in the polls. He was approached by a contingent of political elites running as Republicans who told him in no uncertain terms that he could run on any platform and use any rhetoric he wanted, but if he won, he would be required to follow THEIR direction. They even encouraged him to continue arguing for constitutional government in his speeches and debates, because they felt this was the best way to “sell” his candidacy. But when all was said and done, he was supposed to stab his constituency in the back and take orders from the party leadership.

    The point is, the elites dominate the political system. Nothing happens within it without their say. So, for those same elites to suddenly and openly suggest that “populist movements” were threatening to overtake the world and destroy the global economy was suspicious, to say the least.

    In order to predict the behavior of globalists and the outcome of future economic and political events, it is important to understand certain dynamics. As just described, the establishment has a stranglehold on the political system. Party politics are a sham built around the false left/right paradigm. However, certain new dynamics are developing, and you must be able to track them.

    The best way to do this is to watch what globalists say within their own publications. They often reveal their intentions directly or indirectly. In many cases I think in their arrogance they assume that the masses are too stupid to read these publications and grasp what is being said.

    The most important element of predicting globalist actions is to know what they ultimately want; to know their ultimate goals. If you know the specifics of what any group or individual desperately wants, those people become highly predictable, because there are only so many useful paths to get to any goal.

    I have used this method to great effect over the years, so I am not merely presenting a theory, I have concrete successes to back my position.

    For example, just in the past couple of years I correctly predicted the Federal Reserve taper of QE, I predicted the inclusion of China in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights years in advance, I predicted the exact timing of the first Fed rate hike, I predicted the success of the Brexit referendum when most of the world and the liberty movement said it was never going to happen, I predicted that the Saudi 9/11 bill would pass, that Barack Obama would veto it and that congress would override his veto, I predicted that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic candidate and that Donald Trump would be the Republican candidate for president of the U.S. and, I predicted that Donald Trump would win the 2016 election.

    Except for the China SDR inclusion, I predicted all of these events many months in advance and received a heavy amount of criticism each time from people in the mainstream and even from people in the liberty movement. Hilariously, as soon as these predictions proved true, some of the same people that were fervently opposed came quickly out of the woodwork to claim they “saw it coming all along”. I suppose this is human nature, but it is a problem because it keeps people from learning how to better gauge globalist behavior and come to correct conclusions.

    My goal in this article is to make EVERY liberty activist adept at predicting globalist driven events. So, here is a good place to start:

    Learn To Play Chess

    The elites are obsessed with chess and chess symbolism. Many of their strategies develop much like a game of chess develops. If you don't know how to play chess, I suggest you learn. You don't have to master the game, but you do need to understand the basic concepts of winning the game.

    For example, if you know the target that your opponent is really pursuing, you can easily obstruct his efforts because all his movements will become predictable. If his goal is to take your Queen, and you know this, then he should never be able to take your queen. This is why the elites go to great lengths to distract their opponents (meaning us) from their true target. They want you to think they are going straight for your King, or your Knight; they want you focused elsewhere. They will use feints often.

    Another core strategy of chess is the “forced sacrifice”. That is to say, the best chess players are very good at positioning one of their pieces so that it threatens two or more of your pieces. This forces you to sacrifice one piece for the sake of the others. If they do this often enough, before you know it you have sacrificed your way into defeat. The globalists ALWAYS have a primary target and a secondary target. There is always more than one move developing at any given time.

    Knowing chess is key to knowing how the globalists think.

    Get In Touch With Your Darker Side

    Going by their behavior and their rhetoric when they are unguarded, most globalists display highly narcissistic character traits as well as sociopathy and psychopathy. It is not enough to research these traits in a clinical fashion, you have to tap into the darker side of your own psyche, and think as they think. This means being willing to entertain evil and malicious concepts. You must be willing to ask yourself – “If I were them, how would I go about getting what I want?”

    Understanding devious and aberrant psychopathic intent goes a long way in making the globalists predictable. Remember, many psychopaths are actually highly intelligent and intuitive. They don't have a moral compass and have lost the voice of conscience, but in order to adapt they have learned how to fake it. They are chameleons.

    ALL people are inherently capable of evil actions, just as they are inherently capable of great good. You don't have to become like the elites, but you do have to go to some ugly places in your own mind. An elitist is basically a person who went to those places and discovered that he liked it there.

    Read Globalist Publications

    As noted above, the globalists have their own media outlets in which they publish their “views”, such as Foreign Policy Magazine, The Economist, Bloomberg, Reuters, etc. Sometimes these views are honest and sometimes they are calculated propaganda. Again, if you know exactly what the elitist targets are, then you can better discern if what they are saying is legitimate or a feint to distract you.

    I predicted the success of the Brexit and the Trump win based on the knowledge that:

    1) The globalists need a large scale crisis in order to drastically change public perceptions on society and governance. That is to say, they need to create a crisis so terrifying that people will be willing to accept a fully centralized global economic system and global governance as a solution.

    2) The globalists have already set in motion an economic crisis that cannot be reversed. It is a crisis that they must avoid blame for at all costs once it accelerates.

    3) Conservative and sovereignty principles are the primary threat to the dominance of globalism. As long as ideas of individualism, national sovereignty and decentralization exist, globalism can never truly prevail. Therefore, obstructing movements based on these principles is not enough. The globalists must also destroy any positive perceptions of our principles for generations to come.

    4) As stated in the section on chess, the globalists like to use the strategy of forced sacrifice, in which they threaten two targets simultaneously, or kill two birds with one stone. I realized at the beginning of 2016 that all the rhetoric by globalists in their own publications on the “rise of populism” was staging the groundwork for the success of the Brexit and the success of Trump. What better strategy for the establishment than to allow conservative movements to take the helm of the political and economic ship just as that ship is about to sink? In this way, the globalists can have the crisis they need, while at the same time scapegoating conservatives and avoiding blame, and, destroying the image of conservative ideals, perhaps forever.

    Have No Sacred Cows

    This is a hard one for many people. We all have certain biases and these biases can blind us to reality. The overreaching bias within the liberty movement is a desire for heroic leadership. We have grown up on stories of heroes from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson – grand statesmen and military giants that crushed tyranny. The problem is, while men like Washington and Jefferson were indeed instrumental, they were nothing without the hundreds of thousands of unsung patriots working tirelessly for freedom on their own.

    The founding fathers were not considered the founding fathers until long after the American Revolution was over. At the time, they were not thought of necessarily as heroes or even great leaders. They were just men, like many other men, gambling life and liberty on a cause that was uncertain at best.

    Activists need to STOP looking around for mighty leaders and start taking leadership themselves in their own way. If we do end up with another Washington or Jefferson or Paine or Madison, etc., we will not know who they are until the fight is over and the history books are written.

    The globalists take full advantage of the movement's weakness in seeking out and artificially elevating heroes. Also, when people have this bias, they end up with blinders when examining such heroes with any skepticism. Obviously I am referring to Donald Trump, here.

    Sacred cows prevent accurate predictions of major events because a person will refuse to consider them as a potential negative factor.

    Moving Beyond Predictions

    It is one thing to be able to predict the outcome of social and political events; it is another matter to do something about them. In my next article I will outline solutions liberty activists can pursue on their own and in groups to counter globalist activity. Predicting their tactics is essential, but acting to disrupt those tactics should be the ultimate goal.

    The globalists believe that even if some of us do manage to decipher their activities and methods, we will have no means to do anything about them. They see themselves as the “history makers”, as the men who act. They see us as the “history watchers”, or the meaningless masses wafting about with geopolitical tides, helpless and incapable of determining our own destinies. I believe we will become history makers in due course. One weakness of the globalists that will sabotage them is their own hubris. They see people as pawns – but what happens when a piece walks off the chess board completely and acts in an unpredictable way? It is this potential alone that will destroy the globalists in the end.

  • Man Who Stole $1.6 Million Bucket Full Of Gold In Midtown Manhattan Has Been Captured

    The most brazen, fascinating gold heist of the year, if not the decade, is now closed.

    Recall that in late November, we reported that in what may have been one of the most brazen thefts in Manhattan’s jewelry district, a man calculatedly swiped an 86-pound bucket full of gold worth $1.6 million from the back of an unattended Loomis armored truck on West 48th Street in the Diamond District on Sept. 29, in broad daylight, as tourists and locals were walking in and out of the jewelry stores that line the block. The suspect, described as 5 feet 6 inches tall, 150 pounds and in his 50s, managed to get away without a hitch. The police suspected that the unidentified man was lying low in Orlando or Miami until things blow over in the Big Apple. The whole incident was caught on closed-circuit camera.

    Then, one month ago, the police said they had not only identified the man, but speculated that the gold thief had moved on from Florida, and may have fled to California. NYPD identified the man as Julio Nivelo, and was believed to be – as of late December – in Los Angeles.

    NYPD Det. Martin Pastor said Nivelo, 53, is a convicted felon who’s known to the NYPD as Luis Toledo, among other aliases. He’s a career thief who’s been arrested seven times and deported four times to his native Ecuador, according to Pastor. 

    Nivelo, a native of Ecuador, fled to Orlando, before heading to California, WNBC reported. Nivelo, who was living in West New York, N.J., at the time of the theft, had previously been arrested seven times and deported four times, the station reported.

    In the end, it turns out that Nivello was not in Los Angeles, but had fled all the way back to his native Ecuador, where, as NBC 4 New York reported, he was finally arrested according to law enforcement sources.

    Authorities had been looking for Nivelo for months, with the manhunt leading police to Nivelo’s residence in West New York, New Jersey, to Orlando, to Los Angeles before detectives from the major case squad headed to Ecuador. Nivelo was arrested there Thursday morning by federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations and The National Police of Ecuador.

    He was arrested without incident after he sent the NYPD on a months-long search across the globe. It wasn’t clear when he would be extradited to New York to face charges. Police say they have recovered some of the money. 

    Before he was captured, Jalopnik reported that Nivelo was a truck cargo-stealing veteran and mastermind. He had allegedly ripped off many other trucks before he finally hit the golden jackpot in September.

    And so, as NBC 4 puts it, ends the saga of one of the luckiest, most brazen thefts to capture our collective imagination in some time. However, now that he has shown how easily it can be done, we expect the next such brazen “truck theft” to take place in the not too distant future.

  • Fakewood EXPOSED: Where Fake News began

    With the internet rife with “Fake News” – Fake Profiles, fake comments, and fake just about everything; let’s do what an intelligence analyst should do (that is, analyze and not just do whatever his client pays him to do).  And, the first step before collecting current information is to understand the history.  In our case, the history of “Fake News” in USA at least, goes back to the days of WW1 (that’s World War 1) and became mainstream, during WW2.  Fake News as they are calling it, has since then been part of an information arsenal in any ground based propaganda campaign, even before the days of Edward Bernays.  Taking the most basic first step, let’s look at Wikipedia under the entry “Propaganda”:

    The first large-scale use of propaganda by the U.S. government came during World War I. The government enlisted the help of citizens and children to help promote war bonds and stamps to help stimulate the economy. To keep the prices of war supplies down (guns, gunpowder, cannons, steel, etc.), the U.S. government produced posters that encouraged people to reduce waste and grow their own vegetables in “victory gardens”. The public skepticism that was generated by the heavy-handed tactics of the Committee on Public Information would lead the postwar government to officially abandon the use of propaganda.[1]

    While they ‘abandoned’ the use of ‘Propaganda’ this later became ‘marketing’ – geniuses like Edward Bernays would then come into play, with their understanding of psychological nuances that can split hairs on fleas.  Use of the English language in particular, combined with hidden images in photography, and other dirty tricks, can lull any average IQ citizen into believing whatever the campaign says.  Take a look at what “Propaganada” used to look like:

    OK, it was WW1 but still, they’ve come a long way, baby!  

    Today’s Propaganda is 3d in real time.  The CIA has video technology by the way, rumored to be used to make Bin Laden videos when they knew he was dead, that could create a lifelike “Bin Laden” or whatever character to speak and say what they type in real time in 3d (but actually it’s broadcast on 2d, making it look all that more realistic).

    This article is about Propaganda you say?  What are some “Fake News” events of the day, back in the day?

    Orsen Wells War of the Worlds Alien Invasion

    Fake News started World War 1 – “Zimmerman Telegram” 

    Fake News “Weapons of Mass Destruction Found in Iraq” remember that one?

    Here’s an NY Times history of “Fake News” although they are not the most credible news agency to create such a list, being guitly of peddling it themselves.

    The real “Fake News” industry however, began in Hollywood, California.. around the time of WW2 and continues to this day.  It was the epic creation of creative producers, filmed at the big studios.  One secret agreement it’s rumored:

    “If you can help us fake the moon landing, we’ll put one of yours in the White House [Ronald Reagan]” – unknown CIA agent.

    The amount of Propaganda and Fake News created by Hollywood in that time is so large, there’s an entire topic on the subject here, with many films listed on a list “Allied Propaganda Films”.  You see, during that time, Propaganda was considered a good thing, because it was ‘good for the country’ to ‘help people realize’ how important it was to go to war!  It wasn’t until the 60’s when the youth started to ‘tune in, drop out’ that the dark side of Propaganda was exposed for what it was.  And with all the Nazi scientists now living and working in the USA, there wasn’t any ‘evil empire’ anymore, so it was soon realized that ‘our good propaganda’ was not much different than Hitler’s ‘evil’ propaganda except that of course, it was in English.  

    Hollywood’s connection to Washington is explained well in films like “Wag the Dog” and we elaborated on that in this article here on Zero Hedge.  But it goes MUCH DEEPER than that.  Where to begin?

    In every major newsroom in America, major meaning like the biggies like CNN not your local weather channel – there’s a paid CIA/NSA employee sitting near the editor keeping an eye on the content.  They send out daily ‘talking points’ to journalists to include certain ‘keywords’ in their speech.  This was used during the election in full force.

    In films, especially those about business, war, the government, or rights issues – there’s always a ‘military consultant’ who is again, part of the same department, at CIA/NSA.  

    Have you noted recently, in Hollywood films, and TV series – over the last few years there’s been a large amount of “Russian/Ukrainian” villians and they’re always bad people?  As 10 years ago it was always Mussamad Bin Galafi Turban?  That’s because the Terrorist script has run it’s course, now that Bin Laden was ‘killed’ in spirit anyway, new enemies needed to foment, and the new enemies are Russians.  Hollywood contributed more to the anti-Russian sentiment in America now than the current ‘Fake News’ about the Russian hacking.  

    How it works.  90% of Americans have a TV and watch it, even if they don’t (it’s on in the house).  Maybe the kids watch a show, or movie – there’s a Russian character who is evil, horrible, person.  He speaks with a deep, rough, raspy voice as if he just finished his third pack of smokes for the day, hasn’t shaven, and uses foul language.  It’s a character anyone would hate!  And truely, the character is portrayed as a terrible person, people should hate him.  That’s how Television “Programming” works.  So then weeks later, on CNN they broadcast “Russia Hacks the DNC” and the unsuspecting parent, not consciously knowing what is going on in their subconscious mind, thinks “Oh, I know the type, like in this film.  Dirty Scoundrels!”

    Don’t take our word for it, listen to Larry Johnson, retired CIA:

    US animosity directed at Russia is misdirected anger, said Larry Johnson, retired CIA and State Department official. The propaganda plays upon the ignorance of US people, who know little of Russia and the history of its relations with the US, he added.

    Even the MSM picked up on this, asking in 2014 “Why are RUSSIANS always the bad guys?”

    From a sadistic former KGB operative in The Avengers to the Russian evildoers in A Good Day to Die Hard, there’s certainly been no shortage of Russian villains on screen recently. Russian politicians and filmmakers have now made clear their displeasure with the US movie industry’s ongoing depictions of Russian characters as villains. There has even been the threat of a Russian boycott of Hollywood movies, highlighting the risk studios take when they demonise a nationality.

    And finally – “Thrillist” of all publications put a timeline on it, yes, it started in 2010.  “Why are Russians the greatest Villians of all time?”

    Since 2010 alone, Russian bad guys have appeared in such action flicks as John Wick, The Equalizer, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The November Man, A Good Day to Die Hard, Jack Reacher, Limitless, Salt, The Drop, and The Tourist. Hell, even The Muppets piled on with Tina Fey’s gulag guard in Muppets Most Wanted. And this month we have two more: the Casey Affleck vehicle Triple 9, featuring the Russian mob, and Zoolander 2, featuring what appears to be a Russian Kristen Wiig.

    It’s one year before the official ‘capture’ Fake News event regarding Bin Laden.  You see, Bin Laden was like the Villian of a big comic book story, so the Hollywood script writers knew that there would be no replacing Bin Laden.  He was just bigger than life.  So they needed to plant the seeds while they planned operation capture & kill Bin Laden.

    Connect the dots – it’s not so hard!  Hollywood, or should we call it FakeWood, has been the Prime Mover of the “Fake News” movement.  

    For some FREE documents and tools about how the CIA/NSA operates with Hollywood, checkout Global Intel Hub’s Library.

    To learn how this impacts the markets, checkout Splitting Pennies – Understanding Forex.  Learn how big news agencies create “Fake News” that drops the Great British Pound – only to make a few quid!

  • Ethics Group Will Sue Trump On Monday Over Foreign Government Payments

    Trump is barely two days in office, and already a lawsuit is set to be filed against the newly inaugurated president. According to press reports, a group of lawyers, including former White House ethics attorneys will file a lawsuit on Monday accusing the President of allowing his businesses to accept payments from foreign governments in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

    Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) announced Sunday night it is bringing a suit “to stop President Trump from violating the Constitution by illegally receiving payments from foreign governments.” The group said the suit will be filed in the Southern District of New York at 9 a.m. on Monday.

    Piggybacking on popular displeasure with the Clinton Foundation likewise accepting hundreds of millions in foreign payments, Deepak Gupta, a Supreme Court litigator working on the case, said the lawsuit will allege that the Constitution’s emoluments clause forbids payments to Trump’s businesses and will seek a court order forbidding Trump from accepting such payments. The case is part of a wave of litigation expected to be filed against Trump by liberal advocacy groups. It will be filed in a Manhattan federal court, Gupta said, and plaintiffs will include Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer in Republican President George W. Bush’s White House.

    “We did not want to get to this point. It was our hope that President Trump would take the necessary steps to avoid violating the Constitution before he took office,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. “He did not. His constitutional violations are immediate and serious, so we were forced to take legal action.”

    “President Trump has made his slogan ‘America First,’” Bookbinder added. “So you would think he would want to strictly follow the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, since it was written to ensure our government officials are thinking of Americans first, and not foreign governments.”

    The litigation will focus on Trump’s refusal to divest from his business or place his assets into a blind trust, which would separate him entirely from his business empire. He has said his adult sons will run his business while he is in office, that they will not conduct any foreign deals and will subject any domestic deals to an ethics review.

    The group says that because Trump has not divested from his businesses, he is “now getting cash and favors from foreign governments, through guests and events at his hotels, leases in his buildings, and valuable real estate deals abroad.”

    Meanwhile, Trump lawyer Sheri Dillon recently said that under the business plan, Trump will not be in violation of the Constitution’s “Emoluments Clause.” “Paying for a hotel room is not a gift or a present, and has nothing to do with an office,” she said. “It is not an emolument. The Constitution does not require President-elect Trump to do anything here.”

    But, as The Hill notes, CREW charges that because Trump does business with such countries as China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, “now that he is President, his company’s acceptance of any benefits from the governments of those countries violates the Constitution.” It also warns that, “When Trump the president sits down to negotiate trade deals with these countries, the American people will have no way of knowing whether he will also be thinking about the profits of Trump the businessman.”

    The lawyers behind action include constitutional law professors Laurence Tribe and Erwin Chemerinsky, as well as former White House ethics lawyers and CREW board members Norm Eisen and Richard Painter, as well as Bookbinder, Zephyr Teachout and Deepak Gupta.

    Trump’s son Eric responded, telling the Times on Sunday that the company had taken more steps than required by law to avoid any possible legal exposure, such as agreeing to donate any profits collected at Trump-owned hotels that come from foreign government guests to the U.S. Treasury. “This is purely harassment for political gain,” Trump told the newspaper.

    It may be, but it will also be yet another major distraction for Trump as he prepares to unveil his various stimulus packages. Furthermore, should a adversarial judge be appointedon the case, it is possible that the case will drag out extensively, leading to even more damage for the administration, and even more confusion and chaos for markets, which may be why

  • "10 Things Learned From 3 Days In Washington D.C."

    Submitted by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,

    I have been in Washington DC for the last three days. The ostensible reason was to participate in a board meeting of a public company, Ashford Inc. (AINC). We manage hotel REITs that own three hotels here in DC, and the group decided to move our board meeting up a few weeks and hold it in DC during the inauguration. That gave me the opportunity to set up a few meetings to try to gain some insight into what the first 100 days, the first six months, and the first year of the Trump administration might look like.

    This is going to be a short letter summarizing my impressions from the last few days. I think it might be easiest to present them in the form of a list.

    1. If you listen to the media you might have the impression that the Trump transition team is in complete disarray. Talking with leaders of the transition team certainly didn’t leave me with that impression. They have broken the transition process down into over 30 departments and have created a “landing document” for each department. The analogy they are using is that this process is like planning an invasion, and they are going to hand the landing document off to the “beachhead teams” who will then execute the plans.

    I was briefly allowed to look at (without actually being able to read) the plan for one cabinet-level department. It appeared to be about 100 pages plus of serious detail as to exactly what executive orders would need to be removed and added, what personnel would have to be replaced (both appointees and regular staff), what policies would need to be changed, and so forth.

     

    I was told that this level of planning was being done for every department. My impression is that there are a lot of people from various think tanks and others with experience in the presidential transition process who are involved in directing the plan for each department. That level of detailed planning doesn’t happen in less than two months. My guess is that some of that thinking has been going on for years, and now it can be implemented.

     

    That being said, we know that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy; and it was instructive to sit with Bill Bennett, who talked about his experience in trying to reform the Department of Education under Reagan. They were still dealing with personnel and policy issues a year later, and this was when the department was much smaller than it is today. And that is just one department.

     

    When I asked a key person how much of the overall plan would likely come to fruition, I got a rueful smile and a shrug. “If we even get half of this done in the first few years, that will be major reform.”

    2. There seem to be two general types of agency plans.

    First, there are those where the culture of the department has to be changed, and then are those where the current staff seems to be doing its job but the culture surrounding the department has to be dealt with.

     

    Those are entirely different issues. The first can be handled to some degree by the executive branch, but the latter needs to be dealt with by congressional action.

    3. Trump’s management style is going to drive the media (and admittedly, much of the country and the world) nuts.

    One person who has worked closely with Trump during the transition says it is a lot like the HBO show Entourage and not at all like the British sitcom Yes, Minister. Trump will have people in his entourage competing to give him the pieces of information he needs. In his business organization, he sets the vision and then hires people to execute that vision; and then he goes back to doing what we have seen him do so well, which is to create the brand and image.

     

    He is bringing in people to execute his vision, and he’s going to expect them to get it done. He will jump in when he thinks he’s needed or when he can add something to the process, but he will mostly be paying attention to his team’s performance.

     

    One assessment suggests that there is going to be more than the usual amount of personnel turnover in the first six months. The media will be writing about how Trump can’t keep people and about all the chaos in the White House and other parts of government. But from Trump’s perspective, and given his management style, that’s not necessarily bad in terms of his longer-term goal of changing things.

     

    We have not had a president with this type of management style in my lifetime. Since it’s not something that any of us are going to be familiar with, it is going to make some of us uncomfortable until we get used to it (and some people never will).

    4. Everyone in the new administration and Congress agrees there is going to be significant tax reform. That is where the agreement ends. There is absolutely no consensus on what that tax reform should actually look like. Among members of the US Congress and others you would think should know, the universal answer is “I have no idea.”

    I will candidly admit that some of the tax ideas I’ve been reading about make me nervous. The wrong type of tax reform can do serious damage to the economy. One of the few things that nearly all economists can agree on is that getting the incentive structure correct is critical. I am not sure that some of the people who seem to be in a position to influence the proposals really understand the importance of incentives and the impact they could have on trade and business.

     

    Part of the reason the market is up and that optimism levels are up in all the polls is that people have high expectations about the nature and depth of the tax reform we’ll get. Failure to deliver something that at least comes close to meeting those expectations is going to have a significant negative impact, not just on the economy but also on the markets. I don’t know how long the new administration will have to “stand and deliver.”

    5. Everyone seems absolutely convinced that Obamacare will be repealed; but there are considerable differences in the plans that would replace it.

    My guess is that we are going to get substantial relief for small businesses and move towards more significant health savings accounts. There will not be a single mandate for an insurance company to cover all sorts of things. A 55-year-old woman is not going to have to purchase insurance that has prenatal care in it. People will have much more ability to tailor insurance to their own personal needs. This should help a great deal on costs to individuals and businesses, but it doesn’t deal with the overall cost of the system.

    6. Dodd–Frank is going to be restructured.

    It is also very likely that the new DOL rule on fiduciaries and ERISA plans will at least be postponed if not significantly changed. On a personal note, there are parts of the DOL fiduciary rules that make sense, and I support them. But it appears to me that DOL was trying to make a one-size-fits-all rule that was just a bridge too far.

    7. Steve Moore passed on a story to me.

    He and my friend Larry Kudlow were meeting with Trump, and Trump asked them if they would like to be part of his economic advisory team during the campaign. They looked at each other and back at Mr. Trump and said something to the effect of, “You can’t use us. We believe in free trade.” And Trump then said, “But we agree on nearly everything else. Let’s agree to disagree on trade and figure out where we can work together.”

     

    Not many presidents are willing to have that level of disagreement from the outset. That is somewhat comforting to me. I will admit that, having asked a few questions of people who have interacted with Peter Navarro, he still makes me very nervous.

    8. There is a general understanding on the part of nearly everyone I talked to that the biggest problems are going to be in dealing with the entrenched bureaucracy.

    It is highly likely that Congress will pass legislation that requires any department making a ruling that could cost over $100 million to get congressional approval for that rule.

     

    Given the recent ruling by the Second Court of Appeals that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not meet the constitutional requirement for government oversight and that the law concerning it has to be changed, it is highly likely that the CFPB will be overhauled and reformed.

    9. There are literally thousands of presidential appointees that don’t have to be approved by the Senate…

    but the proper procedure is to wait until the cabinet-level officers and senior management are in place so that they can have input on those appointments. If you expect appointees to run a department or agency, you need to give them the people they want.

    10. Congress has been passing literally hundreds of pieces of legislation, knowing full well they would be vetoed and never see the light of day.

    Not all of these will be brought back up, as the Republicans were counting on Obama vetoing them. But I think we will see a great deal of legislation passed in the first six months to one year. These are bills that have already been through committee and have enough support to get action.

    I have met three types of people here in Washington DC. There are the Trump supporters, who seem to be wildly optimistic. On the other hand, as I look out my window here at the Capital Hilton, I see hundreds if not thousands of protesters walking by wearing little pink hats, and they are decidedly not happy. The third group is much smaller and consists of those who are actually aware of the amount of work that is going to have to be done and who recognize what a daunting task it will be.

    On Monday some 538 people who are the initial members of the transition beachhead teams will show up in offices all over the country, but mostly in DC. It is going to be quite some time before we begin to see much change and can begin to figure out what that change will actually look like.

    I’m not going to offer my thoughts on the inaugural speeches and events, as my political leanings are really not the focus of this letter. Next week we’ll return to the arena of economics and let the political commentators do all the talking they want to do in the arena of politics. But in the areas where politics and economics intersect – an intersection that seems to be expanding – we may have to revisit the political arena again.

  • Pope Francis Warns Against "Saviours" Like Hitler, But Says "We Must Wait And See" On Trump

    In an extended interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais granted as Donald Trump was being sworn in as US president, Pope Francis warned against populism, saying it could lead to the election of “saviors” like Hitler, while condemning the idea of using walls and barbed wire to keep out foreigners.

    Joining the long ranks of pundits who have compared Trump to Hitler – if indirectly – and Trump’s regime, only in its second day to fascism, the pontiff said that “of course crises provoke fears and worries,” but added that for him “the example of populism in the European sense of the word is Germany in 1933 “Germany… was looking for a leader, someone who would give her back her identity and there was a little man named Adolf Hitler who said ‘I can do it’.”

    “Hitler didn’t steal the power,” the pope said “his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people.” The Germans at that time also wanted to protect themselves with “walls and barbed wire so that others cannot take away their identity,” he said.

    “The case of Germany is classic,” he said, adding that Hitler gave them a “deformed identity and we know what it produced.”

    Then, having made it clear how he feels about Trump, the Pope tried to back down, saying that it was too early to pass judgement on Trump. “I think that we must wait and see. “I don’t like to aniticpate events. Let us see what he does, we can’t be prophets of disasters.” Well, actually, if the Pope is right, Trump can, which is why he won.

    Some highlights from the interview:

    Q. Your Holiness, about the world’s problems that you have just mentioned, Donald Trump has just become the president of the US, and the whole world is tense because of it. What do you think about that?

    A. I think that we must wait and see. I don’t like to get ahead of myself nor judge people prematurely. We will see how he acts, what he does, and then I will have an opinion. But being afraid or rejoicing beforehand because of something that might happen is, in my view, quite unwise. It would be like prophets predicting calamities or windfalls that will not be either. We will see. We will see what he does and will judge. Always on the specific. Christianity, either is specific or it is not Christianity.

    It is interesting that the first heresy in the Church took place just after the death of Jesus Christ. The gnostic heresy, condemned by the apostle John. Which was what I call a spray religiousness, a non-specific religiousness. Yes, me, spirituality, the law… but nothing concrete. No, no way. We need specifics. And from the specific we can draw consequences. We lose sense of the concrete. The other day, a thinker was telling me that this world is so upside down that it needs a fixed point. And those fixed points stem from the concrete. What did you do, what did you decide, how do you move. That is what I prefer to wait and see.

    * * *

    Q. Both in Europe and in America, the repercussions of the crisis that never ends, the growing inequalities, the absence of strong leadership are giving way to political groups that reflect on the citizens’ malaise. Some of them —the so-called anti-system or populists— capitalize on the fears in face of an uncertain future in order to form a message full of xenophobia and hatred towards the foreigner. Trump’s case is the most noteworthy, but there are others such as Austria or Switzerland. Are you worried about this phenomenon?

    A. That is what they call populism. Which is an equivocal term, because, in Latin America, populism has another meaning. In Latin America, it means that the people —for instance, people’s movements— are the protagonists. They are self-organized, it is something else. When I started to hear about populism in Europe I didn’t know what to make of it, I got lost, until I realized that it had different meanings. Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933. After [Paul von] Hindenburg, after the crisis of 1930, Germany is broken, it needs to get up, to find its identity, a leader, someone capable of restoring its character, and there is a young man named Adolf Hitler who says: “I can, I can”. And all Germans vote for Hitler. Hitler didn’t steal the power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people. That is the risk. In times of crisis, we lack judgment, and that is a constant reference for me. Let’s look for a savior who gives us back our identity and lets defend ourselves with walls, barbed-wire, whatever, from other peoples that may rob us of our identity. And that is a very serious thing. That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another. But the case of Germany in 1933 is typical, a people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened. Where there is no conversation… Can borders be controlled? Yes, each country has the right to control its borders, who comes and who goes, and those countries at risk —from terrorism or such things— have even more the right to control them more, but no country has the right to deprive its citizens of the possibility to talk with their neighbors.

    * * *

    Q. Both in Europe and in America, the repercussions of the crisis that never ends, the growing inequalities, the absence of strong leadership are giving way to political groups that reflect on the citizens’ malaise. Some of them —the so-called anti-system or populists— capitalize on the fears in face of an uncertain future in order to form a message full of xenophobia and hatred towards the foreigner. Trump’s case is the most noteworthy, but there are others such as Austria or Switzerland. Are you worried about this phenomenon?

    A. That is what they call populism. Which is an equivocal term, because, in Latin America, populism has another meaning. In Latin America, it means that the people —for instance, people’s movements— are the protagonists. They are self-organized, it is something else. When I started to hear about populism in Europe I didn’t know what to make of it, I got lost, until I realized that it had different meanings. Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933. After [Paul von] Hindenburg, after the crisis of 1930, Germany is broken, it needs to get up, to find its identity, a leader, someone capable of restoring its character, and there is a young man named Adolf Hitler who says: “I can, I can”. And all Germans vote for Hitler. Hitler didn’t steal the power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people. That is the risk. In times of crisis, we lack judgment, and that is a constant reference for me. Let’s look for a savior who gives us back our identity and lets defend ourselves with walls, barbed-wire, whatever, from other peoples that may rob us of our identity. And that is a very serious thing. That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another. But the case of Germany in 1933 is typical, a people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened. Where there is no conversation… Can borders be controlled? Yes, each country has the right to control its borders, who comes and who goes, and those countries at risk —from terrorism or such things— have even more the right to control them more, but no country has the right to deprive its citizens of the possibility to talk with their neighbors.

    Full interview in English link

  • WikiLeaks Slams Trump, Urges Hackers To Reveal His Tax Returns

    Perhaps in an attempt to demonstrate its impartiality, on Sunday WikiLeaks tweeted a request to worldwide hackers to release President Donald Trump’s tax returns after counselor Kellyanne Conway told ABC Trump will not be releasing the controversial files after all. The whistleblower site, which was blasted during the US election campaign for only releasing material damaging to the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, tweeted the request with a link to its submission page.

    Curiously, in a second tweet, Wikileaks risked further antagonizing the president many have said it was instrumental in helping him get elected in the first place, when it compared the newly inaugurated president’s breach of promise to release his tax returns comparable to Clinton hiding her Goldman Sachs speech transcripts.

    During the campaign, Trump repeatedly refused to release his tax information to the public saying they were under audit but pledged to do so after this process was complete. That changed, however, on Sunday when Conway confirmed Sunday in an interview on ABC’s This Week, that he has no plans to do this, stating people don’t care. “The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns,” she said.

    While presidents are not required to disclose their tax returns, all US presidents since Nixon have done so voluntarily. A petition was launched the day of Trump’s inauguration calling for the release of his tax returns. It quickly reached the 100,000 signatures required to get a response from the White House.

    WikiLeaks’ request has prompted mixed reaction among its followers, with many stating they do not care about Trump’s taxes…

    …. while others emphasized the wider public want the files released…

    …. yet others accused Wikileaks of doing “too little, too late”, circling back to the left with an empty gesture to get on side with liberals again.

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Jan 22

Today’s News 22nd January 2017

  • In Speech to a the CIA, Trump Offers to Build Them a Room Without Columns: ‘Do You Understand That?’

    At the end of Trump’s speech to a room filled with 400 employees of the CIA, Trump said, rather cryptically, that maybe he’d build them a bigger room ‘by someone who knows how to build and we won’t have columns, do you understand that?’
     

    Here is the full speech.
     
    For those of you who are fucking retards and haven’t the slightest clue what that could mean, I suggest you read up on the fifth column theories — which are essentially the existence of a shadow government.
     

    A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group—such as a nation or a besieged city—from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to organized actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force.

    Indeed. A new room, built by a capable architect, without columns, sounds awfully good to me.


    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

  • How The New York Times Plays With History

    Submitted by Robert Parry via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Whenever The New York Times or some other mainstream news outlet holds itself out as a paragon of professional journalism – by wagging a finger at some pro-Trump “fake news” or some Internet “conspiracy theory” – I cringe at the self-delusion and hypocrisy.

    No one hates fake news and fact-free conspiracy theories more than I do, but the sad truth is that the mainstream press has opened the door to such fantasies by losing the confidence of the American people and becoming little more than the mouthpiece for the Establishment, which spins its own self-serving narratives and tells its own lies.

    Rather than acting as a watchdog against these deceptions, the Times and its mainstream fellow-travelers have transformed themselves into little more than the Establishment’s apologists and propagandists.

    If Iraq is the “enemy,” we are told wild tales about how Iraq’s non-existent WMD is a danger to us all. If Syria is in Washington’s crosshairs, we are given a one-sided account of what’s happening there, black hats for the “regime” and white hats for the “rebels”?

    If the State Department is backing a coup in Ukraine to oust an elected leader, we are regaled with tales of his corruption and how overthrowing a democratically chosen leader is somehow “democracy promotion.” Currently, we are getting uncritical stenography on every conceivable charge that the U.S. government lodges against Russia.

    Yet, while this crisis in American journalism has grown more severe in recent years, the pattern is not entirely new. It is reflected in how the mainstream media has missed many of the most significant news stories of modern history and has, more often than not, been an obstacle to getting at the truth.

    Then, if the evidence finally becomes so overwhelming that continued denials are no longer tenable, the mainstream media tries to reclaim its tattered credibility by seizing on some new tidbit of evidence and declaring that all that went before were just rumors but now we can take the long whispered story seriously — because the Times says so.

    For instance, we have the case of Richard Nixon’s sabotage of President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War peace talks in 1968 to give himself a crucial boost in a tight presidential race against Vice President Hubert Humphrey. In “real time” – both as Nixon was executing his maneuver and in the years immediately afterwards – there was reporting by second-tier newspapers and independent journalists into what Johnson privately called Nixon’s “treason,” but the Times and other “newspapers of record” treated the story as little more than a conspiracy theory.

    As the years went on and the case of Nixon’s guilt grew stronger and stronger, the story still never managed to cross the threshold for the Big Media to take it seriously.

    Definitive Evidence

    Several years ago, I compiled a detailed narrative of the 1968 events from material declassified by Johnson’s presidential library and I published the material at Consortiumnews.com. Not only did I draw from newly available recordings of Johnson’s phone calls but from a file of top secret wiretaps – labeled “The ‘X’ envelope” – which Johnson had ordered his national security adviser, Walt Rostow, to remove from the White House before Nixon’s inauguration.

    Walt Rostow’s “‘X’ Envelope”

    I also traced how Nixon’s paranoia about the missing White House file and who might possess it led him to assemble a team of burglars, known as the Plumbers, whose activities later surfaced in the Watergate scandal.

    In other words, by unraveling the mystery of Nixon’s 1968 “treason,” you change the narratives of the Vietnam War and Watergate, two of the pivotal issues of modern American history. But the mainstream U.S. media studiously ignored these new disclosures.

    Just last November, in a review of past “October Surprise” cases – in the context of FBI Director James Comey telling Congress that the FBI had reopened its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails – the Times offered this summary of the 1968 affair:

    “President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced a halt to bombing of North Vietnam, based on his claim that peace talks had ‘entered a new and a very much more hopeful phase,’ and he invited the government of South Vietnam and the Viet Cong to take part in negotiations. Raising hopes that the war might end soon, the announcement appeared to bolster the standing in the polls of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, the Democratic presidential nominee, but Humphrey still fell short in the election against former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, the Republican.”

    In other words, the Times treated Johnson’s bombing halt and claim of peace-talk progress as the “October Surprise” to try to influence the election in favor of Humphrey. But the evidence now is clear that a peace agreement was within reach and that the “October Surprise” was Nixon’s sabotage of the negotiations by persuading South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu to boycott the Paris talks.

    The Times got the story upside-down by failing to reexamine the case in light of convincing new evidence that had been available for years, albeit circulating outside the mainstream.

    However, finally, that disdain for the story may be dissipating. Earlier this month, the Times highlighted in an op-ed and a follow-up news article cryptic notes from Nixon’s 1968 campaign revealing Nixon’s instructions to top aide H.R. Haldeman.

    Haldeman’s notes – discovered at the Nixon presidential library by historian John A. Farrell – reveal Nixon telling Haldeman “Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN,” meaning South Viet Nam and referring to the campaign’s chief emissary to the South Vietnamese government, right-wing Chinese émigré Anna Chennault.

    Nixon’s gambit was to have Chennault pass on word to South Vietnamese President Thieu that if he boycotted Johnson’s Paris peace talks – thus derailing the negotiations – Nixon would assure Thieu continued U.S. military support for the war.

    Monkey Wrench It

    Another Haldeman note revealed Nixon’s intent to get Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, R-Illinois, to berate Johnson about a planned bombing halt while Nixon looked for “Any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything RN [Richard Nixon] can do.”

    President Lyndon Johnson accompanies President-elect Richard Nixon to his inauguration on Jan. 20, 1969

    Though Haldeman’s scribbling is sometimes hard to decipher, the next entry makes reference to “SVN” and adds: “tell him hold firm” – the same message that Anna Chennault later passed on to senior South Vietnamese officials in the last days of the 1968 campaign.

    Though Farrell’s discovery is certainly newsworthy, its greatest significance may be that it has served as a tipping point that finally has forced the Times and the mainstream media to move past their longstanding dismissals of this “conspiracy theory.”

    The Times gave Farrell space on its op-ed page of Jan. 1 to explain his discovery and the Times followed up with an inside-the-paper story about the Haldeman notes. That story included some favorable comments from mainstream writers, such as former Newsweek bureau chief Evan Thomas saying Farrell “nailed down what has been talked about for a long time.”

    Of course, the story of Nixon’s Vietnam peace-talk sabotage has been more than “talked about for a long time.” A series of journalists have pieced together the evidence, including some as the scheme was unfolding and others from digging through yellowed government files as they became available over the past couple of decades.

    But the major newspapers mostly brushed aside this accumulation of evidence apparently because it challenged their “authoritative” narrative of that era. As strange and vicious as some of Nixon’s paranoid behavior may have been, it seems to have been a bridge too far to suggest that he put his political ambitions ahead of the safety of a half million U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam war zone in 1968.

    For the American people to have been told that troubling truth might have profoundly shaken their trust in the Establishment, given the deaths of 58,000 U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War, plus the killing of several million Vietnamese. (Nearly half of the dead were killed after Johnson’s peace talks failed and as Nixon lived up to his commitment to Thieu by extending the direct U.S. combat role for four more years.)

    [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “LBJ’s ‘X-File’ on Nixon’s ‘Treason’” and “The Heinous Crime Behind Watergate.”]

    A Reprise

    But the mainstream media’s concealment of Nixon’s “treason” was not a stand-alone problem in terms of distorting recent U.S. history. If the American people had realized how far some top U.S. officials would go to achieve their political ambitions, they might have been more willing to believe other serious allegations of government wrongdoing.

    President Ronald Reagan, delivering his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 1981, as the 52 U.S. hostages in Iran are simultaneously released

    For instance, the evidence is now almost as overwhelming that Ronald Reagan’s campaign reprised Nixon’s 1968 gambit in 1980 by undermining President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to free 52 American hostages then held in Iran, another well-documented “October Surprise” case that the mainstream media still labels a “conspiracy theory.”

    With more than two dozen witnesses – including U.S., Iranian, Israeli and other officials – describing aspects of that Republican behind-the-scenes deal, the reality of this “prequel” to Reagan’s later Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal should be widely accepted as a real piece of modern American history.

    But a half-hearted congressional investigation in 1991-93 naively gave then-President George H.W. Bush the crucial job of assembling internal U.S. government records to confirm the allegations – despite the fact that Bush was a principal suspect in the 1980 operation.

    Several years ago, I uncovered documents from the Bush presidential library in College Station, Texas, showing how Bush’s White House staff organized a cover-up to conceal key evidence and hide a key witness from the investigation.

    One memo by one of Bush’s lawyers disclosed that the White House had received confirmation of a key October Surprise allegation – a secret trip by campaign chairman (and later CIA Director) William Casey to Madrid – but then withheld that information from congressional investigators. Documents also showed the White House frustrating attempts to interview former CIA officer Donald Gregg, a key witness.

    Another document bluntly set out the White House’s goal: “kill/spike this story” to protect Bush’s reelection chances in 1992.

    After I discovered the Madrid confirmation several years ago – and sent the document to former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who had headed the congressional inquiry which had concluded that there was no credible evidence supporting the allegations – he was stunned by the apparent betrayal of his trust.

    “The [Bush-41] White House did not notify us that he [Casey] did make the trip” to Madrid, Hamilton told me in an interview. Asked if knowledge that Casey had traveled to Madrid might have changed the investigation’s dismissive October Surprise conclusion, Hamilton said yes, because the question of the Madrid trip was central to the inquiry.

    Yet, to this day, both right-wing and mainstream media outlets cite the investigation’s inconclusive results as their central argument for defending Reagan and his legacy. However, if Nixon’s 1968 gambit – jeopardizing the lives of a half million U.S. soldiers – had been accepted as genuine history earlier, the evidence that Reagan endangered 52 U.S. embassy personnel might have seemed a lot easier to believe.

    As these longstanding cover-ups slowly crack and begin to crumble, the serious history behind them has started to show through in the mainstream media. For instance, on Jan. 3, during a CNN panel discussion about interference in U.S. presidential elections, popular historian Doug Brinkley added, “One point: 1980, Ronald Reagan was taking on Jimmy Carter, and there was the October Surprise meeting keeping the hostages in Iran. William Casey, people in the Reagan administration were interfering with foreign policy then saying, ‘Keep the hostages in until after the election.’ So it has happened before. It’s not just Nixon here or Donald Trump.”

    [For more details on the 1980 case, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative or Trick or Treason: The 1980 October Surprise Mystery or Consortiumnews.com’s “Second Thoughts on October Surprise.”]

    Contra-Cocaine Scandal

    But the denial of serious Establishment wrongdoing dies hard. For instance, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major news outlets have long refused to accept the overwhelming evidence that Reagan’s beloved Nicaraguan Contra rebels engaged in cocaine trafficking under the benevolent gaze of the White House and the CIA.

    Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush with CIA Director William Casey at the White House on Feb. 11, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan Library)

    My Associated Press colleague Brian Barger and I assembled a lot of that evidence in 1985 for the first story about this scandal, which undermined Reagan’s claims that he was fighting a relentless war on drugs. Back then, the Times also went to bat for the Establishment. Based on self-serving information from Reagan’s Justice Department, the Times knocked down our AP reporting. And, once the Times got taken in by its official sources, it and other mainstream publications carried on vendettas against anyone who dared contradict the accepted wisdom.

    So, when San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb revived the Contra-cocaine story in 1996 — with evidence that some of that cocaine had fed into the “crack epidemic” — the Times and other big newspapers savaged Webb’s articles and destroyed his career. Not even an institutional confession by the CIA in 1998 that it had been aware of widespread Contra drug smuggling and looked the other way was enough to shake the mainstream media’s false conventional wisdom about the Contras’ and the CIA’s innocence.

    After the CIA inspector general reached his damning conclusions admitting knowledge of the drug-running, the Times did run a story acknowledging that there may have been more to the allegations than the newspaper had previously believed, but the same article kept up the bashing of Webb, who was drummed out of journalism and, nearly penniless, committed suicide in 2004.

    Despite the CIA admissions, The Washington Post also continued to deny the Contra-cocaine reality. When a movie about Webb’s ordeal, “Kill the Messenger,” was released in 2014, the Post’s investigative editor Jeff Leen kept up the paper’s long-running denial of the reality with a nasty new attack on Webb.

    Leen’s story was endorsed by the Post’s former executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., who circulated Leen’s take-down of Webb with the added comment: “I was at The Washington Post at the time that it investigated Gary Webb’s stories, and Jeff Leen is exactly right. However, he is too kind to a movie that presents a lie as fact.”

    [For more on Leen’s hit piece, see Consortiumnews.com’s “WPost’s Slimy Assault on Gary Webb.” For more on the Contra-cocaine story, see “The Sordid Contra-Cocaine Saga.”]

    Lies as Truth

    The fact that mainstream media “stars” lie in calling facts a lie – or they can’t distinguish between facts and lies – has contributed to a dangerous breakdown in the public’s ability to sort out what is and what is not real.

    Essentially, the problem is that the mainstream media has sought to protect the integrity of the Establishment by dismissing real cases of institutional criminality and abuse of power. However, by shoring up these defenses – rather than challenging systemic wrongdoing – the mainstream media has watched its own credibility erode.

    One might hope that someone in a position of power within the major news organizations would recognize this danger and initiate a sweeping reform, which might start by acknowledging some of the long-buried historical realities even if it puts Establishment icons, such as Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, in a negative light.

    But that is clearly not the direction that the mainstream U.S. news media is heading. Instead, the Times, the Post and other mainstream outlets continue to take whatever Establishment sources hand out – now including dubious and bizarre U.S. intelligence allegations about Russia and President-elect Donald Trump.

    Rather than join in demanding real evidence to support these claims, the mainstream media seems intent on simply channeling the Establishment’s contempt for both Russia and Trump. So, whatever is said – no matter how unlikely – merits front-page headlines.

    The end result, however, is to push more and more Americans into a state of confusion regarding what to believe. While some citizens may seek out honest independent journalism to get what they’re missing, others will surely fall prey to fake news and conspiracy theories.

  • Raoul Pal Warns The Day Of Reckoning Looms For VIX Shorts: "Reminds Me Of Portfolio Insurance In 1987"

    ubmitted by Patrick Ceresna via Macrovoices.com,

     

    In a podcast interview on MacroVoices, Macro Guru Raoul Pal makes some comments on some of the biggest imbalances in the markets today. 

    He compares the VIX contango trade to the portfolio insurance problem that was blamed for the 1987 crash…

    • they don't realize the rate of change of the VIX can be so extraordinary that the losses can mount up massively and super quickly

    Pal then goes on to discuss the record level of speculative long positions in the oil markets compares to the conditions in the summer of 2014 prior to the bear market decline

    • The other thing was speculative position in crude oil was all time high in fact if I took the trend going back from the early 80's it was seven standard deviations above that trend and well over three standard deviations maybe four standard deviations from the trend in the last 20 years or 15 years.
    • I've seen a similar situation with copper driven by China and a few other things where copper position is wildly extreme and so I start to think well too much reflation is priced into these things maybe there’s an interesting opportunity on the short side
    • What is interesting oil volatility has been coming lower. Look, I don't think it's going to get back to where it was in 2014 when it was trading below 20 but it has come down from a peak of 80, a kind of a real trading range of 50 down to 30. If it comes any lower the ability to buy options start to make sense because oil volatility can go to 80 can go to a 100

    Full podcast:

    Excerpts of the interview:

    Erik:                One of the risk factors that we discussed last time was this crazy VIX contango trade where basically people are shorting VIX futures because each time they roll that contract forward they capture the contango by being short and they see it as a way to produce income. Of course, you know that's not just picking up nickels in front of a steamroller, that's pennies being pried out from under the steamroller and so far a big downdraft in equity prices has not happened which was the big risk that you saw there. You described how if there was a sudden downward move in equity prices it could really blow up in these guys' faces. Is that risk still in the system, is that trade still on or have people wised up and gotten out of it?

    Raoul:             No, that trade still goes on to this day and it reminds me a lot of the portfolio insurance stuff around 1987 or some of the kind of spread trade Low Vol trades that happens around 1998 people go over their ski tips with this stuff. They think it's all manageable and they think that OK we can sell VIX and if we lose money on that, we'll use this as an opportunity to buy stock because we've been taking in premiums but they don't realize the rate of change of the VIX can be so extraordinary that the losses can mount up massively and super quickly.

    So, I worry about that position. I worry about a whole world that sets up for low volatility when you've got a new administration that is almost unquantifiable. We don't know what kind of volatility should be under an administration like this but a relatively aggressive administration should create more volatility overall so at which case the generalized level of volatility should rise.

    If the past 20 years of global historical data is anything to go by, that 'awakening' of uncertainty is very bad news…

    Erik:                Well I’ll see if you want to grade me on the thoughts I have. The only real directional trade that I see right here is long the dollar index and I think we agree on that we've already discussed the reasons why.

    Beyond that the things I'm looking at there, if I look at the term structure of crude oil. We've got a fairly steep contango for a few months but then we see backwardation in the belly of the curve. So apparently, we're not going to need storage after June or July or so it's going to be a non-issue those tanks are going to be empty. I'm not buying that story.

    So I do see a curve steepener trade that is– I actually just bought a bunch of spreads short June, long December. Just thinking that at that point there was backwardation in that segment of the curve I don't think that's going to stay in backwardation I think by the time June gets here we're going to be looking at contango again.

    So that's one trade that I see the other one I'm kind of waiting for and I’m lining up quite a few dominoes here is I think that Trump is going to get tough with ISIS very quickly after entering office and I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of ultimatum, ISIS knock it off or else, and I think there's so much hysteria right now politically there's so many people with such polarized viewpoints that you could easily see a an overreaction, a massive upward spike in oil prices because a lot of paranoid people are convinced that Donald Trump is going to launch nuclear weapons on ISIS or something.

    I don't think that'll actually happen. If there was a $25 up spike in oil prices from here I would look at that as a very very ripe shorting opportunity because I don't think prices can go $25 higher and stay there because the shale revolution will be restarted, the bakken will be relaunched and those prices will come back down.

    So I don't want to bet on the up spike I'm not convinced it will happen if it does happen I'll definitely bet on the mean reversion. Frankly that's all I can really see at this point for trades.

    Raoul:             So to add on about oil. Oil is interesting to me because if you remember I made a very public forecast on oil way back in 2015 I think it was, when I said look I think oil is going to fall to $30 dollars a barrel it was like at 110 at the time and luckily it got there these things don’t always work out that way but it did and the reason I had a lot of faith was twofold one the dollar was going up and I thought it would go much higher which obviously is the normal nature of oil prices so that helps that.

    The other thing was speculative position in crude oil was all time high in fact if I took the trend going back from the early 80's it was seven standard deviations above that trend and well over three standard deviations maybe four standard deviations from the trend in the last 20 years or 15 years. So, the position was huge.

    If I look at it now again, I'm looking again at my Bloomberg screen as we speak it's equal to where it was. So, it came, all the way back down, it's got all the way back up. So, the market is wildly gigantically bullish on crude oil and that is something that starts looking like an opportunity to me on the short side.

    I get what you're saying about the price risk which is always the danger of shorting crude oil it's always a bit of a negative gamma trade. So it makes it a bit nervous but I still think that crude oil comes lower so I’m bullish in that.

    I've seen a similar situation with copper driven by China and a few other things where copper position is wildly extreme and so I start to think well too much reflation is priced into these things maybe there’s an interesting opportunity on the short side.

    Erik:                Yeah, I very much agree with that I want to be short equities here and I want to be short crude oil but I don't dare to touch either trade from the short side right now because there's been so much bullish hysteria in the equity market. I don't know what's going to happen to you know sell the inauguration. OK I've said sell quite a few times in the last few years and been wrong so I want to be short but– emotionally I want to, I can't bring myself to do it because there's just been– every time I say OK the market can't possibly go higher than this it ends up going higher.

    In the case of crude oil, I'm convinced that this rally has played out from a fundamental standpoint. It’s that hysteria risk that if it happens it's a fantastic opportunity to go short. I would consider puts on crude oil here as a speculation that maybe they'll go lower. But I don't want be an outright futures here I'd rather be in puts on futures and have a very limited downside if Trump scares everybody.

    If that happens – I don't think it's a real risk – I just think it's hysteria and look at there's actually been an increase in residency applications in Chile because there are people freaking out about Donald Trump so much that they want to be in the southern hemisphere for when he starts the nuclear war that's a fact. This is hysteria and until it settles down I don't want to be on the short side of the oil trade unless it's using options or something protected.

    Raoul:             Yeah, I agree. What is interesting oil volatility has been coming lower. Look, I don't think it's going to get back to where it was in 2014 when it was trading below 20 but it has come down from a peak of 80, a kind of a real trading range of 50 down to 30. If it comes any lower the ability to buy options start to make sense because oil volatility can go to 80 can go to a 100 so maybe buying some puts on oil or you buy kind of out of the money calls out of the money puts If you've got the view that you have that there is a tail risk events of something that Trump administration will do to drive up the price of oil and that's possible don't forget that the economic policies is credibly pro oil in the U.S. right now with the new administration. So, it is in that economic interest to drive up the price of oil.

    So yes, I can see that too. I love these kinds of puzzles. These are the kind of ones that get me up at night thinking wow, that’s interesting, you've got all of the reasons why the oil price should fall, all of the geopolitical reasons and business reasons why the U.S. wants a higher oil price so how does this play out what does that mean for us.

  • Pepe Escobar: Here's How The Trump Presidency Will Play Out

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker,

    The Trump era starts now – with geopolitics and geoeconomics set for a series of imminent, unpredictable cliffhangers.

    I have argued that Trump’s foreign policy guru Henry Kissinger’s strategy to deal with the formidable Eurasia integration trio – Russia, China and Iran – is a remixed Divide and Rule; seduce Russia away from its strategic partnership with China, while keep harassing the weakest link, Iran.

    In fact that’s how it’s already playing out – as in the outbursts of selected members of Trump’s cabinet during their US Senate hearings. Factions of US Think Tankland, referring to Nixon’s China policy, which was designed by Kissinger, are also excited with the possibilities of containment regarding at least one of those powers “potentially arrayed against America”.

    Kissinger and Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski are the two foremost, self-described Western dalangs – puppet masters – in the geopolitical arena. In opposition to Kissinger, Obama’s foreign policy mentor Brzezinski, true to his Russophobia, proposes a Divide and Rule centered on seducing China.

    Yet an influential New York business source, very close to the real, discreet Masters of the Universe, who correctly predicted Trump’s victory weeks before the fact, after examining my argument offered not only a scathing appraisal of those cherished dalangs; he volunteered to detail how the new normal was laid out by the Masters directly to Trump. Let’s call him “X”.

    The non-stop China watch

    “X” starts by doing something US deep state-connected regulars, who revere their idols, never dare to, at least in public;

    “It is important not to attribute too much importance to either Kissinger or Brzezinski as they are merely fronts for those who make the decisions and it is their job to cloak the decisions with a patina of intellectuality. Their input means relatively nothing. I use their names on occasion as I cannot use the names of those who actually make the decisions.”

    That’s the cue for “X” to detail the new normal;

    “Trump was elected with the support of the Masters to tilt towards Russia. The Masters have their tools in the media and Congress maintaining a vilification campaign against Russia, and have their puppet Brzezinski also come out against Russia, stating ‘America’s global influence depends on cooperation with China’. The purpose is to threaten Russia to cooperate and place these chips on the negotiating table for Trump. In a traditional good cop-bad cop approach, Donald is portrayed as the good cop wanting good relations with Russia, and Congress, media, Brzezinski are the bad cops. This is to aid Trump in the negotiations with Russia as Putin sees the ‘precarious’ position of his friend and should be willing to make major concessions as the line goes.”

    And that brings us to how Taiwan – and Japan – got into the mix;

    “Donald shows the Russian tilt by talking to the Taiwanese, demonstrating that the shift is serious. But it was decided to throw Japan into the mix as a predator against US industry, with an attack on Toyota, thoroughly deserved. That moderated the position as the Masters became afraid that the perception of our building up Japan against China would be too much of a provocation.”

    So expect China – as “not too much importance” Kissinger prescribed – to be under non-stop scrutiny;

    “The Masters have decided to reindustrialize the United States and want to take jobs back from China. This is advisable from the Chinese viewpoint; for why should they sell their work to the US for a dollar that has no intrinsic value and get really nothing back for the work. China should have a car in every Chinese worker’s garage and they will become a larger producer of cars than the EU, US and Japan combined, and their own nation will keep their wealth in their own country.”

    And why China over Russia?

    “Russia in this sense being a natural resource country with a gigantic military industrial complex (the latter being the only reason she is secretly respected) is exempt from any tough trade talk as they hardly export anything but natural resources and military equipment. The Masters want jobs back from Mexico and Asia including Japan, Taiwan, etc., and you see this in Trump’s attack on Japan. The main underlying reason is that the US has lost control of the seas and cannot secure its military components during a major war. This is all that matters now and this is the giant story behind the scenes.”

    In only a few words “X” details the reversal of an economic cycle;

    “The Masters made money out of transfer of industry to Asia (Bain Capital specialized in this), and Wall Street made money from the lower interest rates on the recycled dollars from the trade deficits. But now, the issue is strategic; and they will make money on the return of industries scaling down their investments in Asia and returning them to the United States as we rebuild production here.”

    “X” remains quite fond of Henry Ford’s business strategy; and that is the cue for him to address the crucial theme: national defense. According to “X”,

    “Ford doubled the wages he paid and made more money than any other manufacturer. The reason was that a living wage where the mother can have many children on her husband’s wage was psychologically good for productivity in his car plants, and that his workers could then afford his cars. He thus recognized that in a society there must be a just distribution of wealth that his admirer Steve Jobs could not. Henry’s mass productivity was the wonder of the world and that was what won World War Two for the United States. Amazon does not contribute anything to national defense, being merely an internet marketing service based on computer programs, nor Google which merely organizes data better. None of this builds a better missile or submarine except in a marginal way.”

    It’s the Pentagon, stupid

    So yes; this all has to do with reorganizing the US military. “X” made a point to refer to a CNAS report I quoted in my initial column;

    “It is very important for what is visible between the lines. And that is we are in deep trouble being technologically behind Russia by generations in weapons, which is a follow-up on the Brzezinski quote that we are no longer a global power.”

    This is a thorough, wide-ranging analysis of how Russia has managed to organize the best armed forces in the world. And that does not even take into account the S-500 missile defense system, which is now being rolled out and arguably seals the entirety of Russian airspace. And the next generation – S-600? – will be even more powerful.

    “X” does venture into deep state taboo territory, as in how Russia, over the past decade, has managed to leap far ahead of the US, “eclipsing it as the strongest military power”. But the game may be far from over – wishful thinking or otherwise;

    “We hope Secretary of Defense James Mattis will understand this and that the Deputy Secretary of Defense has advanced technological skills, organizational ability and the foresight to understand that the weapons of World War Three are offensive and defensive missiles, and submarines, and not air power, tanks and aircraft carriers.”

    A realist, “X” admits that the warmongering neocon/neoliberalcon status quo – represented by most US deep state factions – will never abandon the default posture of unremitting hostility towards Russia. But he prefers to focus on change;

    “Let Tillerson reorganize the State Department along Exxon efficiencies. He may be worth something in that.  He and Mattis may be gutless but if you tell the truth to the Senate you may not be confirmed. So what they say means nothing. But notice this about Libya. The CIA had a goal of driving China out of Africa and so does AFRICOM. That was one of the secrets to our Libyan intervention.”

    Not that it worked; NATO/AFRICOM turned Libya into a wasteland run by militias, and still China was not driven away from the rest of Africa.

    “X” also admits, “Syria and Iran are red lines for Russia. So is the eastern Ukraine from the Dnieper.” He is fully aware Moscow will not allow any regime change gambit on Tehran. And he’s also aware that “China’s investments in Iranian oil and gas imply that China also will not permit Washington’s overthrow of the Iranian government.”

    The going really gets tough when it comes to NATO; “X” is convinced Russia “will invade Romania and Poland if those missiles are not taken out of Romania and the missile commitment to Poland rescinded. The issue is not the worthless defensive missiles of the United States but the substitutability of offensive nuclear missiles in these silos. Russia will not tolerate this risk.  These are not subject to negotiation.”

    In contrast to the “perpetual threat” perpetual propaganda by the US War Party, Moscow focuses on actual facts on the ground since the 1990s; the break up of historic Slavic ally Serbia; Warsaw Pact nations and even former USSR republics annexed by NATO, not to mention attempts to also include Georgia and Ukraine; US deployment of color revolutions; the “Assad must go “ fiasco, as in regime change forced on Syria even including the weaponizing of Salafi-jihadis; economic sanctions, an oil price war and raids on the ruble; and non-stop NATO harassment.

    “X”, fully aware of the facts, adds, “Russia has always wanted peace. But they are not going to play a game with the Masters of the Universe that has Trump as the good guy and the Congress, CIA, etc. as the bad guy as a negotiating ploy. That is how they see it. They do not regard this circus as real.”

    The circus may be just an illusion. Or wayang – Balinese puppet theatre – as I suggested. “X” advances a crisp interpretation of the shadow play ahead from Moscow’s point of view, allowing “several months to see if Putin can work out a detente with Trump that essentially creates an autonomous eastern Ukraine, a peace treaty in Syria with Assad in place, and a withdrawal of NATO forces back to their line of defense under Ronald Reagan.”

    Who will prevail; the Masters, or the deep state? Brace for impact.

  • THe JeSTeR…

    THE JESTER

  • An Alternative Perspective On Today's "Women's March"

    What was the March about again?

     

    Source: Townhall.com

  • Doug Casey Warns "Every American Needs To Be Concerned Right Now"

    Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

    Making The Chicken Run, Part 1

    “Making the chicken run” is what Rhodesians used to say about neighbors who packed up and got out during the ’60s and ’70s, before the place became Zimbabwe. It was considered “unpatriotic” to leave Rhodesia. But it was genuinely idiotic not to.

    I’ve written many times about the importance of internationalizing your assets, your mode of living, and your way of thinking. I suspect most readers have treated those articles as they might a travelogue to some distant and exotic land: interesting fodder for cocktail party chatter, but basically academic and of little immediate personal relevance.

    I’m directing these comments toward the U.S. mainly because that’s where the problem is most acute, but they’re applicable to most countries.

    Now, in 2017, the U.S. is in real trouble. Not as bad as Rhodesia 40 years ago—and definitely a different kind of trouble—but plenty serious. For many years, it’s been obvious that the country was eventually going to hit the wall, and now the inevitable is rapidly becoming imminent.

    What do I mean by that? There’s plenty of reason to be concerned about things financial and economic. But I personally believe we haven't been bearish enough on the eventual social and political fallout from the Greater Depression. Nothing is certain, but the odds are high that the U.S. is going into a time of troubles at least as bad as any experienced in any advanced country in the last century.

    I hate saying things like that, if only because it sounds outrageous and inflammatory and can create a credibility gap. It invites arguments with people, and although I enjoy discussion, I dislike arguing.

    It strikes most people as outrageous because the long-running post-WWII boom has been punctuated only by brief recessions. After 70 years, why should it ever end? The thought of a nasty end certainly runs counter to the experience of almost everyone now alive—including myself—and our personal experience is what we tend to trust most. But it seems to me we're very close to a tipping point. Ice stays ice even while it’s being warmed—until the temperature goes over 32° F, where it changes very quickly into something very different.

    First, the Economy

    That point—economic bankruptcy accompanied by financial chaos—is quickly approaching for the U.S. government. With deficits over a trillion dollars per year for as far as the eye can see, the U.S. Treasury will very soon be unable to roll over its maturing debt at anything near current interest rates. The only reliable buyer will be the Federal Reserve, which can buy only by creating new dollars.

    Within the next 24 months, the dollar is likely to start losing value rapidly and noticeably. Foreigners, who own over 6 trillion of them (including T-bills and other IOUs), will start panicking to dump them. So will Americans. The dollar bond market, today worth $40 trillion, will be devastated by much higher interest rates, a rapidly depreciating dollar, and an epidemic of defaults.

    And that will be just the start of the trouble. Since the U.S. property market floats on a sea of debt (and is easy to tax), it’s also going to be hit very hard, again, this time by stifling mortgage rates. The next step is up for interest rates. Forget about property owners paying their existing mortgages; many won’t be able to pay their taxes and utilities, and maintenance will be out of the question.

    The pain will spread. Insurance companies are invested mostly in bonds and real estate; many will go bankrupt. The same is true of most pension funds. If the stock market doesn’t collapse, it will only be because money is looking for a place to hide from inflation. The payout for Social Security will drop significantly in real terms, if not in dollars. The standard of living of most Americans will fall.

    This rough sequence of events has happened in many countries in recent decades, and they’ve survived the tough times. But it has the potential, at least in relative terms, to be more serious in the U.S. than it was in Argentina, Brazil, Serbia, Russia, Mozambique, or Zimbabwe for two main reasons.

    First, many people in those countries knew they couldn’t trust their government and acted accordingly, even in contravention of the law, by accumulating assets elsewhere. So, there was a significant pool of capital available for rebuilding. Americans, on the other hand, tend to be much more insular, law-abiding, and trusting in their government. When they lose their U.S. assets, they'll have lost everything.

    Second, those societies were significantly more rural than the U.S. is today. As in the America of 100 years ago, much of the population lived quite close to the land and had practical skills and habits that helped them get through the tough times. For 21st-century Americans, it's a different story. Shortages and disorder are going to hit commuters who live in suburbs, and urban dwellers who think milk appears in cartons magically, like a ton of bricks.

    One thing you can absolutely count on is that everyone will look to the government to “do something.” Americans really do think governments control the way the world works. Another certainty is that the U.S. government will “step in” massively, because everyone will want them to, and the politicians themselves believe they should. This will greatly aggravate the crisis and make it last much longer than necessary.

    Then It Gets Serious

    But that’s just over the short run. The long run is much more serious because the next chapter of the Greater Depression has every chance of radically, and at least semi-permanently, overturning the basic character of American life. Ice turned to water—suddenly and unexpectedly—in Russia in 1918, Germany in 1933, China in 1949, Vietnam in 1954, Cambodia in 1975, and Rwanda in 1995. Those are just the first examples that come to mind. There are scores more.

    The economic events I’ve outlined are going to mean serious hardship and unpleasantness for many people. But that doesn't concern me nearly as much as the social and political reaction.

    *  *  *

    Doug says we're on the edge of a genuine precipice. The economy is crumbling… and there's a good chance things will only get worse. This is exactly why Doug and his team put together a time-sensitive video explaining how it could all go down. A financial shock far greater than 2008 could strike America during Trump's first 100 days in office. It could either wipe out a big part of your savings… or be the fortune-building opportunity of a lifetime. Click here to watch it now.

  • Visualizing The Global War On Cash

    There is a global push by lawmakers to eliminate the use of physical cash around the world. This movement is often referred to as “The War on Cash”, and there are three major players involved:

    1. The Initiators

    Who? Governments, central banks.

     

    Why? The elimination of cash will make it easier to track all types of transactions – including those made by criminals.

     

    2. The Enemy

    Who? Criminals, terrorists

     

    Why? Large denominations of bank notes make illegal transactions easier to perform, and increase anonymity.

     

    3. The Crossfire

    Who? Citizens

     

    Why? The coercive elimination of physical cash will have potential repercussions on the economy and social liberties.

     

    Courtesy of: The Money Project

     

    Is Cash Still King?

    Cash has always been king – but starting in the late 1990s, the convenience of new technologies have helped make non-cash transactions to become more viable:

    • Online banking
    • Smartphones
    • Payment technologies
    • Encryption

    By 2015, there were 426 billion cashless transactions worldwide – a 50% increase from five years before.

    And today, there are multiple ways to pay digitally, including:

    • Online banking (Visa, Mastercard, Interac)
    • Smartphones (Apple Pay)
    • Intermediaries ( Paypal , Square)
    • Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin)

    The First Shots Fired

    The success of these new technologies have prompted lawmakers to posit that all transactions should now be digital.

    Here is their case for a cashless society:

    Removing high denominations of bills from circulation makes it harder for terrorists, drug dealers, money launderers, and tax evaders.

    • $1 million in $100 bills weighs only one kilogram (2.2 lbs).
    • Criminals move $2 trillion per year around the world each year.
    • The U.S. $100 bill is the most popular note in the world, with 10 billion of them in circulation.

    This also gives regulators more control over the economy.

    • More traceable money means higher tax revenues.
    • It means there is a third-party for all transactions.
    • Central banks can dictate interest rates that encourage (or discourage) spending to try to manage inflation. This includes ZIRP or NIRP policies.

    Cashless transactions are faster and more efficient.

    • Banks would incur less costs by not having to handle cash.
    • It also makes compliance and reporting easier.
    • The “burden” of cash can be up to 1.5% of GDP, according to some experts.

    But for this to be possible, they say that cash – especially large denomination bills – must be eliminated. After all, cash is still used for about 85% of all transactions worldwide.

    A Declaration of War

    Governments and central banks have moved swiftly in dozens of countries to start eliminating cash.

    Some key examples of this? Australia, Singapore, Venezuela, the U.S., and the European Central Bank have all eliminated (or have proposed to eliminate) high denomination notes. Other countries like France, Sweden and Greece have targeted adding restrictions on the size of cash transactions, reducing the amount of ATMs in the countryside, or limiting the amount of cash that can be held outside of the banking system. Finally, some countries have taken things a full step further – South Korea aims to eliminate paper currency in its entirety by 2020.

    But right now, the “War on Cash” can’t be mentioned without invoking images of day-long lineups in India. In November 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetized 500 and 1000 rupee notes, eliminating 86% of the country’s notes overnight. While Indians could theoretically exchange 500 and 1,000 rupee notes for higher denominations, it was only up to a limit of 4,000 rupees per person. Sums above that had to be routed through a bank account in a country where only 50% of Indians have such access.

    The Hindu has reported that there have now been 112 reported deaths associated with the Indian demonetization. Some people have committed suicide, but most deaths come from elderly people waiting in bank queues for hours or days to exchange money.

    Caught in the Crossfire

    The shots fired by governments to fight its war on cash may have several unintended casualties:

    1. Privacy

    • Cashless transactions would always include some intermediary or third-party.
    • Increased government access to personal transactions and records.
    • Certain types of transactions (gambling, etc.) could be barred or frozen by governments.
    • Decentralized cryptocurrency could be an alternative for such transactions

    2. Savings

    • Savers could no longer have the individual freedom to store wealth “outside” of the system.
    • Eliminating cash makes negative interest rates (NIRP) a feasible option for policymakers.
    • A cashless society also means all savers would be “on the hook” for bank bail-in scenarios.
    • Savers would have limited abilities to react to extreme monetary events like deflation or inflation.

    3. Human Rights

    • Rapid demonetization has violated people’s rights to life and food.
    • In India, removing the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes has caused multiple human tragedies, including patients being denied treatment and people not being able to afford food.
    • Demonetization also hurts people and small businesses that make their livelihoods in the informal sectors of the economy.

    4. Cybersecurity

    • With all wealth stored digitally, the potential risk and impact of cybercrime increases.
    • Hacking or identity theft could destroy people’s entire life savings.
    • The cost of online data breaches is already expected to reach $2.1 trillion by 2019, according to Juniper Research.

    As the War on Cash accelerates, many shots will be fired. The question is: who will take the majority of the damage?

    *  *  *

    The Money Project is an ongoing collaboration between Visual Capitalist and Texas Precious Metals that seeks to use intuitive visualizations to explore the origins, nature, and use of money.

  • White House Spokesman Slams Media Over "Crowd Size Comparisons" In Bizarre First Briefing

    In a bizarre first briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday unloaded a blistering attack on the media and accused it of false reporting about the otherwise irrelevant question of why Trump’s inauguration crowd was visibly smaller than that of Obama’s.

    Spicer used up virtually all the time in his first official appearance in the Press Briefing Room to denounce news organizations’ focus on the inaugural crowd size, saying “these attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.”

    We wouldn’t necessarily use those words: silly should suffice since if Trump really wanted to “defend” why fewer people attended his inauguration, he can simply say many more of his supporters are employed and had to be at work on Friday, than during either Obama’s 2009 or 2013 inauguration events.

    However, the press secretary decided that hyperbole is the better part of valor and said “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the world”

    Spicer made the allegation despite photographs of the event clearly showed that the Mall was not full in the sections Spicer described, with dwindling-to-nonexistent crowds near the Smithsonian Institution Building and west toward the Washington Monument. There was also sparse attendance along the parade route from the Capitol to the White House. He alleged that some photos of the inauguration were “intentionally framed in a way” that minimized the crowd, without providing examples or evidence.

    No official agency provides estimates of the size of gatherings on the Mall. But photos taken from the same vantage point at about the same time of day show that the crowds were far smaller than for President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, which Washington city officials estimated at 1.8 million people.

     

    Ultimately, the whole press briefing episode had a surreal undertone, one in which Trump, via his speaker, appears to continue to troll the press, now in the White House.

    As a seemingly perturbed NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen summarized it “Wow. Sean Spicer walked to the podium. Unloaded on the media for bias. Accused reporters of dishonesty. Walked off without taking questions.”

    The reaction among the rest of the press was similar.

    Spicer took no questions from reporters and he did not say specifically how many people the White House believes attended the inauguration. He said three large sections of the Mall that each held at least 200,000 people were “full when the president took the oath of office.”

    Earlier on Saturday, in remarks at CIA headquarters in Langley, Trump said that from his vantage point at the podium, “it looked like a million, million and a half people. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there, and they said Donald Trump did not draw well.” Trump also said parts of the National Mall “all the way back to the Washington Monument” were “packed.”

    Quoted by Bloomberg, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Twitter after Spicer’s remarks that “This is called a statement you’re told to make by the president. And you know the president is watching.”

    He is indeed, and what he is seeing is that he once again is controlling the media narrative, which is focusing on a very immaterial and arbitrary issue, instead of spending time on investigative work and reporting on far more serious issues relating to Trump’s new administration.

    Full clip below.

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