- India's 'Gold Shirt Man' Stoned-And-Sickled To Death By Mob
Datta Phuge took the interwebs by storm three years ago when we introduced the $250,000 22-karat-gold-shirt-wearing 32-year-old Indian who proclaimed "I know I am not the best looking man but surely no woman could fail to be dazzled by this shirt?" showing the world that gold is much more than a barbarous relic. Sadly, as The BBC reports, "the gold man" was murdered overnight – found stoned-and-sickled to death near his home in Dighi, India.
As ABP Live reports, millionaire money-lender, Datta D. Phuge, famous as ‘Pimpri Goldman’ was found clobbered to death near Dighi here on early Friday morning, police said.The high-profile businessman’s vehicle was accosted by some unknown persons on the outskirts of the city late on Thursday night.
They reportedly dragged him out, attacked him with a sickle and then pounded him to death with huge stones before fleeing from the spot.
Phuge usually moved around with armed private bodyguards, but it is not clear where they were at the time of the incident.
Officials later came across a much-mangled head and body of the 35-year old ‘gold man’, whose wife is Seema is an ex-municipal corporator.
The motive behind the killing is not known, but police preliminary suspect it may be linked to some business rivalries and are investigating all angles.
The Pune Police have launched a manhunt to nab the assailants, roadblocks erected at all exit points and within the city limits as well as district boundaries.
The police have recovered the sickle used in the crime and have sent Phuge’s body for an autopsy.
Besides his primary business of lending money, he ran the Vakratund Chit Fund Pvt. Ltd. along with his wife and there were complaints of financial misappropriation against him in recent times.
- US Government Releases Redacted "28 Pages" Missing From 9/11 Report
Unleash the revisionist history. Congress released on Friday a long-classified report exploring the alleged ties of the Saudi Arabian government to the 9/11 hijackers.
The missing 28 pages from the 9/11 report begins as follows:
“While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government…”
The “28 pages,” the secret document was part of a 2002 congressional investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks and has been classified since the report’s completion. As CNN reports, former Sen. Bob Graham, who chaired the committee that carried out the investigation and has been pushing the White House to release the pages, said Thursday he was “very pleased” that the documents would be released.
The pages, sent to Congress by the Obama administration, have been the subject of much speculation over what they might reveal about the Saudi government’s involvement in the attacks masterminded by terrorist Osama bin Laden when he led al-Qaeda.The pages were used by the 9/11 Commission as part of its investigation into the intelligence failures leading up to the attacks.
A telephone number found in the phone book of al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaida, who was captured in Pakistan in March 2002, was for an Aspen, Colo., corporation that managed the “affairs of the Colorado residence of the Saudi Ambassador Bandar,” the documents show.
Osama Bassnan, who the documents identify as a financial supporter of two of the 9/11 hijackers in San Diego, received money from Bandar, and Bassnan’s wife also got money from Bandar’s wife. “One at least one occasion,” the documents show, “Bassnan received a check directly from Prince Bandar’s account. According to the FBI, on May 14, 1998, Bassnan cashed a check from Bandar in the amount of $15,000. Bassnan’s wife also received at least one check directly from Bandar.”
The top two members of the House Intelligence Committee cautioned that much of the information in the newly released pages were not “vetted conclusions.”
“It’s important to note that this section does not put forward vetted conclusions, but rather unverified leads that were later fully investigated by the Intelligence Community,” said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. and the committee chairman, in a statement. “Many of the Intelligence Community’s findings were included in the 9/11 Commission report as well as in a newly declassified executive summary of a CIA-FBI joint assessment that will soon be released by the Director of National Intelligence.”
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the panel’s senior Democrat, said he hopes the newly released pages will reduce the continued speculation over Saudi involvement. “I hope that the release of these pages, with appropriate redactions necessary to protect our nation’s intelligence sources and methods, will diminish speculation that they contain proof of official Saudi Government or senior Saudi official involvement in the 9/11 attacks,” Schiff said in a statement. “The Intelligence Community and the 9/11 Commission…investigated the questions they raised and was never able to find sufficient evidence to support them. I know that the release of these pages will not end debate over the issue, but it will quiet rumors over their contents — as is often the case, the reality is less damaging than the uncertainty.”
Actually, a quick skim of the report indicates precisely the opposite.
The 9/11 Commission did not actually write the newly released pages. Instead, the pages were part of the material the panel reviewed. The commission’s chairmen have described the pages in the past as information based almost entirely on raw, unvetted material received by the FBI and handed over to House and Senate intelligence committees in 2002 as part of an earlier investigation of 9/11.
Current and former members of Congress have been calling for the pages to be declassified and released for more than a decade.
The 9/11 Commission concluded in its report that senior Saudi officials did not knowingly support the terrorist plot to attack the United States. The panel also found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” al-Qaeda.While the 9/11 Commission found no evidence that senior Saudi officials were involved in the 9/11 attack, the report did criticize the Saudi government for tolerating and sometimes fanning the flames of radical Islam by funding schools and mosques around the world that spread extreme ideology. The report also noted that some rich Saudis gave money to charities with terrorist links.
To be sure, what the report does provide is much circumstantial evidence that the Saudis were most certainly involved in 9/11, sufficient to convince any rational man, but perhaps not enough to launch a lawsuit against, say, the King.
The Saudi government itself has repeated called for the pages to be made public so that it can respond to any allegations, which it has long called unfounded.
“We’ve been saying since 2003 that the pages should be released,” said Nail Al-Jubeir, director of communications for the Saudi Embassy, ahead of Friday’s developments. “They will show everyone that there is no there there.”
Moments after the release, Saudi Arabia has already issued its prepared press release:
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Here are some real-time annotations of the report:
9/11 report: Saudi ambassador’s company’s phone # in phone book of senior al-Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan pic.twitter.com/IVw1ZzOjaI
— Kia Makarechi (@Kia_Mak) July 15, 2016
Suspected “dry run” for 9/11 carried out by men flying to party at Saudi embassy, on tickets paid for by Saudi gov’t pic.twitter.com/68mUlrNqkR
— Kia Makarechi (@Kia_Mak) July 15, 2016
Man with ties to Saudi government (suspected of being spy) welcomed hijackers, paid their rent, found flight schools pic.twitter.com/7XJ2L73DlP
— Kia Makarechi (@Kia_Mak) July 15, 2016
Man tied to 9/11 hijackers received money directly from Prince Bandar, Saudi Amb. to US pic.twitter.com/snEyOVMZhu
— Kia Makarechi (@Kia_Mak) July 15, 2016
The Saudis didn’t give the US any info on Osama bin Laden after 1996 cos of what he’d tell them if caught #28pages pic.twitter.com/p1oAKZ0HuT
— John Horne (@JohnHorneUK) July 15, 2016
The infamous Prince Bandar is also named:
Bandar. pic.twitter.com/7RfdG6t912
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) July 15, 2016
While we have yet to read the full document, one section caught our eye – the use of Saudi “charitable organizations” to finance terorrism:
And then this:
That names sounded familiar, and then we remembered this WMD article:
The lawmakers noted Huma Abedin “has three family members – her late father, mother and her brother – connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations. Her position affords her routine access to the secretary and to policymaking.” Last week, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, who admitted he hadn’t read the letters, defended Abedin, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the accusations “sinister” and “nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant.”
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Now it has emerged that Huma [Abedin] served on the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs’s editorial board from 2002 to 2008. Documents obtained by author Walid Shoebat reveal that Naseef served on the board with Huma from at least December 2002 to December 2003.
Naseef’s sudden departure from the board in December 2003 coincides with the time at which various charities led by Naseef’s Muslim World League were declared illegal terrorism fronts worldwide, including by the U.S. and U.N.
The MWL, founded in Mecca in 1962, bills itself as one of the largest Islamic non-governmental organizations. But according to U.S. government documents and testimony from the charity’s own officials, it is heavily financed by the Saudi government.
The MWL has been accused of terrorist ties, as have its various offshoots, including the International Islamic Relief Organization, or IIRO, and Al Haramain, which was declared by the U.S. and U.N. as a terror financing front.
Indeed, the Treasury Department, in a September 2004 press release, alleged Al Haramain had “direct links” with Osama bin Laden. The group is now banned worldwide by United Nations Security Council Committee 1267.
The MWL in 1988 founded the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, developing chapters in about 50 countries, including for a time in Oregon until it was designated a terrorist organization.
In the early 1990s, evidence began to grow that the foundation was funding Islamist militants in Somalia and Bosnia, and a 1996 CIA report detailed its Bosnian militant ties.
The U.S. Treasury designated Al Haramain’s offices in Kenya and Tanzania as sponsors of terrorism for their role in planning and funding the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa. The Comoros Islands office was also designated because it “was used as a staging area and exfiltration route for the perpetrators of the 1998 bombings.”
The New York Times reported in 2003 that Al Haramain had provided funds to the Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which was responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. The Indonesia office was later designated a terrorist entity by the Treasury.
In February 2004, the U.S. Treasury Department froze all Al Haramain’s financial assets pending an investigation, leading the Saudi government to disband the charity and fold it into another group, the Saudi National Commission for Relief and Charity Work Abroad.
In September 2004, the U.S. designated Al-Haramain a terrorist organization. In June 2008, the Treasury Department applied the terrorist designation to the entire Al-Haramain organization worldwide
In other words, the US government knew about this terrorist front all the way back in 2001, even as Hillary’s right hand (wo)man was working for an affiliated entity for years later?
We hope to find out more after reading the full document shortly, although sadly we are convinced the important sections will be fully redacted.
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Full 28 pages (redacted) below (link)
- The Global Plague Of Terrorism
Authored by Gulam Asgar Mitha via The Oriental Review,
Pakistan, a nation of 200 million, is witnessing a plethora of oppression, injustice, tyranny, religious exploitation and blatant lying. A majority of the population live in either various forms of poverty as victims or in fear of targeted killings and kidnappings for ransom by workers of the major political parties and religious terrorists. The perpetrators – politicians and judiciary (the legal system including the upholders of law) as well as the clergy (known as ulema or mullah) are corrupt to the very hilt and this has filtered deep into the fabric of the nation’s national character. The brunt of this is being felt among the people living in villages and ghettos who’re being exploited mainly by the clergy while 6-10% of the rich and upper middle class who live in large cities continue to eat the fruits sowed with the seeds of corruption in every government heirarchy.
Pakistan is a nation in chaos as are many other Muslim countries whose citizens are victims of terrorism, tyranny, corruption, oppression and injustice. These will be illustrated as several epitomes in the following paragraphs.
I was going to omit reference to the corruption in the military but after receiving a rather interesting email, I decided to include the contents after investigating the authenticity of the email. In brief, during his regime, General Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan was en route to USA on an official visit with his wife. Several gifts were loaded on the plane for distribution and among them were some marble lamps. Due to last minute plan changes, the marble lamps were not loaded in the cargo section. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) found the lamps left behind and after failing to trace the owner(s), broke the lamps and found them stuffed with heroin. After several arrests, the track led to Zia’s ADC Captain Qamar Zaman, the “adopted son” of the general. I traced an article in Pakistan Tribune newspaper of 11 October, 2011 as well as the book “Profiles of Intelligence” by Brigadier A.I. Tirmizi. Fascinatingly, Qamar Zaman was appointed Chairman of Pakistan’s National Accountability Board (NAB) the very authority charged to investigate corruption. Details of Qamar Zaman’s corruption are noted on the referenced article.
On 9 July 2016 a noble and humble Pakistani philanthropist, Abdul Suttar Edhi, died at the age of 88 in Karachi serving humanity, the very essence of Islam. In a blog EDHI: A LIFE LESS ORDINARY in the newspaper The Dawn , filmmaker and journalist Hassan Zaidi wrote In fact, if anything made him (Edhi) bitter it was how some mullahs (clergy) had perverted the spirit of religion with literal interpretations. He would rail many times about how the clergy only created problems for other people, never helped those in need. In another anonymous blog, Edhi’s wife Bilquis stated that “What we are doing (charity) should be done by the government and should be appreciated, but instead we are blamed.” I remember an Italian saying ‘the fish smells from the head’ – true enough.
The corruption, tyranny, oppression, religious intolerance, terrorism and injustice in Pakistan are representative across the entire Muslim world. Muslims are fleeing from their own countries and seeking sanctuary anywhere where they can escape the horrific crimes being perpetrated against innocent men, women and children by their leaders and extremist groups like Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and Taliban.
Ask Muslims about the roots of terrorism and they’re quick to point the fingers at the USA or Israel. They’re not thinking. They’re not thinking inwardly. The plague of terrorism is homemade, not foreign. The western countries however prop up the Muslim perpetrators with bribes and political protection so that they can extract economic benefits from the mayhem. Why not exploit the homegrown situation?
Terrorism was born predominantly in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as a tool to expel Soviets from Afghanistan in 1980s. The other day I was asked about these three countries. The official descriptions of Pakistan and Afghanistan are THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN and ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF AFGHANISTAN. I posed a question to several Muslims: are these two countries Islamic or republics or democracies as their leaders and politicians claim? The answers were unanimously ‘no’ in each case. They are hypocrisies and mirror reflections of Saudi Arabian monarchy in every respect. These countries are namesake Islamic only, not in principle or in spirit. The blame also lies with the clergy who mislead Muslims and appease the political leaders for personal gains and power sharing.
The current Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif owes much to the Saudi monarchy as it had granted him sanctuary during his 9 year exile from Pakistan in 1999 following a military coup. Saudi Arabia has granted sanctuary to other heads of Muslim countries known for their extremities of corruption, oppression, tyranny, murder, mayhem and injustice against their peoples. A case is that of Idi Amin President of Uganda from 1971-1979, an incredibly disturbed psychotic who is on record to have killed half million citizens. Another corrupt tyrant-dictator who was granted sanctuary in Saudi Arabia was the former President of Tunisia Zain El-Abedin bin Ali (1987-2011). He fled with his notorious wife Leila bin Ali and nearly 1.5 tons of gold valued at $75 million. Why has the Saudi monarchy granted sanctuary to such tyrants? One can only surmise that “birds of a feather flock together”.
The plague of terrorism was born and nurtured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in prayer houses (mosques) of God under control of fundamentalist clergies trained and funded by the same country that has supported and granted sanctuary to tyrants, dictators, political criminals, unjust rulers, oppressors and murderers. One of them was President Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, a religious zealot, who together with Saudi Arabia aspired to promote Wahhabism- an extremist belief far removed from mainstream Islam which preaches humanity and tolerance – across the Muslim world. Fortunately his aspirations died with him in a military airplane crash in 1988 but the monarchy and Wahhabism continues to survive and grow like a cancerous plague of radicalism, terrorism and terrorists.
The plague spans not only the Muslim countries but even the USA and European nations. The only Muslim country which has successfully prevented terrorism within its borders is Iran. Whether they belong to Al-Qaeda, Taliban or the Islamic State (IS), these bearded terrorists are products of extremism and religious fundamentalism, brainwashed in mosques by the Saudi trained clergy to indiscriminately kill men, women and children. Then they vanish in the crowds and find sanctuary in the mosques. They call themselves Muslims who believe that God has chosen them to do His bidding and that they’ll be rewarded in Paradise.
Let us now consider in a couple of paragraphs how to eliminate the global plague. The US and European NATO partners have a grand plan for Saudi Arabia, a nation that cannot defend itself but would willingly pay other Muslim countries to do its dirty job. It has hopes that Pakistan, Afghanistan, other Arab monarchies would send regular army troops to defend the country and the two holy sites in Mecca and Medina. It has thus formed a coalition of Sunni Muslims including Al-Qaeda, IS and Taliban to counter the growing influence of Shia axis (Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah) in the Middle East. The grand plan is to start a civil war between Shias and Sunnis (both Muslims) and thus contain the plague in US and EU while Muslims will be engaged in throat cutting.
As to the timing of the civil war, it might just well be in less than two years following the US elections. Donald Trump, the Republican Party presidential nominee, is the circus clown who has been thrown into the ring to gauge the sentiments of the Americans towards Muslims while the “terrorists” unleash chaos in the US. Behind the scenes is the juggler, Hillary Clinton (endorsed as the Democratic Party presidential nominee), as she spins a web that will lead to the Shia-Sunni civil war in the Middle East. Iran’s Supreme leader Khamenei warned his nuclear negotiators that under the N-deal is a “half nuclear bowl” suggesting caution that the US-EU has an ulterior motive. Now that the sanctions are gradually being lifted, Iran is economically and militarily preparing towards the eventuality of the civil war that it has foreseen in the “half nuclear bowl”. I perceive that the civil war will be a major regional conflict that will prolong many years till terrorism and fundamentalism will be defeated and peace will prevail but the human toll among Muslims will be massive.
- French Government Forced To Admit It "Suppressed News Of Gruesome Torture" At Bataclan Massacre
Authored by Louise Mensch, originally posted at HeatStreet.com,
A French government committee has heard testimony, suppressed by the French government at the time and not published online until this week, that the killers in the Bataclan appear to have tortured their victims on the second floor of the club.
The 14-hour testimony about the November attacks took place March 21st.
According to this testimony, Wahhabist killers reportedly gouged out eyes, castrated victims, and shoved their testicles in their mouths. They may also have disemboweled some poor souls. Women were reportedly stabbed in the genitals – and the torture was, victims told police, filmed for Daesh or Islamic State propaganda. For that reason, medics did not release the bodies of torture victims to the families, investigators said.
But prosecutors at the hearing claimed these reports of torture were “a rumor” on the grounds that sharp knives were not found at the scene. They also claimed that maybe shrapnel had caused the injuries.
Q. For the information of the Commission of Inquiry….can you tell us how you learned that there had been acts of barbarism within the Bataclan: beheadings, evisceration, eyes gouged out …?
Investigator: After the assault, we were with colleagues at the passage Saint-Pierre Amelot when I saw weeping from one of our colleagues who came outside to vomit. He told us what he had seen.
Q. Acts of torture happened on the second floor?
Further on the investigator described how this was kept from relatives:
A. Bodies have not been presented to families because there were beheaded people there, the murdered people, people who have been disemboweled . There are women who had their genitals stabbed.
Q. All this would have been videotaped for Daesh !
A. I believe so. Survivors have said so.
Elsewhere, the investigator says, women were sexually tortured, stabbed in the genitals, and their eyes were plucked out. People were decapitated.
The clerk of the inquiry (or “rapporteur”) pressed the chief of committee for clarity on whether victims were decapitated or mutilated. The committee chief replied that the authorities had given out conflicting information that said victims were merely shot or blown up. He then added this damning statement about one victim’s father discovering the gruesome truth in the morgue:
Mr. President Georges Fenech Indeed, the Committee is troubled by this information which has appeared nowhere [in the media]. Thus, the father of one of the victims sent me a copy of a letter he sent to the investigating judge, which I quote in summary: “On the causes of the death of my son A., at the forensic institute in Paris, I was told, and what a shock it was for me at that moment, they had cut off his testicles, had put them in his mouth, and he was disemboweled. When I saw him behind glass, lying on a table, a white shroud covering it up to the neck, a psychologist was with me. He said: This is “the only presentable part, your son’s left profile.” I found that he had no right eye. I made the remark; I was informed that they had punctured his eye and sliced down the right side of his face, where there was a very large hematoma that we could all see. ”
This particular witness could corroborate the statements that we heard from one of the BAC officials, that one of his investigators vomited immediately on leaving the Bataclan after finding a decapitation and evisceration. Are you aware of such facts?
A prosecutor appearing before the inquiry replied lamely that no sharp knife had been found at the scene that could have been used for torture. Perhaps shrapnel had caused the mutilation, he said. The head of the committee asked if an explosion would have placed testicles in a victim’s mouth:
Prosecutor: I specify, for the sake of clarity: some of the bodies found at the Bataclan were extremely mutilated by the explosions and weapons, to the point that it was sometimes difficult to reconstruct the dismembered bodies. In other words, injuries described this father may also have been caused by automatic weapons, by explosions or projections of nails and bolts that have resulted.
Q. Would those have put a man’s balls in in his own mouth?
Prosecutor: I do not have that information.
The news follows reports that German police sat on the huge number of sexual assaults committed by Islamist migrants in Cologne, which a secret report estimated at thousands, not hundreds.
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What is there to add? Why suppress it? Is this just more disgusting appeasement, pandering, and suppression to ensure some fear-based control.. but not total economically-crushing terror? Tell The Truth!!
- Friday Humor? Obama's 11-Point Response To The French Tragedy
Authored by Yojimbo via The Burning Platform blog,
1. No one needs a commercial truck this large.
2. The Founding Fathers never envisioned large commercial trucks, and did not intend for people to drive them.
3. These “assault trucks” are designed for killing large numbers of people quickly, and that is their only use.
4. We need a “no truck” list immediately, one that does not require due process to get on or off.
5. No where in the Constitution does it mention the freedom to own these killing devices called trucks.
6. Large commercial trucks should only be owned by the police, military, or politicians, NOT normal citizens, who can use horses.
7. We already have licensing, registration, titles, inspection, and multiple taxes on large commercial vehicles, and STILL they are used for mass killing. Enough is enough. We must ban them entirely.
8. We must follow Australia’s example – we must have a massive government buy-back of all trucks currently owned by American citizens, then, they must be destroyed.
9. We must empower the police and military to go door-to-door to forcibly remove these “assault trucks”. Deadly force is reasonable when “disarming” people of these killing devices.
10. If it will save the life of even a single child, we must rid our society of trucks.
11. And lastly, we must continue to resettle enormous numbers of Muslims throughout the United States, primarily in rural, white, Christian areas.
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Ironically, this is exactly what Newt Gingrich expected from The President: "Will Obama Call for New Truck Regulations After Nice Terror?"
- UK Luxury Property Sales Collapse Post-Brexit
Things just went to '11' on the Spinal Tap amplifier of Britain's property market. Having detailed the numerous 'dominoes' that have begun to fall, and the start of forced real asset liquidations, the hard data from Britain's Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors suggests Brexit just killed the British housing market… and even more crucially, as Bloomberg reports, a measure of London (luxury) home-price changes crashed to its weakest since the financial crisis as the U.K.’s vote to leave the EU sent shock waves across the nation.
Having previously shown the following chart as an example of the 'liquidity gap' between fund-level liquidations and the exuberant UK real estate market, warning that things could get ugly very quickly…
Bloomberg reports, they just did! The index by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors dropped to minus 46 in June from minus 35 the previous month, showing that more real-estate agents are recording lower prices in the capital than higher ones. The reading was the weakest since early 2009. All responses were received after the EU referendum on June 23.
A separate report from Acadata Ltd. and LSL Property Services Plc showed home values in the capital were already being hurt ahead of the vote, with prices decreasing 1.4 percent in May, the biggest monthly fall since June 2011.
RICS’s survey provides the first insight into the impact the decision to leave the EU is having on the housing market. It shows nationwide demand falling to its lowest level since the middle of 2008, while the number of properties put up for sale plunged to a record low. A gauge of sales expectations for the next three months was at its weakest in 28 years.
“It was always likely we were going to see a bit of a fallout from the EU referendum,” Simon Rubinsohn, RICS’s chief economist, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television with Guy Johnson and Caroline Hyde.
“It’s also part of a trend that emerged at the start of the second quarter, particularly the London data.”
The Brexit vote has “clearly unnerved many buyers and sellers, and it is evident that some are reevaluating what they do and/or are attempting to renegotiate the price,” they said.
- Pokemania: Nintendo Just Became The Most-Traded Stock In Japanese History
Thanks to the fad-tastic launch of Pokemon GO – more popular than porn – Nintendo stock has exploded over 93% in the last 7 days (the most ever) to 6 years highs. But the Pokemania was really in the trading volume where 476 billion yen changed hands for the highest daily turnover on the Tokyo Stock Exchange this century…
Second-highest turnover for any given day was Tokyo Electric with 446b yen on May 21, 2013, followed by SoftBank with 431b yen on Nov. 29, 2005.
* * *
Seems sustainable, right?
Having second thoughts? Maybe you're right? From Gawker:
"Pokémon Go Is a Government Surveillance Psyop Conspiracy"
Less than a week after Pokémon Go’s launch, our streets are already filled with packs of phone-wielding, Weedle-catching zombies. They’re robbing our teens, filling our churches with sinners, and tricking our children into exercising. But worst of all, Pokémon Go is turning us all into an army of narcs in service of the coming New World Order.
Allow me to explain.
More like Privacy Poli-See Everything
Lots of apps have sketchy privacy policies, that’s nothing new. But the first set of alarms go off as soon as you realize that Pokémon Go’s policy does seem a bit more liberal than most, because not only are you giving Pokémon Go access to your location and camera, you’re also giving it full access to your Google account (assuming you use that to sign in).
There’s one section of the privacy policy in particular that seems to be getting the conspiracy theorists of the world up in arms and which Reddit user Homer_Simpson_Doh calls “very Orwellian”:
Most Orwellian of all is this line:We may disclose any information about you (or your authorized child) that is in our possession or control to government or law enforcement officials or private parties.As TechCrunch explained, Pokémon-loving millennials are far less likely to object to a few extra permissions when its Squirtle staring them in the face as they abandon their every god-given freedom than they do when Google reads their email.Pokémon Go comes directly—directly—from the intelligence communityAnd it’s not like Pokémon Go itself doesn’t already have a direct(-ish) line to the CIA. After all, Pokémon Go was created by Niantic, which was formed by John Hanke.Now, Hanke also just so happened to help found Keyhole. What does Keyhole do, you ask? I’d tell you to go to Keyhole’s website—but you can’t. It just takes you straight to Google Earth. That’s because Keyhole was acquired by Google back in 2004.Before that, though, Keyhole received funding from a firm called In-Q-Tel, a government-controlled venture capital firm that invests in companies that will help beef up Big Brother’s tool belt. What’s more, the funds In-Q-Tel gave Keyhole mostly came from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), whose primary mission is “collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence.”Still unsure if Pokémon Go’s creator is a government spook? Check out this excerpt from the NGA’s in-house publication… - Housing Bubble 2.0 – Are You Ready For This?
The mind-numbing Case-Shiller regional charts below are presented without too much comment. As MHanson.com's Mark Hanson adds, the visual says it all.
Bottom line:
Q: If 2006/07 was the peak of the largest housing bubble in history with affordability never better vis a’ vis exotic loans; easy availability of credit; unemployment in the 4%’s; the total workforce at record highs; and growing wages, then what do you call “now” with house prices at or above 2006 levels; worse affordability; tighter credit; higher unemployment; a weakening total workforce; and shrinking wages?
A: Whatever you call it, it’s a greater thing than the Bubble 1.0 peak.
1) Funny (and Demented) Seattle area Realtor anecdote regarding the potential for another housing Bubble: “House prices can’t be in a bubble because they are only 10% greater than the 2006 peak, meaning growth of only 1% per year since 2006. And 1% per year is not the Bubble type gains we saw back in the mid-2000’s”.
DOH! How do you argue with that? You don’t, you just turn the other cheek and pound a drink.
2) Case-Shiller’s most Bubblicious Regions
Bottom line: If these key housing markets hit a wall they will take the rest of the nation with them; bubbles and busts don’t happen in “isolation”.
Not shown in these charts of absolute index levels is the three-straight months of national yy price gain deceleration. Moreover, the CS captures prices up to 7-months old at the tail so conditions are already a lot different than shown here.
3) Notes & Observations on above chart:
• The bubblicious regions above all have one thing in common…STEM. As such, if the tech and biotech sectors hit a wall, which some believe has already begun, so will these housing regions.
• If these key housing markets hit a wall they will take the rest of the nation with them; Bubbles and busts don’t happen in “isolation”.
• House prices have retaken Bubble 1.0 levels on the exact same drivers: easy/cheap/deep credit & liquidity that found its way to real estate. The only difference between both era’s is which cohorts controlled the credit and liquidity. In Bubble 1.0, end-users were in control. In this bubble, “professional”/private investors and foreigners are. But, they both drove demand and prices in the exact same manner. That is, as incremental buyers with easy/cheap/deep credit & liquidity, able to hit whatever the ask price was, and consequently — due to the US comparable sales appraisal process — pushed all house prices to levels far beyond what typical end-user, shelter-buyers can afford. Thus, the persistent, anemic demand.
• Bubble 2.0 has occurred without a corresponding demand surge just like peak Bubble 1.0. As such, it means something other than fundamental, end-user demand and economics is driving prices this time too.
• The end result of Bubble 2.0 will be the same as 1.0; a demand “mix-shift” and price “reset” back towards end-user fundamentals once the speculators finish up, or events force them to the “sidelines”.
• Lower prices will create demand, which the housing sector will always achieve one way or another…it’s what it does. Just like the anemic demand led the price crash of Bubble 1.0, which ultimately led to increased demand as prices stabilized lower.
• The Bubble 2.0 pop will also free up supply in the same manner as Bubble 1.0, just not as much from foreclosures. However, I do think people underestimate the volume of low-down mortgages originated over the past several years, and those with little to no equity in legacy loans or rising interest rate mods, which if house prices drop a few percent turn high-risk, especially when factoring in the 6%+ cost to sell. But, it doesn’t matter where the supply comes from — maybe the PE firms start to dump rentals — as it’s fungible.
• Sure the bubble could blow bigger. Maybe we get a double-bubble. Bubbles are strange things. But, when they begin to fall there is a lot of air under there because the downside has clearly been established.
• Lastly, I am betting 2016 marks the high for house prices, as mortgage rates can’t go meaningfully lower, the unorthodox demand cohort is exhausted, and real affordability to end-user shelter-buyers has rarely been worse. In fact, I believe this is the year house prices go red yy.
- What Is Helicopter Money? Goldman Explains
Whether Japan admits it or not, helicopter money – thanks to Ben Bernanke – is here, and the market’s reaction this week was simply the first stage of pricing it in, as confirmed by the biggest drop in the Japanese currency this century.
Incidentally, we are “confident” that the SEC will inquire whether Citadel- Ben Bernanke’s official employer – was actually short the Yen ahead of its employee going to Japan and advising the Bank of Japan what to do, and how to crush its currency. Obviously that would be a grandiouse, and criminal, conflict of interest.
We won’t be holding our breath, but while we wait here is a useful primer for all those wondering just what is coming, courtesy of Goldman Sachs, which explains the nuances of monetary policy’s endgame: Helicopter Money.
Q1: What does helicopter money refer to in the first place?
A1: Literally, it is a policy whereby the government or central bank supplies large amounts of money, as if it were scattering money from a helicopter. A more practical definition, however, is a policy whereby the central bank has primary responsibility for funding to facilitate more flexible and active fiscal spending by the government. The concept of helicopter money has been around for years. Professor Milton Friedman was first to propose the idea in 1969, and in the early 2000s then Federal Reserve Board Governor Ben Bernanke raised it as one prescription to prevent deflation.[1] Very recently, a July 13 Sankei Newspaper article suggesting Prime Minister Abe and his advisers were considering helicopter money sparked debate on the subject in Japan.
According to Adair Turner (former chairman of the UK FSA), there are two specific schemes: (1) the BOJ directly underwriting JGBs, and (2) converting JGBs purchased by the BOJ on the secondary market into zero-coupon perpetual bonds.[2]
The first scheme is referred to as monetization. This was actually done in Japan under Takahashi fiscal policy in the 1930s, which served as a model for Abenomics (see Q4 for details).
The second scheme, although not involving direct JGB underwriting, is in effect very similar to the first one because it is no longer necessary for the government to pay interest on JGBs or even redeem them.
Either way, it would theoretically allow the government to fund fiscal spending of any amount it deemed necessary. It can be thought of as the ultimate form of fiscal and monetary policy unification.
Q2: Why is this a hot topic in Japan now?
A2: This is closely associated with the fact that Abenomics, which has monetary policy as its central plank, is faltering. The BOJ, under Governor Kuroda, launched unprecedented easing in April 2013, with the initial aim of achieving 2% inflation in two years by doubling base money. It has now pushed back the timeline for achieving this inflation target to the end of FY2017, and we, along with many other observers, believe it will take even longer.
The core CPI (excluding fresh foods) fell into negative territory in the most recent reading in May 2016, at -0.4% yoy. The BOJ’s new core CPI (excluding fresh foods and energy), which the BOJ has emphasized recently as a gauge of price trends, also slowed to +0.8% in May 2016, after printing strongly at +1.3% in December 2015. On top of this, the 2016 shunto spring wage negotiations ended on a sour note for the BOJ too, even though it had hoped for stronger wage hikes.[3] The real economy, meanwhile, is sluggish, oscillating between positive and negative growth since 2015. .
We also think the BOJ’s unprecedented easing policy is approaching its limits. Qualitative easing (ETF purchase in particular), part of the BOJ’s three-dimensional monetary easing, still has relative scope for expansion, but many observers are skeptical about the sustainability of the BOJ’s quantitative target of increasing the monetary base by ¥80 tn a year through JGB purchases.[4] The negative interest rate policy introduced by the BOJ in January 2016 as well has been met with a critical eye not only by financial institutions but also the general public.
If Prime Minister Abe and his advisors are indeed giving consideration to helicopter money, as the Sankei Shimbun article suggests, this may indicate that they are also sensing limitations to the BOJ’s three-dimensional easing.
Q3: Is helicopter money legally feasible?
A3: It is prohibited, in principle, but there is a gray zone here. Article 5 of Japan’s Public Finance Law prohibits the BOJ from underwriting any public bonds. However it goes on to say that in special circumstances, the BOJ may be able to do so within limits approved by a Diet resolution.
The first sentence prohibits the underwriting of JGBs in principle. This is based on lessons learned from the bitter experience, under the Takahashi fiscal policy in the 1930s, of JGB underwriting by the BOJ leading to a complete loss of fiscal discipline and ultimately to hyper-inflation (see Q5). The gray zone is the proviso in the second sentence. “Special circumstances” are usually interpreted to be limited to JGBs bonds issued to refinance JGBs held by the BOJ, and not ones issued to support active government fiscal stimulus measures. However, proponents of BOJ underwriting tend to believe that this proviso can be interpreted more broadly to include a more active role for the BOJ in financing fiscal measures.
Q4: What kinds of benefits are proponents of this policy expecting?
A4: We believe proponents are focused on two main benefits. The first is the direct demand-generating effect that comes from the ability to freely increase fiscal spending with no concern over how it will be funded. While households may opt to direct this money into savings rather than spend it if the policy is only in place for a very short period of time, the possibility of consumption picking up increases the longer the policy is in effect.
The second benefit is the “announcement effect” targeting the markets generated by the decision itself to adopt a very radical policy such as the BOJ directly underwriting public debt, long considered taboo (see Q5). For the currency markets, we expect this policy to place a downward pressure on the yen.
Q5: What are the risks?
A5: The largest risk is that once helicopter money is adopted it may not be able to be stopped. If the markets take the view that the policy cannot be reined in, there is a risk the government and BOJ may trigger a substantial collapse in confidence in the yen, resulting in excessive currency depreciation.
Under the Takahashi fiscal policy of the 1930s, on which Abenomics is modeled, the BOJ actually took the step of underwriting JGBs. Then Minister of Finance Korekiyo Takahashi attempted to pull Japan out of a period of severe deflation by supplementing the weaker yen that accompanied the exit from the gold standard with aggressive fiscal stimulus via the underwriting of JGBs.[5] While the BOJ’s underwriting of public debt was also viewed as taboo at that time, Finance Minister Takahashi considered it just a short-term expedient, and planned to rapidly exit the policy once Japan had escaped the deflationary cycle.
The Takahashi policy breathed life into the Japanese economy, but contrary to the Minister’s intentions, the BOJ continued to underwrite JGBs unabated. After the assassination of Minister Takahashi in 1936, what started out as a short-term expedient became the fiscal norm and the fiscal deficit grew sharply, ultimately leading to hyper-inflation. While the era of militarism only further accelerated the loss of fiscal discipline, it all began with giving the government a really convenient tool of the BOJ’s underwriting of public debt.
While some promoting helicopter money highlight the possibility of building a framework that will ensure fiscal discipline, such as linking the policy to the inflation target, given past Japan’s experiences noted above, many including us are skeptical about whether or not an effective framework can really be built.
Q6: Is helicopter money likely to be used in Japan?
A6: While we think the overt adoption of helicopter money is highly unlikely in Japan, we see a possibility that the market could come to associate future large-scale fiscal and monetary policy mix as a step toward helicopter money.
As explained in Q5, the main reason why we think helicopter money is unlikely in Japan is that the BOJ is acutely aware of the difficulty of exiting such a policy once it has been set in motion. Governor Kuroda is a notable proponent of fiscal consolidation, and is in our view unlikely to agree to a policy that is highly likely to result in a future loss of fiscal discipline.
That said, the point at which helicopter money begins is extremely vague. The BOJ’s net purchasing of JGBs is currently running at ¥80 tn per year. Although these purchases are made via the market and therefore do not amount to the underwriting of government debt in the strictly defined sense, the economic principle is the same. The government issues bonds that are purchased by private sector financial institutions who quickly sell them on to the BOJ. In terms of fund flow, the only difference from the direct underwriting of government debt is that in this case the bonds pass through private sector financial institutions.
Accordingly, if the Japanese government decides to implement a massive fiscal stimulus package and the BOJ concurrently steps up three-dimensional easing (particularly if it increases JGB purchasing), we think the market could react as if this is a step toward helicopter money in all but name.
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And here are some schematics from Jefferies
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In terms of everything that once made sense financially, central banks’ transformation of this world into Wonderland is now complete. In this topsy-turvy world, Mad Hatters may not be so mad as they look. Everyone is simply trying to maneuver around the biggest bullies in the playpen by finding the safest place to play. It’s the new rationality of a world intentionally turned on its head — at last, by nearly everyone’s recognition — even more than it is euphoria. The irrationality has become obvious. What is not so obvious is the rationality of the irrationality.
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