- Europe's Thinnest Market In 18 Years Sends Ominous Signal
While US investors are fighting each other off to buy stocks (well FANG stocks), Chinese and European equity markets have suffered in recent months amid growth concerns and trade war fears.
One might not know it looking at the Euro Stoxx 50 Volatility Index hovering just barely in the double digits…
But, as Bloomberg’s Benjamin Dow notes, larger prices swings could be coming to European stocks this month as volumes dry up.
Even by August standards, it’s unusually quiet. The last time Stoxx 600 volumes’ 15-DMA for this particular day was lower was in 2000:
It could be an ominous sign for those who are betting on a quiet end to the month, amid numerous macro stormclouds like Sino-U.S. trade jabs, U.S. politics (sanctions and mid-term elections), Italy-EU budget battles, and Brexit.
As Dow warns, an anomalously busy start to the month in terms of macro newsflow combined with low volumes could well set the stage for fireworks.
- Obama Ignores Genocide In South Africa
Authored by Ilana Mercer via Unz.com,
Once upon a time there were two politicians.
One had the power to give media and political elites goosebumps. Still does.
The other causes the same dogs to raise their hackles.
The first is Barack Hussein Obama; the second Vladimir Putin.
The same gilded elites who choose our villains and victims for us have decided that the Russian is the worst person in the world. BHO, the media consider one of the greatest men in the world.
Obama leveled Libya and lynched its leader. Our overlords were unconcerned. They knew with certainty that Obama was destroying lives irreparably out of the goodness of his heart.
Same thing when Obama became the uncrowned king of the killer drone, murdering Pakistani, Afghani, Libyan and Yemeni civilians in their thousands. That, too, his acolytes generally justified, minimized or concealed.
In June of 2008, Obama marked his election as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.” Media did not mock their leader’s delusions of grandeur.
All the estrogen-oozing amoebas of mainstream media would do in response to the Obama charm offensive was to turn to one another and check, “Was it good for you? Did he make the earth move and the oceans recede for you, too?”
Recently, Obama romped on to the Third World stage “bigly.”
He delivered an address in this writer’s birthplace of Johannesburg, South Africa. The occasion: the centennial commemoration of Nelson Mandela’s birth.
On that occasion, Obama praised “the liberal international order,” which is founded on inverted morality: Good is bad and bad is good.
Small wonder, then, that nobody—broadcaster Tucker Carlson excepted—was willing to shame Obama for lauding genial thug Cyril Ramaphosa as an inspiration for “new hope in [his] great country.”
President hope-and-change Ramaphosa has gone where his four peer predecessors had not dared to go. He led a wildly fruitful effort to tweak the already watered-down property-rights provision in the South-African Constitution. Theft of land owned by whites will now be permitted.
Other than their modern-day-messiah status, BHO and his hero Mandela share something else. Both were silent about the systematic ethnic cleansing and extermination, in ways that beggar belief, of South-African farmers, in particular, and whites in general.
Does the barefaced Barack care that white men, women and children are being butchered like animals, their bodies often displayed like trophies by their proud black assassins?
An example among thousands are Kaalie Botha’s parents: “You can’t kill an animal like they killed my mom and dad. You can’t believe it.”
The Achilles tendons of Kaalie’s 71-year-old father had been severed by his assailants so he couldn’t flee. He was then hacked in the back until he died, his body dumped in the bush.
The head of wife Joey had been bashed in by a brick, wielded with such force that the skull “cracked like an egg.”
A day in the life of farming South Africa.
Yet, there was Mr. Obama touting the new South Africa as the instantiation of the ideals promoted by Mandela.
Mind you, Obama might be on to something, in a perverse way. As stated, Mandela was mum about these killings, labeled genocidal by the expert Dr. Gregory H. Stanton.
As for “Madiba’s” fidelity to the cornerstone of civilization, private-property rights: In September of 1991, “Mr. Mandela threatened South African business with nationalization of mines and financial institutions unless business [came] up with an alternative option for the redistribution of wealth.”
Had he lived to 100, Mandela would likely be cheering Ramaphosa for authorizing a free-for-all on white-owned private property.
You know who’s not ignoring or minimizing those ongoing attempts at extermination and immiseration in South Africa? President Putin.
Russia has purportedly offered to give shelter to 15,000 white South African farmers, so far, recognizing them for the true refugees they are.
But Mr. Putin must be a racist. At least that’s what the cruel and craven African National Congress (Mandela’s party) dubs any nation daring to succor white South-Africans. The very idea that black Africans would persecute white Africans is racist in itself, say South Africa’s ruling Solons.
In fact, the ANC regularly intervenes to set aside findings made by Refugee Boards across the West in favor of South Africa’s endangered minority.
Putin, of course, has a history of such “racism.” Take his “unhealthy” fixation with saving Christians in Syria. Yes, that community is thriving once again because of the Alawite and Russian alliance.
True to type, “racist” Russia is now looking out for the Afrikaner settlers of South Africa.
In 2011, when “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa” was published, there were approximately 40,000 commercial South-African farmers who remained on the land of their ancestors. Minus about 3000 slaughtered.
The total number of commercial farmers who feed South Africa is now less than half the number of “refugees” the US takes in each year. To date, “there has been a trickle of South Africans applying for asylum in the United States on the grounds of racial persecution. Almost all have been deported.”
It should be news to no one that American refugee policies favor the Bantu peoples of Africa over its Boers.
As Obama would drone, “It’s who we are.”
Whichever way you slice it, on matters South Africa, Russia is the virtuous one.
- "War In Front Of Me" – New Chinese Military Video Shows Off Range Of Advanced Weaponry
A new video produced by China’s military that features the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) showing off a wide range of the country’s latest military technology has gone viral after its publication to social media on August 1st, the day China commemorated ‘Army Day’.
The just over two-minute video, called “I am a Chinese soldier” is an over the top patriotic tribute emphasizing a combination of personal sacrifice, loyalty, and a sense of esprit de corps in belonging to an elite, modernized military.
The National Interest has provided a translation of the popular Chinese language footage, which is described as follows:
The video is brimful with the grandiosity that is now associated with the military under Xi Jinping: a lot of ammunition is fired, and the very latest in China’s military technology — combat aircraft, a carrier battle group, long-range ballistic missiles, submarines and armored vehicles — is on full, proud, active display.
The video further appeals to a masculine sense of duty and sacrificial hardship as the there’s a series of scenes in the first half depicting men saying tearful goodbyes to their children and spouses, after which infantry soldiers give fierce battle cries while waving the communist national flag, interspersed with overhead shots of huge intercontinental ballistic missiles a silo and an aircraft carrier battle group.
The narration includes the lines: “Peace behind me, war in front of me. Pick up the steel gun, we must let go of the children.”
The National Interest notes the masculine and patriotic appeal of the video:
As some watchers have observed, the world depicted in this video is very much a man’s world — there isn’t a single female soldier; the few women who appear are mothers and spouses, tearfully enduring, no doubt with the full patriotism that is expected of them by the Chinese Communist Party, the absences and heart-rending departures of sons and husbands. At times serene and towards the end bombastic, the accompanying soundtrack could have been written by Hans Zimmer (think his majestic score for Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line ).
China has increasingly over the past year attempted to promote an image of itself to international foes and rivals as on a path of overtaking the United States and other world powers in the area of defense technology.
Screengrab from the Chinese military produced “I am a Chinese soldier” Meanwhile America’s top nuclear commander warned this week that both China and Russia’s development of hyperonic weapons constitute a threat that the US deterrent arsenal currently cannot defend against.
Air Force Gen. John Hyten warned the two countries are not America’s “friends” and that the new military technology threat should be taken with urgency and seriousness.
Screengrab from the Chinese military produced “I am a Chinese soldier” showing off ICBMs “You can’t call them [Russia and China] our friends if they’re building weapons that can destroy the United States of America,” Gen. Hyten said.
Below is an English translation of the new video, “I am a Chinese Soldier” via J. Michael Cole for the The National Interest
* * *
The narration (translated from Chinese):
Who am I?
I am the one the mother cannot reach at the door.
I am the wife who is reluctant to hang up the phone.
I am a stranger who dares not approach in the eyes of my son.
I am the concern and pride of my loved ones.
Peace behind me, war in front of me.
Pick up the steel gun, we must let go of the children.
Put on the military uniform, we must give up comfort and ease.
Fighting the battlefield, the character of the man.
From the military to the country, there is no regret in this life.
I am a Chinese soldier.
I am a soldier of the people.
I am the guardian of a good life.
- Hitler & Trump: "The Great Man" Theory Debunked
Authored by Gerold via GeroldBlog.com,
We’re told that great leaders make history. Like so much of what we are taught, that’s a load of bunk. Yes, great leaders make it into the history books, but they do not make history. You make history. I make history. All we dirt people together make history. Government-run schools don’t teach us this because it makes us easier to control.
The “Great Man Theory” [Link] tells us that history can be largely explained by the impact of great leaders. This theory was popularized in the 1800’s by the historian and social commentator Thomas Carlyle [Link] The Great Man Theory downplays the importance of economic and practical explanations. It is an appealing theory because its simplicity offers the path of least resistance. That should ring an alarm.
Herbert Spencer [Link] forcefully disagreed with the “Great Man Theory.” He believed that great leaders were merely products of their social environment. “Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.” Tolstoy went so far as to call great leaders “history’s slaves.” However, this middle ground still misses the mark.
At the other extreme is “history from below” [Link] aka ‘the people’s history.’ “History from below” takes the perspective of common people rather than leaders. It emphasizes the daily life of ordinary people that develop opinions and trends” as opposed to great people introducing ideas or initiating events.” Unfortunately, this too is only half the equation, and it is no surprise that it appeals to Leftist and Marxist agendas.
Having studied politics and history ever since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, I determined that although history is partly the environments and individuals shaping each other reciprocally, it is more than that. It is you and I who make history with every decision we make, every dollar we spend, everything we learn, every vote we cast and every opinion we voice. It’s even what we don’t do. It is mostly organic and cannot easily be explained in a simple, linear fashion the way the aforementioned political philosophers tried.
Great leaders are merely the right person at the right time and place. However, they do not lead so much as follow from the front. They stick their finger in the air to see which way the wind blows. They may be brutes, bullies or demagogues, but they are sensitive enough to understand the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times and so, they adjust their message accordingly.
That is one reason Jimmy Carter was a failed President. He was a nice guy, but he did not get an accurate reading of the times. Instead, he acted on the wishful thinking that is characteristic of liberals.
One of the significant shortcomings of many political philosophers is their ignorance of human nature. That is why Collectivism in all its forms appeals to the downtrodden. “Share and share alike” is a beautiful ideal so long as you get other people’s stuff, but the flip side of the coin is not quite so appealing.
I heard a radio interview with a self-avowed Communist:
“So do you believe in ‘share and share alike?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And, if you had more than one house, you’d give them away and keep just one for yourself?”
“Yes. I would.”
“And, if you had more than one vehicle, you’d give them away and keep just one for yourself?”
“Yes, I would.”
“And, if you had more than one shirt …”
“Whoa, wait a minute! I have more than one shirt.”
I can’t remember the rest of the interview as I was laughing too hard.
The Great Man Theory is one extreme, its critics are somewhere in the middle and ‘the history of the people’ is at the other end of the spectrum. Despite this, we are still fascinated by great leaders. That is human nature. Whether we are slaves at heart, or lack self-confidence or some other explanation is endlessly debatable. However, the fact remains that we are fascinated by great leaders and our inability to understand them further disproves the accepted theories.
Adolph Hitler is the ultimate example of our fascination with a great man. According to Alex Ross’s “The Hitler Vortex,” [Link] tens of thousands of books have been written about Hitler. “Books have been written about Hitler’s youth, his years in Vienna and Munich, his service in the First World War, his assumption of power, his library, his taste in art, his love of film, his relations with women, and his predilections in interior design (‘Hitler at Home’).”
Tens of thousands of books failed to explain Hitler. Ross, too, does no better when he writes, “What set Hitler apart from most authoritarian figures in history was his conception of himself as an artist-genius who used politics as his métier. It is a mistake to call him a failed artist; for him, politics and war were a continuation of art by other means.” WTF? Are we to believe Hitler was simply an artist who used the world as his canvas? Equally pointless is the notion that, “Hitler debased the Romantic cult of genius to incarnate himself as a transcendent leader hovering above the fray.”
Although he was a brilliant orator, Hitler’s failures are too innumerable to list. [Link] He was certainly a failure as a painter and his General staff considered him an incompetent military strategist (fortunately for the Allies.) However, Hitler was merely the right man at the right time and place to achieve power. As Ross explains, Hitler was, “the result of a large protest movement colliding with complex patterns of elite self-interest, in a culture increasingly prone to aggressive mythmaking and irrationality.” That sounds all too close to home, doesn’t it?
Enter Donald Trump; the right man at the right time and place. He’s a brute, a bully, and a demagogue, but he understands the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times and he adjusts his message to appeal to his base.
I have known many bullies; on the playground and in the boardroom. A bully may achieve short-term gain, but for long-term pain. It is very easy to destroy corporate culture, but extremely difficult, if not impossible, to mend a toxic workplace after the bully was dismissed. Now, extrapolate this to the world under Donald Trump.
John Feeley is the former U.S. Ambassador to Panama portrayed in The New Yorker magazine article “The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration.” [Link] After his first meeting with Trump, he wrote that Trump “saw every unknown person as a threat and that his first instinct was to annihilate that threat. ‘He’s like a velociraptor. He has to be boss, and if you don’t show him deference he kills you.’”
Feeley fears that “the country was embracing an attitude that was profoundly inimical to diplomacy … ‘If we do that … we will become weaker and less prosperous.’” He is correct in that regard. China is building a large, new embassy at the mouth of the Panama Canal visible to every ship “as they enter a waterway that once symbolized the global influence of the United States.”
Feeley is also correct in warning that the Trump administration’s gutting the diplomatic corps will have negative repercussions. Throughout Latin America, leftist leaders are in retreat, and popular movements reject corrupt governance. Yet, Amerika is losing “the greatest opportunity to recoup the moral high ground that we have had in decades.” Instead, the U.S. is abandoning the region to China. Feeley calls it “a self-inflicted Pearl Harbor.”
China is replacing U.S. influence in Latin America and Chinese banks “provided more than a hundred and fifty billion dollars in loan commitments to the region … In less than two decades, trade between China and Latin America has increased twenty-seven-fold.” Although that began long before Trump, “We’re not just walking off the field. We’re taking the ball and throwing a finger at the rest of the world.”
Feeley says that he felt betrayed by what he regarded as “the traditional core values of the United States.” Sorry, Feeley, but Amerika lost its core values long before Trump was elected. Trump is not the cause; he is the symptom, the result of the declining Amerikan Empire.
Hunters know that one of the most dangerous animals is a wounded one. The same is correct about failing empires because they are a danger not only to others but to their own citizens as well. The elites are running out the clock in order to loot as much as they can before it hits the fan.
We dirt people will continue to suffer from stagnant wage growth while the so-called increase in national wealth goes to a tiny minority. [link]
Moreover, nobody wins a trade war that raises consumer prices even if Trump eventually triumphs.
The economy staggers under the weight of phony wars, fake finances, fake GDP, fake CPI, fake employment, fake pensions and fake everything. [Link] The national debt increases $1 trillion every year, consumer debt is at an all-time high [Link] while the tax cuts benefit only the ultra-wealthy. Also, the fake news tells us everything is wonderful. Don’t believe it. “If everything is so awesome, why are Americans drinking themselves to death in record numbers?” [Link]
It is said that every few generations, money returns to its rightful owners. That is what’s happening now.
Amerika emerged relatively unscathed from the Second World War whereas many other countries were bombed back into the Stone Age. The Marshal Plan helped rebuild countries that were to become both America’s future customers and its competitors. Amerika’s busy factories transformed from war production to consumer goods, the demand for which was created by “the Father of Spin” Edward Bernays’ marketing propaganda. [Link]
As well, the U.S. stole the gold that the Nazis had stolen from others, [Link] and that wealth in addition to robust, productive capacity temporarily propelled the U.S. far ahead of other nations. However, it would not last. Eventually, the undeserved prosperity of the 1950’s and ‘60’s began to run out of steam as other nations rebuilt and competed with the U.S. President Nixon defaulting on the dollar in 1971 by “closing the gold window” signaled the end of Amerika’s good times. The subsequent debt creation now unconstricted by a gold basis helped to cushion the blow for several decades, but wealth was now flowing to Asia along with factory jobs.
For 5,000 years, China was a world superpower with only a short, two-century hiatus that is now ending as China again emerges as an economic superpower. Such a massive shift in wealth cannot be attributed to either leadership or the people below. It is a painful reversion to the mean. All the finger-pointing and wailing and gnashing of teeth … not even bombastic Trump and his tariffs can stem the tide and make Amerika great again as money continues to flow back to its rightful owners.
The USA is a declining, bankrupt, warmongering police state and most of its indoctrinated citizens think they live in a free, peaceful country.
China is a corrupt police state, but most of its citizens know it.
We have met the enemy, and he is us. The future awaits.
- Watch Reporters Slam US For Refusing To Condemn Saudi-US Airstrike On Yemen School Bus In Live Briefing
Just as expected, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert refused to condemn Thursday’s coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen, which left as many as 50 people dead and 63 injured — the vast majority of which were children.
As we reported previously, Saudi-US/UK coalition jets scored a direct hit on the school bus packed with children as it drove through a crowded market place in Dahyan, in the rebel-held north of Yemen.
During the State Department’s daily press briefing, Nauert was asked point blank by journalists, starting with the AP’s Matt Lee, whether the US condemns the attack.
The whole testy exchange on Yemen is worth watching, especially as Matt Lee lays out the case for direct US complicity in the attack on the bus packed with children from the start of his question: “The Saudis obviously are the ones who conducted this, but they do that with weapons supplied by the U.S., with training supplied by the U.S., and with targeting information, targeting data, supplied by the U.S. How can something like this happen?” he said.
Watch the State Department’s response here:
State Dept’s Heather Nauert is not willing to condemn the Saudis for their airstrike on a schoolbus earlier today that killed over 50 children in Northern #Yemen. She wants to wait for the Saudis to conduct their own investigation into the attack. Shameful. pic.twitter.com/ixo57tzfRk
— Walid (@walid970721) August 9, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Unbelievably, Nauert tried to obfuscate the issue by simply saying “I can’t confirm all the details because we are not there on the ground.”
Not only did Nauert refuse to say the State Department condemned the attack, but wouldn’t so much as agree to simply call for an independent investigation into the incident (she called only for a Saudi-led inquiry).
Dozens are dead after an airstrike hit a school bus carrying children in northern Yemen, humanitarian group says https://t.co/zIVYgpm5eu pic.twitter.com/iWCfTUZBNN
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) August 9, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Nauert drew random incredulous expressions of laughter from the press pool by the end of the segment on Yemen when she was caught struggling to acknowledge the long established fact that the US supplies “a tremendous amount of weaponry and the data for targeting to the Saudis” while simultaneously touting that Washington provides “a tremendous amount of humanitarian assistance.”
This section of the exchange played out as follows:
MS NAUERT: Look, we provide a tremendous amount of humanitarian assistance in Yemen to try to support civilians in Yemen and try to mitigate against the devastation that’s taken place there in that country. I don’t have anything more for you on that.
QUESTION: But you also supply a tremendous amount of weaponry and the data for targeting to the Saudis.
MS NAUERT: Well, then – sorry.
QUESTION: Right? No?
QUESTION: No.
QUESTION: Am I wrong? Is that wrong?
QUESTION: That’s not wrong.
MS NAUERT: Sorry, these ladies over here are laughing. On that I would refer you to the Department of Defense that is involved with that, but as you know, Saudi Arabia is an important strategic partner in the region to the United States.
Meanwhile as Al Masdar News reports, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is calling for an independent and prompt investigation into the deadly Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit the bus carrying children, United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in a press release.
“The Secretary-General condemns the air strike today by the coalition forces in Saada, which hit a busy market area in Majz District, and impacted a bus carrying children from a summer camp,” Haq said on Thursday. “He calls for an independent and prompt investigation into this incident.”
If a massacre of children on this scale was alleged of Russia or Assad, it would dominate US UK media for days. But as this is a real, verified #Yemen massacre by a US UK ally, and using US UK arms, it’s receiving almost no US UK front page coverage at allhttps://t.co/VlYON5tP2Z
— Charles Shoebridge (@ShoebridgeC) August 9, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), citing local officials, a total of 50 people died in the attack, while another 77 were injured.
War crime: US-backed Saudi/UAE coalition kills at least 20 children and injures many more in airstrike on a *school bus* in Yemen’s Saada province https://t.co/9iQ91Wugcq pic.twitter.com/C7d8HfeQav
— Borzou Daragahi 🖊🗒 (@borzou) August 9, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Leader of the Yemen’s rebel Supreme Revolutionary Committee Mohammed Houthi on Thursday urged Russia, China and France to hold an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting over the attack of the Saudi-led coalition, local media reported.
According to the Houthi-run Al Masirah TV, the committee’s leader said that the coalition’s attack confirmed that the coalition rejects peace in the region.
- Butina Case: Neo-McCarthyism Engulfs America
Authored by Phillip Giraldi via The Stratgeic Culture Foundation,
The United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association (NRA) by having two Russian citizens take out life memberships in the organization with the intention of corrupting it and turning it into a mouthpiece for President Vladimir Putin.
Both of the Russians – Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin – have, by the way, long well documented histories as advocates for gun ownership and were founders of Right to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence front organization of some kind and is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active membership and agenda.
Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can own guns but the licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.
Maria Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in solitary confinement in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion with Torshin and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. It is unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, but she has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a “flight risk,” likely to try to flee the US and return home. It is to be presumed that she is being pressured to identify others involved in her alleged scheme to overthrow American democracy through NRA membership.
Indeed, in any event, it would be difficult to imagine why anyone would consider the NRA to be a legitimate intelligence target. It only flexes its admitted powerful legislative muscles over issues relating to gun ownership, not regarding policy on Russia. In short, Butina and by extension Torshin appear to have done nothing wrong. Both are energetic advocates for their country and guns rights, which they appear to believe in, and Butina’s aggressive networking has broken no law except not registering, which in itself assumes that she is a Russian government agent, something that has not been demonstrated. To put the shoe on the other foot, will every American who now travels to Russia and engages in political conversations with local people be suspected of acting as an agent of the US government? Once you open the door, it swings both ways.
One might dismiss the entire Affair Butina as little more than a reflection of the anti-Russia hysteria that has been sweeping the United States since Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, but that would be unfair to those remaining honest FBI agents who may have investigated Butina and Torshin and come up with what they believed to be a plausible case for an indictment. There were possibly suspicious money transfers as well as email intercepts that might be interpreted as incriminating.
But two important elements are clearly missing.
The first is motive. Did the Kremlin seriously believe that it could get anything substantial out of having a gun totin’ attractive young Russian woman as a life member in the NRA? What did the presumed puppet masters in Moscow expect to obtain apart from the sorts of group photos including Butina that one gets while posing with politicians at the annual NRA convention? Sure, the photo might even evolve into a cup of coffee together, but what is the end game?
Second is the lack of any of the hallmarks of an intelligence operation, which is referred to in the business as tradecraft. Spies meet secretly or at least outside the public eye with prospective agents whereas Maria operated completely in the open and she made no effort to conceal her love for her country and her desire that Washington and Moscow normalize relations. Spies also communicate securely, which means that they use encrypted systems or various cut-outs, i.e. mis-directions, when maintaining contact with those who are running them. Again, Maria did none of that, which is why the FBI has her emails. Also spies work under what is referred to as an “operating directive” in CIA-speak where they have very specific information that they seek to obtain from their contacts. There is no indication that Maria Butina in any way sought classified information or intelligence that would relate either to the security of the United States or to America’s political system. And finally, Maria made no attempt to recruit anyone and turn them into an actual controlled Russian agent, which is what spies eventually seek to do.
It has come down to this: if you are a Russian and you are caught talking to anyone in any way influential, there is potentially hell to pay because the FBI will be watching you. You are automatically assumed to be part of a conspiracy. Once “evidence” is collected, you will be indicted and sent to prison, mostly to send a message to Moscow.
It is the ultimate irony that how the old Soviet Union’s judiciary used to function is now becoming standing operating procedure in the United States.
- The "Tesla Top"
Submitted by Nick Colas of DataTrek research
Would a Tesla go-private deal be a sign of a market top, like AOL-Time Warner or the RJR Nabisco LBO? It certainly checks a lot of the boxes, and also highlights several fundamental shortcomings to public equity markets. For investors that latter point is critical, since they end up long “the disrupted” with no/little chance to own “the disruptors”.
In April 1995, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian made a surprise bid to buy Chrysler Corporation for $21 billion. The offer came after a private conversation with then Chair/CEO Bob Eaton where Kerkorian had said “You ought to consider going private… I already own 10% of the company. It would be easy!” Eaton simply replied “Interesting idea”, not wanting to alienate a key investor. On the strength of that discussion – and nothing else – Kerkorian made his very high profile move.
I know that sounds hard to believe, but I heard it from Bob Eaton himself when working on Chrysler’s defense against the bid. Every other senior manager concurred; Kerkorian, the consummate dealmaker, had simply heard what he wanted to hear.
So when Elon Musk announced yesterday that he had “Funding secured” for a buyout of Tesla, I flashed back to Kerkorian’s ill-fated assumption. Did Musk raise the topic of going private with a few high profile venture capitalists and hear “Interesting idea” in reply? Or perhaps he has a few anchor investors and assumes they will work to find more capital. No matter which (or none of the above), we will hear soon enough.
The real question from a market perspective is different: “How is a go-private of a $64 billion unprofitable car company even possible or an attractive idea?” A few thoughts on this:
#1. Every investment cycle has a “high water mark transaction” that signals underlying market trends have reached their apex. For example:
- RJR Nabisco went private in 1988 in a leveraged buyout led by KKR, using $1.5 billion of investor capital to underpin a $25 billion deal. The transaction ended up working well enough, but it became a hallmark of 1980s greed and excess nonetheless.
- In 2000, AOL effectively purchased Time Warner with its dot-com bubble inflated stock for $164 billion. The combined company’s stock declined by 90% in the years after the transaction.
- In May 2007 Goldman Sachs assembled and sold Abacus 2007-AC1, a collateralized debt obligation chock full of risky mortgages. That’s the one where hedge fund manager John Paulson helped pick the paper he wanted to short and these were packaged and sold to other investors, who eventually lost close to $1 billion.
For better or worse, Tesla’s move to tap venture capital (debt is not an option here) to exit public markets captures every dominant narrative of the current cycle to a “T”. Venture capital fundraising is booming as VC firms struggle to compete with SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund. And while public equity markets still award disruptive Tech giants outsized multiples, they usually cannot match private valuations or the convenience/flexibility of private ownership.
Bottom line: VCs are so flush with cash that they desperately need companies like Tesla – large, scalable, and levered to mega-trends like autonomous driving and clean energy – as much as Tesla needs them. Musk understands that dynamic better than most.
#2. Tesla has never been a “Typical” public company, and that highlights some of the structural shortcomings of equity markets. Forget the quirky CEO – the problem here is that disruptive technologies in capital-intensive industries take a long time to generate profits. In the interim, their stocks live and die on investor confidence alone. That makes for a volatile ride, which can hurt employee morale and motivation since they are often shareholders.
Equity investors face an even larger problem, however: consider that GM and Ford are in the S&P 500 but Tesla is not. And if TSLA is no longer a public company, there will be once less way for investors to hedge technological disruption in this industry. Blow that concept out to public equities as a whole and the issue becomes clear. Stock markets will consistently be long “The disrupted” and short “disruption”.
Not a comforting thought but that is exactly what is happening as VC-backed companies take longer to come public, and now one high profile example wants to go private again.
So what should investors make of all this? Two final thoughts:
#1. While we are not superstitious by nature, we do fear this transaction looks an awful lot like other deals done at the peak of prior cycles. If TSLA really can go private with VC capital (a $57 billion ticket), it may show that venture capital has gotten too large relative to its opportunity set. Or, perhaps, that investor enthusiasm over disruptive companies is simply too high in both public and private markets. Or both. Is all that a sign to sell everything? Obviously not, but it bears watching especially if this deal actually goes through.
#2. Venture capital investing is hugely risky and success depends heavily on access to the right deal flow, but for long-term investors there seems little choice but to play as best they can regardless of the prior point. For those who don’t check the “high net worth” category, the only choice is to own large public Tech companies that can at least buy assets from venture capitalists and fold them into their operations.
Put another way, public equity markets are packed with successful and highly profitable old-line companies. That used to be a feature. Now, with tech-based disruption, it is a very serious bug and the work-arounds are difficult and risky.
- Mueller To Subpoena Roger Stone's Alleged "Backchannel" To WikiLeaks: MSNBC
Special Counsel Robert Mueller will reportedly subpoena Randy Credico – the man Roger Stone claimed was his backchannel to WikiLeaks, one day after Credico told MSNBC’s Ari Melber that Mueller had previously requested a voluntary interview, which he declined on the advice of his attorney.
“They didn’t call me in, they showed up and they asked me to come in and do an in-person voluntary interview,” Credico said, adding “They asked me if I would like to do — we set up a conversation with somebody from the Mueller team and they asked my lawyer if I would like to sit down and do a voluntary interview.”
BREAKING: Randy Credico says Mueller’s agents confronted him in New York and asked him for an interview pic.twitter.com/Zgeax42K3Q
— TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) August 8, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Melber then reported on Thursday that Mueller intends to subpoena Credico, according to “a direct source with knowledge of the special counsel’s outreach,” and that Mueller would issue the order in the next few days.
NEW: Mueller intends to subpoena Julian Assange associate, Randy Credico, source tells #TheBeat. pic.twitter.com/RwI5ua3JDt
— TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) August 9, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Oddly, Mueller subpoenaed Roger Stone’s driver, accountant and operative, John Kakanis in May. Also subpoeaned was Stone’s social media expert Jason Sullivan to discuss WikiLeaks. Meanwhile the one man in Stone’s orbit with a proven connection to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange – Credico – never got the tap on the shoulder from the special counsel. Perhaps that’s because he was “wearing a wire for Mueller,” as Stone allegedly accused Credico of in an email?
Stone and Credico’s downward spiral
In the home stretch of the 2016 US election, Roger Stone bragged to the Northwest Broward Republican Committee on August 10, 2016 that he had “communicated with Julian Assange.” When Stone said this, WikiLeaks had already released the Clinton and DNC emails – which revealed that the Democratic primary was rigged against Bernie Sanders, leading to the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz within 48 hours.
In November 2017 however, Stone backpedaled in a Facebook post, claiming that he didn’t speak directly with Assange – and had instead asked then-WBIA Radio host Randy Credico – who interviewed Assange months earlier – to confirm the claim that WikiLeaks dumped the emails during the 2016 election specifically to hurt the Clintons.
Assange made this abundantly clear in a June, 2016 interview with ITV, in which he said there were “more Clinton leaks to come,” and that a vote for Clinton was a vote for “endless, stupid war.”
Credico has denied being a backchannel – telling progressive publication Artvoice in May “I was a confirming source, but I wasn’t a backchannel. I wasn’t coordinating with [Stone].” That said, the Wall Street Journal published details in May of an email exchange between Stone and Credico from September 2016, in which Credico said “I can’t ask them for favors every other day.”
In a Sept. 18, 2016, message, Mr. Stone urged an acquaintance who knew Mr. Assange to ask the WikiLeaks founder for emails related to Mrs. Clinton’s alleged role in disrupting a purported Libyan peace deal in 2011 when she was secretary of state, referring to her by her initials.
“Please ask Assange for any State or HRC e-mail from August 10 to August 30–particularly on August 20, 2011,” Mr. Stone wrote to Randy Credico, a New York radio personality who had interviewed Mr. Assange several weeks earlier. Mr. Stone, a longtime confidant of Donald Trump, had no formal role in his campaign at the time. –Wall Street Journal
[We would note that if Trump had in fact colluded with Russia, and Russia hacked Clinton’s emails, it seems odd that Stone would have to reach out to Credico in a private email to obtain some of them.]
Mr. Credico initially responded to Mr. Stone that what he was requesting would be on WikiLeaks’ website if it existed, according to an email reviewed by the Journal. Mr. Stone, the emails show, replied: “Why do we assume WikiLeaks has released everything they have ???”
In another email, Mr. Credico then asked Mr. Stone to give him a “little bit of time,” saying he thought Mr. Assange might appear on his radio show the next day. A few hours later, Mr. Credico wrote: “That batch probably coming out in the next drop…I can’t ask them favors every other day .I asked one of his lawyers…they have major legal headaches riggt now..relax.” –Wall Street Journal
Later in May, Credico told MSNBC’s Melber that Assange told him that he is willing to be interviewed by top ranking House Intelligence Committee Democrat Adam Schiff (CA) to prove there was no collusion in the 2016 US election. “He’s ready to show that there was no collusion … he’s willing to sit with Schiff and be interviewed,” Credico said.
And while Credico has tried to distance himself from WikiLeaks, Stone told Artvoice that “Credico insisted through the balance of August, and all of September, that Assange would publish what he had in October. He did.” According to Stone, Credico knew.
Credico countered – saying “I had no idea of any of the material that was coming out. [Assange] wouldn’t tell me, I’m a fuckin’, like, drunk, you know. He doesn’t know me. I’m a big mouth, loud mouth comic.”
“These guys [Mueller’s team] need someone like him to keep their f*cking bullshit story going,” Credico said. ”And then keep the fairytale going that there was collusion and that Assange was colluding with Roger Stone. At the end of the day, there’s no collusion with Russia.”
“I’m going to bury him”
In June, Credico told Manhattan weekly newspaper The Villager that he was “sick and tired of Roger Stone lying about him – and more recently, allegedly threatening him.”
“I’m going to bury him,” Credico told The Villager in a recent phone interview.
Credico then told the publication that he had given all of his emails “back to when I was on AOL” to an unnamed “national, award-winning, well-respected magazine with a lot of influence” in order to prove his innocence. He then shared screenshots of what he says are “harassing: e-mails from Stone over a three-month period, but that he had lost “90 percent” of his text messages with the longtime Trump adviser.
In the angry and often expletive-filled e-mails, Stone accuses Credico of “wearing a wire for Mueller” — as in, trying to gather information that could be used apparently against Assange. –The Villager
Stone’s insults only get worse from there, alleges Credico – who told the Villager “He sends out e-mails early in the morning in an altered state.”
In other e-mails provided to The Villager, Stone blasts Credico as a “maggot” and “drunk cokehead” — and mockingly tells him to go snort more drugs.
On April 8, Stone wrote to Credico: “Do another rail!” adding, “[I] Just put $2,000 behind another ad on Facebook targeting progressives.”
Credico has been open about his struggles with substance abuse.
On April 7, Stone wrote Credico: “You are the last person I would have thought would help the Deep State f— Assange — wearing a f—ing wire. Everyone is [sic] says u are wearing a wire for Mueller.”
“I am so ready,” Stone added in another e-mail to him on April 9. “Let’s get it on c—sucker. Prepare to die.” –The Villager
Stone says Credico forged the emails.
“Sadly, Randy has, as he has with other media outlets, sent you cherry-picked e-mails which in many cases are severely edited,” Stone said in a text message. “Most are out of context or have been doctored. In fact, I have extensive evidence which I will turn over to authorities that demonstrates that he is the one who is threatening me while I have consistently urged him to simply tell the truth,” Stone told The Villager in response.
And now, Mueller is reportedly about to subpoena Credico – who, if he was indeed wearing a wire, will probably find the whole thing highly amusing.
- Rickards: U.S. Must Turn To Russia To Contain China
Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,
Vladimir Putin stands accused in the media and global public opinion of rigging his recent reelection, imprisoning his political enemies, murdering Russian spies turned double-agent, meddling in Western elections, seizing Crimea, destabilizing Ukraine, supporting a murderous dictator in Syria and exporting arms to terrorist nations like Iran.
At the same time, the country of Russia is more than Mr. Putin, despite his authoritarian and heavy-handed methods. Russia is the world’s 12th-largest economy, with a GDP in excess of $1.5 trillion, larger than many developed economies such as Australia (No. 13), Spain (No. 14) and the Netherlands (No. 18).
Its export sector produces a positive balance of trade for Russia, currently running at over $16 billion per month. Russia has not had a trade deficit in over 20 years. Russia is also the world’s largest oil producer, with output of 10.6 million barrels per day, larger than both Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Russia has the largest landmass of any country in the world and a population of 144 million people, the ninth largest of any country. Russia is also the third-largest gold-producing nation in the world, with total production of 250 tons per year, about 8% of total global output and solidly ahead of the U.S., Canada and South Africa.
Russia is highly competitive in the export of nuclear power plants, advanced weaponry, space technology, agricultural products and it has an educated workforce.
Russia’s government debt-to-GDP ratio is 12.6%, which is trivial compared with 253% for Japan, 105% for the United States and 68% for Germany. Russia’s external dollar-denominated debt is also quite low compared with the huge dollar-debt burdens of other emerging-market economies such as Turkey, Indonesia and China.
Under the steady leadership of central bank head Elvira Nabiullina, the Central Bank of Russia has rebuilt its hard currency reserves after those reserves were severely depleted in 2015 following the collapse in oil prices that began in 2014.
Total gold reserves rose from 1,275 tons in July 2015 to about 2,000 tons today. Russia’s gold-to-GDP ratio is the highest in the world and more than double those of the U.S. and China.
In short, Russia is a country to be reckoned with despite the intense dislike for its leader from Western powers. It can be disliked but it cannot be ignored.
Russia is even more important geopolitically than these favorable metrics suggest. Russia and the U.S. are likely to improve relations and move closer together despite the current animosity over election meddling and the attempted murders of ex-Russian spies.
The reason for this coming thaw has to do with the dynamics of global geopolitics. There are only three countries in the world that are rightly regarded as primary powers — the U.S., Russia and China. These three are the only superpowers. Some analysts may be surprised to see Russia on the superpower list, but the facts are indisputable.
More to the point, Russia is a nuclear superpower at least on par with the United States and well ahead of China, France, the U.K. and other nuclear powers.
All others are secondary powers (U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Israel, etc.) or tertiary powers (Iran, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.). This strategic reality sets up a predictable three-party dynamic.
In any three-party dynamic, whether it’s a poker game or a struggle for global control, the dynamic is simple. Two of the powers align explicitly or implicitly against the third. The two-aligned powers refrain from using their power against each other in order to conserve it for use against the third power.
Meanwhile, the third power, the “odd man out,” suffers from having to expend military and economic resources to fend off adventurism by both of its opponents with no help from either.
China is the greatest geopolitical threat to the U.S. because of its economic and technological advances and its ambition to push the U.S. out of the Western Pacific sphere of influence. Russia may be a threat to some of its neighbors, but it is far less of a threat to U.S. strategic interests.
Therefore, a logical balance of power in the world would be for the U.S. and Russia to find common ground in the containment of China and to jointly pursue the reduction of Chinese power.
One of the keys to U.S. foreign policy the last 50 or 60 years has been to make sure that Russia and China never form an alliance. Keeping them separated was key, but China and Russia are forging stronger ties through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – a military and economic treaty – and the BRICS institutions.
The BRICS analogs to the IMF and the World Bank, critical infrastructure, bilateral trade deals, bilateral currency swaps, arms sales, etc.
Meanwhile, the U.S. finds itself at odds with both Russia and China over different issues. Who’s on the losing end of that? Obviously, the United States.
This two-against-one strategic alignment of China and Russia against the U.S. is a strategic blunder by the U.S.
The United States has largely withdrawn from the Middle East while Russia has stepped in on Syria and elsewhere, China is expanding in the South China Sea, and Russia is expanding on its periphery. They have each other’s back, and the U.S. is the odd man out.
But the Russian/Chinese relationship can be exploited. China and Russia have a history of conflicting interests, despite the fact that they were both communist during the Cold War.
The two countries had a number of border skirmishes in the 1960s, and one in 1969 was particularly serious. According to a senior Soviet defector to the United States, “The Politburo was terrified that the Chinese might make a large-scale intrusion into Soviet territory.”
The Soviets even considered a preemptive nuclear attack on Chinese nuclear facilities. Soviet officials advised Washington of the possibility, but the U.S. response was firm, warning that any nuclear attack would possibly lead to World War III.
The point being, there are fissures in the Chinese-Russian relationship that the U.S. could exploit.
For another thing, the U.S. and Russia are the first and second largest energy producers in the world. Saudi Arabia is the third largest energy producer in the world. If you put the U.S., Russia, and Saudi Arabia in a loose alliance, they dominate the energy markets. They can cut you off, they can supply, they can set prices.
Who needs energy the most? China.
China has very little oil or natural gas. It does have coal, but if you’ve been to Beijing lately, you know it looks black at noon because the air is so bad and you can’t breathe it. Pulmonary disease is becoming fairly common. They’re literally choking themselves to death. So, Russia, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia acting jointly have China completely at their mercy.
But the U.S. presently has no relationship with Russia to help back up our position against China. It’s two-against-one, and the U.S. is the odd man out — thanks to U.S. political dysfunction and the media.
In a three-handed poker game, if you don’t know who the sucker is, you’re the sucker. Trump will try to make China the odd man out. Very few people seem to get this.
As China’s power expands and as U.S. power is put to the test in Asia, it is likely that the U.S. will correct its recent strategic shortsightedness and find ways to work with Russia. Or at least it should. This will not be done out of wishful thinking about the true nature of Putin or his regime but as a simple matter of geopolitical necessity.
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...