- Caught On Tape: This Is What Happened When An MEP Tried To Read The TTIP Text
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
TTIP is just one of several phony “trade” deals written by corporate lawyers and lobbyists, and negotiated in secret between the Obama administration and various world leaders. This particular scam involves the U.S. and Europe, and it has seen increased public resistance and attention as of late, something I highlighted in the post, Leaked Documents Expose the TTIP Trade Deal as a Subversive Imperial Scam.
Now watch what happened when a MEP (member of European parliament) tried to read the thing. It’s very blurry, but you’ll get the point.
Democracy this is not.
Noam Chomsky recently summarized the true purpose of these so-called “trade” deals eloquently in the following paragraph:
In the contemporary global order, the institutions of the masters hold enormous power, not only in the international arena but also within their home states, on which they rely to protect their power and to provide economic support by a wide variety of means. When we consider the role of the masters of mankind, we turn to such state policy priorities of the moment as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the investor-rights agreements mislabeled “free-trade agreements” in propaganda and commentary. They are negotiated in secret, apart from the hundreds of corporate lawyers and lobbyists writing the crucial details. The intention is to have them adopted in good Stalinist style with “fast track” procedures designed to block discussion and allow only the choice of yes or no (hence yes). The designers regularly do quite well, not surprisingly. People are incidental, with the consequences one might anticipate.
Thanks for playin’ everyone.
- How Much Liberty Do Americans Have Left?
This post explains the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution – and provides a scorecard on the extent of the loss of each right.
Painting by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.comFirst Amendment
The 1st Amendment protects speech, religion, assembly and the press:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Supreme Court has also interpreted the First Amendment as protecting freedom of association.
However, the government is arresting those speaking out … and violently crushing peaceful assemblies which attempt to petition the government for redress.
A federal judge found that the law allowing indefinite detention of Americans without due process has a “chilling effect” on free speech. And see this and this.
There are also enacted laws allowing the secret service to arrest anyone protesting near the president or other designated folks (that might explain incidents like this).
Mass spying by the NSA violates our freedom of association.
The threat of being labeled a terrorist for exercising our First Amendment rights certainly violates the First Amendment. The government is using laws to crush dissent, and it’s gotten so bad that even U.S. Supreme Court justices are saying that we are descending into tyranny. (And the U.S. is doing the same things that tyrannical governments have done for 5,000 years to crush dissent.)
For example, the following actions may get an American citizen living on U.S. soil labeled as a “suspected terrorist” today:
- Taking any steps to protect your privacy (and see this)
- Complaining about the taste of your tap water
- Being young (if you live near a battle zone, you are fair game; and see this)
- Reporting or doing journalism (and here and here)
- Having “strange odors” or “bright colored stains on clothes” (what if you eat mustard or ketchup?)
- Protesting anything (such as participating in the “Occupy” or “Tea Party” movements). For example, Department of Defense training manuals classify all protest as “low-level terrorism”. And see this, this, this and this
- Questioning war (even though war reduces our national security; and see this)
- Criticizing the government’s targeting of innocent civilians with drones (although killing innocent civilians with drones is one of the main things which increases terrorism. And see this)
- Stocking up on more than 7 days of food (even though all Mormons are taught to stockpile food, and most Hawaiians store up on extra food)
- (Not having a Facebook account may soon be added)
And holding the following beliefs may also be considered grounds for suspected terrorism:
- Liking the Founding Fathers
- Being a Christian
- Being “anti-nuclear”
- Being “anti-abortion”
- Being “anti-Catholic”
- Being “anti-global”
And see this. (Of course, Muslims are more or less subject to a separate system of justice in America.)
And 1st Amendment rights are especially chilled when power has become so concentrated that the same agency which spies on all Americans also decides who should be assassinated.
Despite the clear protections found in the First Amendment, the freedoms described therein are under constant assault. Increasingly, Americans are being arrested and charged with bogus “contempt of cop” charges such as “disrupting the peace” or “resisting arrest” for daring to film police officers engaged in harassment or abusive practices. Journalists are being prosecuted for reporting on whistleblowers. States are passing legislation to muzzle reporting on cruel and abusive corporate practices. Religious ministries are being fined for attempting to feed and house the homeless. Protesters are being tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and forced into “free speech zones.” And under the guise of “government speech,” the courts have reasoned that the government can discriminate freely against any First Amendment activity that takes place within a government forum.
Second Amendment
The 2nd Amendment states:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Gun control and gun rights advocates obviously have very different views about whether guns are a force for violence or for good.
But even a top liberal Constitutional law expert reluctantly admits that the right to own a gun is as important a Constitutional right as freedom of speech or religion:
Like many academics, I was happy to blissfully ignore the Second Amendment. It did not fit neatly into my socially liberal agenda.
***
It is hard to read the Second Amendment and not honestly conclude that the Framers intended gun ownership to be an individual right. It is true that the amendment begins with a reference to militias: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Accordingly, it is argued, this amendment protects the right of the militia to bear arms, not the individual.
Yet, if true, the Second Amendment would be effectively declared a defunct provision. The National Guard is not a true militia in the sense of the Second Amendment and, since the District and others believe governments can ban guns entirely, the Second Amendment would be read out of existence.
***
More important, the mere reference to a purpose of the Second Amendment does not alter the fact that an individual right is created. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is stated in the same way as the right to free speech or free press. The statement of a purpose was intended to reaffirm the power of the states and the people against the central government. At the time, many feared the federal government and its national army. Gun ownership was viewed as a deterrent against abuse by the government, which would be less likely to mess with a well-armed populace.
Considering the Framers and their own traditions of hunting and self-defense, it is clear that they would have viewed such ownership as an individual right — consistent with the plain meaning of the amendment.
None of this is easy for someone raised to believe that the Second Amendment was the dividing line between the enlightenment and the dark ages of American culture. Yet, it is time to honestly reconsider this amendment and admit that … here’s the really hard part … the NRA may have been right. This does not mean that Charlton Heston is the new Rosa Parks or that no restrictions can be placed on gun ownership. But it does appear that gun ownership was made a protected right by the Framers and, while we might not celebrate it, it is time that we recognize it.
And George Mason University School of Law Professor Nelson Lund and UCLA Law School Professor Adam Winkler note:
Implicit in the debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists were two shared assumptions. First, that the proposed new Constitution gave the federal government almost total legal authority over the army and militia. Second, that the federal government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizenry. They disagreed only about whether an armed populace could adequately deter federal oppression.
***
The Amendment was easily accepted because of widespread agreement that the federal government should not have the power to infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms, any more than it should have the power to abridge the freedom of speech or prohibit the free exercise of religion.
The gun control debate – including which weapons and magazines are banned – is still in flux …
Americans remain powerless to defend themselves against SWAT team raids and government agents armed to the teeth with military weapons better suited for the battlefield than for a country founded on freedom. Police shootings of unarmed citizens continue to outrage communities, while little is really being done to demilitarize law enforcement agencies. Indeed, just recently, North Dakota became the first state to legalize law enforcement use of drones armed with weapons such as tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbags, pepper spray and Tasers.
Third Amendment
The 3rd Amendment prohibits the government forcing people to house soldiers:
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
A recent lawsuit by a Nevada family – covered by (Mother Jones, Fox News and Courthouse News – alleges violation of the Third Amendment.
The military is also arguably quartering “digital” troops within our homes.
Gordon S. Wood – Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University – points out:
In its Declaration and Resolves on October 14, 1774, Congress protested the presence in a time of peace of a standing army and the quartering of troops in the colonies without their consent. Then in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, two of the many accusations Congress leveled against the king were his keeping “among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent or our Legislatures,” and his “quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us.”
***
Some legal scholars have even begun to argue that the amendment might be applied to the government’s response to terror attacks and natural disasters, and to issues involving eminent domain and the militarization of the police.
With the police increasingly training like the military, acting like the military, and posing as military forces—complete with military weapons, assault vehicles, etc.—it is clear that we now have what the founders feared most—a standing army on American soil. Moreover, as a result of SWAT team raids (more than 80,000 a year) where police invade homes, often without warrants, and injure and even kill unarmed citizens, the barrier between public and private property has been done away with, leaving us with armed government agents who act as if they own our property.
Indeed, the Founding Fathers fought the Revolutionary War partly to stop the type of militarized police that we now have.
Painting by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.com.Fourth Amendment
The 4th Amendment prevents unlawful search and seizure:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
But the government is spying on everything we do … without any real benefit or justification (and see this).
By one estimate, the average American going about his daily business on any given day will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears.
(And things are getting worse, and the government will greatly expand its spying in the near future.)
Indeed, experts say that the type of spying being carried out by the NSA and other agencies is exactly the kind of thing which King George imposed on the American colonists … which led to the Revolutionary War.
And many Constitutional experts – such as Jonathan Turley – think that the police went too far in Boston with lockdowns and involuntary door-to-door searches.
The Fourth Amendment has suffered the greatest damage in recent years and been all but eviscerated by an unwarranted expansion of police powers that include strip searches and even anal and vaginal searches of citizens, surveillance and intrusions justified in the name of fighting terrorism, as well as the outsourcing of otherwise illegal activities to private contractors. Case in point: Texas police forced a 21-year-old woman to undergo a warrantless vaginal search by the side of the road after she allegedly “rolled” through a stop sign.
The use of civil asset forfeiture schemes to swell the coffers of police forces has also continued to grow in popularity among cash-strapped states. The federal government continues to strong-arm corporations into providing it with access to Americans’ private affairs, from emails and online transactions to banking and web surfing. Coming in the wake of massive leaks about the inner workings of the NSA and the massive secretive surveillance state, it was revealed that the government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 every day for failing to comply with the NSA’s mass data collection program known as PRISM. Meanwhile, AT&T has enjoyed a profitable and “extraordinary, decades-long” relationship with the NSA.
The technological future appears to pose even greater threats to what’s left of our Fourth Amendment rights, with advances in biometric identification and microchip implants on the horizon making it that much easier for the government to track not only our movements and cyber activities but our very cellular beings. Barclays has already begun using a finger-scanner as a form of two-step authentication to give select customers access to their accounts. Similarly, Motorola has been developing thin “digital tattoos” that will ensure that a phone’s owner is the only person who may unlock it. Not to be overlooked are the aerial spies—surveillance drones—about to take to the skies in coming years, as well as the Drive Smart programs that will spy on you (your speed, movements, passengers, etc.) while you travel the nation’s highways and byways.
Fifth Amendment
The 5th Amendment addresses due process of law, eminent domain, double jeopardy and grand jury:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
But the American government has shredded the 5th Amendment by subjecting us to indefinite detention and taking away our due process rights.
The government claims the right to assassinate or indefinitely detain any American citizen on U.S. citizen without any due process. And see this.
For example, American citizens are being detained in Guantanamo-like conditions in Chicago … including:
- Brutality
- Being held in secret
- Not even telling a suspect’s lawyer whether his client is being held?
As such, the government is certainly depriving people of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
There are additional corruptions of 5th Amendment rights – such as property being taken for private purposes. And the right to remain silent is gone.
The percentage of prosecutions in which a defendant is denied a grand jury is difficult to gauge, as there is so much secrecy surrounding many terrorism trials.
Image by William BanzaiSixth Amendment
The 6th Amendment guarantees the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury in the location where the crime allegedly occurred, to hear the criminal charges levied against us and to be able to confront the witnesses who have testified against us, as well as speedy criminal trials, and a public defender for those who cannot hire an attorney:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Subjecting people to indefinite detention or assassination obviously violates the 6th Amendment right to a speedy and public jury trial. In both cases, the defendants is “disposed of” without ever receiving any trial at all … let alone a speedy or public one. In neither case do they get a jury, a defense lawyer, or the right to call their own witnesses. And they often never even hear the charges against them.
Indefinite detentions usually don’t occur where the alleged crime occurred, but at a black site.
More and more commonly, the government prosecutes cases based upon “secret evidence” that they don’t show to the defendant … or sometimes even the judge hearing the case.
The government uses “secret evidence” to spy on Americans, prosecute leaking or terrorism charges (even against U.S. soldiers) and even assassinate people. And see this and this.
Secret witnesses are being used in some cases. And sometimes lawyers are not even allowed to read their own briefs.
Indeed, even the laws themselves are now starting to be kept secret. And it’s about to get a lot worse.
Moreover, government is “laundering” information gained through mass surveillance through other agencies, with an agreement that the agencies will “recreate” the evidence in a “parallel construction” … so they don’t have to admit that the evidence came from unconstitutional spying. This data laundering is getting worse and worse.
A former top NSA official says that this is the opposite of following the Fourth Amendment, but is a “totalitarian process” which shows that we’re in a “police state”. (A second former top NSA official agrees.)
And there are two systems of justice in America … one for the big banks and other fatcats, and one for everyone else. The government made it official policy not to prosecute fraud, even though fraud is the main business model adopted by Wall Street. Indeed, the biggest financial crime in world history, the largest insider trading scandal of all time, illegal raiding of customer accounts and blatant financing of drug cartels and terrorists have all been committed recently without any real criminal prosecution or jail time.
On the other hand, government prosecutors are using the legal system to crush dissent and to silence whistleblowers.
And some of the nation’s most powerful judges have lost their independence … and are in bed with the powers-that-be.
Constitutional lawyer John Whitehead explains:
The Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment work in tandem. These amendments supposedly ensure that you are innocent until proven guilty, and government authorities cannot deprive you of your life, your liberty or your property without the right to an attorney and a fair trial before a civilian judge. However, in the new suspect society in which we live, where surveillance is the norm, these fundamental principles have been upended. Certainly, if the government can arbitrarily freeze, seize or lay claim to your property (money, land or possessions) under government asset forfeiture schemes, you have no true rights. That’s the crux of a case before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the government’s use of asset forfeiture to strip American citizens of the funds needed to hire a defense attorney of their choosing.
Seventh Amendment
The 7th Amendment guarantees trial by jury in federal court for civil cases:
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
But there are two systems of justice in America … one for the big banks and other fatcats, and one for everyone else. So good luck going after the powers-that-be.
And the World Justice Project – a bipartisan, independent group with honorary chairs including numerous current and former Supreme Court Justices – released a report saying that Americans have less access to justice than most wealthy countries … and many developing nations. The report finds that Americans have less access to justice than Botswanans, and that only the wealthy have the resources to protect rights using the court system:
For example, Germans sue equally whether they are rich or poor … but in America, only the wealthy have the resources to protect rights using the court system:
(And the austerity caused by the highest levels of inequality in world history – which are in turn is caused by socialist actions by our government, which have destroyed the Founding Fathers’ vision of prosperity – is causing severe budget cuts to the courts, resulting in the wheels of justice slowing down considerably.)
Federal judges have also recently decided that they can pre-judge cases before the plaintiff even has the chance to conduct discovery … and throw cases out if they don’t like plaintiff’s case.
And:
The populace has no idea of what’s in the Constitution—civic education has virtually disappeared from most school curriculums—that inevitably translates to an ignorant jury incapable of distinguishing justice and the law from their own preconceived notions and fears. However, as a growing number of citizens are coming to realize, the power of the jury to nullify the government’s actions—and thereby help balance the scales of justice—is not to be underestimated. Jury nullification reminds the government that it’s “we the people” who can and should be determining what laws are just, what activities are criminal and who can be jailed for what crimes.
Painting by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.comEighth Amendment
The 8th Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Indefinite detention and assassination are obviously cruel and unusual punishment.
The widespread system of torture carried out in the last 10 years – with the help of other countries – violates the 8th Amendment. Many want to bring it back … or at least justify its past use.
While Justice Scalia disingenuously argues that torture does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment because it is meant to produce information – not punish – he’s wrong. It’s not only cruel and unusual … it is technically a form of terrorism.
And government whistleblowers are being cruelly and unusually punished with unduly harsh sentences meant to intimidate anyone else from speaking out.
A California appeals court is being asked to consider “whether years of unpredictable delays from conviction to execution” constitute cruel and unusual punishment. For instance, although 900 individuals have been sentenced to death in California since 1978, only 13 have been executed. As CBS News reports, “More prisoners have died of natural causes on death row than have perished in the death chamber.”
Ninth Amendment
The 9th Amendment provides that people have other rights, even if they aren’t specifically listed in the Constitution:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
We can debate what our inherent rights as human beings are. I believe they include the right to a level playing field, and access to non-toxic food and water. You may disagree.
But everyone agrees that the government should not actively encourage fraud and manipulation. However, the government – through its malignant, symbiotic relation with big corporations – is interfering with our aspirations for economic freedom, safe food and water (instead of arsenic-laden, genetically engineered junk), freedom from undue health hazards such as irradiation due to government support of archaic nuclear power designs, and a level playing field (as opposed to our crony capitalist system in which the little guy has no shot due to redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the super-elite, and government support of white collar criminals).
By working hand-in-glove with giant corporations to defraud us into paying for a lower quality of life, the government is trampling our basic rights as human beings.
Tenth Amendment
The 10th Amendment provides that powers not specifically given to the Federal government are reserved to the states or individual:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Two of the central principles of America’s Founding Fathers are:
(1) The government is created and empowered with the consent of the people
and
(2) Separation of powers
Today, most Americans believe that the government is threatening – rather than protecting – freedom. We’ve become more afraid of our government than of terrorists, and believe that the government is no longer acting with the “consent of the governed“.
And the federal government is trampling the separation of powers by stepping on the toes of the states and the people. For example, former head S&L prosecutor Bill Black – now a professor of law and economics – notes:
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the resident examiners and regional staff of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency [both] competed to weaken federal regulation and aggressively used the preemption doctrine to try to prevent state investigations of and actions against fraudulent mortgage lenders.
Indeed, the federal government is doing everything it can to stick its nose into every aspect of our lives … and act like Big Brother.
Conclusion: While a few of the liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights still exist, the vast majority are under heavy assault.
Other Constitutional Provisions … and The Declaration of Independence
In addition to the trampling of the Bill of Rights, the government has also trashed the separation of powers enshrined in the main body of the Constitution.
The government is also engaging in activities which the Founding Fathers fought against, such as taxation without representation (here and here), cronyism, deference to central banks, etc.
As the preamble to the Declaration of Independence shows, the American government is still carrying out many of the acts the Founding Fathers found most offensive:
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. [Background here and here]
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. [Background here, here, here, here and here]
***
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: [Background]
***
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [Background]
***
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the
Head of a civilized nation. [Background]
***
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. [Background here, here and here]
- Paul Craig Roberts Warns 'Killary' Will Be "The Last American President"
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
Do you remember all the hopes Americans had for Obama when we elected him to his first term? Painful memories. He betrayed the voters on every one of his promises. There was no change, except for the worst as Obama went on to become one of the most vicious war criminals in world history. Despite his horrific record, we re-elected him, only to have US economic policy turn against the people in order to bail out at our expense the mega-banks and the One Percent.
Now Obama is coercing Asia and Europe to turn the governments of their countries over to rapacious American corporations empowered by TPP and TTIP to subordinate all interests to their profits.
Here is Pepe Escobar on how the great and wonderful United States treats its enserfed vassals:
“Hardball, predictably, is the name of the game. Washington no less than threatened to block EU car exports [to the US] to force the EU to buy [Monsanto’s] genetically engineered fruits and vegetables.”
Now we face the prospect of electing an even worse president than Obama—Killary Clinton. Killary is the bought-and-paid-for property of Wall Street, Israel, and the military-security complex. She will bring back to power the totally discredited neoconservatives, and the US will proceed with its butchery and slaughter of other countries and all reformist governments everywhere.
The question is: will enough insouciant Americans align with the One Percent, the neocons, the men-hating feminists, homosexuals, the transgendered, and other “preferred minorities” to put the US presidency in the hands of an aggressive, corrupt person with a conscience deficit? That is the goal toward which the presstitutes are driving the brainwashed.
If we end up with Killary, neither the US nor the world will survive the mistake. She will be the last American president.
Killary is compromised with secret agendas, and secret agendas lead to conflict and war. With a crazed President Killary who declared Russian Presient Vladimir Putin, the world’s leading peacemaker, to be “the new Hitler,” with crazed American generals who declare Russia to be “an existential threat to the United States,” and with the insane neoconservatives back in the saddle determined to impose American hegemony on the rest of the world, Killary’s election will terminate life on earth.
From the Archive:
September 28, 2014
Washington’s Secret Agendas
One might think that by now even Americans would have caught on to the constant stream of false alarms that Washington sounds in order to deceive the people into supporting its hidden agendas.
The public fell for the lie that the Taliban in Afghanistan are terrorists allied with al Qaeda. Americans fought a war for 13 years that enriched Dick Cheney’s firm, Halliburton, and other private interests only to end in another Washington failure.
The public fell for the lie that Saddam Hussein in Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” that were a threat to America and that if the US did not invade Iraq Americans risked a “mushroom cloud going up over an American city.” With the rise of ISIS, this long war apparently is far from over. Billions of dollars more in profits will pour into the coffers of the US military security complex as Washington fights those who are redrawing the false Middle East boundaries created by the British and French after WW I when the British and French seized territories of the former Ottoman Empire.
The American public fell for the lies told about Gaddafi in Libya. The formerly stable and prosperous country is now in chaos.
The American public fell for the lie that Iran has, or is building, nuclear weapons. Sanctioned and reviled by the West, Iran has shifted toward an Eastern orientation, thereby removing a principal oil producer from Western influence.
The public fell for the lie that Assad of Syria used “chemical weapons against his own people.” The jihadists that Washington sent to overthrow Assad have turned out to be, according to Washington’s propaganda, a threat to America.
The greatest threat to the world is Washington’s insistence on its hegemony. The ideology of a handful of neoconservatives is the basis for this insistence. We face the situation in which a handful of American neoconservative psychopaths claim to determine the fate of countries.
Many still believe Washington’s lies, but increasingly the world sees Washington as the greatest threat to peace and life on earth. The claim that America is “exceptional and indispensable” is used to justify Washington’s right to dictate to other countries.
The casualties of Washington’s bombings are invariably civilians, and the deaths will produce more recruits for ISIS. Already there are calls for Washington to reintroduce “boots on the ground” in Iraq. Otherwise, Western civilization is doomed, and our heads will be cut off. The newly created propaganda of a “Russian threat” requires more NATO spending and more military bases on Russia’s borders. A “quick reaction force” is being created to respond to a nonexistent threat of a Russian invasion of the Baltics, Poland, and Europe.
Usually it takes the American public a year, or two, three, or four to realize that it has been deceived by lies and propaganda, but by that time the public has swallowed a new set of lies and propaganda and is all concerned about the latest “threat.” The American public seems incapable of understanding that just as the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth threat was a hoax, so is the sixth threat, and so will be the seventh, eighth, and ninth.
Moreover, none of these American military attacks on other countries has resulted in a better situation, as Vladimir Putin honestly states. Yet, the public and its representatives in Congress support each new military adventure despite the record of deception and failure.
Perhaps if Americans were taught their true history in place of idealistic fairy tales, they would be less gullible and less susceptible to government propaganda. I have recommended Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick’s The Untold History of the United States, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and now I recommend Stephen Kinzer’s The Brothers, the story of the long rule of John Foster and Allen Dulles over the State Department and CIA and their demonization of reformist governments that they often succeeded in overthrowing. Kinzer’s history of the Dulles brothers’ plots to overthrow six governments provides insight into how Washington operates today.
In 1953 the Dulles brothers overthrew Iran’s elected leader, Mossadegh and imposed the Shah, thus poisoning American-Iranian relations through the present day. Americans might yet be led into a costly and pointless war with Iran, because of the Dulles brothers poisoning of relations in 1953.
The Dulles brothers overthrew Guatemala’s popular president Arbenz, because his land reform threatened the interest of the Dulles brothers’ Sullivan & Cromwell law firm’s United Fruit Company client. The brothers launched an amazing disinformation campaign depicting Arbenz as a dangerous communist who was a threat to Western civilization. The brothers enlisted dictators such as Somoza in Nicaragua and Batista in Cuba against Arbenz. The CIA organized air strikes and an invasion force. But nothing could happen until Arbenz’s strong support among the people in Guatemala could be shattered. The brothers arranged this through Cardinal Spellman, who enlisted Archbishop Rossell y Arellano. “A pastoral letter was read on April 9, 1954 in all Guatemalan churches.”
?A masterpiece of propaganda, the pastoral letter misrepresented Arbenz as a dangerous communist who was the enemy of all Guatemalans. False radio broadcasts produced a fake reality of freedom fighter victories and army defections. Arbenz asked the UN to send fact finders, but Washington prevented that from happening. American journalists, with the exception of James Reston, supported the lies. Washington threatened and bought off Guatemala’s senior military commanders, who forced Arbenz to resign. The CIA’s chosen and well paid “liberator,” Col. Castillo Armas, was installed as Arbenz’s successor.
We recently witnessed a similar operation in Honduras and Ukraine.
President Eisenhower thanked the CIA for averting “a Communist beachhead in our hemisphere,” and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles gave a national TV and radio address in which he declared that the events in Guatemala “expose the evil purpose of the Kremlin.” This despite the uncontested fact that the only outside power operating in Guatemala was the Dulles brothers.
What had really happened is that a democratic and reformist government was overthrown because it compensated United Fruit Company for the nationalization of the company’s fallow land at a value listed by the company on its tax returns. America’s leading law firm or perhaps more accurately, America’s foreign policy-maker, Sullivan & Cromwell, had no intention of permitting a democratic government to prevail over the interests of the law firm’s client, especially when senior partners of the firm controlled both overt and covert US foreign policy. The two brothers, whose family members were invested in the United Fruit Company, simply applied the resources of the CIA, State Department, and US media to the protection of their private interests.
The extraordinary gullibility of the American people, the corrupt American media, and the indoctrinated and impotent Congress allowed the Dulles brothers to succeed in overthrowing a democracy.
Keep in mind that this use of the US government in behalf of private interests occurred 60 years ago long before the corrupt Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes. And no doubt in earlier times as well, as General Smedley Butler has attested.
The Dulles brothers next intended victim was Ho Chi Minh. Ho, a nationalist leader, asked for America’s help in freeing Vietnam from French colonial rule. But John Foster Dulles, a self-righteous anti-communist, miscast Ho as a Communist Threat who was springing the domino theory on the Western innocents. Nationalism and anti-colonialism, Foster declared, were merely a cloak for communist subversion.
Paul Kattenburg, the State Department desk officer for Vietnam suggested that instead of war, the US should give Ho $500 million in reconstruction aid to rebuild the country from war and French misrule, which would free Ho from dependence on Russian and Chinese support, and, thereby, influence. Ho appealed to Washington several times, but the demonic inflexibility of the Dulles brothers prevented any sensible response. Instead, the hysteria whipped-up over the “communist threat” by the Dulles brothers landed the United States in the long, costly, fiasco known as the Vietnam War.
Kattenburg later wrote that it was suicidal for the US “to cut out its eyes and ears, to castrate its analytic capacity, to shut itself off from the truth because of blind prejudice.” Unfortunately for Americans and the world, castrated analytic capacity is Washington’s strongest suit.
The Dulles brothers’ next targets were President Sukarno of Indonesia, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of Congo, and Fidel Castro. The plot against Castro was such a disastrous failure that it cost Allen Dulles his job. President Kennedy lost confidence in the agency and told his brother Bobby that after his reelection he was going to break the CIA into a thousand pieces. When President Kennedy removed Allen Dulles, the CIA understood the threat and struck first.
Warren Nutter, my Ph.D. dissertation chairman, later Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, taught his students that for the US government to maintain the people’s trust, which democracy requires, the government’s policies must be affirmations of our principles and be openly communicated to the people. Hidden agendas, such as those of the Dulles brothers and the Clinton, Bush and Obama regimes, must rely on secrecy and manipulation and, thereby, arouse the distrust of the people. If Americans are too brainwashed to notice, many foreign nationals are not.
The US government’s secret agendas have cost Americans and many peoples in the world tremendously. Essentially, the Dulles brothers created the Cold War with their secret agendas and anti-communist hysteria. Secret agendas committed Americans to long, costly, and unnecessary wars in Vietnam and the Middle East. Secret CIA and military agendas intending regime change in Cuba were blocked by President John F. Kennedy and resulted in the assassination of a president, who, for all his faults, was likely to have ended the Cold War twenty years before Ronald Reagan seized the opportunity.
Secret agendas have prevailed for so long that the American people themselves are now corrupted. As the saying goes, “a fish rots from the head.” The rot in Washington now permeates the country.
It is a rot that threatens the entire world.
- Remembering The Lessons Of WWII: Putin Calls For A "Non-Aligned System Of International Security"
While celebrating V-Day (marking the day the allies accepted Nazi surrender in WWII), Russian president Vladamir Putin said that Russia is all for creating a non-aligned system of international security to counter global terror.
Picking up where Obama couldn’t finish, Russia gave a complete and unrelenting pounding to ISIS in Syria (albeit to protect an interest in having Assad’s regime stay in tact), and proved that it will not mess around with ISIS or any other terrorist extremists. Russia’s stance was reiterated during the V-Day celebration in Moscow, where in his speech, Putin referenced the violence that these extremist groups have brought to the world, and indicated that it is a threat to be taken seriously: “Today our civilization has faced brutality and violence – terrorism has become a global threat.”
Putin also implied that the evil the world faces today is akin to that of the Nazi threat during WWII, and called upon everyone to remember the lessons of history, unify, and defeat the terrorists. “The lessons of history show that peace on our planet doesn’t establish itself, that you need to be on high alert. We must defeat this evil, and Russia is open to join forces with all countries and is ready to work on the creation of a modern, non-aligned system of international security.“
Of course, even after seemingly extending an olive branch to the United States, Putin couldn’t resist taking a quick jab at the Obama Administration’s complete incompetence when it comes to its handling of ISIS, noting that one of the lessons that should be learned from history is that “double standards, and short-sighted indulgence to those who are nurturing new criminal plans” is unacceptable.
Make no mistake about it, Putin is positioning himself yet again as the strong leader that Obama clearly is not. As the U.S. continues to lose credibility around the world, Putin is making sure to take every opportunity to be there for everyone when they need real leadership – who could have possibly seen that coming.
- Cell Phone Addiction: 15 Numbers That Show The Ridiculous Obsession Americans Have With Their Phones
Submitted by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
Have you ever had a family gathering, a social function or a business meeting ruined by someone that was obsessed with checking their cell phone? I see this wherever I go, and it is one of the reasons why I don’t like to leave the house much. No matter who is around and no matter how important what they are supposed to be doing may be, many Americans feel a deep, dark compulsion to constantly check their smartphones. As you will see below, the average user checks his or her phone 35 times a day, but of course there are some people that are well into the triple digits. Cell phone addiction is very real, and that is why there are actually rehab programs for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, we simply can’t put the entire country into rehab, and this problem just keeps getting worse with each passing year.
Below, I want to share with you 15 numbers that show how ridiculous our obsession with our smartphones has become. I think that you will agree with me that our addiction to cell phones has gotten way out of control…
1. The average smartphone user checks his or her phone 35 times a day.
2. Common Sense media just released a new survey that found that 50 percent of American teens admit that they “feel addicted” to their smartphones.
3. Close to 70 percent of parents and teens say that they have argued about smartphone usage.
4. 77 percent of parents say that “their teenagers were sometimes distracted by their phones or tablets during time spent together with family”.
5. Even though it is illegal in almost every state, 56 percent of parents confess that they check their mobile devices while drivig.
6. 51 percent of teens admit that they have seen their parents check their smartphones while driving.
7. A different survey found that 75 percent of all smartphone users admit that they have texted while driving at least once.
8. 70 percent of smartphone users check their phones “within an hour of getting up”.
9. 56 percent of smartphone users check their phones “within an hour of going to sleep”.
10. 61 percent of smartphone users admit that “they regularly sleep with their cell or smartphone turned on under their pillow or next to their bed”.
11. 48 percent of smartphone users check their devices over the weekend.
12. 51 percent of smartphone users check their devices continuously during their vacations.
13. 44 percent of smartphone users admit that they would experience “a great deal of anxiety” if the phone went missing and they were unable to replace it for a week.
14. One survey discovered that the average cell phone user is on the device for 3 hours and 8 minutes a day.
15. A different survey found that the average cell phone user actually spends 3.6 hours a day using it.
No matter how you break these numbers down, they paint a very clear picture of a society that is absolutely addicted to these devices.
Unfortunately, this is not something that a lot of us take very seriously. For example, just consider the following excerpt from a CNN article. The author openly acknowledges the obsession that she has with her smartphone, but she is obviously not too concerned about it…
If you asked me whether I’m addicted to my smartphone or whether I overuse it, I would say absolutely not. I pride myself on not keeping my devices (I have two of them!) in my bedroom while I sleep, and keeping them out of reach on the kitchen counter when I’m home with my kids. But, every time I walk into the kitchen, I find myself checking my email and Twitter feed.
There’s almost a gravitational pull toward my BlackBerry and iPhone even when I know the chance that there is anything I need to see at that moment is next to zero. I feel that same pull the minute I wake up and make checking my devices one of the first things I do once I get out of bed.
To me, our society was so much better off when all we had were rotary phones that were physically tied to the wall. In this day and age, we have a generation of people that have been trained to think that it is okay to pull out their mobile devices and stare into them like zombies wherever they are. And especially among our young people there are many that start to get physically uncomfortable if they have to talk to you for more than five minutes without checking their phones.
Of course this is just another indication of how “me-centered” our society has become. Our phones have literally become extensions of ourselves, and we love to immerse ourselves in our own little worlds.
There is something deeply narcissistic about our love affair with these smartphones. Yes, I understand that millions of us have to use them for work, and in many ways they do make our lives much more convenient.
But on the other hand they are greatly contributing to the sense of loneliness and isolation that so many Americans are feeling these days.
Instead of having deep, meaningful relationships with our phones, perhaps we should try having deep, meaningful relationships with one another.
After all, previous generations of Americans seemed to have done just fine without checking their phones every five minutes.
- With A Historic -150% Net Short Position, Carl Icahn Is Betting On An Imminent Market Collapse
Over the past year, based on his increasingly more dour media appearances, billionaire Carl Icahn had been getting progressively more bearish. At first, he was mostly pessimistic about junk bonds, saying last May that “what’s even more dangerous than the actual stock market is the high yield market.” As the year progressed his pessimism become more acute and in December he said that the “meltdown in high yield is just beginning.” It culminated in February when he said on CNBC that a “day of reckoning is coming.”
Some skeptics thought that Icahn was simply trying to scare investors into selling so he could load up on risk assets at cheaper prices, however that line of thought was quickly squashed two weeks ago when Icahn announced to the shock of ever Apple fanboy that several years after his “no brainer” investment in AAPL, Icahn had officially liquidated his entire stake.
As it turns out, Icahn’s AAPL liquidation was just the appetizer of how truly bearish the legendary investor has become.
* * *
As readers will recall, when it comes to what we believe is one of the world’s most bearish hedge funds, we traditionally highlight the net exposure of Horseman Global, which not only has been profitable for the past four years, it has done so while running a net short book. To the point, as of March 31, Horseman was net short by a record 98%.
As it turns out this was nothing compare to Icahn’s latest net exposure.
In the just disclosed 10-Q of Icahn’s investment vehicle, Icahn Enterprises LP in which the 80 year old holds a 90% stake, we find that as of March 31, Carl Icahn – who subsequently divested his entire long AAPL exposure – has been truly putting money, on the short side, where his mouth was in the past quarter. So much so that what on December 31, 2015 was a modest 25% net short, has since exploded into a gargantuan, and unprecedented for Icahn, 149% net short position.
This is the result of a relatively flat long gross exposure of 164% resulting from a 156% equity and 8% credit long (a combined long exposure which is certainly far lower following the AAPL liquidation), and a soaring short book which has exploded from 150% as of March 31, 2015 to a whopping 313% one year later, on the back of 277% in gross short equity exposure and 36% short credit.
Putting this number in context, in the history of IEP, not only has Icahn never been anywhere near this short, but just one year ago when he first started complaining about stocks, he was still 4% net long. Thos days are gone, and starting in Q3 and Q4, Icahn proceeded to wage into net short territory, with roughly -25% exposure, a number that has increased a record six-fold in just the last quarter!
What is just as notable is the dramatic leverage involved on both sides of the flatline, but nothing compares to the near 3x equity leverage on the short side (this is not CDS). As a reminder, Icahn Enterprises used to be run as a hedge fund with outside investors, but Icahn returned outside money in 2011, leaving IEP and Icahn as the two dominant investors. According to Barron’s, the entire fund appears to be about $5.8 billion, with $4 billion coming from Icahn personally. Which means that this is a very substantial bet in dollar terms.
When asked about this unprecedented bearish position, Icahn Enterprises CEO Keith Cozza said during the May 5 earnings call that “Carl has been very vocal in recent weeks in the media about his negative views.” He certainly has been, although many though he was merely exagerating. He was not.
“We’re much more concerned about the market going down 20% than we are it going up 20%. And so the significant weighting to the short side reflects that,” Cozza added.
Icahn was not personally present at the conference call, however now that his bet on what is arguably a massive market crash has become public, we are confident he will be on both CNBC and Bloomberg TV in the coming days if not hours, to provide damage control and to avoid a panic as mom and pop investors scramble, and wonder just what does one of the world’s most astute investors see that they don’t.
- State Department "Unable To Find" Hillary Emails To IT Aide, Apologizes For Incompetence
To say the least, it's going to be an interesting couple of months for Hillary Clinton. As the FBI probe into Clinton's handling of classified information makes its way to Clinton herself, the Clinton camp will also need be focused on trying to stave off attacks by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
More on the FBI probe in a moment, but first, one of the key areas that Trump will inevitably be focused on is trying to frame Hillary Clinton as just another typical insider who despite the rhetoric, is as cozy with Wall Street as any other bought and paid for politician. To that end, the Republicans are not letting go of the fact that Hillary has yet to release any transcripts of her speeches given to Wall Street. As The Hill reports, Republican operatives are scouring the country for transcripts, notes, or secret recordings of those Wall Street speeches that the Clinton camp refuses to discuss in any great detail – probably because Goldman Sachs alone paid Clinton $675,000 to speak. We're going to go out on a limb here, but Clinton probably was not brought in to speak multiple times by Wall Street firms just so they could hear how bad they were, which is precisely why the GOP wants to get its hands on anything they can related to those speeches (recall: The Real Reason Hillary Clinton Refuses To Release Her Wall Street Transcripts).
Ian Prior, communications director for Republican group American Crossroads, said that information on the Goldman speeches would prove cataclysmic for the Democratic party. "Just mail the Goldman Sachs transcripts to every Bernie supporter. There's your targeted mail program right there" Prior said, while also noting that it certainly would be one way to stop Bernie's supporters from voting for Clinton. Of course, the Democrats view the entire thing as a "total non-issue."
Thus far, the Republicans have not been able to come up with anything significant outside of some attendee's recollection that the speech "was pretty glowing about us." One GOP official said the while efforts have been made, this is one of those situations where high profile and potentially damaging documents remain out of reach.
Speaking of high profile and potentially damaging documents, as the FBI probe is winding down (with the conclusion of the investigation perhaps being an interview of Clinton directly), the State Department reiterated claims it made last December that it still can't seem to locate any emails to or from Clinton IT aide Bryan Pagliano.
Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters Monday that the State Department hasn't been able to locate a single email Pagliano sent or received from May 1, 2009 to February 1, 2013. In addition to a gap in email correspondence, the State Department also does not have any text messages or BlackBerry Messenger messages sent to or from Clinton during her time in office according to The Hill.
As The Weekly Standard notes, we know that at least one email was sent directly from Pagliano to Clinton during the missing time period…
Of course, it has been able to locate emails for the time period after Clinton left the State Department…
"The department has searched for Mr. Pagliano's e-mail PST file, and has not located one that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton's tenure.
To be clear, the department does have records related to Mr. Pagliano and we are working with Congress and FOIA requesters to provide relevant material. The department has located a PST for Mr. Pagliano's recent work at the department as a contractor.
But the files are from after Secretary Clinton left the department. We are continuing to search for Mr. Pagliano's e-mails which the department may have otherwise retained.
"The department does acknowledge, we must work to improve our systems for record management and retention as part of the ongoing effort, the department is not automatically archiving Secretary Kerry's e-mails as well as the e-mails of numerous senior staff."
Here are some headlines from Bloomberg:
- *DEPARTMENT SAYS HAS SOME RECORDS FROM AFTER CLINTON'S DEPARTURE
- *STATE DEPT. SAYS STILL LOOKING FOR PAGLIANO E-MAILS
- *STATE DEPT: WE HAVE WORK TO DO TO IMPROVE RECORDS MANAGEMENT
- *REPUBLICANS HAD SOUGHT E-MAILS FROM/TO BRYAN PAGLIANO
We'll let the readers draw their own conclusions from the State Departments comments, but once again we remind everyone that the Justice Department has granted immunity to Bryan Pagliano in exchange for his cooperation with the FBI investigation. Also as a reminder, as former U.S. attorney Matthew Whitaker pointed out, if the FBI does interview Clinton, they will only be asking questions that they already have the answers to – answers that could be provided by Pagliano's own computer, which the FBI already has in its possession.
For those that wish to have blood shoot out of their eyes and ears, here is the State Department press conference…
- M. King Hubbert: The Limits To Oil
Submitted by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,
M. King Hubbert did more to raise awareness of the finite nature of global oil reserves than any other person, living or dead. He was a larger-than-life figure, who fought tirelessly to insert the limits of nature into the national dialog regarding the strategic use of resources. Yet surprisingly little has been publicly documented about the man, even though we are hurtling ever faster into a future shaped by the very limits he warned about.
In today's podcast, Chris talks with Mason Inman about his new book The Oracle Of Oil, the first in-depth biography of M. King Hubbert, to learn more about the genesis of the Peak Oil theory:
Hubbert was in a much higher position within the oil industry than I had realized. He was Head of Research at Shell Oil with the research for exploration and production of oil. At the time — this was in the 40’s through the 60’s when he was there — Shell’s lab was the most advanced in the industry, so he was really a leader within the industry.
Also, it turned out there wasn’t a job for trying to forecast the future of oil. Basically, nobody was really doing anything rigorous. It had been growing quickly and they just kind of assumed that this would continue. He was doing this on his own, going against the grain in the industry to try to make forecasts that were rigorous. When he came out with bad news where he was saying that it looks like the oil production in the US will peak around the late 60’s or early 70’s, this was not a message that the industry wanted to hear. He had to fight to try to get people to take it seriously even though he had this really important position within the industry(…)
He was very stubborn, which had some good sides to it and some bad sides to it. Even when people weren’t listening to him, he still kept hammering away at these issues about that growth can’t continue forever, that we’ll run into limits with oil production and that the economy is often shaped by forces that aren’t the best for common people necessarily. Even when people weren’t listening, he still kept trying to get these messages across for decades because he believed that education and rational discussion was the best way to try to change society.
I really came to appreciate his persistence in his and it was remarkable how he never seemed to get bitter that it was difficult to get these messages across. Sometimes when other people did start to get attention for similar ideas, he wasn’t bitter that they were getting a lot of attention rather than he was. For example, in the early 1970’s there’s this report, The Limits to Growth that came out that got a lot of attention and in his talks Hubbert pointed out this was essentially what he had been talking about for years and the people who were behind The Limits to Growth report, these MIT researchers, they actually said that they got a lot of inspiration from Hubbert. I have a letter that I ran across in Hubbert’s papers from Dennis Meadows, who was one of the leaders of The Limits to Growth report and he was suggesting a collaboration with Hubbert and it never came about, but it’s kind of amazing to think about What if they had? (…)
It's important for people to realize that conventional oil production did peak a decade ago in 2006. Conventional oil makes up about 90% of the oil that we consume now and it's from the kind of fields where you drill a hole in the ground and oil comes out. The unconventional oil that we hear a lot more about — like from fracking, where you have to pump all this fluid in to create fractures in the rocks in order to get any oil out, or tar sands where you have to dig things up and cook them down in order to get oil out — those unconventional sources get a lot of attention because they’re the marginal source that have a lot of influence on what the price of oil is. But, they actually make up a very small part of what we consume, so people have generated a lot of hype around fracking but it's a relatively small player in the overall oil market — though it can have a big influence on prices, as we’ve seen lately. Fracking is not the only reason why the price of oil has dropped lately. It’s also because the world economy is not doing well and the growth forecasts keep getting revised downward, but it definitely played a role that oil production in the US was able to increase so rapidly. But that’s tied up with a whole bunch of stuff like cheap credit being available to these companies so that they could boost production without really having to worry about the normal things that businesses worry about.
That’s a big reason why we’re not seeing the death of peak oil I think, because we’ve hit this limit with conventional oil production. Companies have had every reason to try to boost production of conventional oil if they could, and so far it seems like they haven’t been able to. And now major forecasters like the International Energy Agency or Exxon Mobil or BP: they all say that conventional oil production isn’t going to go any higher than it is now. But those forecasters have also generally been overly optimistic about how much conventional oil production there would be. They didn’t foresee this peak coming so I’m inclined to think that their latest forecasts are probably also overly optimistic. If they’re saying it's just going to be flat from here on for the next quarter century, that’s probably too high. We’re probably looking at a decline in conventional oil production coming.
I've definitely found a lot of reports from the military in the US and other countries that are raising concerns about peak oil or about limits to the oil that might be available to the military and the cost of that oil. They’re definitely thinking about these issues.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Mason Inman (38m:30s)
- Options Traders Confidence Collapses Most Since August Crash
The realized (actual) volatility of the US equity market has plunged in recent weeks to its lowest since April 2015 as an odd complacency washed across risk assets emboldened by "whatever it takes" synonyms spewing from every and any central banker in the world. However, options traders appear to be losing faith in the market turmoil cease-fire as implied volatility (the market's best guess at future uncertainty) trades at its largest premium to historical volatility in over a year.
As Bloomberg reports, there have only been six days the S&P 500 swung more than 1 percent since the start of March, the longest comparable stretch of peace since May 2015. That’s lured automated funds that trade based on volatility trends to buy more U.S. stocks, increasing their ability to wreak havoc should markets start to crack.
Price swings have been relatively muted the past two months, but options traders are betting it won’t last. The gap between the one-month historical volatility, a measure of actual price swings, and what traders are willing to pay for protection is at its widest since August.
Implied volatility trades at a 55% premium to realized volatility – its highest in a year…
The last time this happened, as the chart suggests, the 'market' is perceiving the fragility in the calm is going to end very soon – just as it did in the summer of 2015, before the August crash.
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