- Europe On A Geopolitical Fault Line
Europe On A Geopolitical Fault Line
Authored by Ana Palacio via Project Syndicate,
China has begun to build a parallel international order, centered on itself. If the European Union aids in its construction – even just by positioning itself on the fault line between China and the United States – it risks toppling key pillars of its own edifice and, eventually, collapsing altogether.
Two months ago, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his fear that a “Great Fracture” could split the international order into two “separate and competing worlds,” one dominated by the United States and the other by China. His fear is not only justified; the fissure he dreads has already formed, and it is getting wider.
After Deng Xiaoping launched his “reform and opening up” policy in 1978, the conventional wisdom in the West was that China’s integration into the global economy would naturally bring about domestic social and political change. The end of the Cold War – an apparent victory for the US-led liberal international order – reinforced this belief, and the West largely pursued a policy of engagement with China. After China became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001, this process accelerated, with Western companies and investment pouring into the country, and cheap manufactured products flowing out of it.
As China’s role in global value chains grew, its problematic trade practices – from dumping excessively low-cost goods in Western markets to failing to protect intellectual-property rights – were increasingly distortionary. Yet few so much as batted an eye. No one, it seemed, wanted to jeopardize the profits brought by cheap Chinese manufacturing, or the promise of access to the massive Chinese market. In any case, the thinking went, the problems would resolve themselves, because economic engagement and growth would soon produce a flourishing Chinese middle class that would propel domestic liberalization.
This was, it is now clear, magical thinking. In fact, China has changed the international system much more than the system has changed China.
Today, the Communist Party of China is more powerful than ever, bolstered by a far-reaching artificial intelligence-driven surveillance apparatus and the enduring dominance of state-owned enterprises. President Xi Jinping is set for a protracted – even lifelong – tenure. And, as US President Donald Trump has learned during his ill-fated trade war, wringing concessions out of China is more difficult than ever.
Meanwhile, the rules-based international order limps along, without vitality or purpose. Emerging and developing economies are frustrated by the lack of effort to bring institutional arrangements in line with new economic realities. The advanced economies, for their part, are grappling with a backlash against globalization that has not only weakened their support for trade liberalization and international cooperation, but also shaken their democracies. The US has gradually withdrawn from global leadership.
As a result, international relations have become largely transactional, with ad hoc deals replacing holistic cooperative solutions. Institutions and agreements are becoming shallower and more informal. Values, rules, and norms are increasingly regarded as quaint and impractical.
This has produced a golden opportunity for China to begin constructing a parallel system, centered on itself. To that end, it has created institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank, both of which mimic existing international structures. And it has pursued the sprawling Belt and Road Initiative – an obvious attempt to position itself as a new Middle Kingdom.
Yet many, including in Europe, are not particularly concerned about the emergence of this parallel system. So long as it brings ready access to project finance, it’s fine with them. As Europe becomes increasingly alienated from the US, many Europeans also believe that they can improve their strategic position by situating themselves on the frontier between the two emerging worlds.
That strategy may offer some advantages, including opportunities for arbitrage. But as anyone who lives on a fault line knows, there are also formidable risks: friction between the two sides is bound to shake the foundations of whatever is positioned atop the boundary.
This is especially true for the European Union, which is built on a commitment to cooperation, shared values, and the rule of law. If the EU aids in building a parallel structure that contradicts its core values, particularly the centrality of individual rights, it risks severing its meta-political moorings – the beliefs to which its worldview is tethered. A Europe adrift will eventually sink.
The solution is not for Europe simply to take America’s “side,” and turn its back on China. (That, too, would run counter to European values.) Rather, the EU must heed Guterres’s call to “do everything possible to maintain a universal system” in which all actors, including China and the US, follow the same rules.
In this sense, the recent joint statement by Xi and French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirming their strong support for the Paris climate agreement is promising, as is Europe’s growing recognition that China is not only a partner or economic competitor, but also a “systemic rival.” But this is only a start. Europe needs a robust China strategy that recognizes the profound, often subtle challenges that the country’s rise poses, mitigates the associated risks, and seizes relevant opportunities.
Achieving this will require perspective and discipline, neither of which comes naturally to the EU. But there is no other choice. As soon as Europe stops defending the rule of law and democratic values, its identity – and its future – will begin to crumble.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 11/13/2019 – 02:00 - Brandon Smith: Trump Impeachment And The Civil War Scenario
Brandon Smith: Trump Impeachment And The Civil War Scenario
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
There has been a lot of talk the past year about a civil war in the US, so much so that even the mainstream media is pushing the concept lately. A poll from Rasmussen in 2018 claimed that 31% of US voters believed that America would see a second civil war within the next five years. A more recent poll from The Institute Of Politics And Public Service shows that 7 out of 10 voters believe the US is two-thirds of the way towards civil war.
New talk of “impeachment” over the Ukraine issue has stirred the soup even further as some conservatives argue that if Trump is removed from office a war will erupt.
I want to be absolutely clear and state that I remain highly skeptical that the impeachment circus is anything more than another distraction for the public, and I believe that it will go nowhere (just like Russiagate). That said I do think there is a marginal chance of a 4th Gen play here by the globalists. A civil war, if directed and manipulated in the right way, could benefit the elites greatly as long as it’s combined with a few other ingredients.
First, we have to understand what the real situation here is, though. As my readers are well aware, I predicted well before the 2016 election that Trump as president would be the perfect scapegoat for the implosion of the ‘Everything Bubble’. That implosion is happening in nearly all fundamental economic indicators right now, as I outlined in my last article. There are two questions to consider at this point: Will stock markets follow fundamentals down before the 2020 election? And, if stocks remain high, will it even matter with the rest of the system tumbling into recession?
In January of 2016 at during his election campaign, Donald Trump said that the US economy was ‘In a bubble he feared would burst and he did not want to deal with a financial collapse if he was elected to the White House.’ He called on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and stop propping up the fake markets.
In 2019, Trump has attached his administration completely to the performance of markets with endless Twitter comments, taking full credit for the financial bubble that he once criticized. He has also now called for the Fed to bring interest rates down to zero to artificially support the economy once again (Obviously we have to ask the big question – If this is the “greatest US economy ever”, then why would Trump want the Fed to introduce more stimulus to prop it up?). I believe this bizarre behavior is entirely deliberate on Trump’s part and that he intends to take the blame for the ongoing crash. If stocks fall along with the rest of the economy by the end of 2020, it is unlikely that the globalists plan to keep him around for a second term. His job acting as a scapegoat for the crisis the central banks created will be accomplished.
Second, my readers are also aware that I have outlined the connections between Trump and the globalists, including how a large part of his fortune and his image was saved by a bailout from the Rothschild family during the 1990’s. Wilber Ross, the Rothchild agent who arranged the deal, is now Trump’s Commerce Secretary. Ross’ presence in Trump’s cabinet along with numerous other elites, such as Pompeo, Mnuchin, Lightheizer, Kudlow and a host of other Council on Foreign Relations members indicates that Trump is and probably always has been controlled opposition. When one elite cycles out of Trump’s cabinet, another one just takes his place.
I hear the argument often that the supposed impeachment proceedings are “proof” that the globalists are trying to destroy Trump. This is clearly nonsense, as Trump continues to work closely with such elites on a daily basis. The more likely explanation is that, like Russiagate, the impeachment itself is a farce designed to keep the American public sharply divided and ready to go to war at a moment’s notice. In fact, the chances of the Ukraine debacle blowing back on Joe Biden and his campaign in the Democratic Primaries are high.
Biden is obviously NOT the candidate that the elites intend to run on the Democrat side, and the Ukraine theater creates a rationale for him to bow out while also conjuring ever more anger on both sides of the political canyon. But does this mean that Trump will not be impeached? Not necessarily…
Trump is in the position he is in for a reason. Trump is a useful pawn in a number of ways as long as his influence over conservatives remains strong and his position can be exploited to maximum effect. For example, in my most likely scenario, a market crash swiftly follows the current plunge in fundamentals before the 2020 election. This essentially ensures Trump’s defeat in November, while his conservative supporters and conservative principles in general take the blame for the disaster. However, what if the elites are seeking to add even more chaos to the cauldron?
An impeachment leading into the election, whether successful or not, could be used to enrage conservatives and trigger a violent reaction against the Democrats specifically. If Trump loses the election or never makes it to the election due to impeachment, a host of outcomes will occur that are beneficial to the globalists even though Trump is one of their puppets:
1) The impeachment scenario will make rabid leftists feel vindicated in their insane behavior the past few years. It will reward them and inspire them to act even crazier.
2) Conservatives could be pushed over the edge into direct action, but unfortunately, if this direct action is aimed haphazardly at the political left and democrats, conservatives will have been conned. The globalists WANT us fighting over a meaningless puppet like Trump. They WANT us to direct our anger at the Democrats instead of at them.
3) If we are stupid enough to fight a war over Trump, this will lead to some detrimental results. Conservatives, though feeling justified in their actions, will look like villains, fighting to protect a leader that destroyed the US economy causing untold public suffering, as well as a leader that most of the world will see as personally corrupt. Trump is not a resilient long term inspiration for a rebellion, he’s not even a good short term inspiration.
4) Rebellions need focus and a set of strong principles and virtues in order to stay alive. If they are freedom fighters, then the establishment will seek to make them look like they are not freedom fighters, but self serving terrorists or agents of a foreign power. This process has already been started by the elites. Trump is the tool for co-option of the liberty movement. Impeachment could be a trigger for luring the movement to rebel under false pretenses and attack the wrong people (the leftists are only a symptom of the disease, the globalists ARE the disease).
5) A civil war that does not seek to target the globalists as the root problem could be easily molded by the globalists into a scapegoat for whatever calamity they desire. An economic crash under Trump would attach a lot of peripheral blame to conservatives. But, an economic crash and a civil war over Trump’s impeachment would attach ALL the blame to conservatives. Conservatives become the bad guys of the age, the people that almost ended the world, the people that future generations will be taught to despise as examples of the “evils of nationalism and populism”.
6) A war fought in the name of faulty principles and a failed leader would provide a reason for the globalists to pursue an international response to the crisis. And again, this would not look like an invasion of American sovereignty, but a global attempt to “keep the peace”.
So what is the solution? Is this a Catch-22 that conservatives cannot escape from? I’ve long held that a war between liberty activists and the globalists is inevitable, if not long overdue. The globalists know that this war is coming, as well. 4th Generation Warfare tactics dictate that the globalists will try to trick liberty activists into fighting this war on their terms. That is to say, the globalists will seek to turn us (their opponents) into unwitting allies. The Trump impeachment strategy could very well provide them with that kind of psychological leverage.
It would be seen by many conservatives as a Democratic party coup and a violation of the constitution. With leftist activists so viciously cult-like and so far beyond all logic or reason, the political left and political right might end up shooting at each other anyway. The issue is the narrative under which this occurs.
If liberty activists stay focused on the primary objective (removing the globalists from power), instead of being lured into focusing all their energy on the Democrats, then the scenario changes. If conservatives remain skeptical and critical of Trump’s associations and activities, this makes it difficult for the elites to paint us as “Trump’s brownshirts”. Certain people within the liberty movement have not been helpful in this regard; blindly defending Trump at every turn no matter how many elites he brings into his cabinet or how many times he takes credit for the economic bubble. Some of these people have indeed called for a civil war in the name of stopping a Trump impeachment. They have become useful idiots for the globalist agenda.
If a war is fought, it must be over a concrete set of contentions. If a Democrat enters the White House after the 2020 election and attempts to institute major gun control and gun confiscation measures, then this is a perfectly solid reason to fight. If they try to enforce carbon restrictions that would destroy what’s left of our economy and cause suffering among the public, then this is another good reason to fight. If they try to legislate even more socialist programs, usurping constitutional parameters and taxing the populace into perpetual poverty, then yes, we should fight. But Trump? No, Trump is a pied piper, not a leader or a rationale for civil war.
Now, I realize that the above scenario I describe is extreme, but I do see it as a possibility, so it’s important to recognize that it is there waiting to be used by the establishment against us. That said, there are other more likely outcomes.
The impeachment could rally conservatives to vote in larger numbers in 2020, and if the markets hold out through the year, then Trump is probably slated for a second term. A second term would indicate that the elites need Trump for another event (perhaps a regional war) on top of the market crash, which would take place directly after Trump’s reelection.
The Ukraine issue might merely be designed to undermine Joe Biden’s candidacy, paving the way for either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren (I don’t see another serious run by Hillary Clinton in the cards, Bloomberg is a joke even among many Democrats and I still predict Elizabeth Warren will be the Dem candidate in 2020). If the markets crash, or if the currently crashing fundamentals hit main street hard enough, then Trump will be ousted and the Dems will take over, blaming him and conservatives for every financial mess for the next four years (or more).
At this point in the game, it’s hard to say which option the globalists will use. It is vital, though, that we remember that the impeachment is a farce in more ways than one. The target is not Trump, the target is us.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 23:45 - Beijing Slams US 'Hypocrisy' Over Soaring HK Violence As Students Launch Arrows At Police
Beijing Slams US ‘Hypocrisy’ Over Soaring HK Violence As Students Launch Arrows At Police
In Beijing’s own condemnation of ‘moderate rebels’ moment, the Chinese foreign ministry on Tuesday slammed the United States and Britain for rank hypocrisy for their failure to condemn the serious escalation in protest violence this week, after a pro-mainland man was set on fire and after a police officer shot a protester in separate incidents. And overnight Tuesday students at the city’s main public university were filmed attacking police with bows and arrows.
Describing prior events on Monday as deeply disturbing – foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said “their lip service to justice has shown their double standards and ill intentions”.
Still frame of Sky News footage showing protesters using bows and arrows against police. This after the State Department merely expressed “grave concern” and condemned the violence on “all sides” on a day in which a gruesome viral video showed a pro-mainland man being doused in combustible liquid, then set on fire as he argued with demonstrators over their attempting to shut down a nearby train station.
After one of the most horrifying scenes of violence by a mob of Hong Kong pro-independence protesters to have played out after months of unrest, Beijing is outraged that the US and Britain again managed to turn the spotlight back on China.
Up in the mainland, videos like this from #HongKong are spreading quickly online. It’s like a parallel world to the police violence clips. Not a lot of context or background on this clip (which was already edited on a pro-Beijing wechat channel) – but really nasty stuff pic.twitter.com/ctKgoMqBXb
— Bill Birtles (@billbirtles) November 12, 2019
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State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said, “We urge Beijing to honor the commitments it made in the Sino-British Joint Declaration,” which includes protecting “the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly – core values that we share with Hong Kong,” according to the official statement.
This week has witnessed large sectors of the city gridlocked and essentially shut down due demonstrators attacking public transportation and blocking roads.
A regular feature of the HK anti-China protests has been attacks on public transport. Image via CNN. Many observers have noticed violence and clashes with police have gotten so fierce, that Hong Kong riots appear to have entered an “end game” of sorts, given Monday marked one of the most violent episodes to take place in weeks, amid continued disruptions of the morning commute as HK’s MTR public transit shut down several stations.
War zone battle in Chinese University of Hong Kong now. pic.twitter.com/29oT7wutzt
— EYEPRESS NEWS AGENCY (@eyepressnews) November 12, 2019
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And through Tuesday evening severe clashes with police raged in and around the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) campus, which involved students raiding sports facilities to obtain weapons such as javelins and bows & arrows, reportedly being used against police.
Image via The Times: “Protesters raided a sport equipment warehouse to find new weapons for their battles with police.” According to London’s The Times:
Students armed with javelins and bows and arrows fought police at the Chinese University of Hong Kong today amid official warnings that the territory was “on the brink of total breakdown”.
The scenes, mirrored at other campuses in the city, marked a drastic escalation in the protests, which began in June. Yesterday police shot a protester at close range and a man was doused with petrol and set on fire by demonstrators.
Upset that police had encroached on their campuses yesterday, university students set up barricades early today.
And elsewhere anti-Beijing social media accounts also circulated images of students raiding a campus warehouse and staging bows, arrows, and javelins to use against invading security forces.
No need to read dystopian novels anymore. Chinese University students fight the invading riot police with high jump cross bars, bows and arrows. #2A #Hongkong pic.twitter.com/felJHlRRUK
— Badcanto (@Badcanto) November 12, 2019
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Earlier on Tuesday HK police warned a total collapse looks imminent as pitched battles between rioters and police continue across the city.
Sky News ran footage Tuesday night of student protesters firing arrows at police front lines:
“Over the past two days, our society has been pushed to the brink of a total breakdown as rioters went on a rampage,” Kong Wing-cheung, a senior police superintendent, said in a press conference.
#CUHK Drone footage #HongKongProtests #AntiELAB #FreeHongKong pic.twitter.com/iIvCOvi3xj
— 😷Hong Kong World City 🖐🏻☔️ (@HKWORLDCITY) November 12, 2019
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The same day Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam condemned the anti-Beijing protesters as the “enemy of the people”.
Indeed as newly published aerial footage showing the chaotic situation at CUHK campus confirms, parts of the city are becoming a war zone, as protesters and police increasingly lack restraint and are now deploying deadly weapons.
Things are about to get even uglier at the Chinese University HK campus, and we don’t have to wonder for a moment what police in America would do if bows and arrows were launched at them. It appears the gloves are fast coming off.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 23:25 - How To Crush A Bankers' Dictatorship: A Lesson From 1933
How To Crush A Bankers’ Dictatorship: A Lesson From 1933
Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The western media has been hit with warnings of “financial Armageddon” and the need for a “global hegemonic synthetic currency” to replace the collapsing US dollar under a new system of green finance. These statements have been made by former and current Bank of England Governors Mark Carney and Mervyn King respectively and should not be ignored as the world sits atop the largest financial bubble in human history reminiscent of the 1929 bubble that was triggered on black Friday in the USA which unleashed a great depression across Europe and America.
While I’m not arguing that a systemic change is not vital to protect people from the effects of a general meltdown of the $1.2 trillion derivatives bubble sometimes called “the western banking system”, what such central bankers are proposing is a poison more deadly than the disease they promise to cure.
In principle, the world crisis, is no different from the artificially manufactured crises which the world faced in 1923 when unpayable Versailles debts were heaved onto a beaten Germany, which I elaborated upon in my previous report. It is also no different from the nature of the folly that unleashed unbounded speculation during the “roaring 1920s” which led to the bank-run and general meltdown. Similarly, the solutions being proposed to put out the fire by those same arsonists who lit the matches today are identical to what the world faced in 1933 as a “central bankers” solution for the world depression.
How the 1929 Crash was Manufactured
While everyone knows that the 1929 market crash unleashed four years of hell in America which quickly spread across Europe under the great depression, not many people have realized that this was not inevitable, but rather a controlled blowout.
The bubbles of the 1920s were unleashed with the early death of President William Harding in 1923 and grew under the careful guidance of JP Morgan’s President Coolidge and financier Andrew Mellon (Treasury Secretary) who de-regulated the banks, imposed austerity onto the country, and cooked up a scheme for Broker loans allowing speculators to borrow 90% on their stock. Wall Street was deregulated, investments into the real economy were halted during the 1920s and insanity became the norm. In 1925 broker loans totalled $1.5 billion and grew to $2.6 billion in 1926 and hit $5.7 billion by the end of 1927. By 1928, the stock market was overvalued fourfold!
When the bubble was sufficiently inflated, a moment was decided upon to coordinate a mass “calling in” of the broker loans. Predictably, no one could pay them resulting in a collapse of the markets. Those “in the know” cleaned up with JP Morgan’s “preferred clients”, and other financial behemoths selling before the crash and then buying up the physical assets of America for pennies on the dollar. One notable person who made his fortune in this manner was Prescott Bush of Brown Brothers Harriman, who went onto bailout a bankrupt Nazi party in 1932. These financiers had a tight allegiance with the City of London and coordinated their operations through the private central banking system of America’s Federal Reserve and Bank of International Settlements.
The Living Hell that was the Great Depression
Throughout the Great depression, the population was pushed to its limits making America highly susceptible to fascism as unemployment skyrocketed to 25%, industrial capacity collapsed by 70%, and agricultural prices collapsed far below the cost of production accelerating foreclosures and suicide. Life savings were lost as 4000 banks failed.
This despair was replicated across Europe and Canada with eugenics-loving fascists gaining popularity across the board. England saw the rise of Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in 1932, English Canada had its own fascist solution with the Rhodes Scholar “Fabian Society” League of Social Reconstruction (which later took over the Liberal Party) calling for the “scientific management of society”. Time magazine had featured Il Duce over 6 times by 1932 and people were being told by that corporate fascism was the economic solution to all of America’s economic woes.
In the midst of the crisis, the City of London removed itself from the gold standard in 1931 which was a crippling blow to the USA, as it resulted in a flight of gold from America causing a deeper contraction of the money supply and thus inability to respond to the depression. British goods simultaneously swamped the USA crushing what little production was left.
It was in this atmosphere that one of the least understood battles unfolded in 1933.
1932: A Bankers’ Dictatorship is Attempted
In Germany, a surprise victory of Gen. Kurt Schleicher caused the defeat of the London-directed Nazi party in December 1932 threatening to break Germany free of Central Bank tyranny. A few weeks before Schleicher’s victory, Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency in America threatening to regulate the private banks and assert national sovereignty over finance.
Seeing their plans for global fascism slipping away, the City of London announced that a new global system controlled by Central Banks had to be created post haste. Their objective was to use the economic crisis as an excuse to remove from nation states any power over monetary policy, while enhancing the power of Independent Central Banks as enforcers of “balanced global budgets”. elaborate
In December 1932, an economic conference “to stabilize the world economy” was organized by the League of Nations under the guidance of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and Bank of England. The BIS was set up as “the Central Bank of Central Banks” in 1930 in order to facilitate WWI debt repayments and was a vital instrument for funding Nazi Germany- long after WWII began. The London Economic Conference brought together 64 nations of the world under a controlled environment chaired by the British Prime Minister and opened by the King himself.
A resolution passed by the Conference’s Monetary Committee stated:
“The conference considers it to be essential, in order to provide an international gold standard with the necessary mechanism for satisfactory working, that independent Central Banks, with requisite powers and freedom to carry out an appropriate currency and credit policy, should be created in such developed countries as have not at present an adequate central banking institution” and that “the conference wish to reaffirm the great utility of close and continuous cooperation between Central Banks. The Bank of International Settlements should play an increasingly important part not only by improving contact, but also as an instrument for common action.”
Echoing Carney’s current fixation with “mathematical equilibrium”, the resolutions stated that the new global gold standard controlled by central banks was needed “to maintain a fundamental equilibrium in the balance of payments” of countries. The idea was to deprive nation states of their power to generate and direct credit for their own development.
FDR Torpedoes the London Conference
Chancellor Schleicher’s resistance to a bankers’ dictatorship was resolved by a “soft coup” ousting the patriotic leader in favor of Adolph Hitler (under the control of a Bank of England toy named Hjalmar Schacht) in January 1933 with Schleicher assassinated the following year. In America, an assassination attempt on Roosevelt was thwarted on February 15, 1933 when a woman knocked the gun out of the hand of an anarchist-freemason in Miami resulting in the death of Chicago’s Mayor Cermak (1).
Without FDR’s dead body, the London conference met an insurmountable barrier, as FDR refused to permit any American cooperation. Roosevelt recognized the necessity for a new international system, but he also knew that it had to be organized by sovereign nation states subservient to the general welfare of the people and not central banks dedicated to the welfare of the oligarchy. Before any international changes could occur, nation states castrated from the effects of the depression had to first recover economically in order to stay above the power of the financiers.
By May 1933, the London Conference crumbled when FDR complained that the conference’s inability to address the real issues of the crisis is “a catastrophe amounting to a world tragedy” and that fixation with short term stability were “old fetishes of so-called international bankers”. FDR continued “The United States seeks the kind of dollar which a generation hence will have the same purchasing and debt paying power as the dollar value we hope to attain in the near future. That objective means more to the good of other nations than a fixed ratio for a month or two. Exchange rate fixing is not the true answer.”
The British drafted an official statement saying “the American statement on stabilization rendered it entirely useless to continue the conference.”
FDR’s War on Wall Street
The new president laid down the gauntlet in his inaugural speech on March 4th saying:
“The money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit”.
FDR declared a war on Wall Street on several levels, beginning with his support of the Pecorra Commission which sent thousands of bankers to prison, and exposed the criminal activities of the top tier of Wall Street’s power structure who manipulated the depression, buying political offices and pushing fascism. Ferdinand Pecorra who ran the commission called out the deep state when he said “this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United States.”
Pecorra’s highly publicized success empowered FDR to impose sweeping regulation in the form of 1) Glass-Steagall bank separation, 2) bankruptcy re-organization and 3) the creation of the Security Exchange Commission to oversee Wall Street. Most importantly, FDR disempowered the London-controlled Federal Reserve by installing his own man as Chair (Industrialist Mariner Eccles) who forced it to obey national commands for the first time since 1913, while creating an “alternative” lending mechanism outside of Fed control called the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which became the number one lender to infrastructure in America throughout the 1930s.
One of the most controversial policies for which FDR is demonized today was his abolishment of the gold standard. The gold standard itself constricted the money supply to a strict exchange of gold per paper dollar, thus preventing the construction of internal improvements needed to revive industrial capacity and put the millions of unemployed back to work for which no financial resources existed. It’s manipulation by international financiers made it a weapon of destruction rather than creation at this time. Since commodity prices had fallen lower than the costs of production, it was vital to increase the price of goods under a form of “controlled inflation” so that factories and farms could become solvent and unfortunately the gold standard held that back. FDR imposed protective tariffs to favor agro-industrial recovery on all fronts ending years of rapacious free trade.
FDR stated his political-economic philosophy in 1934:
“the old fallacious notion of the bankers on the one side and the government on the other side, as being more or less equal and independent units, has passed away. Government by the necessity of things must be the leader, must be the judge, of the conflicting interests of all groups in the community, including bankers.”
The Real New Deal
Once liberated from the shackles of the central banks, FDR and his allies were able to start a genuine recovery by restoring confidence in banking. Within 31 days of his bank holiday, 75% of banks were operational and the FDIC was created to insure deposits. Four million people were given immediate work, and hundreds of libraries, schools and hospitals were built and staffed- All funded through the RFC. FDR’s first fireside chat was vital in rebuilding confidence in the government and banks, serving even today as a strong lesson in banking which central bankers don’t want you to learn about.
From 1933-1939, 45 000 infrastructure projects were built. The many “local” projects were governed, like China’s Belt and Road Initiative today, under a “grand design” which FDR termed the “Four Quarters” featuring zones of megaprojects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority area in the south east, the Columbia River Treaty zone on the northwest, the St Laurence Seaway zone on the North east, and Hoover Dam/Colorado zone on the Southwest. These projects were transformative in ways money could never measure as the Tennessee area’s literacy rose from 20% in 1932 to 80% in 1950, and racist backwater holes of the south became the bedrock for America’s aerospace industry due to the abundant and cheap hydropower.
Wall Street Sabotages the New Deal
Those who criticize the New Deal today ignore the fact that its failures have more to do with Wall Street sabotage than anything intrinsic to the program. For example, JP Morgan tool Lewis Douglass (U.S. Budget Director) forced the closure of the Civil Works Administration in 1934 resulting in the firing of all 4 million workers.
Wall Street did everything it could to choke the economy at every turn. In 1931, NY banks loans to the real economy amounted to $38.1 billion which dropped to only $20.3 billion by 1935. Where NY banks had 29% of their funds in US bonds and securities in 1929, this had risen to 58% which cut off the government from being able to issue productive credit to the real economy.
When, in 1937, FDR’s Treasury Secretary persuaded him to cancel public works to see if the economy “could stand on its own two feet”, Wall Street pulled credit out of the economy collapsing the Industrial production index from 110 to 85 erasing seven years’ worth of gain, while steel fell from 80% capacity back to depression levels of 19%. Two million jobs were lost and the Dow Jones lost 39% of its value. This was no different from kicking the crutches out from a patient in rehabilitation and it was not lost on anyone that those doing the kicking were openly supporting Fascism in Europe. Bush patriarch Prescott Bush, then representing Brown Brothers Harriman was found guilty for trading with the enemy in 1942!
Coup Attempt in America Thwarted
The bankers didn’t limit themselves to financial sabotage during this time, but also attempted a fascist military coup which was exposed by Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler in his congressional testimony of November 20, 1934. Butler had testified that the plan was begun in the Summer of 1933 and organized by Wall Street financiers who tried to use him as a puppet dictator leading 500 000 American Legion members to storm the White House. As Butler spoke, those same financiers had just set up an anti-New Deal organization called the American Liberty League which fought to keep America out of the war in defense of an Anglo-Nazi fascist global government which they wished to partner with.
The American Liberty league only changed tune when it became evident that Hitler had become a disobedient Frankenstein monster who wasn’t content in a subservient position to Britain’s idea of a New World Order. In response to the Liberty League’s agenda, FDR said “some speak of a New World Order, but it is not new and it is not order”.
FDR’s Post-War Vision Destroyed
While FDR’s struggle did change the course of history, his early death during the first months of his fourth term resulted in a fascist perversion of his post-war vision.
Rather than see the IMF, World Bank or UN used as instruments for the internationalization of the New Deal principles to promote long term, low interest loans for the industrial development of former colonies, FDR’s allies were ousted from power over his dead body, and they were recaptured by the same forces who attempted to steer the world towards a Central Banking Dictatorship in 1933.
The American Liberty League spawned into various “patriotic” anti-communist organizations which took power with the FBI and McCarthyism under the fog of the Cold War. This is the structure that Eisenhower warned about when he called out “the Military Industrial Complex” in 1960 and which John Kennedy did battle with during his 900 days as president.
The New Silk Road as the 21st Century New Deal
This is the structure which is out to destroy President Donald Trump out of fear that a new FDR impulse is beginning to be revived in America which may align with the 21st Century international New Deal emerging from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian alliance. French Finance Minister Bruno LeMaire and Marc Carney have stated their fear that if the Green New Deal isn’t imposed by the west, then the New Silk Road and yuan will become the basis for the new world system.
The Bank of England-authored Green New Deal and Synthetic Hegemonic Currency which promise to impose draconian constraints on humanity’s carrying capacity in defense of saving nature from humanity have nothing to do with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and they have less to do with the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. These are merely central bankers’ wet dreams for depopulation and fascism “with a democratic face” which their 1933 conference failed to achieve and can only be imposed if people remain blind to their own recent history.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 23:05 - "Oh Cool, More Bullshit": Anonymous White House Officials Trash Book By Anonymous Ex-White House Official
“Oh Cool, More Bullshit”: Anonymous White House Officials Trash Book By Anonymous Ex-White House Official
We’ve reached the part in the news cycle where one can just make up anything, anywhere about anyone, and cite imaginary people as evidence. Case in point, today’s Politico report on how the blockbuster bestselling book by, well, an allegedly former White House official who to this day remains anonymous, and which allegedly provides an “unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation’s capital” is being received by the White House. Or at least by more anonymous people at the White House.
While delightfully humorous in isolation, the following actual line from the Politico book report perfectly summarizes the state of modern reporting:
Most of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to trash the anonymous author, whose book they acknowledged they have only read about.
The Politico report’s argument, apparently sourced to more anonymous White House officials who may or may not go on to write anonymous books of their own, which will then be reviewed by more anonymous officials, is that the “White House is breathing a big sigh of relief after the new book by an anonymous author claiming to be a senior Trump official doesn’t seem to have many new damaging details of the president’s conduct in office, according to interviews with five current White House officials.”
All of them, of course, anonymous, because we now live in a world where one can write any narrative at all for an article – or a book – and just quote “anonymous sources” or be an “anonymous author” and still make tons of money.
Or maybe Americans are finally tiring of that news cycle. After all, even that liberal bastion of anti-Trumpism, the New York Times, went so far as to pan the newly released book (maybe the NYT is a Russian asset for mocking the book? Anonymous sources have yet to opine).
These officials’ main complaint: The author is “cowardly” since the person doesn’t cite many specific examples in the book out of fear of making it easier for journalists and colleagues to discover the writer’s identity.
And they say the book is likely to contain errors, based on the unusually secretive process by which it was written.
“Normally, the publishers would do a pretty good fact-check on this but it’s impossible to do a fact-check if you don’t know who the person is and if you’re not citing specific stories so it’s literally the least fact-checked book ever,” said a White House official.
There is another problem with these “shocking” tell all stories that are fabricated cover to cover (because absent fact-checking, a lack of reference to facts and actual sources, one can only assume the entire story is made up): the all too real Trump has made any “shock” value decline to zero: in this case the anonymous White House staffers “are dismissing the author’s description of President Donald Trump as cruel, incompetent, ill-tempered and a threat to the country as nothing new. Those epithets and more, they say, are present on “liberal Twitter every day,” as the official put it.”
Indeed: if there is one thing the world has had even more than Trump’s non stop twitter barrage, it is shock stories written about Trump citing anonymous sources. .
The Politico article then goes on in some length to speculate on the identity of the author, the same author whose Sept 5, 2018 op-ed – published ironically in the same NYT that is now deriding the book – announcing Anonymous’ “resistance” against Trump “would seem to rule out anyone who left the administration before that date.”
Perhaps, but the way the book is written, the author could literally be anyone: after all, most of the stories are broad generalizations one can quite literally come up with while feeding the cats at 9am on a Saturday and drinking their morning coffee. And since nothing can be fact-checked, that is probably a safe assumption.
That probably explains why one of the anonymous officials quoted by Politico, had said the book’s content was “ridiculous. I certainly heard nothing about it and I certainly would have.”
Then again, the source is anonymous, and could have been merely fabricated by the newspaper, which brings us to the delightful irony of political “reporting” – one writes stories quoting unknown officials, opinion about shocking claims made by another unknown official.
And whereas the public had largely learned to ignore such fake news especially in the aftermath of the Trump Russian collusion fiasco, they have now reemerged in the form of “whistleblowers” hoping to get a second life in the public arena by attempting to take down the president, with even more hearsay, innuendo and unsourced reports.
That… or simply try to make money by taking advantage of people’s gullibility:
Hogan Gidley, the deputy White House press secretary, also said the author was trying to profit off his or her time in the administration.
“There are so many people trying to make a buck off of Donald Trump’s name at this point, I’ve lost count,” he said. “I find it comical that so many in the media try to claim that this person is brave and courageous when the author won’t even put their name to it. It’s completely gutless, not to mention false.”
“It’s another PC establishment elitist who thinks they know better than the millions and millions of people who voted for Donald Trump because they were sick and tired of the swamp’s stranglehold on this country,” Gidley added, while Eli Nachmany, a former Trump White House staffer who is now a student at Harvard Law School, said the book’s revelations haven’t surprised anyone in Trump world, calling it “another low-quality book by a disgruntled individual.”
That, incidentally, may be the most relevant take in the entire article, and for once, it is actually sourced to real, named people.
Although our favorite line from the entire piece about a book which will be forgotten in a few weeks was the following:
“You see the headlines and you say, ‘Oh cool, more bullshit, let’s get back to work,’” said one official.
Which just happens to be a perfect encapsulation of what all modern political “reporting” has become.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 22:45 - Escobar: Lula's "Back, With A Bang!" To Fight US Deep State's "Cocaine Evangelistan"
Escobar: Lula’s “Back, With A Bang!” To Fight US Deep State’s “Cocaine Evangelistan”
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,
Better not mess with the former Brazilian president; Putin and Xi are his real top allies in the Global Left…
Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva greets his followers after his release from prison. Photo: Roberto Stuckert
He’s back. With a bang.
Only two days after his release from a federal prison in Curitiba, southern Brazil, following a narrow 6×5 decision by the Supreme Court, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a fiery, 45-minute long speech in front of the Metal Workers Union in Sao Bernardo, outside of Sao Paulo, and drawing on his unparalleled political capital, called all Brazilians to stage nothing short of a social revolution.
When my colleagues Mauro Lopes, Paulo Leite and myself interviewed Lula at the federal prison, it was his Day 502 in a cell. By August, it was impossible to predict that release would happen on Day 580, in early November.
His first speech to the nation after the prison saga – which is far from over – could never be solemn; in fact he promised a detailed address for the near future. What he did, in his trademark conversationalist style, was to immediately go on the offensive taking down a long list of every possible enemy in the book: those who have mired Brazil into an “anti-people agenda.” In terms of a fully improvised, passionate political address, this is already anthology material.
Lula detailed the current “terrible conditions” for Brazilian workers. He ripped to pieces the economic program – basically a monster sell-out – of Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a Chicago boy and Pinochetist who’s applying the same failed hardcore neoliberal prescriptions now being denounced and scorned every day in the streets of Chile.
He detailed how the Brazilian right wing openly bet on neo-fascism, which is the form that neoliberalism recently took in Brazil. He blasted mainstream media, in the form of the so far all-powerful, ultra-reactionary Globo empire. In a stance of semiotic genius, Lula pointed to Globo’s helicopter hovering over the masses gathered for the speech, implying the organization is too cowardly to get close to him on ground level.
And, significantly, he got right into the heart of the Bolsonaro question: the militias. It’s no secret to informed Brazilians that the Bolsonaro clan, with its origins in the Veneto, is behaving as a sort of cheap, crude, eschatological carbon copy of the Sopranos, running a system heavy on militias and supported by the Brazilian military. Lula described the president of one of the top nations in the Global South as no less than a militia leader. That will stick – all around the world.
So much for “Lula peace and love,” which used to be one of his cherished mottos. No more conciliation. Bolsonaro now has to face real, fierce, solid opposition, and cannot run away from public debate any more.
Lula’s prison journey has been an extraordinary liberating experience – turning a previously wounded statesman into a fearless warrior mixing the Tao with Steppenwolf (as sketched in Herman Hesse’s book). He’s free like he’s never been before – and he said so, explicitly. The question is how he will be able to muster the organizational work, the method – and have enough time to change the dire conditions for democratic opposition in Brazil. The whole Global South is watching.
At least now the die is cast – and crystal clear: It’s social democracy against neo-fascism. Socially inclusive programs, civil society involved in setting public policy, the fight for equality versus autocracy, state institutions linked to militias, racism and hate against all minorities. Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, to their credit, have offered Lula their unconditional support. In contrast, Steve Bannon is losing sleep, qualifying Lula as “the poster boy of the globalist Left” across the world.
This all goes way beyond Left Populism – as Slavoj Zizek and Chantal Mouffe, among others, have been trying to conceptualize it. Lula, assuming he remains free, is now ready to be the supreme catalyst of an integrated, progressive, “pro-people” New Global Left.
‘Cocaine Evangelistan’
Now for the really nasty bits.
I saw Lula’s speech deep into the night in snow stormed Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan’s capital, in the heart of the steppes, a land trespassed against by the greatest nomad empires in history. The temptation was to picture Lula as a fearless snow leopard roaming the devastated steppes of urban wastelands.
Yet snow leopards, crucially, are a species threatened with extinction.
After the speech I had serious conversations with two top interlocutors, Bern-based analyst Romulus Maya and anthropologist Piero Leirner, a crack authority on the Brazilian military. The picture they painted was realistically gloomy. Here it is, in a nutshell.
When I visited Brasilia last August, several informed sources confirmed that the majority of the Brazilian Supreme Court is bought and paid for. After all, they de facto legitimized all the absurdities that have been taking place in Brazil since 2014. The absurdities were part of a hyper-complex, slow-motion, rolling hybrid war coup that, under the cloak of a corruption investigation, led to the dismantling of industrial national champions such as Petrobras; the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff on spurious charges; and the jailing of Lula, the work of judge, jury and executioner Sergio Moro, now Bolsonaro’s justice minister, who was completely unmasked by The Intercept’s revelations.
The Brazilian military are all over the Supreme Court. Remember, Lula’s liberation happened after a narrow 6 to 5 score. Legally, it was impossible to keep him in prison: the Supreme Court actually bothered to read the Brazilian Constitution.
But there are no structural changes whatsoever on the horizon. The project remains a Brazil sell-out – coupled with a thinly veiled military dictatorship. Brazil remains a lowly US colony. So Lula is out of jail essentially because this system allowed it.
The military abide by Bolsonaro’s abysmal incompetence because he cannot even go to the toilet without permission from General Heleno, the head of the GSI, the Brazilian version of the National Security Council. On Saturday, a scared Bolsonaro asked the top military brass for help after Lula’s release. And crucially, in a tweet, he defined Lula as a “scoundrel” who was “momentarily” free.
It’s this “momentarily” that gives away the game. Lula’s murky juridical situation is far from decided. In a harrowing but perfectly plausible short-term scenario, Lula could in fact be sent back to jail – but this time in isolation, in a maximum security federal prison, or even inside a military barracks; after all, he’s a former chief of the armed forces.
The full focus of Lula’s defense is now to have Moro disqualified. Anyone with a brain who’s been through The Intercept’s revelations can clearly identify Moro’s corruption. If that happens, and that’s a major “if,” Lula’s already existing convictions will be declared null and void. But there are others lawsuits, eight in total. This is total lawfare territory.
The military’s trump card is all about “terrorism” – associated with Lula and the Workers Party. If Lula, according to the harrowing scenario, is sent back to a federal prison, that could be in Brasilia, which not by accident holds the entire leadership of the PCC, or “First Command of the Capital”– the largest Brazilian criminal organization.
Maya and Leirner have shown how the PCC is allied with the military and the US Deep State, via their asset Moro, to establish not a Pax Brasilica but what they have described as a “Cocaine Evangelistan” – complete with terrorist false flags blamed on Lula’s command.
Leirner has exhaustively studied how the generals, for over a decade on their website, have been trying to associate the PCC with the Workers’ Party. And the association extends to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Hezbollah and the Bolivians. Yes, this all comes straight from His Masters’ Voice’s playbook.
Lula, Putin and Xi
With the military betting on a strategy of chaos, augmented by Lula’s immense social base all over Brazil fuming about his return to prison and the financial bubble finally burst, rendering the middle classes even poorer, the stage would be set for the ultimate toxic cocktail: social “commotion” allied with “terrorism” associated with “organized crime.”
That’s all the military needs to launch an extensive operation to restore “order” and finally force Congress to approve the Brazilian version of the Patriot Act (five separate bills are already making their way in Congress).
This is no conspiracy theory. This is a measure of how incendiary Brazil is at the moment, and Western mainstream media will make no effort whatsoever to explain the nasty, convoluted plot for a global audience.
Leirner goes to the heart of the matter when he says the current system has no reason to retreat because its side is winning. They are not afraid of Brazil turning into Chile. And even if that ends up happening, they already have a culprit: Lula. Brazilian mainstream media are already releasing trial balloons – blaming Lula for the spike of the US dollar and the rise of inflation.
Lula and the Brazilian Left should invest in a full spectrum offensive.
The 9th BRICS summit takes place in Brazil this week. A master counter-coup would be to organize an off-the-record, extremely discreet, heavily securitized meeting among Lula, Putin and Xi Jinping, for instance in an embassy in Brasilia. Putin and Xi are Lula’s real top allies on the global stage. They have been literally waiting for Lula, as diplomats have confirmed to me over and over again.
If Lula follows a restricted script of merely reorganizing the Left, in Brazil, Latin America and even the Global South, the military system currently in place will swallow him whole all over again. The Left is infiltrated – everywhere. Now it’s total war. Assuming Lula remains free, he most certainly won’t be allowed to run again for the presidency in 2022. But that’s no problem. He’s got to be extra-bold – and he will be. Better not mess with the Steppenwolf.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 22:25 - Code Brown: California Poo Situation Upgraded To 'Hot Diarrhea' Attacks; Urinating In Public OK
Code Brown: California Poo Situation Upgraded To ‘Hot Diarrhea’ Attacks; Urinating In Public OK
While San Francisco pays six-figure poop patrollers to keep up with the city’s fecal fiasco, Los Angeles may have to start handing out plastic ponchos.
Poo attack victim Heidi Van Tassel According to NBC Los Angeles‘ ‘Streets of Shame’ series, a homeless man randomly pulled a woman out of her car and hit her with a hot diarrhea attack.
A night near the Hollywood Walk of Fame would change a woman’s life, as she was getting into her car and a homeless man sprinted across Hollywood Boulevard toward her.
Heidi Van Tassel was parked in Hollywood after having a pleasant evening out with friends at an authentic Thai restaurant. Suddenly a man randomly pulled her out of the car, dragged her out to the middle of the street, and dumped a bucket of feces on her head, Van Tassel said and public records confirm.
“It was diarrhea. Hot liquid. I was soaked, and it was coming off my eyelashes and into my eyes,” she told NBC. “Paramedics who came to treat me said there was so much of it on me, that it looked like the man was saving it up for a month.“
“It was all inside my car because it was so much. He just kept pouring it and splattering it all over me.”
While Heidi is now getting tested for diseases every three months and has PTSD, her attacker was arrested, charged with battery, and found mentally incompetent to stand trial. He is now back on the street.
Meanwhile to the North, San Francisco’s incoming district attorney Chesa Boudin said upon his Saturday night election victory: “We will not prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes. Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted.”
“Many of these crimes are still being prosecuted, we have a long way to go to decriminalize poverty and homelessness,” he added, according to the Daily Caller.
About Boudin – per the Caller:
Boudin’s parents were members of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist group.
Boudin “was raised in Chicago by Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn” after his parents were sent to prison on murder charges while he was a toddler, NBC News noted.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders cheered Boudin’s victory in the election. “Now is the moment to fundamentally transform our racist and broken criminal justice system by ending mass incarceration, the failed war on drugs and the criminalization of poverty,” the Vermont Sen. wrote on Twitter Saturday, congratulating Boudin on his “historic victory!”
Now is the moment to fundamentally transform our racist and broken criminal justice system by ending mass incarceration, the failed war on drugs and the criminalization of poverty. Congratulations @chesaboudin on your historic victory! https://t.co/2CiM1sFo5c
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 10, 2019
The aristocrats!
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 22:05 - Does Schiff's Impeachment Lynch Mob Signal The End Of America's Two-Party Political System?
Does Schiff’s Impeachment Lynch Mob Signal The End Of America’s Two-Party Political System?
Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
If anything good can come from the Democrat’s incessant efforts to impeach Donald Trump it will be the outgrowth, from the nurturing ‘mother of necessity,’ of a more inclusive political system that acknowledges more than just a compromised duopoly as the voice of the American people.
With complete disregard for the consequences of their actions, the Democrat House Intelligence Committee under Adam Schiff has abandoned all pretense of democratic procedure in their effort to remove the 45th President of the United States from office.
Indeed, the Democrats have provided the Republicans with a Machiavellian crash course on the subtle art of decadent behavior for getting what you want, which of course is ultimate political power, and to hell in a proverbial hand basket with the consequences. The Republicans have been snoozing through a game of 2D checkers, holding out hope that Sheriff Billy Barr and his deputy John Durham will round up the real criminals, while the Democrats have been playing mortal combat.
The dark prince in this Gothic tale of diabolical, dare I say biblical, proportions is none other than Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, who, like Dracula in his castle dungeon, has contorted every House rule to fit the square peg of a Trump telephone call into the bolt hole of a full-blown impeachment proceeding. Niccolò Machiavelli would have been proud of his modern-day protégé.
As if to mock the very notion of Democratic due process, whatever that means, Schiff and his torch-carrying lynch mob took their deliberations down into the dank basement, yes, the basement, of the US Capital where they have been holding secretive depositions in an effort to get some new twist on the now famous phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky back in June. But why all the cloak and dagger theatrics when the transcript has long been available for public consumption?
At one point, the frazzled Republicans bared a little backbone against this bunker mentality when they crashed the basement meetings for some really outstanding optics. Schiff, betraying a lack of foresight, could not defenestrate the well-dressed hooligans since the meetings, as mentioned, are being held inside of a windowless dungeon. The Republican troublemakers were ushered back up the stairs instead.
Considering what Prince Schiff has managed to pull off over the course of this not-made for television impeachment process is astounding, and could not have happened without the drooling complicity of the lapdog media corporations. Schiff got the ball bouncing when he performed a Saturday Night Live skit of the Trump-Zelensky phone call on the hallowed floor of Congress. The imaginary voices in Schiff’s head made the president sound like a mafia boss speaking to one of his lackeys.
Not only did Schiff survive that stunt, it was revealed that he blatantly lied, not once but several times, about his affiliation with the White House insider, reportedly a CIA officer, who, without ever hearing the Trump-Zelensky phone call firsthand, blew the whistle anyways. The Democrats claim Trump was looking for some ‘quid pro quo’ with Kiev, which would dig up the dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for the release of $400 million in military aid. The transcript, however, points to no such coercion, while Zelensky himself denies that he was pressured by Trump.
Meanwhile, Schiff has taken great efforts to keep the identity of the whistleblower a ‘secret’ out of “safety concerns.” The Republicans in the House said they will subpoena the whistleblower for the public impeachment that starts next week, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told reporters. Yet Schiff has awarded himself the power to reject any witnesses the Republicans may wish to grill.
“We’ll see if he gives us any of our witnesses,” Jordan said.
A person need not feel any particular fondness for Donald Trump to find these circumstances surrounding the impeachment show trial as disgraceful, dishonorable and beneath the dignity of the American people. And whether they want it or not, the fallout from Schiff’s shenanigans will have repercussions long into the future of the US political system, which is groaning under the weight of corruption and deceit.
It is doubtful the Republicans will soon forgive and forget what the Democrats have put them through ever since Trump entered office in 2016. From Russiagate to Ukrainegate, the Trump White House has been held hostage by a non-stop, media-endorsed hate campaign to oust a democratically elected POTUS. Although it would be difficult for the Republicans, who lack the support of the media, an overwhelmingly left-leaning propaganda machine, to exact an equal amount of revenge on the Democrats when the latter have one of their own in the White House, they will certainly try. This will lead the Republic into an inescapable vortex of infighting where the sole function of the political system will be based on that of vengeance and ‘pay backs’ and more waste of time and money as the parties investigate the crimes of the other side.
The public, which is slowly awakening to the problem, will ultimately demand new leadership to break the current two-party internecine struggle. Thus, talk of a civil war in the United States, while possible, is being overplayed. The truth will be much simpler and far less violent.
Out of the dust and ashes of the defunct duopoly that is now at war with itself, the American people will soon demand fresh political blood in Washington and this will bring to the forefront capable political forces that are committed to the primary purpose of politics: representing the needs of the people, once again.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 21:45 - Idaho Residents Fume Over State-Wrecking Californians And Other Inflationary Transplants
Idaho Residents Fume Over State-Wrecking Californians And Other Inflationary Transplants
As we have documented for years, Californians have been fleeing the Golden State in droves thanks to untenable costs of living which include exorbitant taxes levied by inept bureaucrats. The annual fires, poo-covered streets, and devastating earthquakes are icing on the cake.
And as we’ve also documented, states experiencing the largest influx of ‘enlightened’ Californians include Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. According to a January report from the Idaho Department of Labor, the land of potatoes is tied with Nevada as the fastest growing state in the nation.
Downtown Boise, Idaho (Otto Kitsinger / For The Times) Unfortunately for longtime residents of greener (cheaper) pastures such as Boise, transplants are starting to ruin things – driving up home prices and rents while median household income remains below the US average.
via datausa.io The income inequality between natives and transplants has caused so much animosity in Idaho that it underpinned Boise mayoral candidate Wayne Richey’s entire platform: Stop the California Invasion.
Mayoral candidate Wayne Richey of Boise, Idaho, ran on a simple promise to stop the California invasion.
(Otto Kitsinger / For The Times)Such inequity was what fueled Richey’s quixotic campaign; he came in fifth with 2% of the vote. The 59-year-old auto body technician runs yard sales on weekends and drives for Lyft on Friday and Saturday nights, when “I take drunk people home.”
His sister had her own business until the Great Recession, when she lost everything and moved in with him. She just bought a house one city over, the only one she could find for about $230,000, and, he said, it’s a piece of you know what. She works in a call center, rents out a room and works craft shows.
“It’s really, really hard to swallow,” he said, “when somebody sells their house in California for $700,000, comes here, buys any house they want in cash and still has money in the bank.
“Their kids get to go to college,” he continued. “They drive nice cars. And they get to enjoy everything we built over the years. We don’t get to enjoy it, because we’re working 40 hours a week and doing craft shows and doing yard sales.” –LA Times
The median home price in Ada Couty, where Boise is located, has risen 19.3% since February 2018 according to the Idaho Statesman, and now sits at $349, 994. Vacancy rates for the lowest-income residents, meanwhile is just 0.45% according to HousingIdaho.com.
And according to the Times, Boise needs 1,000 new housing units per year for the next decade – according to officials in the city of 228,000, which is “just not happening.”
What should Californians and other transplants do?
Blend in – remove those California license plates. Don’t flash your money. And don’t do things like ‘promoting inclusion‘ by demanding drag queen story hour at the local library.
As the Times notes, “California bashing is a cyclical sport with a long history in the heart of Idaho’s Treasure Valley.”
In late September, former Boise State University kicker Taylor Rausa found a professionally printed card on his car, which read:
GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA
WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE
Hmmmm didn’t think I’d ever find this on my car in Boise. #ThankYou pic.twitter.com/tEcfoVi5LC
— Tyler Stephen Rausa (@T_Rausa) September 23, 2019
“One bit of advice Rausa got during the online fracas was that he should change those California plates — and fast. That’s been a longtime refrain from friendly Boiseans to their newest neighbors,” according to the report.
“If you come here and love it, everything’s fine,” said 2002 California transplant Rev. Bill Roscoe. “If you come here and fly that California flag in your driveway and have stickers on your car that say, ‘Santa Cruz,’ there’s going to be some hard feelings.”
Roscoe, the CEO of Boise Rescue Mission Ministries, keeps a sign on his desk that says “I am not from Idaho but I got here as fast as I could.”
Some Californians have tried to integrate, only to be given the cold shoulder anyway.
Patricia Flanigan also swapped her California plates for the red-white-and-blue “Famous Potatoes” version when she moved from Dana Point in 2015 to the Boise suburb of Eagle. She had retired as dean of online education and learning resources at Saddleback College.
“I took the position that I would come to Idaho and adapt to the community,” she said. She has a doctorate in education. Earlier in her career, she’d taught English as a Second Language at three Southern California community colleges. She’d also run an ESL program at Lake Tahoe Community College. When she moved, she decided to volunteer with non-English speakers.
She got an appointment with the director of a nearby community college. But the school wasn’t interested in her offer of free help. She was told to try the region’s refugee center. She sent a resume. And never heard back.
At the college interview, “I was dressed professionally, looked like a Californian,” Flanigan said. “I probably irritated [the director] by my confidence. There was no way she was going to have me volunteer…. She wanted to get rid of me.”
That professional cold shoulder was her introduction to Idaho, the 66-year-old said. Since then, she has founded a website called “Smart Strategies for Successful Living.” She has a circle of friends and a house that she loves and owns outright. She has not looked back.
“I’m not here to be a Californian,” she said. “I’m here to be a community member and contribute.” –LA Times
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According to the most recent Treasure Valley Survey conducted by the Idaho Policy Institute at Boise State University in 2018, over 70% of those asked said the region is growing too fast, vs. 50% who said the same in 2016.
“Over the course of two years,residents of the Treasure Valley have gone from being divided about whether the pace of growth was too fast or about right, to adopting the belief that it is too fast by a large margin,” the survey reports.
During a September town hall meeting held at a strip mall library, resident Yvette Zoe – who moved to Boise in 1972, said “I know that you can’t stop growth, but what are we going to do about our quality of life here?”
“My kids, they can’t buy a house because they can’t afford it right now, and they work. My grandkids, their schools are crowded.”
Newcomers are moving here for a better quality of life, but “the very thing they’re leaving in — we know where — Seattle, California, Austin,” they’re bringing to Boise, she said. “What I’d like to see is what can we do for the people that already live here that have been here for a long time.”
One solution proposed by mayoral candidate Wayne Richey is to tax newcomers more than longtime residents – which he dubbed Proposition Zero One Two Three. It would result in sixty-year residents paying no property taxes – while new residents would instead shoulder the burden.
“This gives much needed relief to longtime residents and forces new people to pay their share,” said Richey on his Facebook page. “Maybe it just might make them think twice about moving here.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 21:25 - Of Course There Was A Quid Pro Quo! That's The Essence Of Washington's "Foreign Aid"
Of Course There Was A Quid Pro Quo! That’s The Essence Of Washington’s “Foreign Aid”
Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,
Amidst all the political brouhaha regarding foreign aid, it is important that we keep in mind the nature and purposes of this particular federal program, as well as its related program, sanctions.
Foreign aid is money that the U.S. government sends to certain foreign regimes. The purpose of the money is to secure loyalty to the U.S. Empire. That loyalty comes in the form of votes in the United Nations or support for U.S. imperialist escapades abroad.
There is hardly ever a formal quid pro quo involved in foreign aid. That is, U.S. officials do not expressly say to a foreign leader, “If you will agree to become a loyal member of the U.S. Empire and support whatever the Empire does, we will send you hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars.”
Instead, foreign aid is based on an implied bribery agreement. Everyone understands what the core term of the agreement is: “We will give you this money and you, in return, will do as we dictate. If you fail to do so, your foreign aid will be terminated.”
The situation is somewhat similar to how many politicians in democratic countries handle voters. During their campaigns, the candidates offer voters all sorts of “free” programs. The voters vote for that candidate in order to receive the “free” programs. Once the candidate is elected, he provides the “free” programs or at least does his best to do so. If he doesn’t, he is voted out of office in the next election. Thus, it’s not a formal bribe because there isn’t a formal quid pro quo, but in actuality it’s bribe nonetheless.
Corruption and socialism
Another aspect of foreign aid that is important to recognize is that the money is not used to help the “poor, needy, and disadvantaged” in the foreign regime. Instead, it is used for two purposes: one, to fortify the dictatorial control that the receiving regime has over its own citizenry, and, two, to line the pockets of the political leader and the members of his regime, especially those in the military-intelligence sector.
That’s why foreign leaders are so intent on pleasing U.S. officials. When they receive a “free” check for, say, $100 million, that’s plenty of money to keep and to spread around the bureaucracies, where it then ends up in the private banks accounts of the recipients.
There is something else important to recognize about foreign aid — the foreign money comes from hard-pressed U.S. taxpayers. The IRS seizes a part of people’s income and then sends it to foreign officials. That’s what makes foreign aid one of the many socialist programs run by the federal government, programs that forcibly take money from people to whom it belongs and send it to people to whom it does not belong.
Sanctions and extortion
As previously pointed out, if a foreign regime violates the implied agreement or fails to play ball, foreign aid is terminated or never extended. Oftentimes, however, that’s not all that happens to that regime. That’s where sanctions come into play.
U.S. officials target the citizens of independent, recalcitrant regimes with economic impoverishment or death as a way to bring the regime into the fold of the empire. Once the citizens begin starving or dying from sanctions, it is hoped that one of three things will happen:
(1) the citizens revolt, oust their regime, and install a pro-U.S.-empire regime;
(2) a military coup takes place that installs a pro-U.S-empire military dictatorship; or
(3) the regime has a crisis of conscience and agrees to join the empire and support its dictates.
In any of the three cases, the sanctions will be lifted and foreign aid will begin flowing into the regime to ensure the continued loyalty of the foreign regime.
Thus, while foreign aid is a form of bribery, sanctions are more in the nature of extortion. Both programs are critically important to the operations of the U.S. Empire and its policy of foreign interventionism.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 21:05 - "Ridiculous": $1 Trillion In Orders For $7 Billion Chinese Bond
“Ridiculous”: $1 Trillion In Orders For $7 Billion Chinese Bond
In recent years, hardened bond market cynics snickered when insolvent European nations such as Italy or Greece saw 4, 5, or more times demand for their bond offerings than was for sale, whispering to themselves that such oversubscriptions for potentially worthless debt assure a very unhappy ending. Yet not even the biggest cynics were prepared for what just happened in China.
When Shanghai Pudong Development Bank sold $7 billion in convertible bonds last month, investors placed more than $1 trillion worth of orders, making this a 140 times oversubscribed offering, enough to shock even the most seasoned China investor, the FT reports.
That $1 trillion in bids was almost as large as the entire stock-market capitalisation of Apple or Microsoft — the two biggest companies in the world. “It was a ridiculous amount,” said Gerry Alfonso, head of research at Shenwan Hongyuan Securities in Shanghai. It is also a testament to how desperate the world has become in chasing yields and return, as well as just how much excess liquidity there is in the market at the moment
While new issue oversubscriptions have become the norm in recent years, this absurd case had several Chinese market unique characteristics, reflecting a surge in issuance of such equity-linked instruments in China — a rise helped by what the FT called “an unusual embrace of the product by policymakers better known for cracking down on financial innovations to ensure stability.”
So far this year, Chinese companies have issued a record $40bn in convertible bonds, up more than 80 per cent from the full-year total in 2018, according to Dealogic.
It now appears that converts have become the latest Chinese bubble due to their hybrid characteristics: while they carry a (lower) coupon payment they also offer investors the right to switch them for equity if a company’s shares rise to a certain price. For companies, convertibles offer a way to raise money more cheaply than by issuing regular debt and do not immediately dilute shareholders’ equity.
Ronald Wan, chief executive at Partners Capital in Hong Kong, said Chinese convertibles had become more attractive to investors thanks to this year’s stock rally, while the government was promoting the instruments as a way to rein in financing done off-balance sheet, or through a fragile shadow banking sector. Naturally, Wan cautioned that convertibles’ performance “depends on the quality of the issuer”, with investors typically prefering large banks and big blue-chip companies over small and mid-sized issuers, especially in a time when China’s smaller banks are either hit by bank runs or outright getting bailed out.
Shenwan’s Alfonso meanwhile warned that while large issuers such as Shanghai Pudong have seen ample liquidity in their convertibles after listing, investors in smaller issuers faced the prospect of taking heavy losses in the event of a sell-off.
“The liquidity is bad but there is liquidity,” he said. “The thing is, the price you’re going to get there is pretty horrendous.”
That, however, is not preventing every investor scrambling to be allocated a piece of the original bond in hopes of an early pop which can then be sold.
Some history: China’s first domestic convertible bond was issued in November 1992, two years after the Shanghai Stock Exchange opened. The bond, which never converted to stock, was the only onshore convertible issued for more than half a decade. Today’s market is different, as Chinese convertibles carry special features that set them apart from those in the US or Europe. For one, conversion levels can be reset after a bond is issued, significantly increasing the chances it will switch into stock.
But the biggest reason why there is unprecedented investor demand for convertibles right now is that – as of this moment – they tend to be looked on favorably by regulators because they are treated as debt until conversion, meaning investors have a better chance than equity shareholders of getting some form of repayment if the company goes bust. Bitcoin enthusiasts are well aware how violently prices can move depending on what Chinese regulators say.
Furthermore, Chinese companies are normally required to wait at least 18 months between offerings of shares, which makes convertibles a useful way to gain access to new funds quickly. “The process of [convertibles] approval still takes time — half a year or so — but it’s faster than an IPO or secondary offering,” said Yulia Wan, a senior analyst at Moody’s in Shanghai.
Ultimately, Chinese investors – well known for their propensity to jump from one bubble to another without giving it a second thought – are now rushing into converts due to hopes for quick capital appreciation. Wan said that because convertibles usually have a maturity of five to six years, a company’s shares have plenty of time to rise high enough for conversion.
The convertibles’ equity-like features mean they offer higher returns to investors than regular debt. But that alone does not explain the huge over-subscriptions common to the local market.
Alfonso of Shenwan Hongyuan said some of the rush is down to scarcity. Because existing shareholders are entitled to a large chunk of any convertible bond that is issued, the number of lots a company can offer more broadly is limited.
As such, those who want to get even a modest allocation have no choice but to submit massive bids in hopes of getting on the underwriter’s good side. Ultimately, investors know that they will get only a fraction of what they request. And because no money is required up front to make an offer, there is no reason not to bid as much as possible to maximise the odds of a successful purchase. “You put up as much as you can and hope for the best,” Alfonso said.
After all, what is the downside: it’s not like the Chinese are known to ever break a promise…
Commenting on the issue, Shard Capital’s Bill Blain writes that the Chinese converts remind him “of the glory days of the Japanese Equity Warrants market back in the 1980s. Ah, these were the days. How we played in stuff in we barely understood. Japanese companies we’d never ever heard of being the hot deal of the day, rumors of backhanders to ensure allocations and all kinds of shady goings on. These were the days….”
Much the same thing seems to be going on in Chinese convertibles – investors know they are hot so they put in vastly inflated orders in the hope they get some bonds. The future is a mobius strip loop of endless repeat moments.
Here’s the punchline: Shanghai Pudong’s insane 140x oversubscription is not even the biggest on record. As the FT notes, before regulators banned buyers from bidding through multiple accounts in March, it was not unusual for convertibles to be even more heavily over-subscribed. As such, the largest issuance on record of nearly $6bn, from China Citic Bank, was about 5,500 times oversubscribed, according to local media. That means that there were $33 trillion in orders for the bond offering, roughly three times the size of China’s entire economy.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 20:45 - Federal Court Rules Suspicionless Searches of Travelers' Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional
Federal Court Rules Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional
Authored by Activist Post
In a major victory for privacy rights at the border, a federal court in Boston ruled today that suspicionless searches of travelers’ electronic devices by federal agents at airports and other U.S. ports of entry are unconstitutional.
The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and ACLU of Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.
“This ruling significantly advances Fourth Amendment protections for millions of international travelers who enter the United States every year,” said Esha Bhandari, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “By putting an end to the government’s ability to conduct suspicionless fishing expeditions, the court reaffirms that the border is not a lawless place and that we don’t lose our privacy rights when we travel.”
“This is a great day for travelers who now can cross the international border without fear that the government will, in the absence of any suspicion, ransack the extraordinarily sensitive information we all carry in our electronic devices,” said Sophia Cope, EFF Senior Staff Attorney.
The district court order puts an end to Customs and Border Control (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asserted authority to search and seize travelers’ devices for purposes far afield from the enforcement of immigration and customs laws. Border officers must now demonstrate individualized suspicion of illegal contraband before they can search a traveler’s device.
The number of electronic device searches at U.S. ports of entry has increased significantly. Last year, CBP conducted more than 33,000 searches, almost four times the number from just three years prior.
International travelers returning to the United States have reported numerous cases of abusive searches in recent months. While searching through the phone of Zainab Merchant, a plaintiff in the Alasaad case, a border agent knowingly rifled through privileged attorney-client communications. An immigration officer at Boston Logan Airport reportedly searched an incoming Harvard freshman’s cell phone and laptop, reprimanded the student for friends’ social media postings expressing views critical of the U.S. government, and denied the student entry into the country following the search.
For the order:
https://www.eff.org/document/alasaad-v-nielsen-summary-judgment-orderFor more on this case:
https://www.eff.org/cases/alasaad-v-dukeFor more about border searches:
https://www.eff.org/issues/border-searches
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 20:25 - World's Ultra-Rich Preparing For Market Crash, UBS Warns
World’s Ultra-Rich Preparing For Market Crash, UBS Warns
A synchronized global slowdown, with no end in sight, has spooked some of the wealthiest investors around the world, according to a new survey from UBS Wealth Management, seen by Bloomberg. UBS polled wealthy investors, who are preparing for a significant stock market correction by the end of next year.
In the survey of more than 3,400 high net wealth respondents, 25% said they’ve sold risk assets, such as equities, commodities, and high-yield bonds, and have transitioned into cash. The synchronized global slowdown, coupled with a US-China trade war, were some of the greatest concerns of respondents.
“The rapidly changing geopolitical environment is the biggest concern for investors around the world,” said Paula Polito, client strategy officer at UBS GWM, in a statement. “They see global interconnectivity and reverberations of change impacting their portfolios more than traditional business fundamentals, a marked change from the past.”
About 80% of the respondents expect volatility to increase through 2020, and 55% believe a market plunge could occur before Q4 2020.
Worse, 60% of respondents expected to raise cash levels in the coming quarters (i.e., sell stocks).
Most respondents said the added caution is due to a possible blowoff top in global equity markets. About 70% of respondents are optimistic through 2030.
“The challenge is that they seem to want to respond” to short-term uncertainty “by really shortening their time horizons and shifting to assets like cash that are safe,” said Michael Crook, a managing director on the investment strategy team. Though with many of these people investing on a time horizon across decades and for future generations, that “seems like a mismatch.”
And while most respondents said they’re preparing for market turbulence in the short term, many should rethink their US outlook for the next decade. Teddy Vallee, CIO of Pervalle Global, shows that the “US is dead money for the next 10 yrs.”
US is dead money for next 10 yrs. $SPX pic.twitter.com/m3WszBeg8c
— Teddy Vallee (@TeddyVallee) October 28, 2019
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Vallee suggests that today’s parabolic up moves in stocks could actually be blowoff tops, similar to what was seen in Nikkei 225 in late 1989/90.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 20:12 - World's Largest CLO Whale Goes Cool On $750 Billion Market
World’s Largest CLO Whale Goes Cool On $750 Billion Market
The US Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLO) market appears to be in a slump thanks in large part to a pullback from Japanese institutional demand, Bloomberg reported, citing sources.
Japnese banks have been significant buyers of CLOs in the last several years, and many were forced to take on more risk in search of yield to cover rising hedge costs as the USD yield curve flattens late in the cycle.
Alarmingly, we noted as early as Monday that risky CLO securities netted investors 10% through June. But through the end of October, most of the gains were wiped out.
One of the reasons behind the slump is becoming more evident by the day, and that’s because one of the largest buyers of CLOs has become more selective about purchasing credit products in the last several months.
Norinchukin Bank, Japan’s major agricultural bank, owns a whopping $73 billion of CLOs as of June, has been recently thinning its positions.
Norinchukin has become one of the largest buyers of the $750 billion global CLO market.
Bloomberg recently reported that the agriculture bank started to decrease CLO purchases in Q2 after Japanese authorities tightened financial regulations.
“The drop in Norinchukin’s exposure was due to the volume of products maturing exceeding the amount of purchases during the quarter, at a time when there was a lack of attractive new deals,” the sources told Bloomberg.
Sources also said the bank’s CLO buying spree has likely slowed for now — mostly because its $586 billion asset portfolio has a 13% total exposure to risky credit.
Norinchukin’s massive CLO purchases have been critical drivers in the US and European CLO markets in the last year.
Sources said the bank saved the US leveraged loan market from completely seizing up in December 2018.
Norinchukin’s reduced CLO purchases and the risk of a global recession in 2020, could be some of the reasons why monthly returns of US double-B CLO bonds have plunged.
Also, Norinchukin’s pullback in CLO demand could be another reason why CLO new insurances dropped in Q3.
Between the chaos in the repo markets, now tamped down by the promise of endless liquidity from NYFRB, and the ongoing scare in the critical-for-junk-demand CLO market is mainly due to the world’s CLO whales [Japanese banks] pulling back on purchases. These banks own 15% of outstanding CLOs globally.
Is a Japanese tsunami out of CLOs nearing?
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 20:05 - Journalism School Dean Rips Into "Traumatized" Jeff Sessions Protesters For Harassing Student Journalists
Journalism School Dean Rips Into “Traumatized” Jeff Sessions Protesters For Harassing Student Journalists
Update: When the student newspaper apologized for the sin of reporting on an unhinged protest against former Attorney General Jeff Sessions at Northwestern University last week, many professional journalists expressed disbelief that college journalists would openly renounce basic journalism practices.
They spent less time focused on the actions of the protesters themselves, and after the shitstorm of snowflake outrage that the journalists ignited by daring to take photos and do journalism, Charles Whitaker – the Dean of Northwestern’s Journalism School – has made up for the imbalance : (emphasis ours)
“Journalists have a heady responsibility performing our role as the authors of the first rough draft of history, the term that the late Washington Post President and Publisher Philip L. Graham is credited with coining to describe our work. Journalists often put themselves at great risk not only to expose malfeasance, misfeasance and injustice, but also to hold a mirror up to society and reflect the maneuverings in our daily lives.
It is important work. Journalism — when executed fairly, accurately and independently — allows a society to see itself in all its splendor and strife. It often is our only chronicle of the people and events that shape and govern our existence. Conversely, when done poorly or unfairly, journalism can most certainly scar individuals and communities. Indeed, there is no shortage of instances in which journalists have parachuted into settings, particularly those occupied by vulnerable or marginalized people, and provided accounts that were devoid of any sense of cultural competency.
But let me be perfectly clear, the coverage by The Daily Northwestern of the protests stemming from the recent appearance on campus by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was in no way beyond the bounds of fair, responsible journalism. The Daily Northwestern is an independent, student-run publication. As the dean of Medill, where many of these young journalists are trained, I am deeply troubled by the vicious bullying and badgering that the students responsible for that coverage have endured for the “sin” of doing journalism.
Like those student journalists, I, too, have been approached by several student activists who were angered by the fact that they and their peers were depicted on the various platforms of The Daily engaged in the very public act of protesting the Sessions speech. I have explained to those activists that as Northwestern’s — and the city of Evanston’s — principal paper of record, The Daily had an obligation to capture the event, both for the benefit of its current audience as well as for posterity. I have also offered that it is naïve, not to mention wrong-headed, to declare, as many of our student activists have, that The Daily staff and other student journalists had somehow violated the personal space of the protestors by reporting on the proceedings, which were conducted in the open and were designed, ostensibly, to garner attention.
That Daily staffers and other students used social media to track down protestors for comment and to verify facts — another affront, according to The Daily’s detractors — is, in my mind and the minds of my colleagues, the kind of industrious reporting and information-gathering that we expect from enterprising reporters. Our young reporters did not root through trash cans, trespass on private property or purloin personal documents. What they tried to do was ask questions and take pictures that they hoped would offer the most accurate account of this wrenching event – one in which the images captured by The Daily’s photographers may provide the only evidence of what actually transpired in the interaction between students and campus police.
Some have also charged that our students are rude and insensitive interrogators. They say our students behave like boorish voyeurs when approaching students from marginalized communities. My colleagues and I are mindful of these accusations and are working with our students on their reporting techniques. We absolutely want them to introduce themselves as journalists before peppering subjects with a battery of questions. We want to make sure that they understand that private individuals have no obligation to speak with reporters. And we want them to treat everyone they approach — no matter what their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or political persuasion — with dignity and respect.
But I patently reject the notion that our students have no right to report on communities other than those from which they hail, and I will never affirm that students who do not come from marginalized communities cannot understand or accurately convey the struggles of those populations. And, unlike our young charges at The Daily, who in a heartfelt, though not well-considered editorial, apologized for their work on the Sessions story, I absolutely will not apologize for encouraging our students to take on the much-needed and very difficult task of reporting on our life and times at Northwestern and beyond.
I understand why The Daily editors felt the need to issue their mea culpa. They were beat into submission by the vitriol and relentless public shaming they have been subjected to since the Sessions stories appeared. I think it is a testament to their sensitivity and sense of community responsibility that they convinced themselves that an apology would affect a measure of community healing.
I might offer, however, that their well-intentioned gesture sends a chilling message about journalism and its role in society. It suggests that we are not independent authors of the community narrative, but are prone to bowing to the loudest and most influential voices in our orbit. To be sure, journalism has often bowed to the whim and will of the rich and powerful, so some might argue that it is only fair that those who feel dispossessed and disenfranchised have their turn at calling the journalistic shots. But that is not the solution. We need more diversity among our student journalists (and in journalism writ large). We need more voices from different backgrounds in our newsrooms helping to provide perspective on our coverage. But regardless of their own identities, our student journalists must be allowed — and must have the courage — to cover our community freely and unfettered by harassment each time members of the community feel they have been wronged.
This has been a difficult time for the students studying journalism at Medill. They have been under attack for merely doing what we encourage journalists to do: ask questions and write stories that illuminate the Northwestern/Evanston experience for anyone who might be interested in our community. Have they made mistakes? Most assuredly. They are students learning the craft. But I firmly maintain that our students do not act with malice aforethought. By and large, they want to do the right thing and reflect the community accurately.
So to our student activists, I say let’s have a dialogue about what journalism is and what you might expect when you hold a protest in a public setting. Feel free to critique the coverage. That’s what The Daily’s opinion pages are for. Better yet, join the staff. The Daily is not and should not be the lone provenance of Medill students. I assure you, your input would be welcomed. But waging war on our students on social media — threatening them both physically and emotionally — is beyond the pale. Our community deserves a more civil level of discourse.
And to the swarm of alums and journalists who are outraged about The Daily editorial and have been equally rancorous in their condemnation of our students on social media, I say, give the young people a break. I know you feel that you were made of sterner stuff and would have the fortitude and courage of your conviction to fend off the campus critics. But you are not living with them through this firestorm, facing the brutal onslaught of venom and hostility that has been directed their way on weaponized social media. Don’t make judgments about them or their mettle until you’ve walked in their shoes. What they need at this moment is our support and the encouragement to stay the course.
Journalism is under assault in a variety of spheres. But my hope is that we at Northwestern can model ways in which a community can promote freedom of the press while also demonstrating how we conduct healthy and respectful debate. I would be happy to do my part to facilitate that dialogue.”
How long until he is “boycotted” out of a job?
* * *
As The College Fix’s Greg Piper detailed earlier, the spirit of Antifa is infecting student protesters. Not necessarily the gleeful violence against anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders, but the visceral aversion to being photographed.
Photography, you may be aware, is kind of important to journalism. But not important enough for The Daily Northwestern, which puts the feelings of public protesters ahead of its fidelity to journalism.
In an editorial drawing bafflement among professional journalists, the student newspaper at Northwestern University apologized for harming – yes, harming – the students who turned out to protest an appearance by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
What constitutes that harm? Not just taking their photos, but asking them for comment. (Keep in mind Northwestern has an elite yet unaccredited journalism school, Medill.)
Video from the evening revealed protesters reacting as if they were getting hit by tear gas and rubber bullets in Hong Kong, screaming that Sessions had “violated” them and they were “fighting for their lives right now.” The Daily reported that some were “climbing through open windows and pushing through doors.”
Protesters knew the cameras were documenting their meltdown. One said they were “not being cute for the Medill photographers,” and an administrator reportedly tried to block someone recording the event.
And they apparently let the Daily have it for doing its job.
There’s a lot to comment on in this Daily Northwestern editorial, but apologizing for contacting people to ask if they’re willing to be interviewed? Regretting that you photographed protesters protesting in public? https://t.co/2GmEF4ZyZq
— Gregory Pratt (@royalpratt) November 11, 2019
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The editorial board starts its cringeworthy column by saying the Daily “was not the paper that Northwestern students deserve.”
By sending a photographer to cover the protest, the newspaper “contributed to the harm students experienced” at the … “traumatic event”:
Some protesters found photos posted to reporters’ Twitter accounts retraumatizing and invasive. Those photos have since been taken down. On one hand, as the paper of record for Northwestern, we want to ensure students, administrators and alumni understand the gravity of the events that took place Tuesday night. However, we decided to prioritize the trust and safety of students who were photographed. We feel that covering traumatic events requires a different response than many other stories. While our goal is to document history and spread information, nothing is more important than ensuring that our fellow students feel safe — and in situations like this, that they are benefitting from our coverage rather than being actively harmed by it. We failed to do that last week, and we could not be more sorry.
If making students “feel safe” is really the newspaper’s mission, it should just shut down entirely. News coverage always makes someone feel unsafe. (See the repeated trashing of campus newspapers.)
It didn’t get any better from there. The Daily apologized for using the university directory to contact students for interviews – a core practice of any competent college newsroom going back decades – but one that apparently unnerved some students:
We recognize being contacted like this is an invasion of privacy, and we’ve spoken with those reporters — along with our entire staff — about the correct way to reach out to students for stories. [No “correct” way is given.]
This is the best satire of an obscenely woke college newspaper I’ve ever seen. Kudos Daily Northwestern! You all deserve jobs at the Onion. https://t.co/CbufS1q7zt pic.twitter.com/RzeTaprFfH
— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) November 12, 2019
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It’s even giving a mea culpa for identifying sources who agreed to be named. When you talk to a reporter covering a protest, and she asks you your name, and you tell her, you realize you might be named in a story, right?
The paper removed the name of a protester who complained because, alas, it doesn’t want to help The Man:
Any information The Daily provides about the protest [like reporting on it?] can be used against the participating students — while some universities grant amnesty to student protesters, Northwestern does not. We did not want to play a role in any disciplinary action that could be taken by the University. Some students have also faced threats for being sources in articles published by other outlets.
It operates under these daycare rules because it’s not a “professional publication.” You got that right, editors.
And these twits had the gall to claim their groveling editorial is in line with the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics: “Ethical journalism treats sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect.” Yeah – it also consists of journalism.
It’s not clear how the Daily can do its job without, you know, taking photos, asking for interviews and naming people it quotes, but like the surgeon who “just got reinstated … well, not officially,” they’ll figure it out:
Going forward, we are working on setting guidelines for source outreach, social media and covering marginalized groups. As students at Northwestern, we are also grappling with the impact of Tuesday’s events, and as a student organization, we are figuring out how we can support each other and our communities through distressing experiences that arise on campus. We will also work to balance the need for information and the potential harm our news coverage may cause.
“Harm” and “trauma” are the talismanic words with which exponents of the successor ideology are euthanizing liberal values in the rising generation. All who served as apologists or useful idiots for these ideas are to blame. https://t.co/vsdpzmpr06 pic.twitter.com/U0NFPQoVnB
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) November 12, 2019
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What the Daily is really saying is that it will do whatever any “marginalized” group tells it to do. Print our demand list in full? Check. Hide our identities when we protest in public? Check. Advocate for our cause as a condition of getting interviews with us? Check.
And most of all, grovel and debase themselves whenever we noble marginalized angels complain about anything you do? Of course. This column has already waved the white flag on the practice of independent journalism.
Instead, the Daily has made plain that it’s the PR mouthpiece for any person or group claiming to be marginalized.
Editor-in-chief Troy Closson tried to walk back the editorial in a tweet thread early Tuesday, citing the pressure he has felt as only the third black EIC in the history of the paper.
But the most he’ll say is that the editors “over-corrected.” The editorial remains unchanged as of now, including its ridiculous insistence that “ethical journalism” requires the abdication of journalism.
/5 And our statement and the areas it fell short were largely a result of that — of how challenging it can be for marginalized students to navigate situations like those this past week while balancing our identities, roles as student journalists and positions as students at NU.
— Troy Closson (@troy_closson) November 12, 2019
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I’m not buying his claim that the Daily editors are hobbled by their “gaps in knowledge about what journalism consists of.” Its newspaper office in the Norris building is a four-minute walk from the Medill school on Northwestern’s campus (below).
Even though it doesn’t formally oversee the newspaper, the J-school could provide some helpful tips for the editors on covering protests. But it’s not clear from the editorial that the editors would actually follow the advice of veteran journalists.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 19:45 - Chicago Youth Wreak Havoc With 'Shoplifting Mobs'; Employee's Head Slammed Into Glass Case
Chicago Youth Wreak Havoc With ‘Shoplifting Mobs’; Employee’s Head Slammed Into Glass Case
Organized shoplifting teams in Chicago are using children as young as 10-years-old to hit retailers in waves, according to CWBChicago.
Chicago police detain two young men and recover duffle bags filled with allegedly stolen merchandise in Lincoln Park on Saturday. Bret Miller via YouTube Last weekend police reported that stores in the city’s Magnificent Mile, Lincoln Park and Loop neighborhoods had been hit hard – while one retail employee was reportedly pepper-sprayed and another had their head slammed into a glass merchandise case.
Retailers are dealing with a wave of organized shoplifting teams that frequently use juveniles to do their dirty work. North Side locations of Forever 21, H&M, Ulta Beauty, DSW, Patagonia, and Burlington have been struck repeatedly — sometimes twice within hours.
On Sunday, a team of six teenage shoplifters was spotted at the Michigan Avenue Victoria’s Secret store minutes after they struck the nearby H&M location, 840 North Michigan. Police arrested two members of the crew after an H&M manager identified them.
About five minutes later, around 5:10 p.m., a two-person shoplifting team stole bags of winter coats from Patagonia, 1800 North Clybourn. The offenders stuffed the high-end gear into duffle bags, pushed employees, and fled. No arrests were made.
The same Patagonia store was struck by a group of kids at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday. Photographer Bret Miller captured video of cops detaining the youths while officers pulled piles of coats out of duffle bags on a nearby side street. Police detained five juveniles. –CWBChicago
Meanwhile, a local Marshall’s location was hit by a group of “very young kids accompanied by a 6’2″ man. According to a police officer who chased them, they were “real little… 10 years old.”
on Saturday afternoon, fire personnel transported a Forever 21 employee to Mercy Hospital after a shoplifting team deployed pepper-spray and fought with customers at the chain’s Loop location, 10 South State. Witnesses said the thieves fled into a nearby subway station with “big bags of merchandise.”
On Friday, juvenile shoplifting crews struck twice in the South Loop, hitting DSW around 10:10 a.m. and Burlington three hours later. No arrests were made.
Theft crews struck at least four downtown stores last Wednesday evening.
Around 5 p.m., seven thieves stole merchandise and knocked down the manager at Zumiez, 2 South State. When the employee tried to take back some of the stolen property, one offender punched him in the face and pushed his head into a glass display case, according to Chicago police. The victim refused medical attention and the shoplifters, all between 13- and 20-years-old, got away with about $1,000 worth of goods. –CWBChicago
Just another day in progressive utopia!
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 19:25 - Global Business Surveys Slump To Worst Level Since The Great Recession
Global Business Surveys Slump To Worst Level Since The Great Recession
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
Two surveys of global businesses are at their lowest point since the last recession over a decade ago. Both surveys were released Monday and both indicate that it’s just as bad now as it was at the end of the Great Recession.
Several reports are showing that Americans have not recovered in the past ten years from the previous recession. This makes the onslaught of another economic downturn daunting at best and it’ll be devastating for many.
The IHS Markit global business outlook – which surveys 12,000 companies three times a year – fell to the worst level since 2009, when data was first collected.
The Ifo world economic outlook, which surveys 1,230 people in 117 countries, fell in the fourth quarter to the worst level since the second quarter of 2009.
Markit’s poll found optimism for activity, employment and profits in the year ahead were all at the lowest level since the financial crisis. Markit also reported a decline in planned investment spending, with inflation expectations at a three-year low. –Market Watch
According to Market Watch, the Ifo Institute said assessments of the current situation were unfavorable, particularly in emerging markets. In advanced economies, it was primarily estimates for the coming months that had declined. In emerging markets, the downward trend was based mostly in Asia and in advanced economies, it was concentrated in the United States.
This decreasing optimism is countering the rise in the stock market. Odd economic data has been surfacing lately that makes little sense. For example, last week, consumer optimism fell while consumer spending rose.
Americans continued to spend money and use debt to fund their lifestyles even though they are less confident in the economy. If both of those things are true, many Americans are setting themselves up for a bumpy ride when the next recession does hit.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 19:05 - Sanders Hot With Nurses; Earns Endorsement From Largest Union In Country
Sanders Hot With Nurses; Earns Endorsement From Largest Union In Country
Bernie Sanders has earned the endorsement of the nation’s largest union of registered nurses, which will announce their decision at a California event on Friday, according to Bloomberg.
The 150,000-member union cites his support for Medicare for All, veterans health care and in boosting the labor movement. The union endorsed Sanders in his 2016 Democratic primary bid against eventual nominee Hillary Clinton, and the early endorsement in the 2020 race is a win for him amid a crowded field that includes fellow progressive Elizabeth Warren.
“For nurses, our solidarity is a matter of life or death for our patients,” said union president Jean Ross. “We need a president who makes it easier for us to stand together and hold our employers accountable for putting people above profits.”
Sanders will attend the Friday announcement in Oakland as part of a series of California campaign stops that include Fresno, Long Beach and East Los Angeles.
The 78-year-old Sanders was the only 2020 Democratic candidate to actually sit for an in-person interview with the union, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called in via video chat and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. sent them a three-minute video.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris blew the union off.
As the New York Times notes, the union endorsement also comes with a giant purse:
The endorsement also brings Mr. Sanders the support of the union’s super PAC, a thorny issue given that Mr. Sanders, like most of the Democrats seeking the party’s 2020 nomination, has disavowed support from super PACs.
In 2016 the union’s super PAC spent $5 million backing Mr. Sanders in the primary contest against Hillary Clinton, a relative pittance in the world of super PACs (the one supporting Jeb Bush blew through $87 million). Still, it spent more money backing Mr. Sanders than was spent by any other super PAC on behalf of Mrs. Clinton or other Democrats in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses.
According to the union’s executive director Bonnie Castillo, the super PAC “will be activated” for Sanders, and vowed not to attack other 2020 candidates.
“We’re not going negative,” said Castillo. “We are a very positive force. It’s a reflection of who we are as a profession. We are healers.”
Sanders, responding to the decision, said “What the nurses understand is that the current health care system is not only dysfunctional but extraordinarily cruel.”
“Together we are finally going to do what should have been done decades ago and make sure that every man, woman and child in this country has quality health care as a human right.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 18:45 - "I Feel Like A Stranger In A Strange Land…"
“I Feel Like A Stranger In A Strange Land…”
Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
“Secrecy begets tyranny.”
– Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
“Thinking doesn’t pay. Just makes you discontented with what you see around you.”
– Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
When I read quotes by men like H.L. Mencken and Robert Heinlein, I realize I’m not really a stranger in a strange land, even though I feel that way most of the time. These cynical, critical thinking, libertarian minded gentlemen understood government tended towards corruption and tyranny, the populace tended towards ignorance and distraction, and reality eventually teaches a harsh lesson to fools, knaves and dumbasses.
Sometimes we think the current day worldly circumstances are new and original, when human nature, politicians, and governments never really change. When Mencken and Heinlein were writing and providing social commentary during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, they observed the same fallacies, foolishness, lack of self-responsibility, government malfeasance, and inability of the majority to think critically, that are rampant in society today.
The quotes above, written during the 1950s, are even more pertinent today. As the ongoing Surveillance State attempted coup against president Trump approaches its denouement, the fabric of this country is being torn asunder. It is the secrecy in which the Deep State has operated without oversight which has led to government tyranny. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden exposed the secrets of powerful interests operating within the CIA, NSA, FBI, White House, Congress and military industrial complex, revealing the malevolent disregard for the Constitutional rights of American citizens and wielding of power for power’s sake.
The collection of all electronic communications by Americans by all-powerful, unaccountable Deep State psychopaths is worse than anything conceived by Orwell in 1984. The fact Assange and Snowden are treated as traitors and criminals reveals the Deep State is still in control of our political and legal systems. Even though Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Clinton and Obama used their Deep State power to try and overthrow Trump, he still toes the company line by calling Assange and Snowden criminals. Government tyranny is still going strong.
Heinlein’s point about thinking is well taken. When you look at what is going on in this country and around the world with a critical eye, how could you not be discontented with what you see. We have government run schools inhabited by social justice engineers, teaching our children there are 47 genders, but not basic math or how to read and spell. We have the masses glorying in their ignorance as they worship silicone inflated shallow idols and vote for socialists and communists to provide them with free shit.
Meanwhile, the national debt just surpassed $23 trillion, annual deficits will never fall below $1 trillion again, the $200 trillion of unfunded unpayable welfare liabilities are ignored, the Fed and other central banks are printing at hyper-speed to achieve 2% GDP growth (at least the stock market is at all-time highs – making the .1% happy), and half the country despises the other half.
I find myself trying not to think because I just get angry about virtually everything I see. As a libertarian minded person who saw the vile mistreatment and abusive lies flung at one of the few decent human beings in politics – Ron Paul – there is absolutely nothing being done by the despicable dung merchants in Washington D.C. or the feckless financiers inhabiting the Eccles building which benefit myself, my children or future generations.
The raping and pillaging of the national wealth go on unabated, by billionaires, operating in the shadows, utilizing the mechanisms of the Deep State and carried out by highly compensated lackeys in NYC and D.C. The military industrial complex resists all efforts by Trump to extract U.S. forces from the Middle East, as never-ending war fills their coffers with profits. Even though we proclaim energy independence, we somehow seem to need Syrian oil. Even though everyone knows the Saudis are evil fuckers, we continue to kiss their ass for oil.
The vast majority of Americans choose not to think, not because it would cause them discontent, but because they are incapable of critical thought. Our joke of an educational system has taught generations of Americans how to feel, rather than how to think. Government controlled schools serve the purposes of the Deep State – dumb down the populace through social engineering, rewarding mediocrity, obscuring history, punishing critical thinking, feminizing boys and drugging those who don’t conform.
The dumbing down of the masses makes them pliable and easily manipulated through the mass media propaganda spewed from the boob tube and social media conglomerates. The unholy alliance between big tech, big media and big government keeps the masses uninformed, misinformed and distracted by meaningless minutia. The truth is hidden and obscured at all costs. A huge swath of populace will unquestioningly believe whatever they are told to believe, while millions more are so distracted with their iGadgets, they aren’t even paying attention.
The ruling class doesn’t want people thinking why they have used the military industrial complex in securing Syrian oil fields, supporting Saudi aggression, threatening Iran, attempting a coup in Venezuela, creating havoc in the Ukraine, occupying Afghanistan, and treating Russia and China as imminent threats, when their narrative is we are self-sufficient with regards to oil. The propaganda press peddles half truths about being a net exporter, when we still import 6 million barrels of oil per day.
The fracking miracle is really a miracle that hundreds of companies could issue junk bonds as they lose money on every barrel pumped out of the ground. The Fed’s easy money “solution” just blew another bubble in fracking. The oligarchs know it’s a farce, that’s why they are using the military to secure oil around the world by creating chaos and then making the world safe for democracy by bombing the shit out of the Middle East.
Heinlein published Stranger in a Strange Land in 1961, even though the original idea was conceived in 1948 as a modernized version of Kipling’s The Jungle Book, with the child raised by Martians instead of wolves. He didn’t think society was ready for the themes he tackled during the button downed 1950s. The cultural revolution of the 1960s saw a broader acceptance of questioning government power, organized religion, and what individual freedom and liberty meant in society.
The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to and understanding of humans and their culture. It is set in a post-Third World War United States, where organized religions are politically powerful. There is a World Federation of Free Nations, including the demilitarized US, with a world government supported by Special Service troops. Heinlein sure had a perceptive view of the future, as world government is still the goal of globalists and organized religions are more corrupt and powerful than ever.
Heinlein always considered himself a libertarian. In a letter written in 1967 he said, “As for libertarian, I’ve been one all my life, a radical one. You might use the term ‘philosophical anarchist’ or ‘autarchist’ about me, but ‘libertarian’ is easier to define and fits well enough.” The theme of personal freedom resonates throughout his body of work. Heinlein repeatedly addressed certain social themes: the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance, the nature of sexual relationships, the obligation individuals owe to their societies, the influence of organized religion on culture and government, and the tendency of society to repress nonconformist thought.
Much like Mencken, Orwell, and Steinbeck, as Heinlein aged, he became more cynical about government and society. He feared our culture and form of government was fatally flawed. Again, he foresaw where we are today – having lost freedoms, liberties, and rights as government laws, regulations and taxes have expanded.
“At the time I wrote Methuselah’s Children I was still politically quite naive and still had hopes that various libertarian notions could be put over by political processes … It [now] seems to me that every time we manage to establish one freedom, they take another one away. Maybe two. And that seems to me characteristic of a society as it gets older, and more crowded, and higher taxes, and more laws.”
– Robert Heinlein
Government Power, Corruption and Tyranny
“Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried. Democracy’s worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents – a depressingly low level, but what else can you expect?”
– Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
“Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the rest stupid fumbling.”
– Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
When I read Heinlein’s view of democracy, the American populace, and politicians from the 1950s, it makes me wonder whether my cynical pessimistic assessment of our country is nothing new. Has the country been wallowing in ignorance, lack of virtue, parasitic politicians and government incompetence for decades and my depression with the current state of affairs is nothing new among libertarian minded people?
Since human nature never changes, with a certain percentage of the population driven by greed, a psychotic thirst for power, craving for control over the masses, and unwillingness to govern while keeping the interests of future generations under consideration, I guess it’s just the level of intensity that matters. The cyclical nature of history is pointing towards the intensity level of discontent reaching a crescendo in the near future.
Even though corruption among government parasites has always existed, it currently permeates the system like a vampire squid on the face of America. It’s the invisible government of the Deep State which has sucked the life from our nation, extracting the national wealth in cahoots with its conduit – The Federal Reserve.
The Deep State, utilizing corrupted politicians and feckless bureaucrats within the halls of Congress and surveillance state agencies, have been conducting a three-year coup against a sitting president. The blatant disregard for the Constitution and rule of law shows the ruling class is convinced they have dumbed down a sufficient number of citizens so they can do whatever they please, while employing their corporate propaganda media to spin their coup as legitimate and rightful.
The oligarchs in control of our financial system have convinced the masses running up the national debt to $23 trillion, running annual deficits exceeding $1 trillion, and accumulating $200 trillion of unfunded pension and welfare liabilities are in their best interests. Not only that, the current crop of socialist presidential candidates wants to add tens of trillions more to the debt load by promising student loan debt write-offs, free college education, open borders, and Medicare for all.
The masses are onboard after watching the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury, and Congress hand over trillions to the Wall Street cabal that almost destroyed the global financial system in 2008 with their criminal mortgage debt control fraud. If free shit is OK for wealthy bankers, why not free shit for everyone else?
Since September the Fed has been acting like we are in the midst of the 2008/2009 crisis, pumping over $200 billion (not QE) into the veins of the Wall Street junkie banks who were suffering withdrawal symptoms from a devastatingly high 2.25% Federal Funds rate. The result has been a soaring stock market, further enriching the .1%, while the average Joe wallows in $14 trillion of consumer debt and the Wall Street shylocks charge 20% interest rates on credit card debt.
Delinquency rates on auto loans exceed the levels of 2009. The housing market has hit a wall. When prices begin to fall, mortgage delinquencies will soar. The real delinquency rates on student loans exceed 25%, as degrees in lesbian studies lead to waitress jobs at Applebees. The narrative about best job market ever is a farce, as the growth has been in low paying, no healthcare benefit jobs in the service industries.
Heinlein’s view of politicians, their corruptibility, and ability to tell half truths which are really lies, is even more evident in today’s world. The candidates are hand picked by the corporate interests. Their salaries while in office are fairly modest, but they leave office as multi-millionaires and are paid handsomely on the Boards of the corporations they were supposed to regulate.
Bernanke and Yellen now make more giving one speech at a Wall Street bank than they made annually as the Federal Reserve Chairman. Every local, state and federal politician is bought off to some extent. They do the bidding of the vested interests who got them elected, not what is best for their constituents. We are lost in a blizzard of lies. A society addicted to falsehoods and bereft of truth will surely degrade and eventually collapse.
“He’s an honest politician–he stays bought.”
– Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
“The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.”
– Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Liberty, Freedom & Obligations to Society
“I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.” – Robert Heinlein
Heinlein still believed in the noble decency of the majority of people back in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The climactic scene in It’s a Wonderful Life captured the belief that even though there will always be cold hearted evil bankers like Mr. Potter (the Jamie Dimon of his day) feeding off the misery of others, most people are good hearted, kind and giving. Is Heinlein’s view applicable in today’s world? Bad news, bad people and crime produce views, clicks and eyeballs for the corporate media complex.
Stories about good people doing good things on a daily basis are boring to those controlling the narrative. The purpose of the propagandists supporting the Deep State is to keep the masses fearful and distracted. Scare tactics and keeping half the country at the throats of the other half is good for business. While the masses are distracted by trivialities, boogeymen (Russians), and impeachment porn, the ruling class absconds with what remains of the national wealth.
Based upon Heinlein’s definition of a dying culture, we have already crossed the Rubicon. The level of vitriol spewed on a daily basis on social media, by the propagandist media, by politicians, and by intellectual yet idiots is a clear indication of a culture gasping its dying breath. There are still good people in this country who can be counted on by their neighbors, friends and families. As the current culture dies and is swept away during this Fourth Turning, what kind of culture will follow?
Will decent, libertarian minded, freedom loving people arise to guide the country towards a better future? Or will totalitarian minded evil men crush the hopes and dreams of the good people and reign over an even darker period in our history. Goodness without backbone, wisdom and willingness to fight to the death will be overrun by evil.
“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”
– Robert A. Heinlein
“But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.”
– Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
I still feel like a stranger in a strange land. But, based on my interactions with good people with hard, cold wisdom over the last ten years, I believe there is still hope for our nation. I think there are enough good people with common sense, critical thinking skills, and the courage and fortitude to stand up to the Deep State and defeat the evil permeating the current social order. Conflict against fellow Americans looms. Allying yourself with good people is essential. Maybe I’m being naïve believing good can win over evil, but it’s better than throwing in the towel and accepting our fate.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/12/2019 – 18:25
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