Today’s News 15th February 2018

Paul Craig Robert Asks "Do Financial Markets Still Exist?"

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

For many decades the Federal Reserve has rigged the bond market by its purchases. And for about a century, central banks have set interest rates (mainly to stabilize their currency’s exchange rate) with collateral effects on securities prices. It appears that in May 2010, August 2015, January/February 2016, and currently in February 2018 the Fed is rigging the stock market by purchasing S&P equity index futures in order to arrest stock market declines driven by fundamentals, and to push prices back up in keeping with a decade of money creation.

No one should find this a surprising suggestion. The Bank of Japan has a long tradition of propping up the Japanese equity market with large purchases of equities. The European Central Bank purchases corporate as well as government bonds. In 1989 Fed governor Robert Heller said that as the Fed already rigs the bond market with purchases, the Fed can also rig the stock market to stop price declines. That is the reason the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) was created in 1987.

Looking at the chart of futures activity on the E-mini S&P 500, we see an uptick in activity on February 2 when the market dropped, with higher increases in future activity last Monday and Tuesday placing Tuesday’s futures activity at about four times the daily average of the previous month. Futures activity last Wednesday and Thursday remained above the average daily activity of the previous month, and Friday’s activity was about three times the previous month’s daily average. The result of this futures activity was to send the market up, because the futures activity was purchases, not sales.

Who would be purchasing S&P equity futures when the market is collapsing from under them?

The most likely answer we can come up with is that the Fed is acting for the PPT. The Fed can actually stop a market decline without purchasing a single futures contract. All that has to happen is that a trader recognized as operating for the Fed or PPT enters a futures bid just below the current price. The traders see the bid as the Fed establishing a floor below which it will not let the market fall. Expecting continuing declines to make the bid effective, they front-run the bid, and the hedge funds algorithms pick it up, and up goes the market.

Is there another explanation for the shift in the market from decline to rise? Are retail investors purchasing dips? Not according to this report in Bloomberg that last week a record $23.6 billion was removed from the world’s largest ETF, the SPDR S& 500 index fund. Here we see retail investors abandoning the market.

If central banks can produce zero interest rates simultaneously with a massive increase in indebtedness, why can’t they keep equity prices far above the values supported by fundamentals?

As central banks have learned that they can rig financial asset prices to the delight of everyone in the market, in what sense does capitalism, free markets, and price discovery exist? Have we entered a new kind of economic system?
US Missile Defense Agency Wants Laser-Drones & Hypersonic-Weapons In Biggest-Ever Budget Boost
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has requested the largest-ever budget increase of $9.9 billion in funding for the 2019 fiscal year, citing growing intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) threats from North Korea and ballistic missile threats from Iran.

In fact, the request for the 2019 fiscal year is the single most significant request from the Agency since 1985, when President Reagan first established the Strategic Defense Initiative.

MDA fully supports President Trump’s National Defense Strategy of increased deficit spending, which allows the nation to: “Compete, Deter, and Win,” in the next world war.

The agency also wants to spend $269 million on laser drones to shoot North Korean ICBMs out of the sky, along with upgrading the nation’s defense systems against hypersonic threats.

The increase in MDA funding will allow the continued developments and deployments of integrated, layered missile defense systems to combat against missiles threats on the homeland.

MDA highlights their ten easy steps to intercepting a missile headed for the continental United States:

An ICBM can travel at extremely high speeds—at times more than 15,000 mph, or almost 20 times the speed of sound. Kinetic energy interceptors can travel fast enough to create closing speeds exceeding 25,000 mph. The speeds, trajectories, and points of launch that must be considered always change. In missile defense, everything is about precision. The BMDS must not only work in terms of milliseconds, but the missiles and warheads the system is targeting have bull’s-eyes measured in centimeters.

“Recent escalation of the threat from North Korea has demonstrated an advanced and accelerated capability,” the Agency’s Budget Estimates report notes. “North Korea is committed to developing a long-range, nuclear-armed missile that is capable of posing a direct threat to the United States.”

“Iran is fielding increased numbers of theater ballistic missiles, improving its existing inventory, and is developing technical capabilities to produce an ICBM, and this effort is benefiting from its ballistic missile and space launch vehicle programs,” the Agency’s report wrote. Iran’s ballistic missile program has not tested any missile capable of striking intercontinental ranges, but its rockets can strike as far as southeastern Europe which is concerning to NATO forces.

To combat the threats of North Korea and Iran, the MDA states the United States must continue developing new defense capabilities to tackle the future of risks. That means increasing investments in advanced technologies that bring upgraded capacities to the warfighter.
- Technology Maturation Initiatives (PE 0604115C): MDA requests $148.8 million to build on the foundational successes in Weapons Technology and Discrimination Sensor Technology. MDA will integrate an advanced sensor into the tactically proven Multispectral Targeting System and MQ-9 combination to address precision track and discrimination performance of this technology with the goal of eventually migrating to a space sensor layer. MDA’s plan is to continue the design to begin fabrication of a UAV-borne laser to address boost phase missile defense risks. Scalable, efficient, and compact high-energy lasers can be game –changing capabilities within missile defense architectures.
- Hypersonic Defense (PE 0604181C): MDA is requesting $120.4 million in FY 2019. MDA will execute a rigorous systems engineering process, identify and mature full kill chain technology, provide analysis and assessment of target of opportunity events, and execute near term sensor and command and control capability upgrades to address defense from hypersonic threats. This effort will execute the Defense Science Board’s recommendations to develop and deliver a set of material solutions to address and defeat hypersonic threats informed by a set of near-term technology demonstrations. An integrated set of enhancements will provide incremental capability measured by progress and knowledge points in the following areas: establishment of systems engineering needs and requirements to identify alternative material solutions; execution of a series of sensor technology
The Hill outlines where the MDA plans on spending the remainder of its budget on modernizing the nuclear arsenal and missile defense systems across the United States.

That would buy 43 Aegis interceptors for $1.7 billion, four Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) interceptors and 10 silos for $2.1 billion, 82 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors for $1.1 billion and 240 Patriot Advanced Capability Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors for $1.1 billion.

The Pentagon also says the budget would allow it to develop an additional missile field in Alaska for the GMD and puts it on track to have a total of 64 deployed and operational GMD interceptors by 2023, 20 more than it has now.

The GMD is the system in Alaska and California that would defend against a long-range missile attack such as from North Korea. The system’s most recent test last year was successful, though critics have said it is too costly and has a spotty testing record.

And lastly, we will leave you with David Stockman, the former Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, who warned that the out of control spending at the United States military will contribute to the coming economic problems in America.

The fact that the US military is “conducting seven wars that we don’t need to have,” said Stockman, is why there are the troubles with the military readiness that warmongering politicians are using to justify further war spending increases.
Is John Brennan The Mastermind Behind Russiagate?

Authored by Mike Whitney via Unz.com,

The report (“The Dossier”) that claims that Donald Trump colluded with Russia, was paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign.

The company that claims that Russia hacked DNC computer servers, was paid by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign.

The FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Trump’s alleged connections to Russia was launched on the basis of information gathered from a report that was paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign.

The surveillance of a Trump campaign member (Carter Page) was approved by a FISA court on the basis of information from a report that was paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign.

The Intelligence Community Analysis or ICA was (largely or partially) based on information from a report that was paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign. (more on this below)

The information that was leaked to the media alleging Russia hacking or collusion can be traced back to claims that were made in a report that was paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign.

The entire Russia-gate investigation rests on the “unverified and salacious” information from a dossier that was paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton Campaign. Here’s how Stephen Cohen sums it up in a recent article at The Nation:

“Steele’s dossier… was the foundational document of the Russiagate narrative…from the time its installments began to be leaked to the American media in the summer of 2016, to the US “Intelligence Community Assessment” of January 2017….the dossier and subsequent ICA report remain the underlying sources for proponents of the Russiagate narrative of “Trump-Putin collision.” (“Russia gate or Intel-gate?”, The Nation)

There’s just one problem with Cohen’s statement, we don’t really know the extent to which the dossier was used in the creation of the Intelligence Community Assessment. (The ICA was the IC’s flagship analysis that was supposed to provide ironclad proof of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.) According to some reports, the contribution was significant. Check out this excerpt from an article at Business Insider:

“Intelligence officials purposefully omitted the dossier from the public intelligence report they released in January about Russia’s election interference because they didn’t want to reveal which details they had corroborated, according to CNN.” (“Mueller reportedly interviewed the author of the Trump-Russia dossier — here’s what it alleges, and how it aligned with reality”, Business Insider)

Bottom line: Despite the denials of former-CIA Director John Brennan, the dossier may have been used in the ICA.

In the last two weeks, documents have been released that have exposed the weak underpinnings of the Russia investigation while at the same time revealing serious abuses by senior-level officials at the DOJ and FBI. The so called Nunes memo was the first to point out these abuses, but it was the 8-page “criminal referral” authored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham that gave credence to the claims. Here’s a blurb from the document:

“It appears the FBI relied on admittedly uncorroborated information, funded by and obtained for Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign, in order to conduct surveillance of an associate of the opposing presidential candidate. It did so based on Mr. Steele’s personal credibility and presumably having faith in his process of obtaining the information. But there is substantial evidence suggesting that Mr. Steele materially misled the FBI about a key aspect of his dossier efforts, one which bears on his credibility.”

There it is. The FBI made a “concerted effort to conceal information from the court” in order to get a warrant to spy on a member of a rival political campaign. So –at the very least– there was an effort, on the part of the FBI and high-ranking officials at the Department of Justice, to improperly spy on members of the Trump team. And there’s more. The FBI failed to mention that the dossier was paid for by the Hillary campaign and the DNC, or that the dossier’s author Christopher Steele had seeded articles in the media that were being used to support the dossier’s credibility (before the FISA court), or that, according to the FBI’s own analysts, the dossier was “only minimally corroborated”, or that Steele was a ferocious partisan who harbored a strong animus towards Trump. All of these were omitted in the FISA application which is why the FBI was able to deceive the judge. It’s worth noting that intentionally deceiving a federal judge is a felony.

Most disturbing is the fact that Steele reportedly received information from friends of Hillary Clinton. (supposedly, Sidney Blumenthal and others) Here’s one suggestive tidbit that appeared in the Graham-Grassley” referral:

“…Mr. Steele’s memorandum states that his company “received this report from REDACTED US State Department,” that the report was the second in a series, and that the report was information that came from a foreign sub-source who “is in touch with REDACTED, a contact of REDACTED, a friend of the Clintons, who passed it to REDACTED.”

It is troubling enough that the Clinton campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility.” (Lifted from The Federalist)

What are we to make of this? Was Steele shaping the dossier’s narrative to the specifications of his employers? Was he being coached by members of the Hillary team? How did that impact the contents of the dossier and the subsequent Russia investigation?

These are just a few of the questions Steele will undoubtedly be asked if he ever faces prosecution for lying to the FBI. But, so far, we know very little about man except that he was a former M16 agent who was paid $160,000 for composing the dubious set of reports that make up the dossier. We don’t even know if Steele’s alleged contacts or intermediaries in Russia actually exist or not. Some analysts think the whole thing is a fabrication based on the fact that he hasn’t worked the Russia-scene since the FSB (The Russian state-security organization that replaced the KGB) was completely overhauled. Besides, it would be extremely dangerous for a Russian to provide an M16 agent with sensitive intelligence. And what would the contact get in return? According to most accounts, Steele’s sources weren’t even paid, so there was little incentive for them to put themselves at risk? All of this casts more doubt on the contents of the dossier.

What is known about Steele is that he has a very active imagination and knows how to command a six-figure payoff for his unique services. We also know that the FBI continued to use him long after they knew he couldn’t be trusted which suggests that he served some other purpose, like providing the agency with plausible deniability, a ‘get out of jail free’ card if they ever got caught surveilling US citizens without probable cause.

But that brings us to the strange case of Carter Page, a bit-player whose role in the Trump campaign was trivial at best. Page was what most people would call a “small fish”, an insignificant foreign policy advisor who had minimal impact on the campaign. Congressional investigators, like Nunes, must be wondering why the FBI and DOJ devoted so much attention to someone like Page instead of going after the “big fish” like Bannon, Flynn, Kushner, Ivanka and Trump Jr., all of whom might have been able to provide damaging information on the real target, Donald Trump. Wasn’t that the idea? So why waste time on Page? It doesn’t make any sense, unless, of course, the others were already being surveilled by other agencies? Is that it, did the NSA and the CIA have a hand in the surveillance too?

It’s a moot point, isn’t it? Because now that there’s evidence that senior-level officials at the DOJ and the FBI were involved in improperly obtaining warrants to spy on members of the opposite party, the investigation is going to go wherever it goes. Whatever restrictions existed before, will now be lifted. For example, this popped up in Saturday’s The Hill:

“House Intelligence Committee lawmakers are in the dark about an investigation into wrongdoing at the State Department announced by Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Friday. …Nunes told Fox News on Friday that, “we are in the middle of what I call phase two of our investigation. That investigation is ongoing and we continue work toward finding answers and asking the right questions to try to get to the bottom of what exactly the State Department was up to in terms of this Russia investigation.”…

Since then, GOP lawmakers have been quietly buzzing about allegations that an Obama-era State Department official passed along information from allies of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that may have been used by the FBI to launch an investigation into whether the Trump campaign had improper contacts with Russia.

“I’m pretty troubled by what I read in the documents with respect to the role the State Department played in the fall of 2016, including information that was used in a court proceeding. I am troubled by it,” Gowdy told Fox News on Tuesday.” (“Lawmakers in dark about ‘phase two’ of Nunes investigation”, The Hill)

So the State Department is next in line followed by the NSA and, finally, the Russia-gate point of origin, John Brennan’s CIA. Here’s more background on that from Stephen Cohen’s illuminating article at The Nation:

“….when, and by whom, was this Intel operation against Trump started?

In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in May 2017, John Brennan, formerly Obama’s head of the CIA, strongly suggested that he and his agency were the first, as The Washington Post put it at the time, “in triggering an FBI probe.” Certainly both the Post and The New York Times interpreted his remarks in this way. Equally certain, Brennan played a central role in promoting the Russiagate narrative thereafter, briefing members of Congress privately and giving President Obama himself a top-secret envelope in early August 2016 that almost certainly contained Steele’s dossier. Early on, Brennan presumably would have shared his “suspicions” and initiatives with James Clapper, director of national intelligence. FBI Director Comey… may have joined them actively somewhat later….

When did Brennan begin his “investigation” of Trump? His House testimony leaves this somewhat unclear, but, according to a subsequent Guardian article, by late 2015 or early 2016 he was receiving, or soliciting, reports from foreign intelligence agencies regarding “suspicious ‘interactions’ between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents.”

In short, if these reports and Brennan’s own testimony are to be believed, he, not the FBI, was the instigator and godfather of Russiagate.” (“Russiagate or Intelgate?”, Stephen Cohen, The Nation)

Regular readers of this column know that we have always believed that the Russiagate psyops originated with Brennan. Just as the CIA launched its disinformation campaigns against Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadhafi, so too, Russia has emerged as Washington’s foremost rival requiring a massive propaganda campaign to persuade the public that America faces a serious external threat. In any event, the demonizing of Russia had already begun by the time Hillary and Co. decided to hop on the bandwagon by blaming Moscow for hacking John Podesta’s emails. The allegations were never persuasive, but they did provide Brennan with some cover for the massive Information Operation (IO) that began with him.

According to the Washington Times:

“It was then-CIA Director John O. Brennan, a close confidant of Mr. Obama’s, who provided the information — what he termed the “basis” — for the FBI to start the counterintelligence investigation last summer….Mr. Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee on May 23 that the intelligence community was picking up tidbits on Trump associates making contacts with Russians.”

It all started with Brennan. After Putin blocked Brennan’s operations in both Ukraine and Syria, Brennan had every reason to retaliate and to use the tools at his disposal to demonize Putin and try to isolate Russia. The “election meddling” charges (promoted by the Hillary people) fit perfectly with Brennan’s overall strategy to manipulate perceptions and prepare the country for an eventual confrontation. It provided him the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, to deliver a withering blow to Putin and Trump at the very same time. The temptation must have been irresistible.

But now the plan has backfired and the investigations are gaining pace. Trump’s allies in the House smell the blood in the water and they want answers. Did the CIA surveil members of the Trump campaign on the basis of information they gathered in the dossier? Who saw the information? Was the information passed along to members of the press and other government agencies? Was the White House involved? What role did Obama play? What about the Intelligence Community Assessment? Was it based on the contents of the Steele report? Will the “hand-picked” analysts who worked on the report vouch for its conclusions in or were they coached about what to write? How did Brennan persuade the reluctant Comey into opening a counterintelligence investigation on members in the Trump campaign when he knew it would be perceived as a partisan attempt to sabotage the elections by giving Hillary an edge?

Soon the investigative crosshairs will settle on Brennan. He’d better have the right answers.
The World's Largest Migration Is About To Begin

This Friday, China is going to celebrate its new year, kicking off one of the planet’s great migrations.

Also known as Spring Festival or Lunar New Year, Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that this the event sees hundreds of millions of people leave their cities in order to visit their families in more rural parts of the country. In fact, practically all of China takes holiday at once, making the new year the biggest human event on earth.

You will find more infographics at Statista

This year, the number traveling to welcome the Year of the Dog will be approximately 385 million, marking a 12 percent increase on 2017 according to China News.

Comparing China’s largest annual migration with North America’s is a good way to gauge its sheer size.

Thanksgiving 2017 saw 50.9 million travelers negotiate long tailbacks on the interstate and overcrowded airports. Even though Thanksgiving is a major travel event, China’s new year is still seven times bigger, with its massive population making a big difference of course.

Known as “chunyun”, the annual new year migration in China also easily surpasses the world’s biggest pilgrimages in scale with Arba’een and the Hajj not even coming close.
Williams: "It's The Long-Term Insolvency Of The US Government That Markets Don't Like"

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Economist John Williams sat down with USA Watchdog‘s Greg Hunter to discuss the dire state of the dollar and United States economy. The monetary path the US is on is out of control, and the unwillingness of government officials to reduce the deficit and stop spending money will cause major problems in the very near future.

Years of socialist policies and reckless spending will eventually end in a complete collapse. Williams is not the only economist to sound the alarm either. As the tax cuts are always positive (people keeping more of their money is always good for the economy) the unwillingness to decrease the size and scope of the government with an expanded deficit will be the downfall of a once great nation.

The interview with Williams begins with him declaring the drop in the stock market to be the fault of the federal reserve. “Did the Fed trigger this most recent round of selling?” asks Hunter.

“It looks like it. If you recall, the story was, bond yields are rising. Rising bond yields means someone’s selling bonds. The Fed wasn’t actually selling bonds, they just were not rolling over the bonds that they normally would…I think you’re gonna see the dollar selling off very rapidly and gold rallying as a flight to safe haven.”

Then the discussion of the tax cuts comes up, as Hunter asks Williams to deliver his take on the lower taxes.

“The tax cuts are generally positive. Anytime you cut taxes that is generally a plus for the economy. The problem is the average guy is still not making ends meet. Anything that increases the disposable income is a plus. This does not necessarily go to the guys at the lower end of the income scale, at the moment, but generally there should be a little economic pick up here from it. The problem is what happens to the budget deficit. We just went through a round of the government shutdown and a package that supposedly lays things out for the next two years, but it widens the deficit.

The deficit is beyond control…We have $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. That means you need $100 trillion in hand right now to cover the federal obligations going forward…

Printing money to meet obligations is what happened in the Weimar Republic in Germany. This happened in Zimbabwe. This kind of thing eventually gives you a hyperinflation. . . . Ongoing budget deficit and debasing of the dollar will give you global selling pressures in the currency markets. . . . We haven’t seen much selling in the dollar, but that is going to change. You are going to see flight from the dollar and flight from the markets as well.”

Hunter then said that the government must make massive and deep cuts to salvage the economy, but no one in Washington wants to make the difficult decision.

“It’s the long-term insolvency of the US government that the markets don’t like.”

Then Hunter asked if Williams thinks there’s a “pretty severe hit” to the economy coming because of the expanding deficit, which will expand the national debt by $10 trillion. Because there are no plans to cut the deficit, Williams simply responds, “right.”
North Korea Defector: Kim Fears US Preventative Strike, Is Buying Time To Complete Nuclear Program

On Wednesday, The Wilson Center hosted a discussion on U.S. national security and the Korean Peninsula, which included the perspective of Ri Jonh-ho, a former senior ranking official of the Kim Jong-un regime, a professor of St Petersburg University, and a renowned author on issues related to North Korea at a conference hosted jointly with the Institute for Corean-American Studies (ICAS).

According to Yonhap News Agency, Ri said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been communicating with officials in South Korea out of the fear the United States will launch a pre-emptive strike on his country.

North Korean defector Ri Jong-ho (R) and interpreter at a forum in Washington

“Kim Jong-un is afraid that the U.S. will launch a preventative strike, and he is trying to buy time to complete his nuclear and missile programs,” said Ri, who served for three decades in Office 39 of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party. The office is responsible for raising funds for the ruling elite of North Korea.

Thank you to Dr Sang Joo Kim for bringing Jong Ho Ri to the Wilson Center and ICAS. He gave us the sober insight that there will not be an end to the nuclear crisis as long as Kim Jong-UN remains in power. pic.twitter.com/TNycGlORMd

— David Maxwell (@DavidMaxwell161) February 14, 2018

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Last year, CNN reported that Ri Jong-ho raised somewhere in the neighborhood of “$50 million and $100 million during his career.

Life was good. Ri helped bring in somewhere between $50 million and $100 million for North Korean elites, and was handsomely rewarded with luxuries most North Koreans couldn’t dream of in years past: a car, a color TV and some extra cash on the side, once rarities in the communist state but more commonplace now in the capital, Pyongyang.

Yonhap details Ri Jong-ho perspective of the current situation in North Korea, and surprisingly praises Trump’s recent adversarial efforts, saying the issue of human rights abuses is a powerful “weapon” against Kim and “the most effective means to resolve the North Korean standoff.”

“Kim Jong-un is struggling under the strongest-yet sanctions and military and diplomatic pressure, so he is trying to improve the situation by putting on a false front,” Ri said.

Allegations that sanctions are having no impact on the regime are untrue because the measures of the past year are the toughest in 25 years, and Kim is trying to “create a hole” in that sanctions regime, he added

Ri defected to South Korea in 2014 while running the Dalian, China, branch of a North Korean trading company. In 2016, he resettled in the U.S. state of Virginia.

“Depending on the circumstances, North Korea could hold South Koreans hostage and continue its threatening provocations,” he claimed.

Citing Pyongyang’s track record of extracting money from Seoul in return for progress in inter-Korean ties, Ri also alleged that the two sides struck a similar underhand deal this time.

He praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent efforts to highlight human rights abuses by the Pyongyang regime, saying the issue is a powerful “weapon” against Kim and the most effective means to resolve the North Korean standoff.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Navy Adm. Harry Harris – the senior officer overseeing military operations in the Pacific – warned lawmakers on Capitol Hill that Kim’s goal is to reunify the Korean Peninsula under his rule. “I do think that he is after reunification under a single communist system,” Harris told the House Armed Services Committee.

“So he’s after what his grandfather failed to do and his father failed to do and he’s on a path to achieve what he feels is his natural place.”

PACOM commander Adm. Harry Harris today: “While some in the U.S. might dispute both the reliability and quantity of the North’s strategic weapons, it is indisputable that Kim is rapidly closing the gap between rhetoric and capability.”

— Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) February 14, 2018

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Of course, the odds of that ever happening are zero, which is why – with nothing left to lose – Kim just could become increasingly more irrational one the NKorean nuclear program is complete.

Meanwhile, in preparation for the worst, three days before the Winter Olympics in South Korea, the South Korean press reported that the Chinese government had deployed 300,000 troops and multiple mobile strike groups to the North Korean border.

According to South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo news, “China is preparing for a potential war on the Korean Peninsula by reinforcing missile defenses near the border with North Korea” citing a report from Radio Free Asia. “Military units in Yanbian were relocated from Heilongjiang Province, thus adding 300,000 troops along the border.” The reason for the increased missile presence is that Chinese troops in the border area could be swept away if the North tore down the banks of the reservoirs or they were destroyed by missiles or air strikes, the source added.

For now the world appears to have forgotten the red-knuckled military tension involving the nuclear-capable rogue state. However, when the Olympics end on February 25, and when the mask of fake diplomacy falls, it is virtually certain that the geopolitical tensions will resume right where they left off, most likely with another ICBM launch.
New Data Shows Yellowstone Supervolcano "Strained" – Magma Chamber Under Immense Pressure

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

According to a group of seismologists who are monitoring the potentially catastrophic supervolcano, Yellowstone is “under strain.” This new report has reignited fears that the caldera could erupt at any moment.

Experts were alerted to the volcano’s strain after noticing deformation. This process, where subsurface rocks subtly change shapes, is occurring beneath the surface of Yellowstone right now. Researchers state deformation occurs when there is a change in the amount of pressure in the magma chamber and experts are keeping an eye on the development.

Seismologists from UNAVCO, a non-profit university-governed consortium, are using “Global Positioning System (GPS), borehole tiltmeters, and borehole strainmeters” to measure minute changes in deformation at Yellowstone. In an article for the Billings Gazette, David Mencin and Glen Mattioli, geodesists with UNAVCO, say “the strain signal is larger than would be expected if the crust under Yellowstone were completely solid.”

“What that means, at least in their eyes, is that there’s lava flowing that’s allowing pressure to build in the chamber,” says Joe Joseph of The Daily Sheeple. “I don’t know if this is good or bad!”

These independent observations agree with other instruments at Yellowstone, like seismometers, that indicate a zone of semi-molten rock starting about 3 miles beneath the surface. The term “semi-molten” is used because the entire zone contains only between 5 and 15 percent liquid rock that occupies small pockets of space between the solid rock.

But the scientists want to assure the public that these observations are no cause for alarm. “Of course, they’re always gonna say that,” says Joseph. “It’s about 700,000 years ago they say when it erupted and it’s long overdue. So here we are, Yellowstone, yet again, thrust into the news because of some of this new data coming out…,” Joseph said.

If the Yellowstone volcano nestled mostly in Wyoming were to erupt, an estimated 87,000 people would be killed immediately and two-thirds of the USA would instantly be made uninhabitable. The large spew of ash into the atmosphere would block out sunlight and directly affect life beneath it creating a “nuclear winter.”

Is this a cause for alarm? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s interesting this new Yellowstone information is coinciding with news that a pole reversal is near, the Ring of Fire is waking up, and the sun is approaching its solar minimum which could cause a mini ice age.
Trump Surprises Democrats, Supports 25 Cent Federal Gas Tax Hike

President Trump surprised a group of lawmakers during a Wednesday meeting at the White House by repeatedly mentioning a 25-cent-per-gallon increase on federal gasoline and diesel tax in order to help pay for upgrading America’s crumbling infrastructure by addressing a serious shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund, which will become insolvent by 2021.

The tax increase was first pitched by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in January, while the White House had originally been lukewarm towards the idea.

The federal gasoline and diesel tax has been at 18.4 and 24.4-cents-per-gallon respectively since 1993, with no adjustments for inflation. It currently generates approximately $35 billion per year, while the federal government spends around $50 billion annually on transportation projects.

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, seemed pleasantly surprised at Trump’s repeated mention of the tax as a solution to pay for upgrading American roads, bridges and other public works.

“While there are a number of issues on which President Trump and I disagree, today, we agreed that things worth having are worth paying for,” Carper said in a statement. “The president even offered to help provide the leadership necessary so that we could do something that has proven difficult in the past.”

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) – the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was also present at the meeting, in which he says President Trump told lawmakers he would be willing to increase federal spending beyond the White House’s $200 billion, 10-year proposal.

“The president made a living building things, and he realizes that to build things takes money, takes investment,” DeFazio said.

GOP Support?

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is encouraging his GOP colleagues to support the increased gas tax as a way to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent beyond 2021. The fund finances road, bridge and transit projects.

“He understands that we’ve got to figure out the funding levels and where the money’s coming from, make sure it’s not smoke and mirrors,” Shuster said of the president.

The Highway Trust Fund has been flirting with bankruptcy for the better part of a decade, while the Senate passed a bill in 2015 to boost highway spending without a solution to fund it. Lawmakers eventually passed a 6-year transportation measure which keep the trust fund solvent for another three years.

Republican leaders have already rejected the idea, however, along with various other entities tied to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

“Our organizations worked hard over the past year to support your efforts and the efforts of tax-cutters in Congress to provide American families much-needed and long-overdue tax relief,” reads a letter from executives of the Koch-affiliated Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity. “But increasing the gas tax would effectively undermine recent tax cuts by clawing back hundreds of billions of dollars — roughly 25 percent of the total benefit from tax reform.”

“The American people are just beginning to feel the benefits of the recently passed tax cuts bill,” said Brent Gardner of Americans for Prosperity in a Wednesday statement. “Instead of undermining the relief taxpayers just received, the president and Congress should focus on smarter spending and breaking through the regulatory gridlock that delays projects and drives up costs.”

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) doesn’t think the gas tax has any chance of even coming up for a vote in the Senate. “He’ll never get it by McConnell,” said Grassley, referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee opposes the gas tax hike on the grounds that collected funds wouldn’t all go towards repairing and restoring infrastructure.

“Today was the first of many conversations about the president’s infrastructure plan and how to fund it,” Barrasso said in a statement. “Ultimately, the final decision will be made by Congress as a whole.”

Industry Support

Several groups including the American Trucking Associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce support the gas tax as the easiest and most efficient way to generate money for projects.

“We support the president’s big and bold vision for strengthening American infrastructure,” Chris Spear, president and chief executive officer of the American Trucking Associations, said in a statement. “Because it is a user fee, the fuel tax is the most conservative, cost-effective and viable solution to making that vision a reality.”

One has to wonder – considering that Congress is unlikely to pass the proposed hike – if President Trump is simply buying a little political capital with Congressional Democrats.
Terrified Of Bitcoin – Banks Forced To Innovate For First Time In 40 Years

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Yesterday morning, several banks in Australia started rolling out a new payment system they’re calling NPP, or “New Payments Platform.”

Until now, sending a domestic funds transfer in Australia from one bank to another could take several days. It was slow and cumbersome.

With NPP, payments are nearly instantaneous.

And rather than funds transfers being restricted to the banks’ normal business hours, payments via NPP can be scheduled and sent 24/7.

You can also send money via NPP to mobile phones and email addresses. So it’s a pretty robust system.

Across the world in the United States, the domestic banking system has been working on something similar.

Domestic bank transfers in the Land of the Free typically transact through an electronic network known as ACH… another slow and cumbersome platform that often takes 2-5 days to transfer funds.

It’s pretty ridiculous that it takes more than a few minutes to transfer money. It’s 2018! It’s not like these guys have to load satchels full of cash onto horse-drawn wagons and cart them across the country.

(And even if they did, I suspect the money would reach its destination faster than with ACH…)

Starting late last year, though, US banks very slowly began to roll out something called the Real-time Payment system (RTP), which is similar to what Australian banks launched yesterday.

[That said, the banks themselves acknowledge that it could take several years to fully adopt RTP and integrate the new service with their existing online banking platforms.]

And beyond the US and Australia, there are other examples of banking systems around the world joining the 21st century and making major leaps forward in their payment system technologies.

It seems pretty clear they’re all playing catch-up with cryptocurrency.

The rapid rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies proved to the banking system that it’s possible to conduct real-time [or near-real-time] transactions, and not have to wait 2-5 days for a payment to clear.

Combined with other new technologies like Peer-to-Peer lending platforms, fundraising websites, etc., consumers are now able to perform nearly every financial transaction imaginable– deposits, loans, transfers, etc.– WITHOUT using a bank.

And it’s only getting better for consumers… which means it’s only getting worse for banks.

All of these threats from competing technologies have finally compelled the banks to innovate– literally for the FIRST TIME IN DECADES.

I’m serious.

When the CEO of the company launching RTP in the US announced the platform, he admitted that the “RTP system will be the first new payments system in the U.S. in more than 40 years.”

That’s utterly pathetic. The Internet has been around for 25 years. Even PayPal is nearly 20 years old.

Yet despite the enormous advances in technology over the past several decades, the last major innovation in bank payments was back when Saturday Night Fever was the #1 movie in America.

Banks have been sitting on their laurels for decades, enjoying their monopoly over our savings without the slightest incentive to improve.

Cryptocurrency has proven to be a major punch in the gut. The entire banking system keeled over in astonishment over Bitcoin’s rise, and they’ve been forced to come up with an answer.

And to be fair, the banks have reclaimed the advantage for now.

NPP, RTP, and all the other new protocols are faster and more efficient than most cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin, for example, can only handle around 3-7 transactions per second. Ethereum Classic maxes at around 15 transactions per second. Litecoin isn’t much better.

By comparison, there were 25 BILLION funds transfers in 2016 using the ACH network in the US.

Based on the typical holiday schedule and the banks’ 8-hour working days, that’s an average “throughput” of roughly 3500 transactions per second.

So, now that banks have finally figured out how to conduct thousands of transactions per second in real-time, they clearly have superiority.

But that superiority is unlikely to last.

It takes banks decades to innovate. They have enormous bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. They have endless committees to appease, including the Federal Reserve’s “Faster Payments Task Force.”

And most importantly, given that most banks are still using absurdly antiquated software, any new systems they develop have to be carefully designed for backwards compatibility.

Cryptofinance and other financial technology companies have no such limitations.

As my colleague Tama mentioned in the podcast we released yesterday, the cryptocurrency space sort of exists in ‘dog years’.

Things move so quickly that one year in crypto is like 7 years for any other industry.

Right now there is almost a unified push across the crypto sector to solve the ‘scalability’ problem, i.e. to securely transact a near limitless number of transactions in real time.

Those solutions will almost undoubtedly come from technologies that you haven’t heard very much about yet.

Hashgraph and Radix, for example, are two such ventures working on extremely elegant payment solutions that break the mold of previous cryptos.

Rather than build upon standard cryptocurrency concepts like blockchain, Proof of Work, and Proof of Stake, both Hashgraph and Radix have created their own algorithms from scratch.

This is the bleeding edge of the bleeding edge of a massively disruptive sector that has existed for less than a decade.

And there are literally dozens of other companies and technologies aiming for similar heights.

Some of them will undoubtedly succeed. And still other ventures that won’t even be conceived for years will have yet more disruptive power in the future.

The banks don’t stand a chance. The future of finance absolutely belongs to crypto.

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