Nov 16

Today’s News 16th November 2017

  • Brandon Smith Warns: The Saudi Coup Signals War And The New World Order Reset

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    For years now, I have been warning about the relationship of interdependency between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and how this relationship, if ended, would mean disaster for the petrodollar system and by extension the dollar's world reserve status.

    In my recent articles 'Lies And Distractions Surrounding The Diminishing Petrodollar' and 'The Economic End Game Continues,' I point out that the death of the dollar as the premier petrocurrency is actually a primary goal for establishment globalists.

    Why?

    Because in an effort to achieve what they sometimes call the "global economic reset," or the "new world order," a more publicly accepted centralized global economy and monetary framework is paramount. And, this means the eventual implementation of a single world currency and a single global economic and political authority above and beyond the dollar system.

    But, it is not enough to simply initiate such socially and fiscally painful changes in a vacuum. The banking powers are not interested in taking any blame for the suffering that would be dealt to the masses during the inevitable upheaval (or blame for the suffering that has already been caused). Therefore, a believable narrative must be crafted. A narrative in which political intrigue and geopolitical crisis make the "new world order" a NECESSITY; one that the general public would accept or even demand as a solution to existing instability and disaster.

    That is to say, the globalists must fashion a propaganda story to be used in the future, in which "selfish" nation-states abused their sovereignty and created conditions for calamity, and the only solution was to end that sovereignty and place all power into the hands of a select few "wise and benevolent men" for the greater good of the world.

    I believe the next phase of the global economic reset will begin in part with the breaking of petrodollar dominance. An important element of my analysis on the strategic shift away from the petrodollar has been the symbiosis between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been the single most important key to the dollar remaining as the petrocurrency from the very beginning.

    The very first oil exploration and extraction deal in Saudi Arabia was sought by the vast international oil cartels of Royal Dutch Shell, Near East Development Company, Anglo-Persian, etc., but eventually fell into the hands of none other than the Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. The dark history of Standard Oil aside, this meant that Saudi business would be handled primarily by American interests. And the Western thirst for oil, especially after World War I, would etch our relationship with the reigning monarchy in stone.

    A founding member of OPEC, Saudi Arabia was one of the few primary oil-producing nations that maintained an oil pipeline that expedited processing and bypassed the Suez Canal. (The pipeline was shut down, however, in 1983). This allowed Standard Oil and the United States to tiptoe around the internal instability of Egypt, which had experienced ongoing conflict which finally culminated in the civil war of 1952.

    Considered puppets of the British Empire at the time, the ruling elites of Egypt were toppled by the Muslim Brotherhood, leading to the eventual demise of the British pound sterling as the top petro-currency and the world reserve. The British economy faltered and has never since returned to its former glory.

    Perhaps we are seeing some parallels here?

    Civil war may not be in the cards for Saudi Arabia; so far a quiet coup has been rather effective in completely changing the power base of the nation over the past few years. The primary beneficiary of that change in power has been crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who only answers to King Salman, an 81-year-old ruler barely involved in leadership.

    To understand how drastic this coup has been, consider this – for decades Saudi Kings maintained political balance by doling out vital power positions to separate, carefully chosen successors. Positions such as Defense Minister, the Interior Ministry and the head of the National Guard. Today, Mohammed Bin Salman controls all three positions. Foreign policy, defense matters, oil and economic decisions and social changes are now all in the hands of one man.

    But the real question is, who is behind that man?

    Well, the recent political purge of various "neo-conservative" tied Saudis might lead some to believe that Prince Mohammed is seeking an end to globalist control of Saudi oil and politics.

    These people would be wrong for a number of reasons.

    Prince Mohammed's revolutionary "Vision for 2030" developed as he entered power was touted as a means to end Saudi reliance on oil revenues to support economic stability. However, I believe this plan is NOT about ending reliance on oil, but ending reliance on the U.S. dollar. In fact, the plan indicates a move away from the dollar as the world's petrocurrency and a de-pegging of the Riyal from the dollar.

    Prince Mohammed has also established much deeper ties to Russia and China, creating bilateral agreements which may end up removing the dollar as the mechanism for oil trade between the nations.

    You would think that this kind of strategy would be highly damaging to the West and to American interests in particular and that the corporate establishment would be doing everything in their power to stop it. However, this is not at all the case. In reality, the globalist establishment is fully behind Mohammed Bin Sulman's "Vision for 2030."

    Corporate behemoths such as the Carlyle Group (Bush family, etc), Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Blackrock have ALL been backing the Vision for 2030 and Prince Mohammed through his Public Investment Fund (PIF), of which he is the chairman.

    Trillions in capital are flowing through PIF, most of it from the coffers of globalist establishment companies. Once again I point out that the so-called "East versus West division" and the Eastern "opposition" to the globalists is complete nonsense; banking elites and globalists are the true influence behind the move away from the dollar, as the Saudi example and the Vision for 2030 shows. The end of the dollar as world reserve works in their favor — it is planned.

    This does not end with the death of the dollar's petro-status, though. These kinds of upsets in the power dynamic invariably lead to war. War acts as a kind of cleansing of the historical record; it tends to distract the public, for generations, from those that truly benefit from geopolitical and economic strife.

    Prince Mohammed has already triggered conflicts with Yemen and Qatar, but this seems to have only been a precursor to greater kinetic displays of force. The next target appears to be Lebanon, and eventually Iran and Syria.

    The first signal came with the resignation of Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri on November 4, a resignation Hezbollah claims was forced by the Saudi government. Interestingly, Saad Hariri recorded the televised announcement in Saudi Arabia.

    This shocking disruption to Lebanon's political apparatus has been followed by an escalation in saber rattling by Saudi Arabia against Hezbollah (which is considered by many to be merely a puppet organization of the Iranian government). If official polls are to be believed, the Lebanese population is in extreme disagreement over Iran and Hezbollah, which could add to internal divisions and civil war if tensions continue to grow. Add to this the suspected (but officially denied) "secret visit" by Prince Mohammed to Israel in September, and the newfound "friendship" between the two nations in the months since, and we have quite a bit of momentum for a war in Lebanon.

    The question is, will a war between Saudi Arabia and perhaps Israel against Hezbollah in Lebanon remain a proxy war, or will it gestate into a wider conflict drawing in Iran, Syria and perhaps even the U.S.?

    First, keep in mind that Prince Mohammed has already frozen and/or confiscated approximately $800 billion in assets from his imprisoned political enemies. More than enough to fund a war campaign for several years, maybe even an expanded war against Iran.

    Trump's rhetoric against Iran and his re-institution of sanctions seems to coincide nicely with the increasing tension between the Saudis and Hezbollah. Israel attempted an invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and was soundly and embarrassingly defeated. But, the Israeli government does still showcase a willingness to enter into a ground war in the region, and with the combined forces of the Saudis and the Israelis, we might see a different outcome. Iran would be forced to intervene.

    Syria under the Assad regime would also most likely be drawn in through its mutual defense pact with Iran.

    I believe that major powers like the U.S. and Russia will probably not become involved in a wider sense, but continue to insert covert forces into the region and support opposing nations through funding and armaments. As with North Korea, I would not expect "world war" on the scale of a nuclear conflagration to develop in the Middle East.

    What I do expect is something far more devastating – namely an accelerated disintegration of our already collapsing economic structure as war plays out abroad and the loss of the dollar's world reserve and petro-status hits us hard at home. So far, in my view it appears that the insanity in Saudi Arabia, (along with the continued war drums against North Korea), is a perfect trigger point that provides a catalyst for mass distraction.

    World economic war is the real name of the game here, as the globalists play puppeteers to East and West. It is a geopolitical crisis they will have created to engineer public support for a solution they predetermined.

  • Australia Votes Overwhelmingly For Gay Marriage After Heated Campaign

    It was only twenty years ago that the last Australian state, Tasmania, decriminalised male homosexuality. Whether one is in favour or not, Australia had a lot of catching up to do with other western nations.

    In an Australian general election, there is no such thing as a “low turnout” since voting is compulsory for citizens. In contrast, the vote on gay marriage was voluntary and conducted by post, following two failed attempts by the government to hold a compulsory national vote that was denied twice in the Australian Senate. Senators opposing a compulsory vote had expressed concern that it would be more costly and exacerbate hate campaigns. Nevertheless, it was costly (A$100million or $76 million) and, at times, the campaign became violent. For example, a man was charge last month after former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, an opponent of same-sex marriage, was headbutted. Abbott called the incident “politically motivated violence.” Police were called to intervene in a confrontation between rival groups at the University of Sydney, while some workers complained that they were harassed if they did not show support for the “Yes” vote.

    Despite its voluntary nature, 12.7 million people, 79.5% of those eligible to vote, participated in the poll during an eight-week period. It asked one question.

    "Should the marriage law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?"

    With the votes counted, the “Yes” vote gained more than 60%, as the BBC reports.

    Australians have overwhelmingly voted in favour of legalising same-sex marriage in a historic poll. The non-binding postal vote showed 61.6% of people favour allowing same-sex couples to wed, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said. Jubilant supporters have been celebrating in public spaces, waving rainbow flags and singing and dancing. A bill to change the law was introduced into the Senate late on Wednesday. It will now be debated for amendments. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said his government would aim to pass legislation in parliament by Christmas.

     

    "[Australians] have spoken in their millions and they have voted overwhelmingly yes for marriage equality," Mr Turnbull said after the result was announced. "They voted yes for fairness, yes for commitment, yes for love."

    The Yes campaign argued that it was a debate about equality. The No campaign put the focus on the definition of family, raising concerns about how issues like gender will be taught in schools. Australia's chief statistician David Kalisch said about 7.8 million people voted in support of same-sex marriage, with approximately 4.9 million against it. He said participation was higher than 70% in 146 of Australia's 150 electorates. All but 17 electorates supported changing the law.

     

    "This is outstanding for a voluntary survey and well above other voluntary surveys conducted around the world," Mr Kalisch said. "It shows how important this issue is to many Australians."

    As the FT reports, “Yes” supporters celebrated after the result was announced, with high-profile business and celebrity figures getting involved.

    The resounding victory for the Yes campaign sparked celebrations across the country, with supporters wearing rainbow colours and glitzy costumes at events to reflect on the eight-week campaign for marriage equality. Alan Joyce, the Irish-born Qantas chief executive who donated A$1m to the Yes campaign, performed a jig on stage at an event in Sydney, declaring it was an “amazing result, on an amazing day”. Tiernan Brady, director of Australians for equality, a lobby group that co-ordinated the Yes campaign, said voters had reaffirmed that most deeply-held Australian value — a “fair go for all”.

     

    “Their message today is one of confidence in their values and their country. Their message to LGBTI people is one of generosity and inclusion. Their message to politicians is clear — it is time for them to do their jobs and pass marriage equality,” he said.

     

    The vote in favour of marriage equality marks a watershed moment for gay rights in Australia, which remains one of the last English speaking developed nations that has not yet implemented the reform.

    While the draft bill to legalise same-sex marriage is expected to pass the Australian parliament by Christmas, it has ignited division within the ruling political party, according to the FT.

    However, Mr Turnbull is likely to face a tricky internal battle within his own party from a group of conservative lawmakers, who have used the issue as a proxy war for control of the ruling Liberal party. They are pushing for exemptions to individuals or companies who did not want to provide services to gay weddings due to religious or “conscientious” objections. The exemptions would allow parents to withdraw their children from school classes that do not accord with their own understanding of marriage. They would also enable people to discuss their traditional views about marriage without fear of legal penalties. Tony Abbott, a prominent No campaigner and former prime minister, said this week more protections were needed to guarantee freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.

     

    “I look forward to a parliamentary process that improves on (the draft bill) to implement same-sex marriage with freedom of conscience for all, not just the churches,” he said. Critics say approving such exemptions would roll back years of anti-discrimination laws and encroach on protections for gay and lesbian people.

    The following infographic from the FT shows the 26 nations which had legalised same-sex marriage before Australia’s landmark “Yes” vote.


     

  • Doug Casey On Why Race Will Break The US Apart, Part I

    Via CaseyResearch.com,

    “America is a marvelous idea, a unique idea, fantastic idea. I’m extremely pro-American. But America has ceased to exist.”

    Longtime readers will recognize this. It’s one of Doug Casey’s more memorable quotes.

    I’m sharing it with you today because Doug said something last week that touched on this radical idea. He said the United States could break apart due to racial tensions.

    Most people haven’t considered this possibility. After all, the U.S. is supposedly a “melting pot” where different races can coexist peacefully.

    So, a few days ago, I called Doug to learn why he thinks this. Below is the first part of our discussion.

    *  *  *

    Justin: Doug, the last time we spoke, you said the United States could break apart because of racial tensions. Why do you think that?

    Doug: Well, I used to know a guy by the name of Michael Hart. He would come to our Eris Society meetings in Aspen. Eris was a private annual event I ran for 30 years, for authors, scientists, and people who were well-known for something. It enabled people who might not otherwise meet to get to know each other and exchange ideas. Michael was a university prof, best known for his book The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential People in History.

    One year, he gave a speech about how the U.S. was going to break up into smaller countries, and part of it would be on racial lines.

    I thought that unlikely at the time; it was about 1990. Now, I think Michael may have been right.

    I’ll explain why in a minute. But we should first discuss the origins of democracy.

    Democracy originated in 6th-century BC Greece. It was a unique and workable method of governance for city-states of a few thousand people. And in the case of Athens, as many as 40,000 people.

    But these people all shared a common language. They worshipped the same gods. They were the same ethnicity. They had the same customs and beliefs.

    They were like an extended clan with many similarities. Differences were among individuals, not groups.

    When the U.S. democracy was started, it was much like that. It was very much like a Greek city-state, an extended one. Everybody shared culture, ethnicity, language, habits, and so forth, with just minor regional differences. People saw themselves first as New Yorkers, Virginians, or whatever, just as the Greeks saw themselves first as Athenians, Thebans, Corinthians, or many scores of other polities.

    As you know I don’t believe in democracy, I believe in personal freedom. Democracy is workable enough in something like a cohesive city-state. But absolutely not once voters get involved in economic issues—the poor will always vote themselves a free lunch, and the rich will buy votes to give themselves more. Democracy always devolves into class warfare.

    In ancient Greece, if you weren’t a landowner you weren’t respected. In the U.S., voting rules were determined by the States, and originally, everywhere, you had to be a landowner. That meant you had something to lose. But that’s not the case anymore.

    Justin: What’s changed?

    Doug: For one thing, anybody can vote. People who are penniless. Eighteen-year-olds who have no knowledge or experience and are fresh out of the indoctrination of high school. Lots of non-citizens, probably millions, manage to vote. Voting has become, as H.L. Mencken said, just an advance auction on stolen goods.

    For another thing, today, the United States is multicultural. America used to have its own distinct culture; the U.S. no longer stands for anything.

    Race is just the most obvious thing that divides people. You can see that somebody’s of a different race just by looking at them. The old saying about birds of a feather flocking together is basically true. It’s very politically incorrect to make that observation, of course. Certainly if you’re white. But it’s factually accurate. Most things that are PC fly in the face of reality.

    If people are of a different race, it increases the chances that they’re not going to share other things. The key, for a rational person, is to judge people as individuals. Race, sex, religion, and cultural background are quick indicators of who a person might be. As are dress, accent, attitude, and what they say among many other indicators. You need as much data as you can get to help you judge what the other person will do, and who he is. It’s actually quite stupid to not discriminate among people you encounter. But then the whole PC movement is quite stupid by its very nature.

    But, back to the subject, you can’t have a multicultural democracy. And you especially can’t have one where the government is making laws that have to do with economics…where it allocates wealth from one group to another group.

    So, sure. The U.S. is going to break apart, and you can certainly see it happening along racial lines. The active racism among many blacks isn’t an anomaly.

    Justin: I agree that racial tensions are rising in this country. But that’s clearly not the only source of tension. What else might cause the U.S. to break apart?

    Doug: Cultural differences.

    The Pacific Northwest draws people who like the idea of ecotopia. Southern California draws a very different type of person than Northern California does. People that live in Las Vegas are quite different from the people that live in Omaha, and very different again from people that live in New York.

    The U.S. has turned into a domestic empire. It’s no longer the country that it was when it was founded.

    And the constitution itself has changed at least as much. It’s a dead letter. Mainly window dressing. It’s been interpreted out of existence.

    Sure, the U.S. is going to break up; throughout history the colors of the map on the wall have always been running. I don’t think the racial situation in the near term is going to get better. And the breakdown of the culture is definitely getting worse.

    On the other hand, there’s more racial intermingling and marriage now than there’s ever been in the past. If we look down the road 1,000 years or so, racial distinctions will probably disappear. The average person will probably look like most Brazilians. Brazil, incidentally, is theoretically an integrated country—but there’s still a huge amount of racism. Go farther into the future, when homo sapiens has conquered the planets and hopefully the stars, and we’ll likely transform not only into new races, but new species. But I don’t think any of us are looking that far ahead.

    *  *  *

    Stay tuned for Part II of our discussion tomorrow. In it, Doug explains why the U.S. is “no longer a country”… And gets into all the problems that are bubbling to the surface…

  • Corruption In China Risks A Soviet-Style Collapse – Party's Graft Buster

    Yang Xiadou is the Party’s number two man in Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption in the Chinese Communist Party – although some have seen this, in part, as a convenient way for Xi to bolster his power base.

    During the 19th Party Congress last month, Yang was asked about the anti-corruption drive and how to achieve a balance between human rights and party discipline. Yang replied that, having worked in the Tibet Autonomous Region for many years, human rights was an “interesting question”. He recounted a conversation he had with a US assistant secretary of state where he likened Abraham Lincoln freeing slaves in America to China’s actions in Tibet.

    “I said in the hearts of Chinese people, Lincoln is a hero, because he freed the slaves.

     

    On this point the Chinese people and the American people have the same understanding – this is a human rights issue.

     

    In turn, we freed the serfs in Tibet, how come American friends cannot understand this? From Lincoln’s perspective, he should have supported China’s overturning of the serfdom in Tibet.”

    No matter that the Central Tibetan Administration, usually called the “Tibetan Government in Exile” has a starkly different view.

    Yang’s ability to “paint broad canvases” was in evidence again when he stated that corruption in China could lead to a collapse similar to the Soviet Union. According to the Times of India.

    China must step up its battle against corruption in order to safeguard against a Soviet-style collapse, the country's second most senior graft buster said in an editorial on Wednesday. Yang Xiaodu, the deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, who was promoted to the ruling Communist Party's 25-strong Politburo last month, said failure would risk the "red country changing colour".

    In unusually direct and strongly worded criticism of previous administrations, Yang said "in a previous period", corruption had been allowed to fester to such an extent that the party's leadership had weakened, with supervision soft, and ideology apathetic.

     

    "It had developed to the point where if not rectified, the country could change colour," Yang wrote in the official People's Daily.

     

    "The future fate of the party and the country's people could follow the same old road to ruin as the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc."

    It's well known that senior Party officials warn their underlings of the need to study the collapse of the Soviet Union and the importance of maintaining discipline and tight control. China analysts are viewing these comments by Yang and others as evidence that Xi’s crackdown is not letting up despite the former Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Wang Qishan, stepping down at the Party Congress.

    Writing in the People’s Daily last Saturday, Wang’s replacement and Politburo Standing Committee member, Zhao Leji, warned that if the Party lost the battle against corruption it risked “being erased by history”. Yang emphasised the need to press forward in the eliminating corruption, as the Times of India notes.

    Yang said Xi's anti-corruption achievements had been revolutionary in "turning the blade of the knife inward".

     

    But he said unhealthy pollutants within the party's political ecosystem had yet to be completely cleansed, and the anti-corruption fight remained "grave and complex”.

     

    "There is no road for retreat, only forward in attack, and definitely no pause or relax," Yang wrote. China has plans for a national supervision law and a new commission next year to oversee the expansion of Xi's graft fight. Yang, who is also minister of supervision, had been Wang's deputy since 2014 and his promotion to the Politburo is seen as another display of the importance the central leadership attaches to fighting corruption.

    In the wake of the Party Congress, we can deduce that Xi means business on deleveraging and cooling the property bubble, stepping up efforts to reduce pollution, in addition to attacking corruption. We continue to believe that China is entering a more risky phase than financial markets are discounting at this point.

  • There's A New Nation In Space… And You Can Apply For Citizenship Right Now

    Authored by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

    The world’s very first space nation launched this week, but despite the fact that 300,000 members applied for citizenship over the last year, no people were on board.

    The “nation” launched early Sunday from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, CNET reported this week, as “an Orbital ATK Antares rocket carrying a CubeSat named Asgardia-1.”

    The satellite is the size of a milk carton and called the “Space Kingdom of Asgardia.”

    The creators lauded the launch as establishing the first nation to have all of its territory in space, though no countries have acknowledged its statehood.

    For now, the primary benefit of “citizenship” is being able to store data on Asgardia-1 while it’s in orbit.

    Even so, the satellite nation has terms and conditions and is subject to Austrian copyright law, so it is not free of earthly constraints.

    In fact, the creators intend to bring human forms of governance to the new space nation, noting on their website the virtues of democracy and promoting parliamentary elections.

    They also have a proposed constitution and laws and intend to elect 12 cabinet ministers and a head of state.

    Only those who support the constitution will have the right to upload data to the satellite. Asgardia will have taxes, though only businesses will be forced to contribute. Individual taxes will apparently be voluntary. The website explains that “people can decide what amount of tax they would like to pay.”

    The country will also have passports, IDs, a national bank, business regulations, and a cryptocurrency called SOLAR.

    According to Asgardia’s website, the nation “was created with three top goals in mind: to ensure the peaceful use of space, to protect the Earth from space hazards, and to create a demilitarized and free scientific base of knowledge in space.”

    It also seeks to “create a mirror of humanity in space, but without Earthly division into states, religions, and nations,” though it’s unclear how it will be free of states by establishing a state.

    The founder, Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli, “is a thinker and visionary who has been contemplating Asgardia as a first space nation as long as he’s been alive,” the website notes.

    He is a scientist and businessman of Russian-Azerbaijani descent and is currently serving a five-year term as “Head of the Nation.”

    Asgardia’s long-term plans include establishing actual human settlements in space, on the moon, and “perhaps even more distance colonies,” CNET reports.

    For now, the satellite housed in a Cygnus spacecraft is slated to dock at the international space station on Tuesday. In a month, it will climb to a higher altitude and enter an orbit.

    People from all countries can apply for citizenship by simply creating a login and accepting the constitution and terms and conditions.

  • Trump's Border Wall Is No Match For Mexican Drug-Shooting Bazooka

    While everyone salivates over the board game, ‘Cards Against Humanity’s’ latest political stunt in buying a small piece of border land in attempt prevent President Trump from erecting his proposed Mexican wall, there is a greater crisis lurking that no wall will stop: a Mexican drug-shooting Bazooka.

    New evidence from Mexican daily El Universal suggests a wall would do very little to stem the flow of drugs across the border, as drug cartels have resorted to mobile vans using a tubular mechanism powdered by compressed-air to launch drugs and other illegal objects  into the United States.

    Last week, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) and the Mexican Army seized a mobile bazooka housed inside a van on the border town of Agua Prieta, Sonora, boarding Douglas, Arizona.

    According to authorities, the contents with-in the van included not just the drug bazooka, but 825 kilos (1818.81 pounds) of marijuana, cartridges, and an array of firearms of different caliber.

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    The Mexican daily El Universal provides additional detail of the military operation seizing the bazooka van:

    It transpired that in a search diligence, authorized by a judge as part of a preliminary investigation of the Ministerial Agency for Criminal Investigations (AMIC), on November 09, agents discovered several packages of marijuana and the van designed with a sliding roof where a bazooka comes out to launch the drug packages to the United States.   

    The article ends to say, this is not the first time a drug bazooka has been found. Back in 2016, the same boarder municipality “secured” a vehicle with a “projectile type attachment for the launching of drug packages”.

    Mexican drug cartels have been smuggling all types of illegal items into the United States for years. This is nothing new, but bazooka vans are a new phenomenon that no matter the height of the wall – drugs will be shot in. On the map below, bazooka vans have been seized on the Mexican border parallel to Douglas Arizona, which happens to be a major port of entry for drugs.

    Mexican authorities have had a busy year with more than 24,000 homicides on pace for the most violent year in history, as you guested it –  the drug war is fueling the crisis. Perhaps, that is why Mexican drug cartels are resorting to bold techniques such as bazooka vans and even drones – anything to stay ahead of the competition.

    As we noted in October,

    2017 might be the most violent year in Mexican history, one NGO claims. Semáforo Delictivo said that, due to the 24,000 homicides between January and September, the year is proving even worse than 2011, when President Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs led to 22,000 homicides.

     

    President of the organization, Santiago Roel, said that 73 percent of murders committed in the first eight months of the year were related to organized crime. He said that in 2007, there were 2,828 executions. Now, a decade later, 18,017 have been reported.

     

    All high-impact crimes have increased during the current year, including abductions, homicides and grand theft auto at gunpoint. According to Roel, the main cause of violence and corruption is the “Mérida Plan,” which focuses on eradicating drug cartels. 

    Evidence above suggests Mexican drug cartels will continue to innovate through technology as the drug war spirals out of control.

    For Trump’s current and possible future wall, it’s already obsolete, as cartels are now shooting in drug with a trajectory of over 500ft. 

    The evolutionary phase is quite clear– drones are next. So why even build a wall?

  • AI Researcher Warns Skynet Killer-Robots "Easier To Achieve That Self-Driving Cars"

    A group of the world’s leading AI researchers and humanitarian organizations are warning about lethal autonomous weapons systems, or killer robots, that select and kill targets without human control.

    The group alleges killer robots now exist and the bulk of these technological developments are military funded in UK, China, Israel, Russia, and the United States. Although, fully autonomous weapons systems have not yet been deployed on the battlefield, the action by the group to ban lethal autonomous weapons is a preemptive ban before the technology falls into the wrong hands. The group calls on the citizens of the world to contact their representatives and for countries to work together to form international treaties, before it’s too late.

    Member List of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots:

    • Human Rights Watch
    • Article 36
    • International Committee for Robot Arms Control
    • PAX
    • Association for Aid and Relief Japan:
    • Mines Action Canada
    • Nobel Women’s Initiative
    • Pugwash Conferences on Science & World Affairs
    • Seguridad Humana en América Latina y el Caribe (SEHLAC)
    • Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

    Future of Life Institute released a video yesterday titled: Slaughterbots.

    The video portrays not to far in the distant future of a military firm unveiling a drone with shaped explosives that can target and kill humans on its own. Further in, the video abruptly changes pace, when bad guys get ahold of the technology and unleash swarms of killer robots onto the streets of Washington, D.C. and various academic institutions.

    The video is aggressive and graphic but outlines if the technology was misused it could have severe consequences – such as civilian mass causality events.

    Stuart Russell, a world leading AI researcher at the University of California in Berkeley, showed the video above to the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons on Monday. He said, “the technology illustrated in the film is simply an integration of existing capabilities. It is not science fiction. In fact, it is easier to achieve than self-driving cars, which require far higher standards of performance.”

    Russell wants a preemptive ban on the technology before it’s too late. He claims the window to halt such technologies is closing and warns that autonomous weapons, such as drones, tanks and automated machine guns are imminent.

    The Guardian adds,

    The military has been one of the largest funders and adopters of artificial intelligence technology.

     

    The computing techniques help robots fly, navigate terrain, and patrol territories under the seas. Hooked up to a camera feed, image recognition algorithms can scan video footage for targets better than a human can.

     

    An automated sentry that guards South Korea’s border with the North draws on the technology to spot and track targets up to 4km away.  

    The International Committee for Robot Arms Control is calling upon the international community for a treaty against autonomous weapon systems.

    Given the rapid pace of development of military robotics and the pressing dangers that these pose to peace and international security and to civilians in conflict, we call upon the international community for a legally binding treaty to prohibit the development, testing, production and use of autonomous weapon systems in all circumstances.  

    Human Rights Watch is another organization calling for the preventive measures to stop the machines…

     The development of fully autonomous weapons—“killer robots”—that could select and engage targets without human intervention need to be stopped to prevent a future of warfare and policing outside of human control and responsibility.

     

    Human Rights Watch investigates these and other problematic weapons systems and works to develop and monitor international standards to protect civilians from armed violence.  

    Conclusion: The evolution of targeted killing practices have certainly evolved to something on the lines of the Terminator, a fantasy/science movie where Skynet an artificial intelligence system gained self- awareness, and decided to wage a war on humans. Will Stuart Russell and his team of AI researches be able to stop the trend in autonomous weapon systems before it’s too late?

  • Leonardo Painting Sells For A Record $450 Million (Or 62,500 Bitcoin)

    How do you know we are living through the biggest bubble in history? Simple: when a painting, doesn’t matter who the artist is, doesn’t matter who rare and prized, sells for half a billion dollars.

    A rediscovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci broke the record price for art at an auction on Wednesday night, selling for just over $450 million (or a bargain basement 62,500 bitcoin to the Chinese money launderer who bought it) at Christie’s in New York. The last da Vinci in private hands sold nearly 4 times above its estimated price after a fevered, 90-minute long round of bidding. It is widely believed to be the most expensive piece of art ever sold.

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    The 500-year-old “Christ as Salvator Mundi,” which was originally estimated at $100 million, was the star of Christie’s evening sale of postwar and contemporary art, what Bloomberg described an unconventional move by the auction house because of its vintage. The previous auction record for an Old Master painting was held by Peter Paul Rubens, whose “The Massacre of the Innocents” fetched $76.5 million in 2002.

    “Salvator Mundi,” Latin for Saviour of the World, was one of only 15 surviving works by Leonardo da Vinci and depicts Jesus Christ in a flowing robe, holding a crystal orb and raising his right hand in benediction.

    The 67.5cm tall portrait, which once belonged to England’s King Charles I in the 17th century, disappeared around 1900. In 2005, it was bought at an estate sale and, after six years of research and restoration, attributed to da Vinci, the first such rediscovery in more than 100 years. Before the auction, Christie’s secured an irrevocable $100 million bid by an anonymous investor meaning it was sure to sell.

    The painting, called “Salvator Mundi,” Italian for “Savior of the World,” is one of fewer than 20 paintings by Leonardo known to exist and the only one in private hands. It was being sold by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev’s family trust. The fertilizer king purchased it for $127.5 million in 2013 and it’s been at the heart of an international legal battle. Rybolovlev assembled a $2 billion trove with the help of art entrepreneur Yves Bouvier, but in recent years has been selling off works from the collection, often at steep discounts.

    Well, even he will be happy with the 250% return in just 4 years. Also happy will be Christies: the $450 price also includes $50.3 million in premiums paid to Christie’s for its services by the buyer.

    Jussi Pylkkanen, auctioneer for the evening, opened bidding on the piece at $70m and offers rapidly vaulted higher, according to the FT. Gasps broke out throughout the salesroom in Rockefeller Centre when an offer hit $200m. Bidders interested in the Da Vinci — lot 9 of the evening’s sale — were given special red paddles in the salesroom, a move the auction house attributed to the work’s high worth, although much of the action was fuelled by phone bidders.

    Some more details on the painting’s troubled recent history:

    Following its rediscovery and sale in 2013, the painting was at the centre of a legal feud between current owner Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian billionaire and owner of AS Monaco football club, and Yves Bouvier, the owner of Natural Le Coultre, one of the largest fine art storage and shipping specialists.

     

    The protracted legal battle centred around claims that Mr Bouvier allegedly bought the painting for $80m and sold it to Mr Rybolovlev for $127.5m, a near $50m difference. A small group of critics have even questioned the painting’s authenticity.

    After its original disappearance, the painting was acquired in 2005, badly damaged and partly painted-over, by a consortium of art dealers who paid less than $10,000 (8,445 euros). The art dealers restored the painting and documented its authenticity as a work by Leonardo.

    Christie’s says most scholars agree that the painting is by Leonardo, though some critics have questioned the attribution and some say the extensive restoration muddies the work’s authorship. Christie’s capitalized on the public’s interest in Leonardo, considered one of the greatest artists of all time, with a media campaign that labeled the painting “The Last Da Vinci.” The work was exhibited in Hong Kong, San Francisco, London and New York before the sale.

    * * *

    Other paintings on offer on Wednesday evening included works by Mark Rothko, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol. Christie’s said it was in part the inclusion of the 32ft Warhol painting Sixty Last Suppers, which riffed on Da Vinci’s famed The Last Supper, that the house attempted to secure ‘Salvator Mundi’ for auction. ‘Sixty Last Suppers’ features a black-and-white silkscreen grid of 60 prints of ‘The Last Supper’ and was among the last works created by Mr Warhol before his death in 1987.

    And just to confirm that everything around you is indeed one giant bubble, the exquisite piece of modernist “art” you see below, sold for more than $46 million.

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  • The Moment Gary Cohn Realized His Entire Economic Policy Is A Disaster

    Ever since 2012 (see “How The Fed’s Visible Hand Is Forcing Corporate Cash Mismanagement“)  we have warned that as a result of the Fed’s flawed monetary policy and record low rates, corporations have been incentivized not to invest in growth and allocate funds to capital spending (the result has been an unprecedented decline in capex), but to engage in the quickest, and most effective – if only in the short run – shareholder friendly actions possible, namely stock buybacks.

    We got a vivid confirmation of that recently when Credit Suisse showed that the only buyer of stock since the financial crisis has been the corporate sector’, i.e. companies repurchasing their own shares…

    … with SocGen showing previously that virtually all the net debt issued this century has been used to fund stock buybacks.

    While one can debate the implications, the above two charts show one thing clearly: corporate incentives have been perverted in the past decade, and instead of allocating capital to ensure long-term business growth, companies have rushed to cash out, with shareholders benefiting the most, while management teams got record bonuses as a result of their stock price-linked compensation bogeys.

    The eagerness to shift incentives away from buybacks to capex is also the basis for much of Trump’s economic policy as designed over the past year by his top economic advisor, former Goldman COO Gary Cohn who is the White House Economic Council director. In fact, the motive behind the administration’s entire push for tax reform (cutting corporate tax rates) and offshore cash repatriation, is to the funds domestically, though not on buybacks and M&A (which also leads to “synergies” and other headcount reductions), but on reinvesting the funds in growing one’s business and hiring.

    Which is why we were amused to observe the following brief interchange yesterday between Gary Cohn and an audience made up of executives, where in the span of a few seconds Gary Cohn realized that his entire economic policy had been a disaster.

    During an event for the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council, an editor at The Wall Street Journal asked the room: “If the tax reform bill goes through, do you plan to increase investment — your company’s investment, capital investment?” He asked for a show of hands.

    Alas, as the camera revealed, virtually nobody raised their hand.

    Responding to this “unexpected” lack of enthusiasm to invest in growth, Cohn had one question: “Why aren’t the other hands up?”

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    His confusion was understandable: this one simple experiment revealed that Cohn’s entire economic policy was a disaster. And while the former Goldman president tried to cover up his disappointment with laughter, the cognitive dissonance between the stated intention behind tax reform, and what it would ultimately achieve, or rather not achieve, was painfully obvious to everyone.

    Adding insult to injury, last month the White House released a paper arguing slashing the corporate tax rate would increase average household income.  Kevin Hassett, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) chairman, said on a call last month the main reason why cutting the corporate tax rate would boost wages is because doing so would make it less expensive for companies to invest in capital assets such as machines.

    “More assets like machines let workers produce more, and when workers can produce more, businesses can afford to pay their workers more,” he said last month. Unfortunately, virtually no CEOs have any intention of using freed up funds to reinvest in themselves.

    Ironically, Cohn’s epiphany took place just as tax reform is approaching the final stretch in Congress and it increasingly appears that at least some form of corporate tax cut will be enacted. We say ironically, because the only thing Trump’s reform will achieve is to dramatically accelerate recently slowing buybacks, which in turn will push stocks to new all time highs as price-indescriminate CFOs and Tresurers tells their favorite VWAP trading desk to just “wave it in.” Which means that the White House paper suggesting corporate tax cuts will boost household income is correct… if it focuses only on the incomes of the richest 1% of households.

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