Oct 19

Today’s News 19th October 2016

  • Why Is Obama Threatening Russia With World War 3 Right Before The Election?

    Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    It sure seems like an odd time to be provoking a war with Russia.  As I write this, we stand just a little bit more than three weeks away from one of the most pivotal elections in U.S. history, and Barack Obama has chosen this moment to strongly threaten the Russians.  As I wrote about on Friday, Reuters is reporting that Obama is contemplating “direct U.S. military action” against Syrian military targets, and the Russians have already indicated that any assault on Syrian forces would be considered an attack on themselves.  The rapidly deteriorating crisis in Syria has already caused tensions with Russia to rise to the highest level since the end of the Cold War, but now Obama is adding fuel to the fire by publicly considering “an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia”.  Apparently Obama believes that Russian hackers are interfering in the election and so he wants payback.  The following comes from an NBC News article entitled “CIA Prepping for Possible Cyber Strike Against Russia“…

    The Obama administration is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

     

    Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging “clandestine” cyber operation designed to harass and “embarrass” the Kremlin leadership.

     

    The sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an operation.

    Somebody should tell Obama that he is not playing a video game.  A cyber attack is considered to be an act of war, and the Russians would inevitably retaliate.  And considering how exceedingly vulnerable our cyber infrastructure is, I don’t know if that is something that we want to invite.

    At the end of last week, Vice President Joe Biden also publicly threatened the Russians…

    On Friday, Vice President Joe Biden met “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd for an interview that has raised serious concern in Russia.

     

    Without bothering to question the authenticity of the claims, Todd took the allegations of Russian hacking at face value, opening his interview with a loaded question: “Why haven’t we sent a message yet to Putin?”

     

    After a moment of stunned silence, Biden responded, “We’re sending a message. We have the capacity to do it and it will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact.”

     

    When Todd asked if the public will know a message was sent, Biden replied, “Hope not.”

    The Russians firmly deny that they had any involvement in the hacking, and so far the Obama administration has not publicly produced any firm evidence that the Russians were behind it.

    Perhaps the Obama administration privately has some evidence, but at this point they have not shown that evidence to the American public.

    So for Joe Biden to be making these sorts of threats is a very dangerous thing.  The Russians are taking these threats very seriously, and they are preparing to protect their interests…

    ‘The threats directed against Moscow and our state’s leadership are unprecedented because they are voiced at the level of the US vice president.

     

    ‘To the backdrop of this aggressive, unpredictable line, we must take measures to protect (our) interests, to hedge risks,’ a Kremlin spokesman said, according to RIA Novosti news agency.

    Here in the United States, most people don’t even realize that we could be on the verge of a major conflict with Russia.

    But over in Russia things are completely different.  Talk of war is everywhere, and the potential for war is the number one topic in the Russian media right now.  Just check out some of the recent Russian media headlines about the conflict between our two nations…

    And one Russian television network recently instructed their viewers to locate the nearest bomb shelter in case a nuclear war between the United States and Russia suddenly erupts…

    A terrifying Russian television broadcast explicitly told civilians to find out where their nearest bomb shelter is and repeatedly asked viewers if they were ready for nuclear war.

     

    One apocalyptic broadcast told viewers on Moscow’s state-owned TV channel NTV: “If it should one day happen, every one of you should know where the nearest bomb shelter is. It’s best to find out now.”

    I don’t believe that the Russians are crazy to be thinking that a war might be coming.

    To me, it almost seems as though Obama wants one.

    Could it be possible that a conflict with Russia will be used to alter, change or influence the upcoming election in November?

    The truth is that it isn’t going to take much for the shooting to begin.  If Obama orders airstrikes against Syrian forces, the Russians have said that they will shoot back…

    Ash Carter has threatened Russia with “consequences”. After blowing up the ceasefire, the Pentagon – supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff — now is peddling “potential strikes” on Syria’s air force to “punish the regime” for what the Pentagon actually did; blow up the ceasefire. One can’t make this stuff up.

     

    Major-General Igor Konashenkov, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman, sent a swift message to “our colleagues in Washington”; think twice if you believe you can get away with launching a “shadow” hot war against Russia. Russia will target any stealth/unidentified aircraft attacking Syrian government targets – and they will be shot down.

     

    The only serious question then is whether an out of control Pentagon will force the Russian Air Force – false flag and otherwise — to knock out US Air Force fighter jets, and whether Moscow has the fire power to take out each and every one of them.

    I discussed the potential for war with Russia in my latest video.  Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and war with Russia will be put off…

    But without a doubt the crisis in Syria is not going to be resolved any time soon because it is one giant mess.  Most people don’t realize that the Syrian civil war has essentially been a proxy war between Sunni Islam and Shia Islam from the very beginning.  Jihadist rebels that are being armed and funded by Saudi Arabia and Turkey are fighting Hezbollah troops that are being armed and funded by Iran.  And now Turkish forces have invaded northern Syria, and this threatens to cause a full-blown war to erupt between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds.  Of course ISIS is right in the middle of everything causing havoc, blowing stuff up and beheading anyone that doesn’t believe in their radical version of Sunni Islam.

    It is absolutely insane that the United States and Russia could potentially go to war because of this conflict.  Both sides are determined to show the other how tough they are, and one false move could set off a spiral of events from which they may be no recovery.

    The American people very foolishly elected Barack Obama twice, but up until now the consequences have not been quite as dire as many had been projecting.

    However, right here at the end of his second term Obama is facing a moment of truth.  If he ends up dragging us into a war with Russia, the American people will ultimately bitterly regret putting him into the White House.

  • Why Did Vote-Rigging Robert Creamer Visit The White House Over 200 Times During The Obama Admin

    Earlier today we wrote about a new Project Veritas undercover video that uncovered several democratic operatives openly discussing, in explicit detail, how to commit massive voter fraud.  One of the operatives was a person by the name of Robert Creamer who is a co-founder of a democratic consulting firm called Democracy Partners.  Within the video, an undercover journalist details a plan to register Hispanic voters illegally by having them work as contractors, to which Creamer can be heard offering support saying that “there are a couple of organizations that that’s their big trick” (see: “Rigging Elections For 50 Years” – Massive Voter Fraud Exposed By Project Veritas Part 2“).

    Unfortunately, the embarrassing video caused Creamer to subsequently resign from consulting the Hillary campaign as he issued a statement saying that he was “stepping back from my responsibilities working the [Hillary] campaign” over fears that his continued assistance would be a distraction for the campaign. 

    But voter fraud isn’t Creamer’s only criminal specialty.  A quick look at Wikipedia reveals that Creamer spent 5 months in federal prison back in 2006 for a “$2.3 million bank fraud in relation to his operation of public interest groups in the 1990s.”

    So, with that kind of history, you can imagine our surprise when we discovered that a Mr. Robert Creamer showed up on the White House visitor logs 340 times beginning in 2009 when Obama took office and culminating with his latest visit in June 2016.  Moreover, in 45 of those instances, Creamer was scheduled to meet with POTUS himself.  Perhaps this is just two old Chicago “community organizers” hanging out?

    <a href=”https://open.whitehouse.gov/dataset/Robert-Creamer/9vny-arr6” _mce_href=”https://open.whitehouse.gov/dataset/Robert-Creamer/9vny-arr6” title=”Robert Creamer” target=”_blank”>Robert Creamer</a>

    Powered by Socrata

     

    According to his website bio, Creamer has been a “political organizer and strategist for over four decades” and has been very involved with the Obama administration over the years.  He even “provided strategic advice” to Obama on the “Iran nuclear deal.”  Ironically, Creamer “began his organizing career in 1970 working with Chicago’s Citizen Action Program (CAP), which had been organized by Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation.”

    Robert Creamer has been a political organizer and strategist for over four decades.

     

    During that time he has worked with many of the country’s most significant issue campaigns. He was one of the major architects and organizers of the successful 2005 campaign to defeat the privatization of Social Security. He has been a consultant to the campaigns to end the war in Iraq, pass universal health care, hold Wall Street accountable, pass progressive budget priorities, and enact comprehensive immigration reform.

     

    He is General Consultant to Americans United for Change where he helped coordinate the campaigns to pass President Obama’s landmark jobs and economic recovery legislation.

     

    Creamer has provided strategic advice for a wide array of progressive causes ranging from the movement to stop gun violence, defending the Obama Administration’s Iran nuclear deal, raise the minimum wage and guarantee the right of collective bargaining.

     

    During the 2008 and 2012 Presidential Elections he worked with the Democratic National Committee as a consultant to the Obama Presidential Campaign coordinating field based rapid response to Republican Presidential candidates.

     

    During his career, Creamer has worked on hundreds of electoral campaigns at the local, state and national level.

     

    Creamer began his organizing career in 1970 working with Chicago’s Citizen Action Program (CAP), which had been organized by Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation. CAP successfully campaigned to reduce the sulfur dioxide in Chicago’s air by almost two thirds.

     

    In 1974 he founded the Illinois Public Action Council – later known as Illinois Citizen Action – which became the state’s largest consumer advocacy organization and progressive political coalition. He directed the organization for 23 years.

     

    Creamer has been a full time political consultant since 1997 when he co-founded the Strategic Consulting Group, now a component part of Democracy Partners.

     

    He graduated from Duke University and did graduate work at the University of Chicago.

     

    He is a board member of the Midwest Academy organizer training institute and the Sentencing Project which is seeking to end mass incarceration and reform the nation’s sentencing laws.

     

    Creamer is an author and regular contributor to the Huffington Post. He is married to Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky from Illinois. His recent book is titled, Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win.

    Finally, Creamer’s wife is none other that Jan Schakowsky, a U.S. Representative for Illinois’s 9th congressional district which she has served since 1999.

    Jan

     

    Just another plume of smoke?

  • "Rigging Elections For 50 Years" – Massive Voter Fraud Exposed By Project Veritas Part 2

    Update 1:  Just shortly after posting video #2 earlier this afternoon, Project Veritas has claimed its second victim as Bob Creamer has announced he will be “stepping back from my responsibilities working the [Hillary] campaign.”

     

     

    Ironically, the mainstream media is still refusing to play the Project Veritas videos claiming that their authenticity needs to first be verified.  Perhaps we could suggest that two people being fired from their respective employers is sufficient evidence to suggest that, at least in the minds of the people closest to the situation, the videos are, in fact, legitimate…just a thought.

    Below is what we wrote earlier today:

    * * *

    Yesterday we noted the release of Part 1 of a multi-part video series created by Project Veritas revealing some of the dirty, behind-the-scenes secrets of the democratic party.  Part 1 was dedicated to uncovering plots by democratic operatives to incite violence at Trump rallies, a strategy they referred to as “bird dogging” (we provided a full summary here:  “Undercover Footage Shows Clinton Operatives Admit To Inciting “Anarchy” At Trump Rallies“).

    It didn’t take long for yesterday’s video to claim it’s first casualty as Scott Foval, the National Field Director for Americans United for Change, was fired shortly after the video’s release.  Foval’s former employer released the following statement:

    “Americans United for Change has always operated according to the highest ethical standards.  Scott Foval is no longer associated with Americans United for Change.“

     

    That said, perhaps the more disturbing revelation from the first video was that one agitator, Zulema Rodriguez, who admitted to inciting “violent protests” that forced Trump to cancel a Chicago rally back in March, was paid directly by the Hillary campaign just a few weeks before that event.  In fact, according to data from the Federal Election Commission, Zulema has been collecting fees from a lot of political organizations recently…turns out that picking fights at Republican rallies is a lucrative business…who knew? 

    FEC Data

     

    And now we have Part II of the series in which O’Keefe reveals how people, like Foval, successfully organize massive voter fraud in key swing states.  Among other things, Foval goes into great details about how fraudulent out-of-state voters are hired on at fake “shell companies” just so they can register to vote and are then paid for their votes through “paychecks” from those same entities.  Foval goes on to detail how the operatives bring people in to different states, using their own personal vehicles or by having shell companies rent vehicles, instead of using busses which would make it easier to prove a conspiracy.

    “It’s a very easy thing for Republicans to say, “Well, they’re bussing people in.” Well, you know what? We’ve been bussing people in to deal with you fucking assholes for fifty years and we’re not going to stop now, we’re just going to find a different way to do it.”

     

    “When I do this I think as an investigator first – I used to do the investigations. I think backwards from how they would prosecute, if they could, and then try to build out the method to avoid that.”

    Per Planet Free Will, the video also features Bob Creamer, a fraudster who served time for a $2.3mm bank fraud in relation to his operation of “community organizing” groups in the 90s.  Creamer is also the founder of Democracy Partners and husband of Democrat congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. The undercover journalist details a plan to register Hispanic voters illegally having them work as contractors, to which Creamer replies that “there are a couple of organizations that that’s their big trick,” and that “turnout is huge, huge, huge.”

  • Mystery Deepens Around Fate Of Julian Assange

    The following tweets posted by WikiLeaks yesterday set off a massive bout of speculation over the fate of Julian Assange who has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly 4 years.  There has been much speculation that the sudden change in support for Assange from the Ecuadorian government was prompted by political leverage being asserted by the Obama administration to thwart the release of emails that are proving to be very damaging to the Hillary presidential campaign. 

     

    Now, just this morning, WikiLeaks sent the following tweet, quoting “multiple US sources,” saying that, in fact, John Kerry personally asked the Ecuadorian government to shut down Assange and his leaks of Clinton’s emails.

     

    Obviously, despite their efforts, cutting off Assange’s internet access has done nothing to slow the release of emails.  But, as the Associated Press has reported, those close to Assange, including staffers Kristinn Hrafnsson and Sarah Harrison, have gone silent while the Ecuadorian embassy is refusing to provide any updates on Assange’s fate.  

    WikiLeaks staffers Kristinn Hrafnsson and Sarah Harrison did not return repeated messages seeking comment. A woman who answered the phone at the embassy said she was not authorized to say anything.

    Of course, the real question is to what extent the Ecuadorian government has been compromised and what that ultimately means for the fate of Assange.  Clearly, Assange has made numerous enemies over the years with his repeated release of confidential information that has been somewhat embarrassing for many world leaders.  Certainly, Hillary’s opinion on how to handle Assange was made quite clear when she asked, “can’t we just drone this guy?”  

     

    According to various media outlets, the Ecuadorian government has offered no immediate comment on the question of internet access, but foreign minister, Guillaume Long, confirmed that Assange remained under government protection and affirmed that his protection would remain so long as the “circumstances that led to the granting of asylum remain.”  Loosely translated, the full statement reads as follows:

    “Faced with the speculation of the last few hours, the Government of Ecuador ratifies the validity of the asylum granted to Julian Assange four years ago.  We reaffirm that his protection by the Ecuadorean state will continue while the circumstances that led to the granting of asylum remain.“

     

    According to Reuters, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has been an ardent supporter of Assange’s right to free speech though he admits to having a personal relationship with Hillary Clinton and has suggested he would like for her to win the U.S. presidency “for the good of the United States and the world.”

    The government of leftist President Rafael Correa has long backed Assange’s right to free speech, though the Wikileaks saga has caused some strain in relations with the United States, including the expulsion of diplomats in 2011.

     

    Correa, whose term will end next year, has said he is behind Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who he says he knows personally, in the U.S. presidential election.

     

    “For the good of the United States and the world … I would like Hillary to win,” Correa told broadcaster Russia Today last month.

    As we draw nearer to November 8th, we suspect that the “political leverage” applied by the Obama administration against the Ecuadorian government will become ever more intense.  Given the increasing level of political pressure he will certainly face in the coming weeks, it will be interesting to see just how much President Correa truly supports “Assange’s right to free speech.”

  • American Psycho: Sex, Lies & Politics Add Up To A Terrifying Election Season

    Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    When it comes to sexual predators, there should be no political bright line test to determine who gets a free pass and who goes to jail based on which candidate is better suited for office.

    Yet almost 20 years after Bill Clinton became the first and only sitting president to be sued for sexual harassment and impeached for lying under oath about his sexual escapades while in office, the Left and the Right are still playing politics with women’s rights.

    I should know.

    As one of Paula Jones’ lawyers in her sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton (Hillary Clinton infamously and erroneously accused me of being part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy”), I saw first-hand how quickly Hillary Clinton and the nation’s leading women’s rights groups demonized any woman who dared to accuse Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct while turning a blind eye to a long list of incidents involving groping, propositioning, and pressuring women for sexual favors.

    Trust me, it was a very long list.

    As journalist Marjorie Williams documented in “Clinton and Women” for Vanity Fair:

    “The man in question [Bill Clinton] has been sued for sexual harassment over an episode that allegedly included dropping his trousers to waggle his erect penis at a woman who held a $6.35-an-hour clerical job in the state government over which he presided.

     

    Another woman has charged that when she asked him for a job he invited her into his private office, fondled her breasts, and placed her hand on his crotch.

     

    A third woman confided to friends that when she was a 21-year-old intern she began an affair with the man… Actually, it was less an affair than a service contract, in which she allegedly dashed into his office, when summoned, to perform oral sex on him…

     

    Let us not even mention the former lover who was steered to a state job; or the law-enforcement officers who say the man used them to solicit sexual partners for him; or his routine use of staff members, lawyers, and private investigators to tar the reputation of any woman who tries to call him to account for his actions.”

    I also witnessed first-hand the hypocrisy of the Religious Right, which was eager to stand in judgment over Clinton for his marital infidelity, while at the same time turning a blind eye to the indiscretions of other conservative politicians in their midst.

    *  *  *

    Fast forward 20 years, and the women’s rights groups that were silent when Bill Clinton was being outed as a sexual predator have suddenly found their voice and their outrage in the face of accusations that Donald Trump groped and kissed women without their consent. Likewise, the religious groups that were aghast over Clinton’s sexual immorality have somehow created a sliding scale of sin that allows them to absolve Trump of his own indiscretions.

    It’s like being in the Twilight Zone.

    Only instead of Rod Serling’s imaginary “land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas,” we’re trapped in an all-too-real land of politics and lies, where freedom and integrity play second fiddle to ambition and greed.

    Nothing is real.

    This year’s presidential contest and its candidates have, through their double-talking and lies, pulled back the curtain to reveal that what we see is all part of an elaborate hoax, a cruel game where “we the people” are just pawns to be used, abused, discarded and demonized when convenient.

    All this talk about sexual predators is just so much political maneuvering to score points off one another. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump care one whit about the victims of sexual harassment.

    Frankly, they don’t seem to care much about the rest of the populace, either.

    For all intents and purposes, we’re all victims of a perverse, perverted, psychotic mindset that views the citizenry as lesser beings: lacking in value, unworthy of respect, and completely undeserving of the legal rights and protections that should be afforded to all Americans.

    This is what happens when politics is allowed to trump principle: “we the people” lose.

    The women’s movement lost when it chose politics over principle, then and now.

    Women have been suffering because of that choice ever since. As feminist Jessica Valenti acknowledged in the Washington Post, “For women in America, equality is still an illusion… Because despite the indisputable gains over the years, women are still being raped, trafficked, violated and discriminated against—not just in the rest of the world, but here in the United States.”

    The Religious Right lost when it chose politics over principle, then and now.

    By compromising their values, they have made themselves completely irrelevant in matters of public policy. “As an organized and potent force in national politics, the Christian right has faded into nothingness,” policy analyst Paul Waldman concluded for the Washington Post. “It now exists for nothing more than to be patted on the head and sent on its way with an encouragement to vote in November.”

    The media—through its careful crafting of news stories to advance one politician over another—chose politics over principle, then and now. Barring a few exceptions, they have become little more than mouthpieces for the corporate elite.

    The citizenry is faced with a choice right now: to be distracted by mudslinging and circus politics or to forge a new path for the nation that rejects politics in favor of locally-based, transformative grassroots activism.

    Commentator Dan Sanchez is right: the act of voting is indeed futile.

    Voting in this political climate merely advances the agenda of the police state and affirms the government’s pillaging, raping, killing, bombing, stealing, shooting and many acts of tyranny and injustice.

    Mark my words: no matter who wins this election, the predators of the police state will continue to wreak havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives.

    After all, police officers are still shooting unarmed citizens. Government agents—including local police—are still being armed to the teeth and encouraged to act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies are still fleecing taxpayers. Government technicians are still spying on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors are still making a killing by jailing Americans for profit and waging endless wars abroad.

    Are any of these issues being discussed right now? Not a single one.

    It boggles the mind.

    How is it possible that out of 318 million Americans in this country, we have been saddled with two candidates whose personal baggage and troubled histories make them utterly unfit for office anywhere but in the American police state?

    We need to stop being victimized by these political predators.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, I’m not just talking about the ones running for office, but the ones who are running the show behind the scenes—the shadow government—comprised of unelected government bureaucrats whose powers are unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and beyond the reach of the law.

    Stop voting for their puppet candidates. Stop tolerating their long list of abuses. Stop making excuses for a system that long ago ceased to be legitimate. Most of all, stop playing by their rules and make them start playing by ours.

    My fear is that we are nearing the point of no return.

    “We the people”—men and women alike— have been victims of the police state for so long that not many Americans even remember what it is to be truly free anymore. Worse, few want to shoulder the responsibility that goes along with maintaining freedom.

    Yet as John Adams warned, “A government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

    There is no way to erase the scars left by the government’s greed for money and power, its disregard for human life, its corruption and graft, its pollution of the environment, its reliance on excessive force in order to ensure compliance, its covert activities, its illegal surveillance, and its blatant disdain for the rule of law.

    Still, we can forge a new path.

    There is so much work to be done in order to right what is wrong with our nation, and there is so little time to fix what has been broken.

    Let’s not waste any more time on predator politics. Let’s get to work.

  • Global Markets Shrug As China 'Manages' To Meet GDP Expectations

    A couple of trillion dollars of freshly created debt and a collapsing currency (which did nothing for the trade balance which was described as "not very solid" by authorities) along with a dead stock market, a bond market at record low yields (unconvinced at any recovery) and a housing bubble and China's National Statistics Bureau 'nails it' with 'meets' across the board (albeit Industrial production disappointed).

     

    Yuan is accelerating weaker to 6 year lows… (but it didn't help trade)

     

    And yet another resurgence in total social financing (aggregate credit) In China…

     

    And the data was a snoozefest:

    • Industrial Production YoY MISS: 6.1% vs +6.3% Exp from +6.3% prior (6.0% to 6.5% range)
    • Retail Sales YoY MEET: +10.7% vs +10.7% Exp from +10.6% prior (10.5% to 11.0% range)
    • Fixed Assets Investments YTD YoY MEET: +8.2% vs +8.2% Exp from +8.1% prior (8.0% to 8.6% range)
    • GDP YoY MEET: +6.7% vs +6.7% Exp from +6.7% prior (6.4% to 6.9% range)

    Bloomberg notes that the industrial output gain is weaker than forecast while retail sales are bang in line – confirming the narrative that China's economy is rebalancing steadily toward consumption from manufacturing.

    It seems the surge in credit is not helping…

     

    NBS says in statement that China's economy still faces uncertainties. Sheng says economic situation generally stable in Jan.-Sept.

    China’s economy remained stable in the third quarter, all but ensuring the government’s full-year growth target will be hit and paving the way for a policy switch toward reining in financial risks.

    Bloomberg's Chief Asia Economics Correspondent Enda Curran notes:

    These numbers put to bed any talk of a Chinese hard landing in 2016. Anything can happen in the final quarter, of course, but it's hard to see the narrative shifting too much as we head into a year of political change.

     

    The bigger issue now is whether the authorities have the confidence to take on the really thorny issues around paring back debt and leverage. That very much remains to be seen.

     

    Top three challenges in the coming months: containing the property surge, paring back debt and, let's not forget, keeping a lid on capital outflows.

    If the Fed ever does get round to hiking and the dollar resumes its rally, that will put downward pressure on the yuan and test the resolve of SAFE to defend it.

    *  *  *

    The reaction to the data – for now – is a rebound weaker in the Yuan (marginal) and a tick or two in USDJPY and US equity futures. Stephen Innes, a Singapore-based senior trader at foreign exchange company OANDA, said:

    "There was a collective sigh of relief with the key GDP print coming in on the government target.

     

    As the dust settles with the retail sales print looking rather bouncy, the China economy as a whole appears to be in better shape than some of the pessimistic analysts' reads heading into the data. Global risk should remain supported."

  • Hacked Salesforce Presentation Showed No Interest In Twitter, But These 2 Companies May Be "In Play"

    In an amusing turn of events, the WSJ reports that according to a May 2016 presentation that, paradoxically, came from a trove of thousands of former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s emails that were hacked and published in September by DCLeaks, Salesforce was looking at more than a dozen potential acquisition targets that did not include Twitter, which CRM allegedly was close to acquiring only to change its mind in the last minute. Instead, the presentation notes two public companies, previously undisclosed, which may spike in trading tomorrow on hopes of an imminent Salesforce acquisition.

    Titled M&A Target Review and marked “draft and confidential,” the 60-slide document identified 14 possible targets, from design- and marketing-software maker Adobe Systems Inc., which has a current market value of $53.7 billion, slightly larger than Salesforce itself, to Pegasystems Inc., a vendor of business-automation software valued at $2.3 billion. The reason Powell got the presentation is because he sits on Salesforce’s board of directors. Tonight’s revelation will likely open up an entirely new avenue for hackers to pursue, one which involves penetrating the email accounts of board members whose infrastructure may not be as safe and sound as the company on whose board they sit.

    As the WSJ notes, “the presentation provides a peek into the kind of discussions around deal making that many big companies have, almost always in private. It was sent to directors ahead of a board meeting on May 20, amid a particularly active M&A period for the tech industry generally and in particular for Salesforce, which agreed to acquire nine companies for a total of $3.8 billion between February and September of this year.”

    The presentation focused on Salesforce’s attempt to acquire LinkedIn, with which it was in exclusivity and which had the internal codename of “Project Burgundy.” Ultimately, LinkedIn agreed to be acquired by Microsoft in a $196/share transaction worth $26.2 billion.  “We were closer than we realized—maybe a $105 cash plus $105 stock would have done it!” Mr. Benioff wrote, referring to LinkedIn.

    But what is even more interesting, and what will be actionable information ahead of tomorrow’s open, is that the presentation also highlights two public companies which also have a project names “Sonoma” and “Tuscany”, and which Salesforce was either meeting in May or was considered “In Play.” A third project, “Champagne” involved the formerly public company Demandware, which Salesforce in June agreed to acquire for $2.8 billion.

    The two outstanding companies which will likely spike ahead of tomorrow’s open due to the leaked document’s suggestion Salesforce may still be interested in acquiring, are ServiceNow, aka “Sonoma” a business software firm with a current market value around $12.4 billion, and Tableau Software which makes data visualization software, aka Tuscany.

    There were various other companies listed in the hacked slide deck:

    The leaked document also appears to indicate that some of the technology companies mentioned may have been for sale at the time. Like other companies on the list that have since been sold, Tableau is marked “In Play.”

    Some of the potential targets have since been acquired by other companies. Marketing automation firm Marketo Inc. soon after the presentation said that Vista Equity Partners had agreed to buy it for $1.79 billion. Salesforce rival Oracle Corp. in June agreed to acquire NetSuite Inc., for $9.3 billion, a deal that still awaits approval by NetSuite shareholders.

     

    And data-visualization firm Qlik Technologies Inc. later was purchased by Thoma Bravo, a private-equity firm, for $3 billion. Salesforce ultimately bought BeyondCore, a competitor of Qlik and Tableau, for about $110 million.

     

    Salesforce clearly viewed some of the companies listed as long shots. Box Inc., which offers online file-sharing and collaboration services, and Zendesk Inc., a maker of customer-service software, appear on the list with the note “CEO has no interest.” Similarly, human resources software provider Workday Inc. is noted as “less interested.” It isn’t clear which parties lacked interest.

    And just like that Wall Street has found a new focus for future “due diligence” – hacked email dumps.

    The full 60-page hacked slideshow is shown below.

  • Saudis, China Dump Treasuries; Foreign Central Banks Liquidate A Record $346 Billion In US Paper

    One month ago, when we last looked at the Fed's update of Treasuries held in custody, we noted something troubling: the number dropped sharply, declining by over $27.5 billion in one week, the biggest weekly drop since January 2015, pushing the total amount of custodial paper to $2.83 trillion, the lowest since 2012. One month later, we refresh this chart and find that in the latest weekly update, foreign central banks continued their relentless liquidation of US paper held in the Fed's custody account, which tumbled by another $22.3 billion in the past week, pushing the total amount of custodial paper to $2.805 trillion, another fresh post-2012 low.


     

    Then today, in addition to the Fed's custody data, we also got the latest monthly Treasury International Capital data, which showed that the troubling trend presented last one month ago, has accelerated. Recall that a month ago,  we reported that in the latest 12 months we have observed a not so stealthy, in fact quite massive $343 billion in Treasury selling by foreign central banks in the period July 2015- July 2016, something truly unprecedented in size and scope.

    Fast forward to today when in the latest monthly update, that of July, we find that what until a month ago was "merely" a record $343 billion in offshore central bank sales in the LTM period ending July 30, one month later this number has risen to a new all time high $346.4 billion, or well over a third of a trillion in Treasuries sold in the past 12 months. 

    Among the biggest sellers – on a market-price basis – not surprisingly was China, which in July "sold" $34 billion in US paper (the actual underlying number while different, as this particular series is adjusted for Mark to Market variations, will be similar), the biggest monthly dump going back to 2012, and bringing its total to $1.185 trillion, the lowest total since 2012.

    It wasn't just China: Saudi Arabia also continued to sell its TSY holdings, and in August its stated holdings (which again have to be adjusted for MTM), dropped from $96.5BN to $93Bn, the lowest since the summer of 2014.

    As we pointed out one month ago, what is becoming increasingly obvious is that both foreign central banks, sovereign wealth funds, reserve managers, and virtually every other official institution in possession of US paper, is liquidating their holdings at a very troubling pace. In some cases, like China, this is to offset devaluation pressure; in others such as Saudi Arabia, it is to provide the funds needed to offset the collapse of the petrodollar, and to backstop the country's soaring budget deficit.

    So who are they selling to? The answer, at least for now, is private demand, in other words just like in the stock market the retail investor is the final bagholder, so when it comes to US Treasuries, "private investors" both foreign and domestic are soaking up hundreds of billions in central bank holdings. We wonder if they would do that knowing who is selling to them.

    Meanwhile, while just two months ago yields had tumbled to near all time lows, suddenly the picture is inverted, and long-yields are suddenly surging on concerns the BOJ, the Fed, and maybe even the ECB will soon taper their purchases of the long end.

    What happens if in addition to the relentless selling from foreign official institutions, private sellers also declare a buyer's strike. The answer? More Fed monetization of US debt will be the most likely outcome, aka more QE. We bring this up because, amusingly, the Fed is still harboring some naive hope it can/will raise rates in the coming week and/or months.

     

  • From 'Socialist Utopia' To 'Silence Of The Lambs' – Venezuela's Overcrowded Prisons Devolve Into Cannibalism

    Once a flagship socialist nation, Venezuela has now devolved into complete chaos as declining oil revenue has resulted in economic ruin, massive inflation, food shortages and spikes in violent crime.  The increasing criminal activity has led to massive overcrowding of Venezuelan jails where felons have been forced to live in squalid conditions.

    According to the Independent, one such overcrowded facility was Táchira Detention Center where 350 inmates were housed despite the facility’s capacity for only 120 people.  Earlier this month, the adverse living conditions, including insufficient rations for inmates, at the facility resulted in riots that devolved into complete chaos as numerous visitors were taken hostage and 2 inmates were “stabbed, hanged to bleed, and then fed to the detainees.”  The gruesome event was orchestrated by a man named Dorancel Vargas (aka “People Eater) who was jailed in 1999 for cannibalism.

    Juan Carlos Herrara told local media his son, Juan Carlos Herrera Jr, was stabbed, hanged, dismembered and then eaten at the Táchira Detention Center.

     

    According to reports, 350 men had been crammed into the detention centre, which has a capacity of 120.

     

    Speaking to reporters on Monday, after a visit to the prison three days after the mutiny had subsided, Mr Herrara said: “One of those who was with him when he was murdered saw everything that happened.

     

    “My son and two others were taken by 40 people, stabbed, hanged to bleed, and then Dorancel butchered them to feed all detainees,” referring to the notorious Dorancel “people-eater” Vargas – jailed in 1999 for cannibalism.

     

    “The [inmate] with whom I spoke to told me that he was beaten with a hammer [in order] to force him to eat the remains of the two boys.

     

    “I beg you to give me at least one bone so we can bury him and relieve some of this pain.”

     

    “They cut them up and fed them to several [of the fellow inmates], they made the bones disappear. Dorancel cut the flesh.”

     

    Of course, we have written numerous times recently about the devolving economic crisis in Venezuela that has resulted in severe shortages of food, clean water, electricity, medicines and hospital supplies all of which have resulted in a desperate population which has resorted to the black market and violence for survival.

    Below is a good recap of the current situation from a recent post.

    * * *

    Submitted by Susan Warner via The Gatestone Institute,

    For many Venezuelans, by every economic, social and political measure, their nation is unravelling at breakneck speed.

    Today, a once comfortable middle-class Venezuelan father is scrambling desperately to find his family’s next meal — sometimes hunting through garbage for salvageable food. The unfortunate 75% majority of Venezuelans already suffering extreme poverty are reportedly verging on starvation.

    Darkness is falling on Hugo Chavez’s once-famous “Bolivarian revolution” that some policy experts, only a short time ago, thought would never end.

    In a 2007 study on the Chavez years for the Washington, DC-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval wrote:

    “[a]t present it does not appear that the current economic expansion is about to end any time in the near future. The gains in poverty reduction, employment, education and health care that have occurred in the last few years are likely to continue along with the expansion.”

    While it was not so long ago that many people heralded Venezuela as Latin America’s successful utopian Socialist experiment, something has gone dreadfully wrong as the revolution’s Marxist founder, Hugo Chavez, turned his Chavismo dream into an economic nightmare of unimaginable proportions.

    The question of whether Socialism can be an effective economic system was famously raised when Margaret Thatcher said of the British Labor Party:

    “I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means.”

    In short: “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

    When President Nicolas Maduro inherited the Venezuelan Socialist “dream”, in April of 2013, just one month after Chavez died, he was facing a mere 53% inflation rate. Today the Venezuelan bolivar is virtually worthless, and inflation is creeping to 500% with expectations of much more. A recent Washington Post report stated:

    ” …markets expect Venezuela to default on its debt in the very near future. The country is basically bankrupt. It is not easy for a nation to go bankrupt with the largest oil reserves in the world, but Venezuela has managed it. How? Well, a combination of bad luck and worse policies. The first step was when Hugo Chávez’s socialist government started spending more money on the poor, with everything from two-cent gasoline to free housing. That may all seem like it’s a good idea in general — but only as long as there’s money to spend. And by 2005 or so, Venezuela didn’t have any.”

    Chavez had the good fortune to die just before the grim reaper showed up on Venezuela’s doorstep. According to policy specialist Jose Cardenas:

    “What began as a war against the ‘squalid’ oligarchy in order to build what he called ’21st-century socialism’ — cheered on as he was by many leftists from abroad — has collapsed into an unprecedented heap of misery and conflict.”

    Maduro is doubling down on the failed Chavismo economic and social policies that have contributed to an inflationary crisis not seen since the days of the 1920’s Weimar Republic in Germany, when the cost of a loaf of bread was a wheelbarrow full of cash.

    Demonstrations and public cries for food are the unpleasant evidence of a once-prosperous society being torn apart by the very largess that marked its utopian ideals less than a decade ago.

    There are dire reports of people waiting in supermarket lines all day, only to discover that expected food deliveries never arrived and the shelves are empty.

    In desperation, some middle class families have organized online barter clubs as helpless citizens seek to trade anything for diapers and baby food, powdered milk, medicines, toilet paper and other essentials missing from store shelves or available only on the black market for double and triple already impossibly inflated prices..

    There are horrific tales of desperate people slaughtering zoo animals to provide their only meal of the day. Even household pets are targeted as a much-needed source for food. This is a desperate time for a desperate people.

    As things continue to worsen, President Maduro, unfortunately, is doubling down on the proven failed policies and philosophies of “Bolivarian Socialism,” while diverting attention away from the crisis — pointing fingers at so-called “enemies” of Venezuela such as the United States, Saudi Arabia and others.

    Efforts to convince Maduro to enlist help from outside have failed, according to a report in the Catholic magazine, Crux:

    Maduro has refused to accept help from international charitable organizations, including the Vatican-sponsored Caritas Internationalis, which through different affiliates has tried to send medicine and food.

     

    “Denying that there’s a crisis and refusing to let the world send medicine and food is not possible,” said Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, archbishop of Caracas.

     

    The prelate believes that Maduro is refusing to accept help in an attempt to hide the “very grave situation of total shortage,” which far from improving, he said, continues to deteriorate.

    According to Breitbart:

    “The Venezuelan Episcopal Conference, the organization of the nation’s Catholic bishops, issued a scathing statement condemning president Maduro for giving the military full control of the nation’s food supply, accusing him of being at the helm of a devastating “moral crisis” and crippling every aspect of life in Venezuela.”

    In what some economists have been calling a “death spiral”, the government’s failed economic policies are at the same time causing and trying to stem a runaway inflation with price-fixing policies which, in turn, are triggering shortages. Maduro is strongly urging businesses and farmers to sell their goods at severe losses, forcing shut-downs when the cost of doing business becomes prohibitive.

    According to a recent Bloomberg report, the black market is thriving because goods are unavailable at prices fixed by the government. There are reports of ordinary people quitting inadequate-paying jobs to set up black market operations, hoping to be able to make enough to sustain life.

    A dozen eggs was last reported to cost $150, and the International Monetary Fund “predicts that inflation in Venezuela will hit 720% this year. That might be an optimistic assessment, according to some local economic analysts, who expect the rate to reach as high as 1,200%.”

    According to a Bloomberg report from April:

    “In a tale that highlights the chaos of unbridled inflation, Venezuela is scrambling to print new bills fast enough to keep up with the torrid pace of price increases. Most of the cash, like nearly everything else in the oil-exporting country, is imported. And with hard currency reserves sinking to critically low levels, the central bank is doling out payments so slowly to foreign providers that they are foregoing further business.

     

    “Venezuela, in other words, is now so broke that it may not have enough money to pay for its money.”

    In the midst of this galloping cataclysm, there is no shortage of pundits who simplistically assert that the catastrophe is caused solely by the international collapse of oil prices. However, according to Justin Fox at Bloomberg:

    “The divergence between Venezuela’s revenue and spending started long before (the 2014) oil-price collapse. When oil prices hit their all-time high in July 2008, government revenue — 40 percent of which comes directly from oil — was already falling. The main problem was Venezuelan oil production, which dropped from 3.3 million barrels a day in 2006 to 2.7 million in 2011. It was still at 2.7 million in 2014, according to the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy.”

     

    “Venezuela isn’t running out of oil. Its proven reserves have skyrocketed since 2000 as geologists have learned more about the heavy crude of the Orinoco Belt. But getting at that oil will take a lot of resources and expertise, both things that Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA, best known in the U.S. for its Citgo subsidiary), has been lacking in since Chavez initiated a sort of hostile takeover starting in the early 2000s. First he kicked out 18,000 workers and executives, 40 percent of the company’s workforce, after a strike. Then he started demanding control of PDVSA’s joint ventures with foreign oil companies. One could interpret this in the most Chavez-friendly way possible — he was aiming for a more just allocation of his nation’s resources — and still conclude that he made it harder for PDVSA to deliver the necessary tax revenue.”

    Cronyism and corruption prevailed under Chavez when oil was selling at almost $200 a barrel — at a time when Venezuela could have put some money away for the inevitable rainy day. But President Hugo Chavez and successor president Maduro, were busy buying votes and consolidating power with free giveaways, according to Michael Klare in The Nation.

    Behind the doom and gloom Venezuela’s collapse is the continuing specter of street crime and murder, according to Time.com in a May 2016 report:

    “The country’s runaway murder rate is just one of the factors driving opposition to President Nicolas Maduro in a country where shortages of food and basic goods are chronic, inflation is running rampant and the government is jailing political prisoners. But it serves as a bloody illustration of just how close to outright societal collapse Venezuela has come since the end of the 20th century, as gangs, guerrillas and militia defend their turfs and traditional authority structures fall by the wayside.”

    Venezuela’s crime rate is one of the highest in the world. Called the world’s most homicidal nation, Venezuela has more than street crime, thuggery and murder. Drug cartels, black marketeers, narcoterrorists, white collar criminals and money launderers are unfortunate hallmarks of the Chavez/Maduro legacy.

    The ruin of this once prosperous, oil-rich nation might be a harbinger for other nations, such as the United States, which may be tempted into believing that Socialist giveaway policies actually can provide the promise of a free lunch for longer than the next election cycle. Or might that be all many politicians need or want?

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