- Will America's Trade Policy End Up Destroying The Dollar?
Will America’s Trade Policy End Up Destroying The Dollar?
Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,
America’s tariffs against China are already showing signs of undermining the global economy and will create a funding crisis for the Federal Government when it leads to foreigners no longer buying US Treasury debt and selling down their existing dollar holdings. A subversive attempt by America to divert global portfolio investment from China by destabilising Hong Kong will force China into a Plan B to fund its infrastructure plans, which could involve actively selling down her dollar reserves and hastening the introduction of a new crypto-based trade settlement currency.
The US budget deficit will then be financed entirely by monetary inflation. Furthermore, the turn of the credit cycle, made more destructive by trade tariffs, is driving the global and US economy into a slump, further accelerating all indebted governments’ dependency on inflationary financing. The end result is America’s trade policies have been instrumental in hastening the end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, ultimately leading to its destruction.
Introduction
For almost two years President Trump has imposed various tariffs on imported Chinese goods. He advertised his tactics as hardball from a tough president who knows the art of the deal, taking his business acumen and applying it to foreign affairs. He even proudly described himself as a tariff man.
His opening gambit was to impose tariffs on some goods to get leverage over the Chinese, with the threat that if they didn’t cooperate, then further tariffs would be introduced. The Chinese declined to be cowed by threats, introducing tariffs themselves on US imports, particularly agricultural products, to bring pressure to bear in turn on President Trump.
Egged on by his trade adviser Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Trump has continued to intensify his tariff policies, oblivious to the damage being done to the global economy. Putting aside Panglossian statistics, both America and China are now heading for a recession that is increasingly likely to deepen significantly. America’s consumer-driven economy is yet to reflect much of a slow-down, though producer countries dependent on either or both economies, such as Germany, are already descending into a manufacturing slump. China’s GDP is registering a growth rate of about 6%, low by Chinese standards, but being no more than a money total this is just a reflection of the quantity of money still being pumped into the Chinese economy by the authorities.
As the world descends into an economic contraction, it will not be reflected in government statistics, because all economies are having increasing quantities of fiat money pumped into them. Financial market participants naively believe that changes in GDP indicate an economy’s condition. If that was the case, the German economy in 1918-23 was an economic miracle and not the disaster history has led us to believe. The impoverishment of the masses, just like today’s reported impoverishment of Venezuelans and Zimbabweans must have been misreported, because nominal GDP was increasing ten or a hundredfold. Then there is the deflator. Ah, the deflator: a concoction by statisticians who appear to be under a government cosh to keep it as low as possible. That’s easy to deal with: introduce price controls across the board and use those official prices as a basis for the CPI. Infinite GDP growth is then assured.
That is the ultimate logic of perennial bulls and the errors should be obvious. At some stage, market participants beholden to the system will awaken to the lie that GDP, nominal or adjusted, has any statistical value, even in respectable jurisdictions. Banks will be rescued, and unemployment will rise, but GDP will continue to inflate – sorry, grow. The effect on prices so far has been subdued. At least, if you believe the official CPI version. Tariffs will end up blowing a hole in inflation targets while the global economy slumps and borrowing costs will then rise inexorably.
It’s time to discover why the America-China financial war and trade war will end up undermining the dollar.
US’s deep state strategy is stuck in the cold war era
Besides President Trump’s policy on tariffs, the permanent staff in the intelligence and military complexes are the driving force behind Cold War 2 against China and Russia. Russia has been in their sights since Yalta. Control of the Middle East along with Libya and Afghanistan have been key objectives. The Western alliance, comprising the US and its European handmaidens, has been focusing on oil, but at its root is the justification of US military spending. US taxpayers have been told that the Middle East, North Africa and more recently the Ukraine are important to stop Russia either dominating global energy supplies or pursuing territorial ambitions.
Russia’s military power is not as strong as projected by US military propagandists. It has excellent nuclear capability but an underequipped out-of-date military. Who can forget the sight of Russia’s one aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, chugging from the Baltic to the Mediterranean to come to Syria’s aid, breaking down and emitting clouds of black smoke, needing tugs to nurse it along? It is the naval equivalent of the ghastly Trabant motor car of the 1980s. The most egregious example of Russia’s non-nuclear might perhaps, but indicative, nonetheless.
The same is broadly true of Russia’s army. Its capability is limited, and American battle failures in the field are their own. Russia does not even try to punch above its weight, choosing to dance round the ring and tire out its opponent that way. Despite its superior equipment and battlefield technology, America usually then succumbs to its own errors.
As an adversary, China is in a different league to Russia altogether. At least America’s military complex knows not to take China on. Instead, more subversive tactics are deployed, and this is why Hong Kong has become the pressure point against China, destroying the investment link for international funds investing in Chinese infrastructure projects.
Logically, America should have accommodated China long ago, recognizing the dollar’s role as the supreme fiat currency would not then be challenged. But that would have led to the entire military complex being downsized over time: peace is not good for the war business. Without doubt it would have been economically beneficial for everyone other than the military. American corporations were happily running manufacturing operations in China and South East Asia as high-quality processors in their supply chains. Trump’s simple world, where China steals American jobs was never the case.
US Government’s developing funding crisis
The statistics in Table 1 summarise America’s financial problem.
These figures tell us that since the turn of the millennium 94% of America’s accumulated budget deficit is covered by the accumulated balance of payments deficit. In other words, almost all the budget deficit is financed directly or indirectly by inward capital flows, and very little can be attributed to genuine demand for US Treasuries by America’s savers.
This result is to be expected, since it reflects an accounting identity at the national level. The accounting identity tells us that unless there is an increase in national savings, a budget deficit will be financed by capital arising from the trade deficit. We can also say the money to cover the budget deficit in the absence of capital inflows and an increase in savings can only be through monetary inflation. In other words, through the debasement of the currency substituting for genuine savings.
In practice, foreign-owned dollars do not all go into US Treasuries, and investment outflows must be taken into account as well. Since 2000, according to Treasury TIC figures these are approximately $9 trillion, while total investment inflows at about $16 trillion leaves us with net inflows of $7 trillion, implying that foreign-owned cash and deposits in the US banks will have expanded to fill the gap between investment flows and the total balance of payments deficit. And indeed, we find that these balances amount to $4.3 trillion, accounting almost entirely for the gap between net inflows and the accumulated budget deficit in Table 1.
Obviously, there are other flows involved, but they are not material to the point. In the absence of an increase in savings, a budget deficit will always lead to a balance of payments deficit. How it is covered, by a combination of net inward capital flows and monetary inflation is a separate, but important consideration to which we will return later.
Now that the US faces a recession, the budget deficit will rise due to lower than forecast tax receipts and higher than expected welfare costs. The deeper the recession, the greater the deficit, which before the recessionary effect is factored in was forecast by the Congressional Budget Office to be just over one trillion dollars for the current fiscal year, which is two months in. It will obviously be somewhat higher, requiring funding by a combination of inward capital flows and monetary expansion.
If the foreigners don’t play ball, funding the budget deficit will be entirely down to monetary inflation. Worse, if they reduce their dollar holdings, not only will monetary expansion have to make up the funding difference for the government, but it will also have to address net foreign sales of existing treasuries and other US dollar assets as well. At end-June 2018 the total value of those assets including those held before 2000 were recorded at $19.4 trillion, plus bank deposits and short-term assets of $4.3bn, taking the total to $23.7 trillion.[i] This is the same approximate size as the US Government’s total debt and slightly more than US GDP.
Will foreigners sell US assets?
Naturally, dollar-based capital markets believe in the dollar and its hegemonic status. This extends to a belief that foreigners in financial trouble will always demand dollars and the more their trouble the greater their demand for dollars is likely to be. It is a mantra that ignores the fact that foreigners are up to their eyes in dollars already.
Look at it from China’s point of view. The bulk of her foreign reserves of $3.1 trillion are in dollars, with about one third of it in US Government debt. She is helping America to finance its military, which aims to contain and crush China. It’s rather like giving the school bully your baseball bat and inviting him to hit you with it. Furthermore, China’s military strategists have their own view of how America uses her currency’s hegemonic status, and it is not a casual one. They know, or think they know why America has stirred up Hong Kong, and that is to prevent global portfolio flows being invested in China, because America is desperate to have them instead.
It leaves China with a serious problem. She had expected inward global portfolio flows to help finance her infrastructure projects, and the Americans have effectively succeeded in closing down the Hong Kong Shanghai-connect link, through which foreign investment was to be directed. She is now in a position whereby she may have no alternative but to put her plans on hold or use her own dollar reserves to that end. Besides her US Treasury holdings, she is likely to have a further trillion or so in short-term instruments and bank deposits to draw on.
A decision to actively reduce her holdings of US Treasuries would not be taken lightly by China. The response from America would likely be an intensification of the financial war, perhaps including an emergency power to stop China selling her Treasury stock. If that happened, China would have no option but to respond, and a dollar crisis would almost certainly ensue. While outcomes with a rational opponent are theoretically predictable, President Trump’s actions and how they mesh with the deep state are less so, making the consequences of any action taken by China deeply unpredictable.
We shall have to wait to see how this next stage plays out. Meanwhile, the inflationary outlook in America is already deteriorating.
FMQ confirms a reacceleration of monetary inflation
After pausing in its headlong growth since the Lehman crisis, the fiat money quantity surged into record territory at $15,812bn at the beginning of October (Figure 1).
FMQ is the sum of Austrian true money supply and bank reserves held at the Fed. The reason for its renewed growth is the Fed’s easing by injecting money into the system through its repurchase agreements. FMQ for the beginning of November is likely to be higher still.
Something is amiss systemically, which appears to require continual monetary injections to prevent a financial crisis. The US economy having been already flooded with money following Lehman, this development is deeply worrying and possibly marks a countdown to the next credit crisis.
Price inflation will get out of control
To independent analysts, it should be clear by now that the world is probably teetering on the edge of a cyclical credit crisis, which this time is coupled with the destructive synergy of trade tariffs. Equally, it is obvious that while central bankers and politicians suspect something is wrong, they are clueless about the forces involved, otherwise they would not have implemented monetary policies that led to the situation today.
In the short-term, as we saw with the Lehman crisis when a credit crisis hits, there will probably be a panic into safety. But for the eventual outcome we must look beyond any initial effect. America and its dollar are central to how events will evolve. As already shown in this article the dollar is over-owned by foreigners, relative to ownership of foreign currencies by Americans. The basis of both categories of ownership is commercial assumptions about current and future prospects for international trade. For this reason a slump will cause demand for all currencies to contract, which in the dollar’s case will need to net selling greater than any repatriation of capital from abroad. Even though most dollars are actually held by foreign governments and their agencies, their strategic reserve decisions are ultimately driven by economic factors.
Assuming the global economic slump deepens over the next few years, at a time when the American budget deficit will be increasing rapidly foreigners will be sellers of dollars and underlying US assets, including US Treasuries. Unless private sector actors in America increase their propensity to save, the budget deficit will have to be financed instead entirely by inflationary means.
Broadly, other than intertemporal factors there are two ways in which monetary inflation can translate into higher prices: a relative desire to reduce possession of the currency relative to goods either by domestic users or by foreigners. The two preceding paragraphs describe why foreigners are likely to turn sellers for reasons of trade, to which we can add the further consideration that over the last year a combination of a rising dollar and falling US Treasury yields have been immensely profitable for them, an experience which might not be repeated next year. So, while domestic users may be slow to see the dollar’s purchasing power accelerate in its decline, the push to a weakening dollar is likely to come from abroad, at least initially.
All holders of dollars will find that their ownership of dollars relative to goods will be increasing rapidly, due to inflationary financing to cover a rising budget deficit. Instead of consumers and other economic actors associated with Main Street, the banks owe the bulk of their balances and deposits to other financial entities and foreigners. Therefore, the domestic monetary system is potentially more footloose than in the past. The risk to the Fed is that this deposit cohort is more likely to take its cue from factors such as the foreign exchanges, the price of gold and even cryptocurrencies, speeding up the fall in the dollar’s purchasing power once it begins to slide.
It is a long time since we have seen it, but when the smart money begins to view things negatively, everything the Fed does with monetary policy, or the executive does fiscally, leads to failure. A falling dollar leads to rising interest rates in the markets, and the government’s funding crisis will be laid bare for all to see. And with the Fed and the US Treasury staffed with neo-Keynesians, a policy reversal to stabilise the currency by making it sound will be the last thing that happens.
A world driven to trade isolationism
American trade policy under President Trump is isolationist and at odds with the role of a reserve currency. His mantra of “Make America Great Again” and his determination to build a wall on the Mexican border are testament to his thinking. If anything, America’s introspection towards Russia and China has strengthened their partnership as joint Asian hegemons. Their decision to progress their economies without America and its dollars was taken by America for them. Russia has already turned most of her dollars into gold and continues to do so. China’s plans to evolve her economy into a more consumer oriented one are underway, but she is still too dependent on export-oriented trade to disregard ties with her Western trading partners.
Consequently, China can be expected to accelerate plans for her vision of a consumer-driven middle class. In order to do so she will dispose of the dollar for trade purposes as much as possible. At the meeting of the BRICS nations in Brazil earlier this month, a common cryptocurrency was discussed, ostensibly to reduce currency volatility, but in reality, to eliminate the dollar as a common settlement medium between BRICS members.
So far, China has seen the redundancy of the dollar as a gradual evolutionary process. But America’s policy of diverting global portfolio flows from China is likely to lead to China drawing down on her foreign reserves, particularly her holdings of US dollars, to replace expected capital inflows. She will still be dependent on imports of raw materials, for which some dollars will be needed; but so long as she has a trade surplus, and she insists on her preferences for trade settlement by other means, China’s dollar requirements will be minimised.
China can probably weather the political consequences of a collapse in international trade, because for the population American aggression is clearly to blame. While China has had to amend its plans and is resisting precipitative action, there can be no doubt her determination to do away with the dollar is more urgent. Together with Russia, the other BRICS members and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as well as her trade counterparties in sub-Saharan Africa, China’s policies for trade settlement without the dollar will affect more than half the world’s population.
And when you get establishment figures in the Western banking system, such as Mark Carney, openly speculating at Jackson Hole last August about a replacement for the dollar in international trade, you know the dollar’s jig is finally up.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 23:30 - India Test Fires Nuke-Capable Missile Amid "Israeli Model" For Kashmir Controversy
India Test Fires Nuke-Capable Missile Amid “Israeli Model” For Kashmir Controversy
Following a major row over controversial comments from a senior Indian diplomat who in a recent televised speech called for the adoption of the “Israeli model” in Indian-administered Kashmir, New Delhi has added fresh fuel to the fire by another successful test launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Agni-III, on Saturday. This comes after a series prior short-range nuke capable missile tests over the past two weeks.
It was the first night trial of the nuclear capable Agni-III surface-to-surface ballistic missile, fired from an island off India’s east coast into the Bengal Sea. Indian defense sources have touted that the nuke-capable ballistic missile possesses a range of over 1,862 miles, and has successfully hit its targets in the latest tests.
India has test fired multiple ballistic missiles over the past month, via NDTV. Tensions with Pakistan remain on edge over the months-long Kashmir crisis precipitated by the Indian government revoking the autonomy of the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), after which tens of thousands of Indian national troops poured into the Muslim-majority region in a political crackdown.
And a new diplomatic storm erupted this week after a top diplomat called for Indian to enact the “Israeli model” in disputed Kashmir. Sandeep Chakravorty, India’s consul general in New York, made the comments at a private event captured in a now viral hour-long video.
Speaking of the ongoing security crackdown in J&K, the senior diplomat said, “I believe the security situation will improve, it will allow the refugees to go back, and in your lifetime, you will be able to go back … and you will be able to find security, because we already have a model in the world.”
Since August tens of thousands of Indian troops have poured into J&K in a major political crackdown, which has included a mass internet blockage. He was referencing the occupied West Bank and controversial Israeli tactics there, as well as Palestinian East Jerusalem, also under Israeli administration:
“I don’t know why we don’t follow it. It has happened in the Middle East. If the Israeli people can do it, we can also do it,” he said, adding that the current Indian leadership is “determined” to do so.
Kashmiri Muslim activist groups were quick to condemn the statements, as well as top Pakistani officials.
The remarks further struck a deep nerve given the religious elements in play. Strongly Muslim countries like Pakistan do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, and have repeatedly condemned the Jewish state’s expansionist tactics in the Muslim-majority West Bank as well as military operations inside Gaza.
A senior Indian diplomat has sparked anger by calling for the adoption of an “Israeli model” in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Read more on the story here: https://t.co/lkI7jqHl2C pic.twitter.com/w8hXOJVGM7
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 28, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
One Pakistani ambassador in the Middle East, Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi, called the comments “shocking but not surprising at all.”
“It has been apparent all-along that encouraged by the international community’s inability or unwillingness to address the situation in the Occupied Palestinian territories, India is now following the same colonial strategy,” he said.
It’s but the latest in a series of dangerous tit-for-tat incidents, which even briefly broke out into military action back in February, over the heightened Kashmir crisis between the two nuclear powers.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 23:00 - Will The Epstein Story Ever be Fully Told?
Will The Epstein Story Ever be Fully Told?
Authored by Bill Rice, Jr.
More than four months after Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest – and three months after his alleged suicide – it requires no opinion poll to know that few Americans believe the story of the international sex trafficking ring orchestrated by Epstein and his alleged “co-accomplices” will ever be fully told.
More specifically, many Americans believe that most (if not all) of the key questions regarding the case will remain unanswered. For example …
- How many Epstein “associates” actually received sexual “services” from underage girls? Will all (or even any) of these people be identified, exposed and perhaps prosecuted? Were any of these individuals blackmailed, extorted or in any way compromised?
- Did employees within agencies of the U.S. government turn a blind eye to Epstein’s activities? Was Epstein, in fact, “intelligence” and, if so, on whose orders was Alex Acosta allegedly told to leave Epstein alone?
- Did Epstein continue his sex-trafficking operation even after being released from jail in 2009? If so, how was this possible?
- Where did Epstein receive the money to fund his operation, including the acquisition of the largest private residence in Manhattan, two secluded private islands in the Virgin Islands, a secluded “ranch” in New Mexico, two large jets and a helicopter?
- Why, for years, did the “watchdog” press display no interest in a scandal that, if fully told, could qualify as the “story of the century,” a story that might implicate many more powerful people and government agencies than Watergate?
- Pertinent facts surrounding Epstein’s death, ruled a suicide, have also yet to be disclosed. One unanswered question: How was it possible an inmate who may have possessed “dirt” on the most powerful people in the world could be left alone in his cell?
In short, at least in the opinion of many, the public will never learn how massively corrupt our system of justice may be, and if a privileged class is in fact held to a different standard of justice, and/or is protected by the powers that be. Nor will the public learn how prurient, immoral and brazen a cross-section of the world’s elite may be.
Of course, authorities may, in fact, do their jobs and ultimately disclose the entire scale of Epstein’s operation. Prosecutions and plea deals to come could include a “Who’s Who” of the world, and expose any government agencies that may have “looked the other way.”
At least theoretically, our government could expose a decades-long criminal operation, a revelation that very possibly would change the way millions of people view the U.S. government; not to mention how the public views many powerful VIPs who navigate in the orbit of politicians and policy-makers.
Once upon a time, the number Americans who believed justice would ultimately prevail in a case like Epstein’s would probably have filled a good-sized nation. Today, the number who posses this conviction might fill a medium-sized city.
Citizens who doubt the full story of the Epstein saga will ever be revealed have little trouble citing stories that explain their metastasizing skepticism.
For example, plenty of people did notice when Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince Prince Mohammed bin Salman suffered no adverse consequences following the gruesome murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a murder many people believe the prince ordered.
Others remain befuddled as UK authorities continue to insist that the government of Russia commissioned a hit team that used nerve agents in the assassination attempt of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, this despite the copious number of holes that pockmark the “official” story.
Similarly, the narrative that Syria President Bashar al–Assad “gassed his own people” – a highly questionable proposition to many – has nonetheless been widely accepted as truth, at least by intelligence agencies and a press corps that increasingly accepts official pronouncements as incontrovertible.
[editor’s note: see Caitlin Johnstone’s latest on two OPCW whistleblowers whose claims effectively dubunk the narrative]
The aggressive prosecution (persecution) of Julian Assange is another story that disturbs at least some citizens. The fact so few members of the mainstream press have rallied to Assange’s defense has only deepened the depression of one-time idealists.
And these examples do not include the most dubious government narrative of them all, the assertion Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, a false predicate that ultimately caused the death and suffering of millions of people.
Cynics could also point to an investigation that, unlike several of the above examples, did receive incessant press coverage – the story that Russia somehow “rigged” or “hacked” a U.S. presidential election, a conclusion accepted as gospel by most in the mainstream press, but viewed as preposterous by millions of Americans.
In these and other cases, a growing number of citizens have come to believe that official “investigations” and “official findings” are either a sham or intentionally omit details which do not support the desired meme.
It’s within this context that millions of Americans have latched onto the Epstein story and the growing conviction that our government (and press corp) have become more interested in concealing truths than exposing them.
The Epstein story is not just the latest scandal of the week. The number of individuals who could have been involved, or who might have worked to cover-up its existence, almost certainly dwarfs the number implicated in Watergate.
The list of those who might have some knowledge of Epstein’s criminal enterprise includes a sitting president, ex-presidents, ex-prime ministers, Justice Department officials, State Department officials, FBI agents, employees of domestic and international intelligence agencies, state prosecutors, local law enforcement, politicians, ex-politicians, lobbyists, titans of industry and finance, CEOs, attorneys, accountants, banks and bankers, celebrities, academics, scientists, political operatives and executives within the Fourth Estate.
Almost five months after Epstein’s arrest, one is struck by curious events that have already occurred and by developments yet to occur.
For example, how is it possible that Ghislaine Maxwell – the “Bonnie” to Epstein’s “Clyde” – has yet to be charged with any crimes? Or, as far as the public knows, even been questioned by authorities.
Public skepticism about the “investigation” spiked when, five weeks after his arrest, the FBI finally raided Epstein’s “Lolita” Island. Epstein’s “ranch” in New Mexico has still not been searched.
The public has also received no indication that authorities are, in fact, questioning any of Epstein’s many “associates,” especially those who may have had sexual contact with girls recruited and groomed by Epstein and Maxwell.
Every person named in court documents or press reports as allegedly or possibly having sex with an underaged girl or young woman at Epstein’s bequest has denied the allegations. Which begs the question: Who’s telling the truth and who’s lying? To form an opinion on this central question, authorities would presumably need to interview anyone with possible knowledge of alleged sexual or criminal acts. Investigators could then seek information that either corroborates or impeaches each person’s account.
However, evidence is growing that the protocol in a typical “he-said, she-said” investigation is not being followed in the Epstein case. Instead, authorities may have simply accepted as truth the statements of denial issued by powerful public figures.
True or not, many Americans believe the Department of “Justice” will not prosecute (perhaps even question) scores of individuals who may have broken U.S. laws and who may have been victims of a disturbing blackmail operation.
Perhaps authorities have concluded it’s better to not know. Perhaps they realize if they interview one suspected “John,” they’ll have to interview every potential “John.” if this number ends up being massive, and includes a Who’s Who of our society, important illusions about society’s leaders and our system of justice could be shattered.
At its core, the Epstein case will reveal whether government prosecutors and investigators possess the courage and integrity to expose sordid truths about some of the wealthiest, most-connected, powerful people in the world, and perhaps reveal embarrassing truths about our government.
Americans might soon learn what objective is more important to Justice Department officials: Protecting the rich and powerful from the consequences of their behavior, or confirming that a system of justice grounded in trust can still be trusted.
Sadly, many Americans are convinced authorities will not do the right thing.
However, in proving skeptics wrong, authorities would accomplish at least four objectives, all noble. They would punish the guilty. They would provide justice to victims too long ignored. They would deter future Epsteins and future “Johns,” especially those unaccustomed to being held accountable for their actions. And, perhaps most importantly, they would allow a ray of sunshine to pierce the shadow of cynicism that’s spread across our country.
While such a development might not restore all trust in government, it would be an eye-opening start. For those who believe the moral character of a nation is important, it would send a message that all hope is not lost.
****
Bill Rice, Jr. is a freelance writer in Troy, Alabama. He can be reached by email at wjricejunior@gmail.com
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 22:30 - Schwab Abandons High-Tax San Francisco For New $100 Million Mega-HQ In Dallas
Schwab Abandons High-Tax San Francisco For New $100 Million Mega-HQ In Dallas
Charles Schwab’s $26 billion deal to acquire TD Ameritrade will result in the relocation of its San Francisco-based headquarters to Dallas-Fort Worth, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Schwab gave no timeframe on the transition to Westlake, a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. The region is considered one of the fastest-growing financial hubs in the country at the moment. The merger is expected to be completed in 2H20 and could take 12 to 36 months to integrate both firms completely.
Schwab’s new Dallas-Fort Worth campus will cost around $100 million, covers 70 acres with 500,000 square feet of office space.
Schwab chairman and founder Charles Schwab noted that one of the drivers in the move out of California was the high cost of doing business in the state, “…the costs of doing business here are so much higher than some other place.”
Schwab expects the merger could produce 20% savings, or about $2 billion.
“With this transaction, we will capitalize on the unique opportunity to build a firm with the soul of a challenger and the resources of a large financial services institution that will be uniquely positioned to serve the investment, trading and wealth management needs of investors across every phase of their financial journeys,” Schwab President Walt Bettinger said in a statement.
The Journal notes the brokerage house will pay significantly fewer taxes in Texas:
“The Lone Star State imposes a 0.75% franchise tax on business margins (total revenue minus compensation), which is substantially less than the corporate tax rates in California (8.84%) and Nebraska (7.81%), where TD Ameritrade is currently headquartered. The city of San Francisco also imposes a 0.38% payroll tax and a 0.6% gross receipts tax on financial service companies.
Texas has no individual income tax, while the top rate on income and capital gains in California is 13.3%, and the Lone Star State’s housing and energy costs are substantially lower. The average monthly rent in San Francisco is $3,870 compared to $1,200 in Dallas. Schwab workers and executives can have a higher standard of living, and more after-tax income, at the same salaries.”
Schwab said it would keep a “sizeable corporate footprint” in San Francisco, but the brokerage house will likely wind down operations in the state through 2025.
With the cost of doing business significantly less in Texas, the move has become a no brainer. It has also become favorable with employees, who will soon enjoy affordable housing and a cheaper cost of living. They will also enjoy city streets free of epidural needles and human feces, makeshift tent cities, and no rolling blackouts from the local power company.
The great corporate exit of California will be a devastating trend for the state. Other companies will likely follow suit in the years ahead.
Everyone leaving NY and CA for TX and in 5 years TX will be the same. Then where do they all move? pic.twitter.com/oYv8vFiWbm
— Hipster (@Hipster_Trader) November 30, 2019
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 22:00 - Starbucks Barista, Who Called Cop "PIG" On Thanksgiving, Fired
Starbucks Barista, Who Called Cop “PIG” On Thanksgiving, Fired
A Starbucks employee who printed the word “PIG” on the labels of a Kiefer, Oklahoma police officer’s coffee has been fired, according to the company.
The Kiefer police officer went to the Glenpool Starbucks on Thursday to pick up five drinks for dispatchers working on Thanksgiving, according to Police Chief Johnny O’Mara in a Facebook post.
“What irks me is the absolute and total disrespect for a police officer who, instead of being home with family and enjoying a meal and a football game, is patrolling his little town,” he added.
“This cup of coffee for a ‘pig’ is just another little flag,” the post continues. “It’s another tiny symptom and a nearly indiscernible shout from a contemptuous, roaring and riotous segment of a misanthropic society that vilifies those who stand for what’s right and glorifies the very people who would usher in the destruction of the social fabric. It’s another tiny pinprick into the heart of men and women who are asking themselves more often: ‘Why am I doing this?'”
Starbucks called the incident “absolutely unacceptable,” adding that they are “deeply sorry to the law enforcement officer who experienced this,” according to CNN.
“The Starbucks partner who wrote this offensive word on a cup used poor judgement and is no longer a partner after this violation of company policy,” reads a company statement. “This language is offensive to all law enforcement and is not representative of the deep appreciation we have for police officers who work tirelessly to keep our communities safe.”
The company issued a joint statement with the Kiefer police department, saying they’re using the incident “as an opportunity to leverage our shared platforms to promote greater civility.”
The Seattle-based coffee chain will meet with Kiefer police to discuss other ways to work together, and will host a Coffee with a Cop event where baristas and and members of the community will be educated as to “the critical role dispatchers and police offers play in keeping our communities safe.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 21:35 - China Adopts Malicious "Cybersecurity" Rules
China Adopts Malicious “Cybersecurity” Rules
Authored by Gordon Chang via The Gatestone Institute,
On January 1, China’s Cryptography Law becomes effective. The legislation follows the December 1 implementation of the Multi-Level Protection Scheme 2.0, issued under the authority of the 2016 Cybersecurity Law.
Together, these measures show Beijing’s absolute determination to seize from foreign companies all their communications, data, and other information stored in electronic form in China.
Beijing’s complete visibility into the networks of foreign companies will have extremely disadvantageous consequences. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.)
President Trump should use his emergency powers to prohibit American companies from complying with the new rules or from storing data in China.
After all these “cybersecurity” rules are in place, no foreign company may encrypt data so that it cannot be read by the Chinese central government and the Communist Party of China. In other words, businesses will be required to turn over encryption keys.
Companies will also be prohibited from employing virtual private networks to keep data secret, and some believe they will no longer be allowed to use private servers.
Beijing’s system, once implemented, will be so invasive that Chinese authorities will no longer need to ask foreign businesses to turn over data. Chinese officials will simply be able to take that data on their own.
“Once data crosses the Chinese border on a network,” writes Steve Dickinson in the China Law Blog,
“100 percent of that data will be 100 percent available to the Chinese government and the CCP.”
Beijing’s complete visibility into the networks of foreign companies will have extremely disadvantageous consequences, Dickinson notes.
First, Chinese officials will be permitted, under Chinese law, to share seized information with state enterprises. This means the enterprises will be able to use that information against their foreign competitors.
Second, China’s new rules will almost certainly result in foreign companies losing trade secret protection around the world. A trade secret loses its status as such when it is widely disclosed. Once a company allows such a secret to be carried on its Chinese network, the company has to assume Beijing will know it. “Since no company can reasonably assume its trade secrets will remain secret once transmitted into China over a Chinese controlled network, they are at great risk of having their trade secret protections outside China evaporating as well,” writes Dickinson.
Third, China’s cybersecurity program exposes companies to penalties for violating U.S. tech-export legislation. Businesses have assumed that technology covered by U.S. export prohibitions is not “exported” if it is kept on a Chinese network protected by end-to-end encryption, in other words, not available to Chinese authorities. Because companies will no longer be permitted to encrypt data end-to-end, they will almost certainly be considered as violating U.S. rules for tech stored on a network in China.
Not every analyst is alarmed by China’s December 1 measures. James Andrew Lewis, for instance, maintains that Beijing’s new rules are a “legitimate effort” to secure networks in China. Moreover, he argues the Chinese do not need the new MLPS 2.0 rules to grab information because they can just steal all they want with their advanced “APT” hacker groups. “Their intent is not to use it for malicious purposes,” Lewis argues, referring to Chinese officials.
I
tis not clear how Lewis, a tech expert at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, can know the intent of China’s officials. Furthermore, portraying that intent as benign seems naive—laughable even—while their country is stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of American intellectual property each year and while Chinese ruler Xi Jinping continues his determined attacks on foreign business. In these circumstances, we have to assume Chinese officials are acting with malign intent.Lewis also downplays the basic point that China’s cyber spies, once they have the encryption keys and access to the China network of a foreign firm, will be in a better position to penetrate the networks of that firm outside China. Therefore, it will only be a matter of time before Beijing steals data and puts companies out of business or ruins them to the point where Chinese entities can swoop in and buy them up cheap. Many allege that China stole data from Canada’s Nortel Networks and thereby bankrupted it almost a decade ago. The company was, according to the Financial Post, “hacked to pieces.”
Finally, CSIS’s Lewis fails to recognize that Beijing’s December 1 rules generally legitimize China’s regulation and information-custody role–in other words, China’s theft.
Senator Josh Hawley is rightly more suspicious of Beijing’s intentions. In November, the Missouri Republican introduced a bill, the National Security and Data Protection Act of 2019, prohibiting American companies from storing user data or encryption keys in China. Of course, this bill faces opposition from tech companies doing business in that country.
Yet, there is someone who can, with the stroke of a pen, effectively implement Hawley’s bill. President Donald John Trump can use his broad powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to prohibit companies from complying with the pernicious new rules or from storing data in China.
The rationale for such a sweeping presidential order is that the American people have an interest in China not taking control of American companies with operations in China–a probable consequence of the application of the December 1 and January 1 measures.
Such an emergency order would effectively force American companies out of China, so this step would be drastic. Yet it is China, with its incredibly ambitious grab of data, that is forcing the issue.
The American people have a vital interest in the protection of American data. Trump should issue such an order immediately.
* * *
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 21:30 - War And Peace: How Violence Is Disrupting The Global Economy
War And Peace: How Violence Is Disrupting The Global Economy
Although you may not see it, millions of lives are disrupted by violence everyday.
War, homicide, terrorism, suicide, and sexual assault can be found across the world in various degrees; but, as Visual Capitalist’s Katie Jones details below, while certain types of violence can incur costs that result in personal traumas, violence can also create significant economic disruptions.
In today’s Chart of the Week, we visualize data estimates from the Global Peace Index 2019 on the global cost of violence, and its geographical spread.
How is Violence Linked to the Economy?
The Global Peace Index calculates the total cost of violence using purchasing power parity (PPP) by considering three factors:
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Direct costs: Immediate consequences to the victims, perpetrators and the government
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Indirect costs: Delayed economic losses following the violent event, including the after-effects of trauma experienced by the victim
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Multiplier effect: Calculates the additional economic activity that would have accrued if the direct costs of violence had been avoided.
Between 2012-2017, the cost of violence increased by 11% to $14.6 trillion—mainly due to rising violence in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa.
In 2018, the total cost of violence decreased for the first time in six years to $14.1 trillion. That’s the equivalent of 11.2% of global GDP (PPP), or $1,853 for every person.
In this one year, the $475 billion saved from decreased violence costs was largely due to lower levels of armed conflict in Syria, Ukraine, and Colombia.
The Top 10 Worst Affected Countries
It comes as no surprise that countries affected by conflict incur the greatest costs due to a higher than average death toll, and sizable military expenditures.
Here are the countries with the highest cost of violence according to the report:
Since 2017, Venezuela has climbed the ranking and now sits in the top 10, due to continuing political repression and a spiraling economy as a result of hyperinflation.
The Global Composition of Violence
Government spending on military comprises 40% of the global total, or $5.7 trillion in constant purchasing power parity (PPP).
Naturally, the types of violence costs vary by region, and the most noticeable difference is in military expenditure. It represents 59% of Middle East and North Africa’s violence costs—but only 8% for Central America and the Caribbean.
Interestingly, the Middle East and North Africa boast the lowest levels of violent crime, homicide, and suicide, representing only 4% of the total, compared to South America’s 45%.
Keeping the Peace
Despite today’s chart painting a picture of the world as a dangerous place, it is worth noting that there are two sides to this story.
Of the 163 countries ranked in the index, 86 countries improved their peace score in the last year, with Iceland retaining its number one position for over a decade. In fact, the country has not had any gun murders since the Global Peace Index began in 2007.
Is the recent drop in costs of violence a sign that we are moving towards a more peaceful planet, or just a blip on the radar?
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 21:00 -
- How To Lose An Election 2.0: Mike Bloomberg's Train-Wreck Campaign
How To Lose An Election 2.0: Mike Bloomberg’s Train-Wreck Campaign
Authored by Sarah Cowgill via LiberetyNation.com,
Johnny-come-lately to the Democratic primary circus, Michael Bloomberg, is two steps into a tight rope walk without a net and the unzippered tent flaps aren’t keeping out the blustery wind gusts blowing through the Big Top. Already irritating his own media business, Bloomberg News, with an edict to not report the ugliness of truth against Democrats and his own sorry self and polls stuck on the “we like Trump” needle, Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign staffers appear ready to mutiny.
Mikey’s 2020 campaign chief, Kevin Sheekey, who says the entire election hinges on Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona, also admitted that “right now Donald Trump is winning, he is winning that election.”
Not even a scintilla of a message, “hey, my guy is in now and look out!” Nope. And then he laid out the most seemingly inept campaign strategy in our lifetime.
How To Lose An Election 2.0
Former mayor of the Big Apple, Bloomberg, is complacent with a large base within a stone’s throw of his ivory towered offices. I’d imagine a New York state of mind, much as Hillary embraced, makes one feel they have the entire nation front and center and rearing to pull the ballot lever just for them. Why else would Madam Clinton skip every rural mile of the Midwest, Bible Belt, and Rust Belt states? And according to Sheekey, that is Team Bloomberg’s 2020 strategic plan as well.
Michael Bloomberg
The first major misstep is the questionable decision to skip visiting any of the early primary states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina – a traditional early indicator of who can go the distance.
But Sheekey has a better, more universal plan. He is calling his Bloomberg appearance strategy a “national political campaign,” vowing Bloomberg will be speaking to “everyone in the country at once.” Pretty ambitious – or downright lazy – when ratings for the Democratic Primary Debates are at dismal levels. Can Americans be forced to listen? Sheekey believes it can be done:
“You can say it’s never been done before, but you also have to say no one’s ever tried it before. We’re going to talk to everyone in the country at once and we’re particularly going to overtalk to those people who need to vote …”
Surround Yourself With Best
Every US president – with only a few exceptions – knew to select the best, most loyal, and in-depth issue-oriented advisors. The same strategy is true in the trenches of a heated, highly populated campaign. You simply hire the best. Bloomberg may want to reassess the plans his campaign chief is spouting on Twitter and CNN about sitting back and allowing the people – all on their own – to tune in to the latest candidate infomercial penned by Sheekey:
“Mike is getting in this race because he thinks that Donald Trump is an existential crisis and he thinks he’s on a path to victory and he’s getting in to alter that dynamic.”
In other words, Mike joined the race because he has an overblown ego and knows the current field cannot beat the president if the election were held today. If this is his best campaign foot forward, he may bow out before early primaries even begin.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 20:30 - Which Countries Offer The Longest Retirements
Which Countries Offer The Longest Retirements
In a world where central banks have repressed savers with over a decade of zero and negative interest rates, crushing the middle class and turning the US into a banana republic whose middle class is now shrinking so fast…
… it is on par with that of Russia, China and Turkey…
… it is perhaps remarkable that workers are still able to leave the workforce and enjoy some years of peaceful retirement instead of working every day until they die.
Of course when it comes to retirement, some countries are more equal than others – especially those where worker entitlements have been historically so generous that removing them would lead to nothing short of revolution, even if it means a slow motion fiscal suicide for the state which can no longer afford such generosity.
So for all those asking which countries have the most generous retirement systems, here it the answer. We doubt it will come as a surprise that some of Europe’s most fiscally challenged countries are also those that offer the longest retirement across the entire OECD universe. Incidentally, those pointing out the “sexism” that women tend to live longer and enjoy a longer retirement, we are confident that no feminists will touch that particular “inequality” with a ten foot pole.
A tangent of the chart above: just because some of Europe’s most socialist nations have the most retirement regimes right now, does not mean they will in the future: as the next chart shows, in an progressively aging world, where there is roughly 45 retirees per 100 workers, this number is set to skyrocket by 2050, when such retirement havens as Italy and Greece will sport more than 100 retirees per 100 workers, a regime that is absolutely unsustainable.
And one bonus chart: yes, places such as Greece may have one of the most generous retirement regimes, but working all those long years to finally hit retirement in the thrice insolvent European nation is hardly a walk in the park: as the next chart shows, there is a great dispersion between those countries that have the most stressful working environment such as Greece, Turkey, Hungary and Spain, and those where work is a joy such as Scandinavia, New Zealand and the UK (although we somehow doubt the latter will remain on this list for long). Perhaps it’s only fair that after working in hell, one should at least be entitled to a few years of peaceful retirement.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 20:00 - London Bridge Killer Was Released From Prison Early On Prior Terrorism Charge
London Bridge Killer Was Released From Prison Early On Prior Terrorism Charge
Update: According to The Telegraph, London Bridge attacker Usman Khan, 28, was a convicted terrorist who was released from prison in December 2018 – less than seven years into a 16-year sentence for a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange.
He was also a student and personal friend of notorious Islamist hate preacher, Anjem Choudary, whose private cell phone number was stored in Khan’s phone at the time of his initial arrest.
Khan was one of a series of Al-Muhajiroun connected terrorists to be released over a six-month period beginning in the Autumn of 2018. He was known to have attended a series of Al-Muhajiroun protests and street stalls in the Midlands area prior to his arrest.
Before his conviction for the LSE terror plot, police had previously raided his home in Tunstall over concerns about his links to Choudary. –The Telegraph
Usman Khan “All these years later, and Anjem Choudary’s one-time acolytes are still butchering members of the public on our streets,” said terrorism expert, Dr. Paul Stott.
“Usman Khan was a loyal and integral member of Choudary’s inner-circle and we know him to have been highly regarded by Choudary.”
Khan — a British citizen born in the UK and of Pakistani origin — left school with no qualifications after spending part of his late teens in Pakistan, where he lived with his mother when she became ill. On his return to the UK, he started preaching extremism on the internet and attracted a significant following.
In January 2012, Khan pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism contrary to section 5(1) of the UK’s Terrorism Act 2006. Khan was among nine men charged with conspiracy to bomb high-profile London targets in the run-up to Christmas in 2010. At the time, the men were described as an Al Qaeda-inspired group that wanted to send mail bombs to various targets and launch a “Mumbai-style” atrocity. At the time of his arrest, Khan lived in Stoke-on-Trent, a city in central England. –Dawn
Meanwhile, The Mirror reports that the tusk-wielding hero who helped stop the attack using a 5′ Narwhal Tusk he grabbed off a wall is a Polish chef named only as Lukasz, who immigrated to the UK.
The man armed with a Narwhal tusk who helped to stop the terrorist attack yesterday on London bridge was a Polish chef called Łukasz, reports @thetimes pic.twitter.com/VHEWvhRxT5
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 30, 2019
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According to friends, he was working at Fishmongers’ Hall when Khan, 28, began attacking attendees at a University of Cambridge conference on prisoner rehabilitation. Kahn, who was wearing a fake suicide vest, killed two and injured three – including Lukasz.
“Everybody run! There’s a terrorist on the bridge!”
Lukasz: Get me the tusk
🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) November 30, 2019
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Khan was killed by the police.
On Saturday the Queen praised the “brave individuals who put their own lives at risk to selflessly help and protect others.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, meanwhile, has pledged to bolster prison sentences for criminals who commit serious and violent offenses, and that people convicted of terrorism should not be allowed out of prison early.
“It’s clear to me this guy was out—he served half of his sentence, he was out on automatic, early release—and I have long said that this system isn’t working” said Johnson, standing near the scene of the incident.
“It does not make sense for us as a society to put terrorists, people convicted of terrorist offenses, out on early release. We argue that people should, that terrorists serve the term of their sentence. That’s my immediate takeaway from this and why we’re working on increasing the sentences for serious, violent offenders,” he added. “I think that the practice of automatic, early release where you cut a sentence in half and let really serious, violent offenders out early simply isn’t working, and you’ve some very good evidence of how that isn’t working, I am afraid, with this case.”
***
A quick-thinking bystander who was inside London’s Fishmonger’s Hall when a deadly terrorist attack began grabbed a 5′ narwhal tusk off the wall and helped subdue a knife-wielding man who killed two pedestrians on London Bridge.
The attacker, said to be a recently-released terrorist prisoner believed to be wearing a fake suicide vest and a tracking tag, was taken down by the tusk-wielding hero and a man with a fire extinguisher before police shot him dead.
Sources have told Sky News the suspect in the London Bridge attack was a recently-released terrorist prisoner believed to have been wearing a tag
— Sky News Breaking (@SkyNewsBreak) November 29, 2019
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“A guy who was with us at Fishmongers Hall took a 5′ narwhale [sic] tusk from the wall and went out to confront the attacker,” tweeted Amy Coop.
A guy who was with us at Fishmongers Hall took a 5’ narwhale tusk from the wall and went out to confront the attacker. You can see him standing over the man (with what looks like a white pole) in the video. We were trying to help victims inside but that man’s a hero #LondonBridge
— Amy Coop (@theamycoop) November 29, 2019
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Yup
— Amy Coop (@theamycoop) November 29, 2019
There it is. Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/mWwavqCUMQ
— Adam Gatto (@adamgatto) November 29, 2019
When you wrestle a knife from a terrorist but remembered you picked up for the lads tonight. #LondonBridge #LondonBridgeAttack #LondonBridgeIncident #londonshooting pic.twitter.com/rpo8ZO5fgZ
— RWK (@firedeathpony) November 29, 2019
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After police stepped in:
London bridge shooting #London #LondonBridge pic.twitter.com/H5RJQgh60u
— Jon Stewart (@JonStewartUK) November 29, 2019
Terrorism attacker lay dead on #Londonbridge 💪🇬🇧
Brilliant work by armed police pic.twitter.com/ScOqsyOFX6
— London Crime LDN (@CrimeLdn) November 29, 2019
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Glad you’re okay. Also, this is legit the most bad ass thing I’ve ever heard.
— Tom Strachan (@tstrachanedit) November 29, 2019
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Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 19:35 - America Wages Economic Warfare On The Globe By Weaponizing Its Mawkish Culture
America Wages Economic Warfare On The Globe By Weaponizing Its Mawkish Culture
Authored by Denis A. Conroy for The Saker Blog,
American nationalism binds the whole-to-its-parts by using narrative to weaponize emotions and broadcast the idea of American ‘wholeness’ as somehow exceptionally greater than the sum of its parts.
There can be no doubt that zealotry became the dynamic forging the American character . First and foremostly, enunciations spat out by bearded prophets were carried on the winds of ontological time and eventually landing on the shores of the new world along with bible and crucifix to stave off inequities and help shape a mind-set (and foreign policy) for those taking possession of the Kingdom of God. A colonial policy that inevitably consigned the population of the occupied territories into misery and poverty would in time come to be regarded as regime change. The Protestant reformation was always about gilding the God narrative with a work ethic equal to the sum of its mercantile whole.
To this very day, individual achievements take precedence over collective values as missionary zeal is believed to have the potential to sublimate the libido and divert energy into productive work activities. The nub of the narrative being the ineffable Protestant-cum-existentialist credential underpinning the virtues of 19th century Anglophile culture that found ways of appeasing the mind with dreamlike emoluments to convey the promise of earthly rewards for the industrious of mind…or simply put; mercantilism became a-one-size-fits-all solution for man’s irascible struggle with his existential hairshirt.
In time, European mercantile classes would invasively penetrate every corner of the globe for the purpose of wealth extraction. Those who sought material gratification would eventually come to define democracy as freedom to pursue individual desires. What emerged from this was class-identified gentrification and fake sugar-coated democracy supporting a form of fake-individuality that created a class system based on the exploitation on just about everything.
As time passed the existential stature of the state grew, while the existential stature of the individual remained the same. With the advent of mercantilism came a national economic policy designed to maximize exports and minimize imports, with the state taking a more adversarial role in all business arrangements. For the state to be greater than the sum of its parts meant exporting a greater quantity of its manufactured products to its trading partners while minimising the amount of goods they imported from them.
To do this it was necessary to devise policies that aimed to reduce a possible current account deficit and achieve a current account surplus. Mercantilism introduced a national economic policy aimed at accumulating monetary reserves through a positive balance of trade, especially in finished goods…fine policies in theory, but when push came to shove in the competitive arena, greed inevitably exposed these polices to the raw ‘talents’ of people like Sheriff Trump and most of his contemporaries , who interpret business as dealership and mawkishly set out to wage economic warfare on all and sundry.
The practice of sucking in wealth associated with the resources of Africa, India, the Americas, India and other Asian destinations was so successful that Britain…almost inadvertently…found itself in possession of an empire. It had reached a plateau where the sum was greater than its parts and to sustain its ‘sum-status’ meant creating an alliance of collusive narratives to justify its pre-eminence…and the best way to do so and retain control of the narrative was to resort to propaganda and trophy issues that would weaponize the emotions of the population. Hence the modern state found a way to prioritize itself at the expense of the individual. Over time, business cartels in tandem with the government would create ever more contextual paradigms for the individual to deal with.
What was required to sustain the status quo was a narrative to make the people feel proud of the fact that they were part of a-top-dog-team in action. Once the authors of the narrative realized that propaganda, when coupled with patriotism, could produce adherents imbued with convictions that were inherent in the narrative, they realized that language itself could cement a profitable relationship between buyer and seller and public relations became a force unto itself.
If you were part of the bourgeoisie who came into existence in the 19th centuries as a consequence of the wealth pouring into Europe and Britain from the colonial exploitation of Africa or India, Ireland, Asia etc. and your conscience was troubled by virtue of being party to a culture sliding grandiosely up its own existential arse, you could find balm within the isolated confines of the psychiatrist’s couch if your pockets were deep enough. If you were of a humble disposition, there was the pastor or the priest who could deal with your existential woes. If you made it to the 20th century you probably would have become so conditioned by events as to be unaware of other people’s suffering…and if you made it to the 21 century…perish the thought!
It was in this phase of history that commerce cleverly entered the business of explaining the meaning of existence per educational fiat…for a price! Thereafter it would be secular experts who explained the meaning of life to anybody who could afford to pay for enlightenment while simultaneously repressing revolutionary instincts that could, in the first instance, allow the light of reason to filter through.
With the crafting of the existential narrative, more and more people came to see themselves as parts in a new whole. Personal history became the curveball of the 20th century, promoting a vision of America as utopia on steroids, which in turn, produced a sky-is-the-limit kind of optimism. America had long taken over from where Britain had left off after experiencing a fin de siecle stampede through its pearly gates in the 19th century which eventually produced an adrenaline rush to end all adrenaline rushes by the time it put a man on the moon. The net result was that American industry became kingpin for a century which left it convinced of its own invincibility.
When did America start to believe that it had to possess the biggest nuclear arsenal for it to feel that ‘whole’ America had become greater than the sum of its rival’s parts? Which raises the question; given the way power is used by the modern democratic-capitalist state, is the American constitution merely an example of baggage retained for baggage sake? Is there anything beyond raw power that may define its essence? Does it have an essence, or is it merely guided by some dark light that emanates from a single word…’democracy’…that stands alone on the blank piece of paper that was placed in a bottle and cast upon the ocean with information that might help ‘the people’ fulfil their desires?
Do the people not see that they need to be free from illusions that enfold them before they can revolutionize their system…and move on?
The elites who control the narrative remain invisible, they are neither deep nor surface stakeholders, they simply control the money flow. They are the sum-total of the faceless state, protected by protocols, secret intelligence agencies and the reality of the military budget that is put in place to maintain top-dog status for the elites and the illusions that comfort the multifarious minions now quarantined in citizen- zones that continue to emasculate their revolutionary spirit.
The current impeachment process in America best illustrates the sterility the population is immiserated in. They should be impeaching themselves (instead of looking for a scapegoat) for their inability to confront their own record. They seem unaware that they are party to a bloodbath that has devastated much of the Middle East and many other societies across the globe.
Once again, Americans are involved in the early stages of an election that leaves the question of America’s foreign policy in the too hard basket. A charade that would make Machiavelli blush. But alas, when blush comes to shove, American might is a God given right and collateral damage is not something that would soon alter the tone of its pugnaciously thick-skinned approach to reality.
Then there is ever more evidence of the schism that is corporate existentialism as opposed to individual existentialism. The former owning the right to squash the latter ever since Corporate America took the civil out of civilisation by assiduously seeking to remove voices/data/information/truth and honourable journalism from serving the public interest.
To observe how Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden (also Daniel Ellsberg, Jeffrey Wigand, Thomas Andrew Drake and Frank Serpico) were treated for divulging the execrable crimes of the American state are odious to say the least. That so many Americans, in condoning “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” mentality, and dismissive of the service their whistle-blowers are providing, is appalling. A new class of people have come into existence and they hate whistle-blowers because they speak truth to power…pity the millions of Americans who don’t think that way!
And what does the MSM really think of all this? That the New York Times continues to readily publish Bibi Netanyahu’s blandishments concerning existential threats to Israel while ignoring the fact that Palestine have had their country invaded and countless Palestinians now live under appalling conditions where existential rights do not even apply to them. The hurt that is inflicted on Palestinians is akin to the hurt that can be extended to say, Julian Assange, because both insidiously demean the human spirit.
These are actions that highlight the schism that exists between governance and the governed…existence of the state in relation to the existence of the individual…or any other agent in the individual legal zone we recognise as being separate from the privileged existential zone of governments that includes corporations who enjoy limited liability by virtue of their status in law. Existentialism, at the individual level, is a concept born of leisure (think affluence), but when dealing with fiscal reality, finds its sovereignty somewhat overshadowed by the external trappings of an existential system designed to keep the checks and balances that favour the imperial narrative.
Six months ago when the US Government slammed Assange with 17 charges under The Espionage Act for publishing the Chelsea Manning Leaks, indications were that these actions were taken to stifle the existence of a precedent that challenged the rights of a government to suppress the existence of truth itself; eventually it became their right to gag the message and the messenger.
The American police state is a multi-billion-dollar boondoggle meant to keep the property and the resources of the American people flowing into corrupt government agencies and their corporate partners. In its present incarnation, it unmistakably exists as a pariah whose insidious meddling in other people’s systems knows no limitations. It unrelentingly spews out lies at every opportunity which vaunt variations on a theme of America’s self-righteous greatness ad nauseam. Its porous foreign policy exists to suck-out the essence of vulnerable states that are exposed to the gravitation pull of weaponised systems such as Wall Street and The Pentagon.
The systems that have weaponized American culture have spawned a host of ‘yes’ men and women…the MSM is aglow with them. The emotional and intellectual life of main street America is ominously self-righteous and defensive. To understand how reflexive American politics is, is to discover…by merely surfing channels…that the American public has become the meat in a political-duopoly sandwich.
To listen to Elizabeth Warren expostulating on Bolivia attests to a form of political incest that bedevils America. The Massachusetts Senator wanted to air her foreign policy bona fides in an interview with a former Barack Obama administration apparatchik on the podcast “Pod Save America.”
Warren praised Trump’s strategy of appointing the deflated Venezuela coup leader Juan Guaido as president and declared, “I support economic sanctions.” She also described the country’s democratically elected president Nicolas Maduro as a “dictator.” …although the interview was conducted back in February, video clips have recently resurfaced and gone viral on social media.
Which brings me back to the observation that America’s mawkish culture is viral in ways that are mainly lethal for those it disapproves of. It behaves like a giant octopus forever extending its tentacles into places that it wishes to exploit or annihilate. And behold The American Posse has morphed into stealth forces that operate outside of international law, human decency or basic accountability. It abhors the idea that leaders like Nicolas Maduro could curb the extortionist practices of corporate America and set about eliminating poverty in his beloved Bolivia. Worst of all is the fact that the American public condones regime change and all the other rapacious practices it is known for.
Sadly, America has become like an illiterate robot in a mathematical minefield stomping and headbutting everyone and everything it perceives as a competitor while waving its nuclear missiles and pruning shears at spectres of the existential sub-particle kind that threaten to lead humanity in a direction where it might discover that dancing the socialist fandangle might be o.k. after all.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 19:30 - The Fatal Flaw In A Perfect Energy Solution
The Fatal Flaw In A Perfect Energy Solution
Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,
More than thirty years ago a giant tower was built in Manzanares, Spain, to produce electricity in a way that at the time must have seen even more eccentric than it seems now, by harnessing the power of air movement. The Manzanares tower was, sadly, toppled by a storm. Decades ago, several other firms tried to replicate the idea, but none has succeeded. Why?
A simple idea
The idea behind the so-called solar wind towers is pretty straightforward. The more popular version is the solar updraft tower, which works as follows:
On the ground, around the hollow tower, there is a solar energy collector—a transparent surface suspended a little above ground—which heats the air underneath.
As the air heats up, it is drawn into the tower, also called a solar chimney, since hot air is lighter than cold air. It enters the tower and moves up it to escape through the top. In the process, it activates a number of wind turbines located around the base of the tower. The main benefit over other renewable technologies? Doing away with the intermittency of PV solar, since the air beneath the collector could stay hot even when the sun is not shining.
A more recent take on solar wind towers involved water as well. Dubbed the Solar Wind Downdraft Tower, this project first made headlines in 2014, but since then there have been few updates, and those have been far between. The latest was from last year, when the company behind it, Solar Wind Energy Tower, announced a letter of intent by an investment company to provide financing for the project. That financing was to come from investors that the company was yet to find.
Here’s how the company describes the power generation process in the downdraft tower:
“To start, a series of pumps deliver water to the Tower’s injection system at the top where a fine mist is cast across the entire opening. The water introduced by the injection system then evaporates and is absorbed by hot dry air which has been heated by the solar rays of the sun.
As a result, the air becomes cooler, denser and heavier than the outside warmer air, and falls through the cylinder at speeds up to and in excess of 50 mph. This air is then diverted into wind tunnels surrounding the base of the Tower where turbines inside the tunnels power generators to produce electricity.”
The tough reality
There is normally one reason why otherwise promising—at least on the face of it—technologies never take off: cost. One solar tower executive said as much to National Geographic in 2014.
“The capital costs are very high,” said Rudolf Bergermann, who is co-founder of Schlaich-Bergermann and Partner, a company specializing in updraft solar tower technology. In a paper on its project, SBP admitted that costs of solar towers are high, but said the electricity that they generate is cheaper than all comparable solar technology.
The company also wrote, “However, the approaching shortfall of fuel reserves in combination with dramatically increasing demand will soon balance the cost difference of today and later even reverse it. We expect this ‘break-even-point’ already at a value of 60 to 80 $/barrel of crude oil.”
Brent is currently trading around $60 a barrel today, but there is no news of solar towers getting built on any scale. Investors are still wary of pouring money into a concept that has not been proved despite the promising theory behind it. That’s especially true of the downdraft tower: it sounds like it will need to use substantial amounts of water and the company is not saying where this water will come from and how much it will add to the cost of the whole thing.
Challenging the dominant tech
The way things stand now in renewable energy, solar wind towers may never become part of the global energy mix. While the electricity they could generate may indeed be cheaper than comparable technology, the upfront costs and the stability problems related to the height of the tower, which is in direct proportion to its efficiency, are enough to doom this technology. But the final nails come from the competition.
Solar and wind energy research has achieved impressive production cost reductions in the past decades when the technology has moved from an interesting alternative to power plants to a mainstream source of energy.
Solar panels are today a lot cheaper than they were just fie years ago, and costs continue to fall. These will doubtlessly reach a bottom at some point, before low cost begins to compromise quality, but the cheaper PV tech becomes, the less competitive their alternatives get.
Wind energy is also getting cheaper as towers become taller and turbines become more efficient at no additional cost.
“Wind now supplies clean and efficient power to the equivalent of 32 million American homes, sustains 500 U.S. factories, and delivers more than one billion dollars a year in new revenue to rural communities and states,” the American Wind Energy Association said last month in a report that revealed the United States had more than 100 GW in wind capacity, most of it onshore.
The creators of the solar wind downdraft tower compare their facility in terms of cost with a nuclear power plant. However, what they should compare it to are solar installations and wind farms. Some of these are already cheaper than fossil fuel-fired power plants. They are the reason such fascinating but expensive technology will likely never make it to the market, not cheap oil and gas.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 18:30 - BET Founder Says 2020 Election Is "Trump's To Lose"
BET Founder Says 2020 Election Is “Trump’s To Lose”
Millions of Americans slept in on Friday morning after spending the early morning hours battling their way to the front of the line to take advantage of those sweet, sweet Black Friday deals.
Meanwhile, CNBC interrupted its coverage of the holiday sales madness to bring Robert Johnson, the founder of BET, on for an interview with Hadley Gamble. Johnson is no stranger to CNBC: He appears every few months, usually to discuss how the mainstream media distorts minorities and their view of President Trump.
Though he didn’t dwell on whether he voted for Trump, Johnson insisted that the media has the narrative wrong, and that plenty of minorities – the target audience for BET (Black Entertainment Television) – actually like Trump (despite the insistence of Wealthy White Liberals that he has no support among communities of color) because of the president’s abrasive style.
“I think the president has always been in a position where it’s his to lose, based on the fact that he’s bringing a disruptive force into what would be considered political norms, whether it’s the way he conducts foreign policy, the way he takes on the government agencies and the way he takes on immigration – he brings his style. And a lot of people who voted for him like this style.”
Looking ahead to the 2020 vote, Johnson warned the Dems who are still jousting for the nomination not to focus so much on Trump’s style (i.e. what he says and what he tweets) but instead to focus on his actual policy decisions (tax cuts for the wealthy, stepped-up deportations), which Johnson believes are far less popular.
“What Democrats need to be careful about is to not focus on stylistic Trump, but to focus on substantive Trump,” Johnson said.
But at the end of the day, Johnson wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump steamroll the Dems once again (though he lost the popular vote in 2016, he won the electoral college by a substantial margin) because Trump has a special ability to dominate a news cycle – something that no other politician can accomplish.
These skills apparently take time to develop, since Trump has been working the media to his advantage since the late 1970s.
Meanwhile, there’s one pitfall that Dems must avoid: Accusing Trump’s supporters of being racists and bigots.
“His ability to dominate the news cycle and get the narrative going about what he said to me has sort of a double effect on the Democrats. First they get all agitated about what he said, then they extend that to the voters.”
“What they’re doing is they simply adding to his support by saying ‘Trump is bad, and if you support Trump, then you’re bad’ – which is a really silly way to talk to the American people.”
It might seem like common sense to the rest of us, but labeling nearly half the country as a bunch of evil nazi bigots is clearly not the best strategy for winning over the hearts and minds. Yet, that’s what many on the far-left flank of the Democratic Party would like to see happen.
Watch a clip from the interview below:
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 18:00 - HSBC Shifts Records To Blockchain To Track $20 Billion Of Assets
HSBC Shifts Records To Blockchain To Track $20 Billion Of Assets
Authored by Helen Partz via CoinTelegraph.com,
British banking giant HSBC plans to move $20 billion worth of assets to Digital Vault, a new blockchain-based custody platform by March 2020. By deploying the platform, the global investment bank aims to digitize paper-based records of private placements in order to increase standardization and speed up processes in the growing industry, Reuters reports Nov. 27.
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
HSBC reportedly expects the global volumes of private placements to surge 60% from 2017 to hit $7.7 trillion by 2022. The bank could not estimate how much the platform will save for the company or its clients, Reuters states.
HSBC to help investors track securities on private markets in real-time
Specifically, the Digital Vault platform will purportedly allow investors to track securities bought on private markets in real-time.
As private placements are usually conducted on paper, its processes are often associated with a lack of standardization, while access to documentation can be complicated and time-consuming. By deploying blockchain, the company hopes to reduce the time needed to make queries on holdings by investors.
No major savings in the first 18 months
While HSBC has not provided any estimations for the potential outcomes of adopting the platform, an independent blockchain expert suggested major savings would be unlikely during the first stages of the project.
Windsor Holden, an independent consultant who tracks blockchain and cryptocurrencies, told Reuters that he does not expect to see savings from increased efficiency in the first year to 18 months.
Private placement in the crypto and blockchain industries
Private placements are funding rounds of securities which are sold not through a public offering, but through a private offering. Private placement is considered to be an option to an initial public offering for a company looking to raise capital for expansion.
In July 2019, American digital asset management fund Grayscale Investments resumed private placement of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust shares, allowing investors to put money in Bitcoin (BTC) using a traditional investment structure.
The Trust private placement is offered on a periodic basis throughout the year to accredited investors for daily subscription. Previously, South Korea’s messaging app operator Kakao Corp. revealed its plans to offer a private placement to attract investors to develop their blockchain subsidiary.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 17:30 - QE Or Not QE? Here Is The Market's Answer In One Simple Chart
QE Or Not QE? Here Is The Market’s Answer In One Simple Chart
After a month of constant verbal gymnastics by the Fed – and its army of sycophants who can’t think creatively or originally and merely parrot their echo chamber in hopes of a blue checkmark and likes/retweets – that the recent launch of $60 billion in T-Bill purchases is anything but QE (whatever you do, don’t call it “QE 4”, just call it “NOT QE” please), two weeks ago one bank finally had the guts to say what was so obvious to anyone who isn’t challenged by simple logic: the Fed’s “NOT QE” is really “QE.”
As we reported on November 15, in a note warning that the Fed’s latest purchase program – whether one calls it QE, QE4, QE ∞ or NOT QE – will have big, potentially catastrophic costs, Bank of America’s Ralph Axel wrote that in the aftermath of the Fed’s new program of T-bill purchases to increase the amount of reserves in the banking system, the Fed made an effort to repeatedly inform markets that this is not a new round of quantitative easing, and yet as the BofA strategist notes, “in important ways it is similar.”
But was it QE? Well, in his October FOMC press conference, Fed Chair Powell said “our T-bill purchases should not be confused with the large-scale asset purchase program that we deployed after the financial crisis. In contrast, purchasing Tbills should not materially affect demand and supply for longer-term securities or financial conditions more broadly.” Chair Powell also gave a succinct definition of QE as having two basic elements: (1) supporting longer-term security prices, and (2) easing financial conditions.
Here’s the problem: as we have said since the beginning, and as Bank of America wrote, “the Fed’s T-bill purchase program delivers on both fronts and is therefore similar to QE,” with one exception – the element of forward guidance.
The upshot to this attempt to mislead the market what it is doing according to Bank of America, is that:
- the Fed is continuing to “ease” even though rate cuts are now on hold, which is supportive of growth, higher interest rates and higher equities, and
- the Fed is loosening financial conditions by increasing the availability of, and lowering the cost of, leverage, which broadly supports asset prices potentially at the cost of increasing systemic financial risk.
And while we have repeatedly argued why we think that, stripped of all its semantic veneer, the Fed’s latest asset purchase program is, in fact, QE, BofA effectively confirmed why we are right.
Which brings up a tangential, if just as important question: Why is the Fed so concerned about not signaling QE, and why are so many Fed fanboys desperate to parrot whatever Powell is saying day after day? Simply said, there are several reasons why the Fed is making a great effort to let the world know that its security purchases are not QE and are not reflective of any change in monetary policy stance.
The first is the obvious issue of signaling concern around the economic outlook which would run counter to its cautiously optimistic and often upbeat assessment. After all, why do QE if the economy has “never been stronger”, and the Fed was hiking rates as recently as a December. Included here are the concerns about running out of ammunition at the zero lower bound of rate policy. With negative rates increasingly off the table – until push comes to shove of course and the Fed is forced to join the ECB, BOJ and SNB in going subzero – QE is meant to be reserved as dry powder for a rainy day when conventional tools are exhausted (even if QE is in fact taking place this very instant).
A less obvious concern for the Fed is connecting monetary policy to bank demand for Fed liabilities, which as BofA admits, “is not something that fits neatly within its dual mandate”: last January, the Fed made a “momentous decision” to run an “abundant reserve regime” also known as a floor system, where the central bank decided not to return to its pre-crisis days of zero excess reserves. As such, the central bank now views the proper level of excess reserves (a Fed balance sheet liability) not in terms of its dual mandate for inflation and employment, but in terms of how banks prefer to meet regulatory liquidity requirements and how this preference impacts repo and other markets.
In short, the Fed’s dual mandate has been replaced by a single mandate of promoting financial stability (or as some may say, boosting JPMorgan’s stock price) similar to that of the ECB.
Here BofA ominously added that “by deciding to dynamically assess bank demand for reserves and reduce the risk of air pockets in repo markets, we believe the Fed has entered unchartered territory of monetary policy that may stretch beyond its dual mandate.” And the punchline: “By running balance-sheet policy to ensure overnight funding markets remain flush, the Fed is arguably circumventing the most important brake on excess leverage: the price.“
So if NOT QE is in fact, QE, and if the Fed is once again in the price manipulation business, what then?
According to BofA’s Axel, the most worrying part of the Fed’s current asset purchase program is the realization that an ongoing bank footprint in repo markets is required to maintain control of policy rates in the new floor system, or as we put it less politely, banks are now able to hijack the financial system by indicating that they have an overnight funding problem (as JPMorgan very clearly did) and force the Fed to do their (really JPMorgan’s) bidding.
While it is likely that beyond year-end, the additional tens of billions in reserves will have the required soothing effect, what is less clear is that the Fed can make sure the bank repo lending footprint is resilient to dips in the bank credit cycle.
And this is where BofA’s warning hits a crescendo, because while repo is fully collateralized and therefore contains negligible counterparty credit risk, “there may be a situation in which banks want to deleverage quickly, for example during a money run or a liquidation in some market caused by a sudden reassessment of value as in 2008.”
Got that? Going forward please refer to any market crash as a “sudden reassessment of value”, something which has become impossible in a world where “value” is whatever the Fed says it is… Well, the Fed or a bunch of self-serving venture capitalists, who pushed the “value” of WeWork to $47 billion just weeks before it was revealed that the company is effectively insolvent the punch bowl of endless free money is taken away.
To Bank of America, this new monetary policy regime actually increases systemic financial risk by making repo markets more vulnerable to bank cycles. This, as the bank ominously warns, “increases interconnectedness, which is something regulators widely recognize as making asset bubbles and entity failures more dangerous.“
Think of this as Europe’s infamous “doom loop”, only in the US and instead of linking bank equity values with the price of sovereign debt, it uses repo as a risk intermediary – one which is both used to grease the financial system, and which henceforth will also be an indicator of systemic bank stress.
In short, not only is the Fed pursuing QE without calling it QE, but by doing so it is implicitly raising the odds – more so than if it simply did another QE and rebuilt reserves to abour $4.5 trillion or more by purchasing coupon bonds – of another market crash.
It was, however, BofA’s conclusion that we found most alarming: as Axel writes, in his parting words:
“some have argued, including former NY Fed President William Dudley, that the last financial crisis was in part fueled by the Fed’s reluctance to tighten financial conditions as housing markets showed early signs of froth. It seems the Fed’s abundant-reserve regime may carry a new set of risks by supporting increased interconnectedness and overly easy policy (expanding balance sheet during an economic expansion) to maintain funding conditions that may short-circuit the market’s ability to accurately price the supply and demand for leverage as asset prices rise.“
In retrospect, we understand why the Fed is terrified of calling the latest QE by its true name: one mistake, and not only will it be the last QE the Fed will ever do, but it could also finally finish what the 2008 financial crisis failed to achieve, only this time the Fed will be powerless to do anything but sit and watch.
All of this, and more, we discussed previously in “One Bank Finally Admits The Fed’s “NOT QE” Is Indeed QE… And Could Lead To Financial Collapse.”
The reason we bring up this especially critical topic again today, is because we now have almost two full months of data since the start of NOT QE, which IS QE, and which conveniently gives us a snapshot of how the market – not we, not Bank of America, not pro or anti-Fed pundits – are responding to the expansion in the Fed’s balance sheet, which between repos, term repos, and permanent open market operations, has grown by $293 billion in just under the past three months.
The simple answer is the following: whether one wants to call it QE or not QE, ever since the Fed announced on Oct 11 that it would start purchasing $60 billion in T-Bills each month until “at least into the second quarter of 2020” – being careful to note that “these actions are purely technical measures to support the effective implementation of the FOMC’s monetary policy, and do not represent a change in the stance of monetary policy“, i.e., this is not QE, the Fed’s balance sheet has grown for 7 out of 8 weeks.
The market’s response? Just like during the POMO days of QE1, QE2, Operation Twist, and QE3, stocks have risen on every single week when the Fed’s balance sheet increased, following the three weeks of declines that led to the October 11 announcement. What about the one week when the Fed’s balance sheet shrank? That was the only week in the past two months since the launch of “NOT QE” when the S&P dropped.
So while Fed watchers, pundits, strategists, rank amateurs and virtually anyone else can debate whether or not what the Fed is doing is or is not QE, the market has made up its mind: if the balance sheet is rising, so are stocks, and vice versa. And since only POMO matters – so to speak – as it did back in the days of QE1 through QE3, we will do what we did back then, and list a schedule of all the upcoming days in which the Fed conducts liquidity injections – regardless of how one wants to call them (the latest schedule can always be found on the following page).
One final point for all those who despite the above, will still claim that just because the Fed is not purchasing coupon Treasuries, and thus is not changing either the duration of securities in the open market or investor risk preference, it is not, not, not QE, here is a snippet of what JPMorgan’s Nikolaos Panagirtzoglou wrote in his latest Flows and Liquidity newsletter:
… we see the Fed likely to conduct some of its balance sheet expansion next year via Treasuries.
Translation: some time in 2020, the Fed will stop pretending it is “NOT” QE.
Case closed.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 17:00 - Only 3 Ways To Stop Trump 2020
Only 3 Ways To Stop Trump 2020
Authored by ‘Thaisleeze’ via The Burning Platform blog,
Living on the opposite side of the world to the USA I am obliged to follow American politics as a stone thrown into the Washington swamp sends ripples that reach this far.
With less than a year to go until the next presidential election it is time to assess the current political landscape.
Trump of course is the focus of massive media noise. This must be ignored if a rational analysis is to be produced. 2016 proved that opinion polls must also be ignored.
As things stand today Trump holds the following chips in his stack:
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He is the incumbent
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The official employment numbers are in his favor
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The official economic numbers are in his favor
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His Republican approval is over 90%
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His Hispanic/black approval ratings are at record levels for a Republican
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He has made a dent in the illegal immigration problem
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He has not started any new wars
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Both Trump and the RNC are raking in record amounts of campaign cash
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He will have the vote of most people with a 401(k) account
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He will have the vote of most people in the military
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He is in control of the social media narrative
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He pushed the concept of the deep state and fake news into the mainstream
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Democrat controlled cities are clearly in serious decline
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He forced the DNC to defend their lunatic far left fringe and embrace their views
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He forced the Democrats into the farcical impeachment process
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The Democrats have little cash on hand
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The Democrats do not have a viable policy platform
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The Democrats do not currently have a viable contender for the nomination
Probably the most important fact we have learned since the election of Trump is that the deep state does exist in America and that it is a massively powerful hand on the tiller of American policy.
It has also become abundantly clear that this faction was strongly opposed to the policies Trump ran on in 2016 and that they have tried to impede him ever since he announced his candidacy. It is not unreasonable to conclude that this faction does not wish Trump to win re-election.
The question then becomes how far are they prepared to go in stopping him.
1. The most obvious way to stop Trump would be at the the ballot box. However, given the factors outlined above this is a long shot bet. None of the declared Democrat candidates can beat him. Hillary Clinton would fail again. A Republican cannot unseat him. Obama has been keeping a very low profile, it is possible that his wife Michelle could win, if she could be persuaded to run. Oprah?
2. What would turn the world of Trump upside down would be a financial crisis of a similar magnitude to 2008, or a major dollar collapse (Putin said last week the dollar would collapse soon). If there were a consensus among the deep state to take such action it would be incredibly easy for them to achieve given the highly unstable fabric of markets today.
The corporate credit markets could be pushed into panic by Jamie Dimon alone if he wished such an outcome and had the blessing of his buddies. Indeed, the cynic might argue that the groundwork has been laid since the start of the repo problem in mid September and the launching of QE4. Last time around the patsie was Lehman, has Deutsche Bank been singled out to take the fall this time? Time is running short for this to be an option, a crisis must be in play by spring next year to stymie the Orange Man.
3. The third way Trump could be stopped does not bear thinking about but it happened before to JFK 56 years ago.
Epstein did not kill himself.
* * *
The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn – PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 16:30 -
- Newsweek Reporter Fired After Peddling Fake News That Trump Golfed On Thanksgiving
Newsweek Reporter Fired After Peddling Fake News That Trump Golfed On Thanksgiving
Newsweek has fired a reporter who penned a snarky, misleading article suggesting that President Trump spent Thanksgiving ‘tweeting and golfing,’ when he actually flew to Afghanistan for a surprise visit with US troops.
The fired journo, Jessica Kwong, wrote in an article entitled “How is Trump Spending Thanksgiving? Tweeting, Golfing and More,” that the president “has been spending his Thanksgiving holidays at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.”
The golfing claim comes later in the article, as Kwong notes that Trump played golf on Thanksgiving Eve “from mid-morning to mid-afternoon.” The headline, of course, suggests Trump golfed on Thanksgiving.
After Trump popped up in Afghanistan, Kwong and Newsweek took heat over Twitter for refusing to edit the article or delete the viral tweet promoting the lie.
This caught the attention of the Trump family, who promptly called out the beleaguered news outlet:
I thought Newsweek was out of business? https://t.co/3ro4eSJloo
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Eventually, Kwong caved by deleting her tweet, and Newsweek edited the article – at first with no mention of the edit, and then an editors note only after virtually the entire piece had been rewritten.
“This story has been substantially updated and edited at 6:17 pm EST to reflect the president’s surprise trip to Afghanistan. Additional reporting by James Crowley,” reads the update.
“Newsweek investigated the failures that led to the publication of the inaccurate report that President Trump spent Thanksgiving tweeting and golfing rather than visiting troops in Afghanistan,” a Newsweek spokesperson told The New York Post in an email. “The story has been corrected and the journalist responsible has been terminated. We will continue to review our processes and, if required, take further action.”
After Trump tweeted “I thought Newsweek was out of business?,” The Wrap reminds us that “The former owners of the publication and a faith-based online media company were accused of attempting to defraud lenders in an indictment filed in October 2018,” adding “High-ranking editorial staffers have been leaving the publication and three senior editorial staffers were fired in retaliation for a story about a legal investigation into the company in February 2018.”
Not quite out of business, but certainly not in a position to afford further reputational risk from obvious fake news.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 16:00 - Epstein Tapes? Sordid Case Takes A Bizarre Turn After Mystery 'Hacker' Emerges
Epstein Tapes? Sordid Case Takes A Bizarre Turn After Mystery ‘Hacker’ Emerges
Shortly after Jeffrey Epstein’s August death in a Manhattan detention facility, a shadowy figure claiming to have set up encrypted servers for the convicted sex offender told several attorneys and the New York Times he had a vast archive of incriminating evidence against powerful men stored on overseas servers, including several years worth of the financier’s communications and financial records which allegedly showed he had vast amounts of Bitcoin and cash in the Middle East and Bangkok, and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver and diamonds.
Going by the pseudonym Patrick Kessler, self-described ‘hacker’ said he had “thousands of hours of footage from hidden cameras” from Epstein’s multiple properties, which included former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and Prince Andrew, along with three billionaires and a prominent CEO, according to the Times.
It has been long speculated that Epstein recorded his high-profile guests as part of an international blackmail operation.
Armed with nothing more than blurry photos of what he claimed were high-profile individuals in compromising situations, Kessler approached lawyers representing several Epstein accusers, John Pottinger and David Boies – the former of whom suggested that billionaire Sheldon Adelson – an ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – might pay for the alleged footage of Barak.
According to excerpts viewed by The Times, Mr. Pottinger and Kessler discussed a plan to disseminate some of the informant’s materials — starting with the supposed footage of Mr. Barak. The Israeli election was barely a week away, and Mr. Barak was challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The purported images of Mr. Barak might be able to sway the election — and fetch a high price. –New York Times.
After several weeks, the attorneys invited the New York Times to speak with Kessler in mid-September. Then things got even more unbelievable. Following a mid-September meeting with The Times in the Boies Schiller offices, Kessler went rogue – contacting the paper and accusing Boies and Pottinger of an extortion plot against the subjects of said tapes.
Barely an hour after the session ended, the Times reporters received an email from Kessler: “Are you free?” He said he wanted to meet — alone. “Tell no one else.”
…
Kessler complained that Mr. Boies and Mr. Pottinger were more interested in making money than in exposing wrongdoers. He pulled out his phone, warned the reporters not to touch it, and showed more of what he had. There was a color photo of a bare-chested, gray-haired man with a slight smile. Kessler said it was a billionaire. He also showed blurry, black-and-white images of a dark-haired man receiving oral sex. He said it was a prominent C.E.O.
“At one point, he showed what he said were classified C.I.A. documents,” writes the Times.
Weeks after the meeting, the lawyers struck a deal with the Times during the last Friday in September. They would send a team overseas to download Kessler’s evidence from his servers (and had alerted the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan of their intention to do so), and would then share all the evidence with the paper on the condition that they would have discretion over which men could be written about, and when.
Separately, Kessler had arranged to give the Times his evidence using a convoluted series of steps. On the day the data was to be transmitted, Kessler canceled at the 11th hour, claiming ‘a fire was burning’ and he had to flee to Ukraine.
In early October, Kessler said he was ready to produce the Epstein files. He told The Times that he had created duplicate versions of Mr. Epstein’s servers. He laid out detailed logistical plans for them to be shipped by boat to the United States and for one of his associates — a very short Icelandic man named Steven — to deliver them to The Times headquarters at 11 a.m. on Oct. 3.
Kessler warned that he was erecting a maze of security systems. First, a Times employee would need to use a special thumb drive to access a proprietary communications system. Then Kessler’s colleague would transmit a code to decrypt the files. If his instructions weren’t followed precisely, Kessler said, the information would self-destruct.
Specialists at The Times set up a number of “air-gapped” laptops — disconnected from the internet — in a windowless, padlocked meeting room. Reporters cleared their schedules to sift through thousands of hours of surveillance footage.
On the morning of the scheduled delivery, Kessler sent a series of frantic texts. Disaster had struck. A fire was burning. The duplicate servers were destroyed. One of his team members was missing. He was fleeing to Kyiv.
Except two hours later, Kessler contacted Pottinger and didn’t mention any emergency. Instead, he asked Pottinger to formulate two schemes for prying up to $1 billion from potential targets with the footage which the Times suggested may have been a trap.
Pottinger obliged, describing two options for capitalizing on the evidence. The first, a “standard model” for legal settlements, would include splitting the money among Epstein’s victims, a charitable foundation, Kessler, and the lawyers – who would get up to 40%.
In the second hypothetical, the lawyers would approached the high-profile men, convince them to hire them to ensure they wouldn’t get sued, and then “make a contribution to a nonprofit as part of their retainer.”
Pottinger would effectively represent a victim, settle their case, and then represent the victim’s alleged abuser – a legal, yet morally questionable practice for an attorney to engage in.
Dershowitz and the weird recorded phone call
In late September, Dershowitz’s secretary related a message that Kessler wanted to speak with him about Boies – with whom Dershowitz has a long-running feud. Dershowitz recorded the call, during which Kessler said he no longer trusted Boies and Pottinger.
“The problem is that they don’t want to move forward with any of these people legally,” said Kessler, adding “They’re just interested in trying to settle and take a cut.”
“Who are these people that you have on videotape?” Mr. Dershowitz asked.
“There’s a lot of people,” Kessler said, naming a few powerful men. He added, “There’s a long list of people that they want me to have that I don’t have.”
“Who?” Mr. Dershowitz asked. “Did they ask about me?”
“Of course they asked about you. You know that, sir.”
“And you don’t have anything on me, right?”
“I do not, no,” Kessler said.
“Because I never, I never had sex with anybody,” Mr. Dershowitz said. Later in the call, he added, “I am completely clean. I was at Jeffrey’s house. I stayed there. But I didn’t have any sex with anybody.”
As the Times asks, “what was the purpose of Kessler’s phone call? Why did he tell Mr. Dershowitz that he wasn’t on the supposed surveillance tapes, contradicting what he had said and showed to Mr. Boies, Mr. Pottinger and The Times? Did the call sound a little rehearsed?”
Dershowitz told the Times he has no idea why Kessler called him.
Holding out hope
In a November 7 email, Boies told the Times “I still believe he is what he purported to be,” adding “I have to evaluate people for my day job, and he seemed too genuine to be a fake, and I very much want him to be real.”
That said, he also noted “I am not unconscious of the danger of wanting to believe something too much.”
Ten days later, Mr. Boies arrived at The Times for an on-camera interview. It was a bright, chilly Sunday, and Mr. Boies had just flown in from Ecuador, where he said he was doing work for the finance ministry. Reporters wanted to ask him plainly if his and Mr. Pottinger’s conduct with Kessler crossed ethical lines.
Would they have brokered secret settlements that buried evidence of wrongdoing? Did the notion of extracting huge sums from men in exchange for keeping sex tapes hidden meet the definition of extortion?
Mr. Boies said the answer to both questions was no. He said he and Mr. Pottinger operated well within the law. They only intended to pursue legal action on behalf of their clients — in other words, that they were a long way from extortion. In any case, he said, he and Mr. Pottinger had never authenticated any of the imagery or identified any of the supposed victims, much less contacted any of the men on the “hot list.”
When the Times showed Boies text exchanges between Kessler and Pottinger, he “showed a flash of anger and said it was the first time seeing them.”
Eventually, Boies concluded that Kessler was probably a con man.
“I think that he was a fraudster who was just trying to set things up,” adding that he had probably baited Pottinger into writing things that were more nefarious than they really were.
Pottinger, meanwhile, claims he was stringing Kessler along – “misleading him deliberately in order to get to the servers.”
Despite Kessler’s story falling apart, the Times asks if his claims are plausible.
Did America’s best-connected sexual predator accumulate incriminating videos of powerful men?
Two women who spent time in Mr. Epstein’s homes said the answer was yes. In an unpublished memoir, Virginia Giuffre, who accused Mr. Epstein of making her a “sex slave,” wrote that she discovered a room in his New York mansion where monitors displayed real-time surveillance footage. And Maria Farmer, an artist who accused Mr. Epstein of sexually assaulting her when she worked for him in the 1990s, said that Mr. Epstein once walked her through the mansion, pointing out pin-sized cameras that he said were in every room.
“I said, ‘Are you recording all this?’” Ms. Farmer said in an interview. “He said, ‘Yes. We keep it. We keep everything.’”
During a 2005 search of Mr. Epstein’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate, the police found two cameras hidden in clocks — one in the garage and the other next to his desk, according to police reports. But no other cameras were found.
So – it appears that Kessler was either a fraud or an operative, and the entire saga may have been designed to cast doubt over whether tapes actually exist. Or, Kessler is for real – and for some reason hasn’t found a way to release the videos. That said, since he says he’s not interested in extortion, what’s the hold-up?
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 15:55 - Tulsi Gabbard: Wake Up And Smell Our $6.4 Trillion Wars
Tulsi Gabbard: Wake Up And Smell Our $6.4 Trillion Wars
Authored by Doug Bandow via TheAmericanConservative.com,
Meanwhile, her fellow Democrats appear abysmally unconcerned about the human and financial toll…
The Democratic establishment is increasingly irritated.
Representative Tulsi Gabbard, long-shot candidate for president, is attacking her own party for promoting the “deeply destructive” policy of “regime change wars.” Gabbard has even called Hillary Clinton “the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party.”
Senator Chris Murphy complained:
“It’s a little hard to figure out what itch she’s trying to scratch in the Democratic Party right now.”
Some conservatives seem equally confused. The Washington Examiner’s Eddie Scarry asked:
“where is Tulsi distinguishing herself when it really matters?”
The answer is that foreign policy “really matters.”
Gabbard recognizes that George W. Bush is not the only simpleton warmonger who’s plunged the nation into conflict, causing enormous harm. In the last Democratic presidential debate, she explained that the issue was “personal to me” since she’d “served in a medical unit where every single day, I saw the terribly high, human costs of war.” Compare her perspective to that of the ivory tower warriors of Right and Left, ever ready to send others off to fight not so grand crusades.
The best estimate of the costs of the post-9/11 wars comes from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. The Institute says that $6.4 trillion will be spent through 2020. They estimate that our wars have killed 801,000 directly and resulted in a multiple of that number dead indirectly. More than 335,000 civilians have died—and that’s an extremely conservative guess. Some 21 million people have been forced from their homes. Yet the terrorism risk has only grown, with the U.S. military involved in counter-terrorism in 80 nations.
Obviously, without American involvement there would still be conflicts. Some counter-terrorism activities would be necessary even if the U.S. was not constantly swatting geopolitical wasps’ nests. Nevertheless, it was Washington that started or joined these unnecessary wars (e.g., Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen) and expanded necessary wars well beyond their legitimate purposes (Afghanistan). As a result, American policymakers bear responsibility for much of the carnage.
The Department of Defense is responsible for close to half of the estimated expenditures. About $1.4 trillion goes to care for veterans. Homeland security and interest on security expenditures take roughly $1 trillion each. And $131 million goes to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which have overspent on projects that have delivered little.
More than 7,000 American military personnel and nearly 8,000 American contractors have died. About 1,500 Western allied troops and 11,000 Syrians fighting ISIS have been killed. The Watson Institute figures that as many as 336,000 civilians have died, but that uses the very conservative numbers provided by the Iraq Body Count. The IBC counts 207,000 documented civilian deaths but admits that doubling the estimate would probably yield a more accurate figure. Two other respected surveys put the number of deaths in Iraq alone at nearly 700,000 and more than a million, though those figures have been contested.
More than a thousand aid workers and journalists have died, as well as up to 260,000 opposition fighters. Iraq is the costliest conflict overall, with as many as 308,000 dead (or 515,000 from doubling the IBC count). Syria cost 180,000 lives, Afghanistan 157,000, Yemen 90,000, and Pakistan 66,000.
Roughly 32,000 American military personnel have been wounded; some 300,000 suffer from PTSD or significant depression and even more have endured traumatic brain injuries. There are other human costs—4.5 million Iraqi refugees and millions more in other nations, as well as the destruction of Iraq’s indigenous Christian community and persecution of other religious minorities. There has been widespread rape and other sexual violence. Civilians, including children, suffer from PTSD.
Even stopping the wars won’t end the costs. Explained Nita Crawford of Boston University and co-director of Brown’s Cost of War Project: “the total budgetary burden of the post-9/11 wars will continue to rise as the U.S. pays the on-going costs of veterans’ care and for interest no borrowing to pay for the wars.”
People would continue to die. Unexploded shells and bombs still turn up in Europe from World Wars I and II. In Afghanistan, virtually the entire country is a battlefield, filled with landmines, shells, bombs, and improvised explosive devices. Between 2001 and 2018, 5,442 Afghans were killed and 14,693 were wounded from unexploded ordnance. Some of these explosives predate American involvement, but the U.S. has contributed plenty over the last 18 years.
Moreover, the number of indirect deaths often exceeds battle-related casualties. Journalist and activist David Swanson noted an “estimate that to 480,000 direct deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, one must add at least one million deaths in those countries indirectly caused by the recent and ongoing wars. This is because the wars have caused illnesses, injuries, malnutrition, homelessness, poverty, lack of social support, lack of healthcare, trauma, depression, suicide, refugee crises, disease epidemics, the poisoning of the environment, and the spread of small-scale violence.” Consider Yemen, ravaged by famine and cholera. Most civilian casualties have resulted not from Saudi and Emirati bombing, but from the consequences of the bombing.
Only a naif would imagine that these wars will disappear absent a dramatic change in national leadership. Wrote Crawford:
“The mission of the post-9/11 wars, as originally defined, was to defend the United States against future terrorist threats from al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations. Since 2001, the wars have expanded from the fighting in Afghanistan, to wars and smaller operations elsewhere, in more than 80 countries—becoming a truly ‘global war on terror’.”
Yet every expansion of conflict makes the American homeland more, not less, vulnerable. Contrary to the nonsensical claim that if we don’t occupy Afghanistan forever and overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, al-Qaeda and ISIS will turn Chicago and Omaha into terrorist abattoirs, intervening in more conflicts and killing more foreigners creates additional terrorists at home and abroad. In this regard, drone campaigns are little better than invasions and occupations.
For instance, when questioned by the presiding judge in his trial, the failed 2010 Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, a U.S. citizen, cited the drone campaign in Pakistan. His colloquy with the judge was striking: “I’m going to plead guilty 100 times forward because until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands, and stops killing the Muslims.”
Ajani Marwat, with the New York City Police Department’s intelligence division, outlined Shahzad’s perspective to The Guardian:
“’It’s American policies in his country.’ …’We don’t have to do anything to attract them,’ a terrorist organizer in Lahore told me. ‘The Americans and the Pakistani government do our work for us. With the drone attacks targeting the innocents who live in Waziristan and the media broadcasting this news all the time, the sympathies of most of the nation are always with us. Then it’s simply a case of converting these sentiments into action’.”
Washington does make an effort to avoid civilian casualties, but war will never be pristine. Combatting insurgencies inevitably harms innocents. Air and drone strikes rely on often unreliable informants. The U.S. employs “signature” strikes based on supposedly suspicious behavior. And America’s allies, most notably the Saudis and Emiratis—supplied, armed, guided, and until recently refueled by Washington—make little if any effort to avoid killing noncombatants and destroying civilian infrastructure.
Thus will the cycle of terrorism and war continue. Yet which leading Democrats have expressed concern? Most complain that President Donald Trump is negotiating with North Korea, leaving Syria, and reducing force levels in Afghanistan. Congressional Democrats care about Yemen only because it has become Trump’s war; there were few complaints under President Barack Obama.
What has Washington achieved after years of combat? Even the capitals of its client states are unsafe. The State Department warns travelers to Iraq that kidnapping is a risk and urges businessmen to hire private security. In Kabul, embassy officials now travel to the airport via helicopter rather than car.
Tulsi Gabbard is talking about what really matters. The bipartisan War Party has done its best to wreck America and plenty of other nations too. Gabbard is courageously challenging the Democrats in this coalition, who have become complicit in Washington’s criminal wars.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/30/2019 – 15:30
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