- AN EXTReMeLY CaReLeSS MiSTaKe…
- President Obama Violated The Law With His Ransom Payment To Iran
Submitted by Andrew McCarthy via NationalReview.com,
The president hoped to camouflage what he knew to be against the law in his dealings with Iran. Did it ever occur to President Obama to ask why he couldn’t just cut a check to the Iranian regime?
Outrage broke out this week over the revelation that Obama arranged to ship the mullahs piles of cash, worth $400 million and converted into foreign denominations, reportedly in an unmarked cargo plane. The hotly debated question was whether the payment, which the administration attributes to a 37-year-old arms deal, was actually a ransom paid for the release of American hostages Tehran had abducted.
It is a waste of time to debate that point further. The Iranians have bragged that the astonishing cash payment was a ransom — and Obama has been telling us for months that we can trust the Iranians. The hostages were released the same day the cash arrived. One of the hostages has reported that the captives were detained an extra several hours at the airport and told they would not be allowed to leave until the arrival of another plane — inferentially, the unmarked cargo plane ferrying the cash. The reason American policy has always prohibited paying ransoms to terrorists and other abductors is that it only encourages them to take more hostages. And, as night follows day, Iran has abducted more Americans since Obama paid the cash. No matter how energetically the president tries to lawyer the ransom issue, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
More worth examining is why the transaction took the bizarre form that it did. To cut to the chase, I believe it was to camouflage — unsuccessfully — the commission of felony law violations.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Justice Department strongly objected to the cash payment to Iran. As we shall see, that should come as no surprise. What is surprising is the Journal’s explanation of Justice’s concerns: Department officials, it is said, fretted that the transaction looked like a ransom payment. I don’t buy that. It is not a federal crime to pay a ransom; just to receive one. Our government’s stated disapproval of paying ransoms is a prudent policy, not a legal requirement. The Justice Department’s principal job is to enforce the laws, not to ensure good policy in foreign relations. It seems far more likely that Justice was worried that the transaction was illegal.
If they were, they had good reasons.
At a press conference Thursday, Obama remarkably explained, “The reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions and we do not have a banking relationship with Iran.” Really Mr. President? The whole point of sanctions is to prohibit and punish certain behavior. If you — especially you, Mr. President — do the precise thing that the sanctions prohibit, that is a strange way of being “so strict in maintaining” them.
Now, the sanctions at issue exclude Iran from the U.S. financial system by, among other things, prohibiting Americans and financial institutions from engaging in currency transactions that involve Iran’s government. Contrary to the nuclear sanctions that Obama’s Iran deal (the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” or JCPOA) attempts to undo, the sanctions pertinent here were imposed primarily as a result of Iran’s support for terrorism. That is significant. In pleading with Congress not to disapprove the JCPOA, Obama promised lawmakers that the terrorism sanctions would remain in force.
Terrorism-related sanctions against Iran trace back to the early 1980s, shortly after the jihadist regime overthrew the shah, stormed the American embassy, took hostages, and triggered Hezbollah’s killing sprees. But the sanctions most relevant for present purposes stem from President Clinton’s 1995 invocation of federal laws that deal with national emergencies caused by foreign aggression.
Clinton concluded that Iran had caused such an emergency by, among other things, “its support for international terrorism.” Note that this was even before Iran killed 19 members of the U.S. Air Force in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.
To this day, Iran remains on our government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. Clinton’s state-of-emergency declaration has been annually renewed ever since. Let that sink in: Notwithstanding Obama’s often shocking appeasement of Tehran, he has been renewing the state of emergency since 2009 — most recently, just five months ago. Indeed, it is worth noting what the Obama State Department’s latest report on “State Sponsors of Terrorism” has to say about Iran. This is from the first paragraph:
Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran continued its terrorist-related activity in 2015, including support for [Hezbollah], Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various groups in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. In 2015, Iran increased its assistance to Iraqi Shia terrorist groups[.] . . . Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East. The IRGC-QF is Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.
It is due to this atrocious record that Congress pressed Obama to maintain and enforce anti-terrorism sanctions, which the administration repeatedly committed to do. This commitment was reaffirmed by Obama’s Treasury Department on January 16, 2016, the “Implementation Day” of the JCPOA. Treasury’s published guidance regarding Iran states that, in general, “the clearing of U.S. dollar- or other currency-denominated transactions through the U.S. financial system or involving a U.S. person remain prohibited[.]” (See here, p.17, sec. C.14.) I’ve added italics to highlight that it is not just U.S. dollar transactions that are prohibited; foreign currency is also barred. Obama’s cash payment, of course, involved both — a fact we’ll be revisiting shortly.
Treasury’s guidance cites to what’s known as the ITSR (Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations), the part of the Code of Federal Regulations that implements anti-terrorism sanctions initiated by President Clinton under federal law. The specific provision cited is Section 560.204, which states:
The exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States, or by a United States person, wherever located, of any goods, technology, or services to Iran or the Government of Iran is prohibited. [Emphasis added.]
The regulation goes on to stress that this prohibition may not be circumvented by exporting things of value “to a person in a third country” when one has “knowledge or reason to know that” such things are “intended specifically for supply, transshipment, or reexportation, directly or indirectly, to Iran or the Government of Iran.”
To summarize, the anti-terrorism sanctions are still in effect, a fact the administration has touted many times. Obama conceded at his press conference both that these sanctions are still in effect and that they applied directly to his $400 million pay-out to our terrorist enemies. But here’s the president’s problem: While he is correct that the sanctions barred him from sending Iran a check or wire transfer, that is not all they forbid — not by a long shot. They also make it illegal to do what he did.
As noted above, the sanctions prohibit transactions with Iran that touch the U.S. financial system, whether they are carried out in dollars or foreign currencies. The claim by administration officials, widely repeated in the press, that Iran had to be paid in euros and francs because dollar-transactions are forbidden is nonsense; Americans are also forbidden to engage in foreign currency transactions with Iran.
Obama had our financial system issue U.S. assets that were then converted to foreign currencies for delivery to Iran. Both steps flouted the regulations, which prohibit the clearing of currency of any kind if Iran is even minimally involved in the deal; here, Iran is the beneficiary of the deal.
The regs further prohibit supplying things of value to Iran, regardless of whether it is done “directly or indirectly.” Expressly included in the “indirect” category are transfers of assets to another country with knowledge that the other country will then forward the assets, in some form, to Iran. That’s exactly what happened here, with Obama pressing the Swiss and Dutch into service as intermediaries.
Although these regulations leave no room for doubt that their point is to prevent and criminalize things like sending $400 million in cash to the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, the ITSR adds another reg for good measure. Section 560.203 states:
Evasions; attempts; causing violations; conspiracies: . . . Any transaction . . . that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, causes a violation of, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this part is prohibited. . . . Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this part is prohibited.
By his own account, President Obama engaged in the complex cash transfer in order to end-run sanctions that prohibit the U.S. from having “a banking relationship with Iran.” The point of the sanctions is not to prevent banking with Iran; it is to prevent Iran from getting value from or through our financial system — the banking prohibition is a corollary. And the point of sanctions, if you happen to be the president of the United States sworn to execute the laws faithfully, is to follow them — not pat yourself on the back for keeping them in place while you willfully evade them. The president’s press conference is better understood as a confession than an explanation.
Oh, and there is also Section 560.701, which makes clear that willful violations of the regulations constitute serious felony offenses under federal criminal law — punishable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment.
I hope you’re not lawed out, because there are a couple of other criminal statutes to consider.
The first is the law against providing material support to terrorists, Section 2339A of the federal penal code. It says that anyone who provides resources — including “currency or monetary instruments” — to a person or entity with knowledge that they are to be used in the preparation or carrying out of terrorism offenses is guilty of a serious felony. I’ve italicized “knowledge” to underscore that intent is not required; to be guilty, you just need to know.
As we note above, the Obama administration has just reaffirmed that Iran remains a state sponsor of terrorism. Moreover, as our editors recounted in Friday’s National Review editorial:
[Secretary of State] John Kerry even admitted in January that funds channeled to Iran as part of the nuclear deal would “end up in the hands of the IRGC [Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps] or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists.”
No doubt: The IRGC’s Quds Force is a formally designated terrorist organization, as, of course, is Hezbollah, Iran’s forward jihadist militia with which the IRGC colludes. And as Tom Joscelyn recently pointed out, Iran continues to harbor members of al-Qaeda (three of whom were just formally designated as terrorists).
In sum, the Obama administration has provided Iran with $400 million under circumstances in which it well knows that at least some of this cash will be used for terrorism. Indeed, as the editors point out, by providing the money in cash, Obama makes it more likely that it will be used for terrorism: Iran likes to deny its complicity in jihadist acts; so now, flush with cash, it can fund atrocities without leaving a paper trail.
The second law involves money laundering, criminalized by Congress in Section 1956 of the penal code. There are several prohibited varieties of money laundering. It can be a crime, for example, to conduct a financial transaction involving money used to facilitate unlawful activity. And if money is transferred outside the United States, it can be illegal to use it to promote criminal activity.
As we’ve seen, both currency transmissions to Iran and the provision of material support to terrorism are unlawful activities. The administration has conducted a financial transaction (in fact, several transactions: the issuance of the assets, their conversion into foreign currency, and the transmission to Iran) which facilitated both currency transfers to Iran and Iran’s certain use of the money to support terrorism. Plus, the money was shipped outside the United States before being transferred to Iran and before Iran will use it to promote terrorism. Money-laundering cases often boil down to proof of intent; but there clearly are multiple grounds on which to investigate whether the laws have been transgressed.
The circumstances of Obama’s enormous cash transfer to our terrorist enemies raise serious questions about whether American policy against paying ransoms to terrorists has been flouted. But that should not obscure a more fundamental issue: The president has violated the law.
- Cathay Pacific Crushed As Chinese Corporate Travel Collapses
Cathay Pacific announced earnings earlier this week which paint a fairly ominous picture for China. The airline posted a 9.3% YoY drop in revenue and an 82% decline in net profit which they attributed to, among other things, "weak passsenger demand, particularly in the premium class". Comments from the Cathay's press release clearly indicate weak corporate travel with the company pointing out that corporate enplanements in Hong Kong declined for the first time since 2009:
- The slowdown in the Mainland China economy and economic fragility elsewhere caused restrictions to be placed on corporate travel. This adversely affected premium class demand, particularly on long-haul routes.
- Yield was further affected by strong competition, adverse currency movements and a significant reduction in premium corporate travel.
- Demand for travel originating from Hong Kong was strong in the first two months of the year, but weakened thereafter. Corporate travel originating in Hong Kong was well below expectations, particularly to London and New York. Numbers travelling declined for the first time since 2009, when business was affected by the financial crisis.
- Tourism from Mainland China to Hong Kong is weak.
A couple of tables from Cathay's earnings presentation help sum up the story.
Passenger yields tanked in 1H16 on lower corporate travel…
Marking the lowest yields since 2009…
While cargo yields plunged through 2009 levels…
Unfortunately, Chairman John Slosar doesn't expect things to improve in the back half of 2016:
We expect the operating environment in the second half of the year to continue to be impacted by the same adverse factors as in the first half. The overall business outlook therefore remains challenging. We expect passenger yield to remain under pressure. Overcapacity and economic fragility will dampen cargo demand. We will also continue to be vigilant on costs.
Meanwhile, the company's earnings presentation noted the following for 2H16 outlook:
- The challenging business environment is expected to continue.
- Yields are expected to continue to be under intense pressure.
- Lower Hong Kong traffic with more 6th Freedom travel.
- The cargo business will continue to be adversely affected by overcapacity and economic fragility.
And, of course, Mr. Market was not happy…
- Not All Americans Have The Right To Bear Arms
No matter which side of the gun debate you fall on, we can all agree that gun laws are confusing. As ValueWalk.com notes, there are federal laws, state laws, and local municipal laws, all of which can be contradictory.
There is still debate as to whether the Second Amendment is intended to give individuals the right to keep and bear arms or whether that right was meant as a collective to protect the state, though rulings in the last decade have upheld an individual’s right to bear arms.
The United States is #1 for personal firearms ownership per capita by a longshot- the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population and owns an estimated 50% of the civilian owned guns in the world. That said, there are still millions of Americans who are federally prohibited from owning personal firearms. For starters, anyone under 18 years of age is prohibited from owning firearms- that’s nearly 71 million people. Also, anyone convicted of a felony- another nearly 6 million people- are prohibited from owning firearms. Illegal aliens, who make up nearly 12 million of the people in the United States, are also prohibited from owning firearms. Also prohibited from owning firearms are fugitives from justice, persons deemed to be dangerously mentally ill, drug addicts, dishonorably discharged military personnel, anyone who has renounced their U.S. citizenship, and anyone who has been indicted for or convicted of crimes punishable by over 1 year in prison.
There are also limits to the types of firearms that can be owned by individuals without special licenses. Semi-automatic handguns and rifles are legal to own, but fully automatic weapons are only legal for police, the military, and persons with special licenses. In addition there are limits to the type of ammunition that can be owned by private individuals. Learn more about federal gun laws as well as laws that vary by state from this infographic!
(click image for large legible version)
- "Markets Are Ripe For A Black Swan Event" – Why Most 'Well Hedged' Funds Won't Survive
George Sokoloff, founder and CIO of Carmot Capital, recently explained why typical asset allocation strategies, including those employed by most "sophisticated" hedge fund managers, end up getting slaughtered during market shocks despite perceptions of being "well hedged". One has to look no further than the last "great recession" to get a glimpse of just how well the typical "hedged" portfolios fared during the last "Black Swan" event.
Unfortunately, large pools of institutional capital have grown increasingly accustomed to making allocation decisions based on short-term returns and relative performance rather than absolute returns over extended periods of time. Therefore, massive losses are ok as long as everyone is losing money at the same time, right? Absolute returns only matter to the suckers that are actually planning to use those pension assets to retire at some point. And, as for the hedge fund manager, don't worry if your relative returns suffer as that's not such a big deal either…simply shut your fund down…go on a really long vacation then come back and raise even more assets than before. But we digress.
In an interview with International Business Times, Sokoloff points out that most investment strategies follow a Taleb distribution that provide the appearance of low risk and steady returns but in reality offer investors a high probability of a small gain and a small probability of a devastating loss. Unfortunately, as Sokoloff points out, the majority of institutional capital across the globe is levered to such strategies. Just like in the "great recession," funds that rely on "diversification" as a hedging strategy have a rude awakening during Black Swan events as correlations converge to 1 and the benefits of such diversification are erased.
"You could be making 5% per year but then there could come a year that you lose 30% or maybe more, and that's kind of the big nature of the Taleb distribution," said Sokoloff.
"Unfortunately most investment strategies actually follow that, including very sophisticated hedge funds, risk parity funds etc. Essentially the whole endowment model, big endowments, family offices and institutions, all of them have investments and their portfolios unfortunately follow the Taleb distribution and they do have a fat left tail.
"They try to hedge it as much as they can just by purely diversifying. But liquidity events are so insidious that your benefits are gone simply because your correlations start converging to one."
Sokoloff uses a very simple analogy to illustrate the risks of typical portfolio allocation strategies by looking at what would have happened to a prudent money manager, based in 1912 Geneva, who constructed a diversified portfolio of developed and emerging market stocks and bonds:
Imagine being a wealth manager out of Geneva in 1912, trying to create a nice diversified portfolio of developed market bonds, and emerging market bonds, says Sokoloff.
Say 39% of client assets would be split between stocks of Great Britain, France, German Empire, Austria-Hungary and Italy: truly mature, developed markets.
Some 21% of assets would go into stocks of the two fastest growing economies: Russian Empire and North American United States. The wealth manager might also put a smidge into emerging economies like Argentina, Brazil or Japan.
In bonds, allocation would be somewhat similar. Gilts with sub-3% yield would be the benchmark, with the rest of developed and emerging bonds trading at a spread.
Alternatives investment could be in anything ranging from arable land in central Russia or the Great Plains, to shares of new automotive or aeroplane startups in Europe and America, to Japanese manufacturing ventures.
As Sokoloff points out, this "prudent" portfolio would have faced drawdowns of as much as 80% over the next decade. People tend to rely on historically stable relationships between bonds and stocks, and when that relationship breaks down – as often happens in a liquidity event – even complicated strategies involving some arbitrage, essentially blow up.
The typical problem with strategies designed to profit during Black Swan events is that funds that are genuinely hedged against systemic risk tend to under-perform during periods of relative market stability due to the costs of hedging. And given the focus on short-term performance in today's market, most institutional capital does not have the patience to stick with fund managers that consistently under-perform during stable markets even if the payoff could be huge during a down cycle. But, Sokoloff notes there are strategies that provide minimal returns during "normal" market periods and stellar returns during "Black Swan" events, strategies which he refers to at the "Holy Grail."
There are a number of types of strategies which make good candidates for the Holy Grail. Many derivatives like conditions when volatility jumps. During a stockmarket crisis credit spreads between different quality bonds start increasing as people see higher chance of default on lesser quality bonds. This is where you can play on the derivatives space that hinges on the credit spreads; so credit default swaps for instance.
Commodity trading advisors (CTA), or people looking into the movement of futures of different kinds and taking bets on either side, would be another candidate class of assets for this type of hedging.
Another interesting hedge would be the sub-class of macro managers, the much maligned macro investors that are really contrarians. They believe there will be will be some economic shocks going forward, especially with emerging markets like China and others; or that Japan's unusual policy will backfire. The best-known in this camp are the likes of Hugh Hendry at Eclectic and Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital.
Sokoloff said: "Those are the managers that use a lot of macro instruments that are convex in nature and they are just trying to time when things start going south. They have not really been good performers; they have been hated in last seven years and have lost assets as well. But still, they are a very good hedge."
The last candidate would be algorithmic traders that benefit from prevalence of fear in the market. When fear strikes markets people start acting in very chaotic fashion. Sokoloff points out that the human psyche is really tuned in a certain way, which makes humans very predictable when they panic. That makes a ripe field to harvest with algorithmics.
"There are algorithmic traders that also provide convex returns, tail risk hedging returns and that allows you to also benefit very strongly from any sort of collapse, slide or risk situation. And that is the camp we are in."
Finally, Sokoloff points out that our current environment is ripe for a Black Swan event while the only thing missing is the proper catalyst.
"What we are seeing right now, unfortunately, is stagnation. The growth rate is zero for developed markets. That is the precipice. That is the trigger point for the financial system to start suffering shocks.
"Global trade volumes in the past 18 months have gone nowhere. Pure import and export trade is not growing. It's at zero, which kind of tells you that if trade is flat where does the GDP really grow on? And most of the time it's just gathering expenditures. That is obviously a non-sustainable situation.
"A non-sustainable situation needs a trigger point or a flash point before it can really erupt. There's plenty flash points; political, military, economic, social. They are just not triggering yet. But they will at some point.
"Frankly, the situation that we have right now could be just like 1912."
- Students Fight Back Against Political Correctness – The Rise Of "Cultural Libertarianism"
Submitted by Harith Armstrong and Kassy Dillon via HeatSt.com,
HARITH ARMSTRONG:
This has given rise to a new generation of animated and impassioned students keen on partaking in what’s been aptly described as the “cultural libertarian” movement.
Young millennials engaged in this movement come from a variety of backgrounds but are able to unite based on a fervent disdain for those that believe there are boundaries to what’s deemed “acceptable” speech – a hatred of authority; and a love of freedom and mischief.
As a conservative writer and student at King’s College London, I have been actively campaigning against political correctness.
I was recently temporarily suspended from Facebook for announcing a series of speeches I wanted to give at universities in London questioning the place of Islam in the modern world.
I believe social media companies like Twitter and Facebook actively seek to censor those who talk about the link between Islam and the behavior of jihadists, those who want to put a halt to immigration and those who criticize the Black Lives Matter and feminist movements.
The victims of their failure to entertain nuance are solely of one political persuasion. My public support of Donald Trump at college was an exercise in differentiating between those who cared about freedom of expression and those who were willing to discard it in favor of a feeling-based approach to learning.
I think being provocative and adopting a contrarian-like demeanor to intellectual discourse is mistakenly associated with populism and a lack of integrity in our culture.
Pushing the boundaries is an integral part of upholding the pillars that help maintain a healthy civilization—so long as my university infantilizes students by no- platforming politicians like Boris Johnson, condones the harassment of those who support the Israeli state, and perpetuates the idea that safe spaces are necessary.
I will continue to make my voice heard.
KASSY DILLON:
As a free-speech activist, journalist and student. I felt obliged to join the fight to reinstate Milo Yiannopoulos after his permanent ban from Twitter. I did this by highlighting the partiality of his ban and seeking support from others through keeping the “FreeMilo” hashtag alive.
This resulted in me being harassed and receiving death threats from accounts that were reported by dozens of people yet escaped suspension.
As reported by Heat Street, shortly after Yiannopoulos’ ban, I sought to reveal the implicit bias of political correctness on Twitter by re-posting the hateful tweets by Leslie Jones, the actress from the new Ghostbusters who is credited with getting Yiannopoulos suspended.
Twitter temporarily suspended me within hours, and decided to take no action against Jones. Both Harith and I are students at overwhelmingly liberal schools, and we’ve encountered professors and students who dismiss our opinions by virtue of our political affiliation. The majority of lecturers and academics view the world through the prism of one ideology.
I remain hopeful that universities will eventually begin to promote intellectual diversity. The increased presence of organizations supporting conservative and libertarian students such as Right2Debate, Leadership Institute, Young Americans for Freedom and Young Americans for Liberty will act as a voice for those students facing discrimination.
By having these organizations offer training, conferences and financial support, students are now equipped to challenge the misrepresentations by the left.
I carried out a social experiment last semester at my school, Mount Holyoke College, that showed how much freedom of speech has diminished as a principle worth defending by young students on the left. I hung a Trump campaign sign on my door, it was thrown into the garbage bin. After hanging the Trump sign back up, it was yet again thrown in the garbage, but this time ripped to shreds.
This illustrated not only the deep political divide on my campus, but the reactionary and juvenile behavior of my fellow students.
JOINT CONCLUSION:
Uniting to give a voice to those students facing censorship or discrimination for holding respectable views is the way forward. The internet remains a place where young “cultural libertarians” have a chance to speak out against the hypocrisy of the left. News websites have provided us with the opportunity to expose the way in which freedom of expression has been curtailed to appease the liberal-majority.
We both realize that university administrations cave to the will of those who are most organized. This is what gives us both hope and encouragement. Conservatives and libertarians need to unite to win this culture war.
We vow to do all we can to challenge the authoritarians at universities in the UK and USA. If we continue fighting, we’ll eventually become the majority.
History testifies that freedom always prevails.
- Which States Have The Most Millennials Living At Home With Mom
We've written frequently over the years about the legions of "safe space" seeking Millennials moving back in with mom (see "More Young Americans Live With Their Parents Than At Any Time Since The Great Depression"). As the Pew Research Center reported back in May, for the first time ever more 18-34 year olds are living at home with mom than are "married or cohabiting in their own households." According to Pew research the biggest reason for Millennials moving back home is their inability find jobs to support their independence. Take, for example, "young" Lisa Jacobs:
Lisa Jacobs holds two bachelor’s degrees, one in photography and one in graphic design. But work has been sporadic, so this year she moved back in with her parents in Somerset, New Jersey.
“My parents have a lovely home, but nobody’s happy to be living at home at 32,” Jacobs said, adding that she needs to make at least $20 an hour to afford an apartment. “There are plenty of places that would pay me $15 an hour. But that’s not getting me any closer to moving out.”
Frankly, we're shocked that someone with TWO uselessamazing bachelor degrees wouldn't be able to find a job in such a robust economy. But don't strain yourself, young Lisa Jacobs, with a $15 per hour job that is beneath your level of enlightenment…no you just move in with mom and wait for your dreams to come true!
For parents who might find themselves in similar situations, the University of Minnesota has developed a very helpful map to assess the risk of your over-educated, entitled, self-indulging offspring moving back home. Unsurprisingly, parents are most at risk in the states with large, expensive metropolitan cities where recently-educated, residentially-challenged young adults like to return to indulge their "social" desires but can't necessarily afford to live. The states with the highest percentage of Millennials living at home were New Jersey (43.9%), Connecticut (38.8%), New York (37.4%) Florida (37.2%) and California (36.7%).
If you're the parent of a Millennial and just want to be left alone might we suggest a nice "fly-over" state like North Dakota where only 15.6% of Millennials are found to be living at home. Sure it's a little cold but the remote, barren landscapes are amazing Millennial deterrents.
(click on map below to be redirected to interactive version with additional stats)
- Vancouver Housing Market Implodes: Average Home Price Plunges 20% In 1 Month – "The Market Is Devastated"
Three weeks ago, when we looked at the long-overdue sudden change in the Vancouver housing market, long a receptacle for Chinese hot and laundered money, we found that as a result of the implementation of the 15% property tax implemented by British Columbia (something we recommended over a month earlier), that the Vancouver housing bubble has burst.
We concluded this based on anecdotal evidence by local real estate professionals: “As a new dawn breaks in Metro Vancouver’s real estate market, realty companies and real estate boards are reporting the first anecdotes of deals falling through as foreign buyers forfeited deposits on binding deals rather than pay the new tax. Worse, if only for the unprecedented local housing bubble, and certainly better for potential local homeowners who were locked out from the massively overpriced market, they report evidence of local buyers withdrawing offers in expectation that the market will soften.”
Less than a month later, there is also hard evidence to confirm this assessment. According to Global News, evidence from realtors and MLS data is showing the Vancouver real estate market is in the midst of a major slow down, with prices dropping and sales plummeting.
While August is typically one of the slowest months for real estate transactions, MLS sales data from the first two weeks of the month shows what many have been hoping for during the last few years of escalating prices. According to realtor Brent Eilers, using MLS listing data, there were only three home sales in West Vancouver between Aug. 1 and 14 this year, compared to 52 during the same period last year. That’s a decrease of 94%.
Global News obtained MLS sales data from several key Metro Vancouver markets and found the number of homes sold during the first two weeks of August in Greater Vancouver dropped by 85% on average. Richmond experienced a 96% drop in the number of sales and Burnaby North fell by 95%. Vancouver’s West Side, West Vancouver, and Coquitlam also took major hits.
It appears that the Vancouver housing market has slammed shut.
Which is hardly a surprise: virtually everyone saw it coming, the only question was when. Eilers says he’s been warning of a real estate slow-down for at least a year due to the region’s unsustainable and unsupportable prices. West Vancouver, where he does a large part of his business, had a benchmark detached home price of almost $3.4 million in July according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
“The market in West Van is up 450 per cent since 2001. So is everyone making 600 per cent more income than they were so they can pay their taxes and buy their houses? Of course not. So how is this inflation been financed? By off-shore money and record debt.” Precisely what we said at the start of the year when we first heard horror stories about Chinese buyers paying cash, sight unseen, for any and every local luxury, and not so luxury home.
It appears that it is not just the 15% luxury tax implemented on on July 25 that has burst the bubble: according to Eilers sales were dropping even before the tax. According to the data, July was another slow month in West Vancouver with only 44 sales, down from 80 in 2015. June saw 74 sales, also down from 102 the year before.
The pattern has left the market “devastated”, Eilers adds.
While it may be too early to make a definitive conclusion, after all while earlier this month, the REBGV released its statistics for the month of July, saying the data showed the market had slowed down to “normal levels”, there was still no official August data available, and thus no actual indication of the slowdown. Fortunately for buyers, real-time data proves otherwise.
Zolo, a Canadian real estate brokerage, keeps track of MLS home sales in real-time and reports prices as an average rather than the “benchmark price” used by the REBGV. It currently shows a major correction underway in most Metro Vancouver markets. According to the website, the City of Vancouver currently has an average home price of $1.1 million, down 20.7% over the last 28 days and down 24.5% over the last three months. The average detached home is $2.6 million, down 7% compared to three months ago.
Still, it may be too early to call the time of death of the market. “It’s only slowing down at the top where there is uncertainty,” Zolo CEO Barry Allen said. And that uncertainty is “diabolically dangerous”, according to Eilers, who has sold real estate during four different correction periods in Vancouver. “When the market changes, it typically changes over night or within a couple of weeks, but it often takes two to three months for everybody to figure it out. That’s why it can be so scary,” he said.
According to the realtor, often sellers have their houses appraised months before they put them on the market, meaning in the climate we are currently witnessing, sellers are expecting to list their homes at record-high prices, even though the number of sales and listings indicate prices should be lowering.
“Typically what happens when the market starts to flip is all the buyers go into hibernation and all the listings come on. What are the odds on getting that seller to price his home at a fraction of where the market is now? It’s zero,” Eilers said.
What causes prices to lower is “urgency, anxiety, and fear,” according Eilers. He says a climate of financial overexposure, a treadmill of buying and selling and flipping homes, owning multiple properties, and buying before selling will test how long sellers can hold on without selling in desperation.
If the bubble has indeed burst, things are about to get very ugly. Eilers says that in the 1980 housing crash, prices dropped by 40 to 60% within a year and took six years to recover. “So your $2 million house became $800,000 in five months. There’s a lot of economists and a lot of wise people that believe that our financial structure is much closer to that structure from a corrections’ point of view,” Eilers explained.
One thing, however, appears certain: the foreign money influx has stopped. Zolo’s CEO says the foreign buyer tax has certainly stopped speculative buyers. This has caused many other buyers to take on a “wait and see” approach, which has essentially frozen the market.
News of the foreign buyer tax has spread to China, where Chinese real estate website Juwai now promotes other Canadian cities as foreign capital destinations. The website used to promote Vancouver as one of the best places for wealthy Chinese to invest, but has now switched to publicizing Calgary and Alberta due to the tax.
Which means that while one bubble is bursting, another is about to start, even if it is smack in the middle of Canada’s bleeding oil patch.
That said, this is good news for ordinary Vancouver residents. NDP MLA David Eby says the tax has caused a lot of people to hit the pause button on buying homes, but all those people might come back into the market in September. Despite his reservations on how the tax was implemented – he would have preferred an incrementally-increasing tax – he says a market slow down is good news.
“A lot of people have said to me quietly that they hope there is a substantial housing crash.”
Well, it appears they got what they wanted. Now the only question is what happens once Vancouver “corrects” by 30%, 40% or more – will the Chinese buyers stay away permanently or, like a good S&P500 algos, simply BTFD. We will have the answer in a few months.
- Leaked Memo Shows Soros Pushed Greece To Support Ukraine Coup, Paint Russia As Enemy
Submitted by Alex Christoforou via TheDuran.com,
Last week we reported on the DC Leaks hack of what was over 2,500 documents detailing how George Soros and his NGOs influence world leaders, drive foreign policy, and help to create unrest in sovereign nations, that many times leads to chaos and civil war.
One country of particular focus for George Soros and his NGOs is Ukraine.
It is now accepted fact that Soros was deeply involved in the Maiden protests in 2014 and the violent coup, that saw a democratically elected government overthrown in the name of “EU values”.
What is even more troubling, as revealed by the DC Leaks hack, is how Soros and his network of “non-profit organisations” worked to lobby EU member states into not only buying his Ukraine “Maidan” narrative, but to also disavow any ties and support for Russia.
Leaked documents show that George Soros was active in mapping out the Greek media landscape with generous grants, so as to further his Ukraine project, while also using his deep pockets to get Greek media to turn against the Russian Federation…in what can only be described as a well-funded and orchestrated smear campaign.
In one document entitled: “Open Society Initiative For Europe (OSIFE). Mapping the Ukrainian debate in Greece” (Ukraine and Europe-greece-tor ukraine debate mapping greece.docx), Soros offers a consultant a remuneration of $6,500 (gross) for “at least 15 full working days in carrying out this task” plus all expenses paid.
The aim of this task:
The consultant is expected to chart the main players in the Greek debate on Ukraine, outline the key arguments and their evolution in the past 18 months. Specifically, the report will take stock of any existing polling evidence provide a ‘who is who?’ with information about at least
– 6 newspapers,
– 10 audiovisual outlets (TV and radio),
– 6 internet sites,
– About 50 opinion leaders and trends in social networks[1].Categorize the main strains of discussion and eventually identify different sides / camps of the discussion.
Provide a brief account of how Russia has tried to influence the Greek debate on Ukraine through domestic actors and outlets
Include a section with recommendations on
– What are the spaces OSF should engage and would most likely to have impact?
– What are the voices (of reason or doubt) that should be amplified?Open Society Initiative For Europe (OSIFE) selected Iannis Carras for the Greek media mapping grant. The justification why he was chosen…
All contracts were for the same amount. We needed to find highly specialized researchers to map the debate on Ukraine in Europe, therefore we identified a shortlist of candidates in consultation with colleagues in the Think Tank Fund, OSEPI and in consultation with members of the OSIFE board and chose the most qualified who could produce the report in the time allowed. In the case of Greece we agreed that Iannis Carras, an economic and social historian of Balkan and Russian relations with expert knowledge of Greece’s NGOs and social movements, was the best suited to the task.
What is even more interesting is not the grant from OSIFE, but a letter from grant winner Carras to a person named Mathew (another Greek speaker???), outlining his plan in detail for pushing Soros’ Ukraine agenda in Greece.
Of significance is how Carras tells Mathew about Greek society’s overall suspicion of The Open Society after the roll in played in seeding unrest in Yugoslavia. Carras even tells Mathew to not mention The Open Society in Greece.
“Do you want your name to appear alongside mine on the paper? Do make comments on all of the below.
In general, and at your discretion, do not say you are doing this for Open Society because it is likely to close down doors. There’s a lot of suspicion about Open Society in Greece, mainly because of its positions vis-à-vis the former Yugoslavia. As I am simultaneously writing an article for Aspen Review Eastern Europe that can be used as the organisation for which research like this is taking place.”
Carras then goes on to outline his approach in manipulating Greek society, covering topics such as:
1. Media.
2. Political parties and think tanks
3. Opinion polls.
4. Business relations.
5. Religious and cultural ties.
6. Migration and diaspora.
7. Greece and Ukraine in the context of Greece’s economic crisis.
8. Greece, Ukraine and the Cyprus issue.
9. Names and brief description of significant actors: a ‘who is who?’ with information on at least 50 opinion leadersCarras notes how Russia has much goodwill in Greece, exercising “signifiant soft power”. Carras notes that Greece is, at this moment, a weak player in the Ukraine debate and the Greek Foreign Minister Kotzias realises this.
Summary: I am working on the hypotheses largely born out by the interviews carried out so far that Russia has significant soft power in Greece though this does not easily convert into hard power (e.g. vetoing EU sanctions).Greeks are basically not very interested in Ukraine and the crisis there. They reflect and understand that conflict through their own economic crisis and their relations with Europe (nowadays primarily Europe and not US). To the extent that relations with Europe remain the focus and do not go off the rails, Greece will bark but will not bite. If they improve, Greece might not even bark (as can be seen with Greece’s policy on Israel, Kotzias can be very much a realist).
Carras does warn that should Greece’s economic situation deteriorate further, than Greece may very well look to Russia for support, and this has implications on the Ukraine plan.
If they deteriorate however, Greece will be looking to Russia for increased support and will alter its Ukraine policies accordingly. Do you agree with these hypotheses? Can you find confirmation for or against them in the media outlets examined?
Carras places extra emphasis on influencing the media in Greece, citing various large news outlets that the Soros NGO can target, including approaching left wing and right wing blogs.
This is the bulk of the work (we have to think about how to divide the work up). We have to provide a ‘who is who?’ with information about at least 6 newspapers, 10 audio-visual outlets (TV and radio) and 6 internet sites. Some of these will be obvious, but, even in these cases, change over time (at least eighteen months) is an important consideration. Here are some suggestions for newspapers: Kathimerini, Avgi, Ta Nea, Vima, Efymerida Syntakton, Eleutherotypia, Proto Thema, Rizospastis? etc. What else? Protagon? Athens Review of Books? (info on Kotzias). As for TV, we’ll just do the main ones. What about left wing blogs? What about commercial radio stations? I think we should cover Aristera sta FM. Sky. What else? Anything from the nationalist and far right? My choice would be Ardin (already looking at this) which at least tries to be serious. Patria is even more unsavoury. I’ll deal with the religious web sites in the culture and religion appendix. I think we should interview Kostas Nisenko (http://www.kathimerini.gr/757296/article/epikairothta/kosmos/viaih-epi8e…) and Kostas Geropoulos of New Europe to get into the issues involved… not at all sure though that it’s advisable to talk to the Russia correspondents Thanasis Avgerinos, Dimitris Liatsos, Achileas Patsoukas etc. (I know all of them). Also if we come across articles with interesting information on any one of the topics, we should mail them to one another.
Attention is placed on influencing political parties. Carras sees this as a more difficult task, as parties in Greece would not be warm towards turning their back on Russia.
Who if anyone deals with Russia / Ukraine within each of the political parties? How important are political parties in formulating policies? (my hunch is totally unimportant). I must admit I have little idea of how to proceed with this one, but I have written to the academic Vassilis Petsinis and I hope I’ll get to skype with him soon. Think-tanks are easier, and, I think, more important. I have already interviewed Thanos Dokos (director Greek foreign policy institute, ELIAMEP) in person.
Carras notes how he has approached various religious leaders, academics and actors, to gauge a sense of how deep Russia’s influence and “soft power” runs in Greek society and culture.
So far I have interviewed by telephone Metropolitan John of Pergamum (one of the top figures in the inner circle of the Istanbul based Ecumenical Patriarchate). I have read Metropolitan Nektarios of the Argolid’s recent book (2014), “Two bullets for Donetsk”. I have tried but so far not succeeded in contacting Metropolitan Nektarios himself, and have started work on two of the main religious news websites romfea.gr and amen.gr .
With respect to culture I intend to contact Georgos Livathinos, leading director of Russian and other plays and Lydia Koniordou, actress. Also the management of the Onassis Centre, particularly Afroditi Panagiotakou, the executive vice-director who is quite knowledgeable in this field having travelled to both Ukraine and Russia.
In 2016 Greece and Russia will be hosting each other as the focus of cultural events in the two respective countries. I will be looking to understand the extent to which Russia’s unparalleled cultural soft-power might translate into Greek policy making.
Greek military is the final point of influence, with Carras interviewing Ambassadors and policy decision makers.
Foreign policy and the Greek military. So far I have interviewed in person Ambassador Elias Klis (formerly ambassador of Greece to Moscow, advisor to the current Foreign Minister, advisor to the Greek Union of Industrialists. He is perhaps the single most important person for understanding Greek-Russian diplomatic relations at present). Ambassador Alexandros Philon (formerly ambassador of Greece to Washington, to whom I am related). Captain Panos Stamou (submarines, extensive contacts in Crimea, also secretary and leading light of the Greek-Russian historical association) who emphasised the non-political tradition of the Greek armed forces. Tempted to talk to Themos Stoforopoulos for a nationalist left wing view. I have also read foreign minister Kotzias’ latest book. All of this has provided me with useful insights for appendices 7 and 8, and particularly for the connection to the Cyprus issue (which at the moment Greece is very keen to downplay).
Carras places an emphasis on Cyprus, perhaps recognising the islands affinity to support Russia and its large Russian diaspora community.
The recommendations will be for the medium and the short term, cited here based on interviews carried out so far. Medium term recommendations will include a cultural event (to be specified later) and a one-day conference on Ukraine and international law, citing precedents for dealing with the situation in Ukraine (particularly Cyprus). Recommendations may include capacity building for local Ukrainian migrant spokesperson(s). Short term recommendations will include an action pack on what Greece has at stake in Ukraine, and ways to narrate parallels in interactions between nation and empire vis-à-vis Greece / Ukraine. Think about whether these work / what else we might recommend?
Both of the documents are below:
Document from Iannis Carras… “Ukraine and Europe-greece-carras tsimitakis greece ukraine mar 2015.docx”
* * *
Finally we note that the incredible furore being raised about Paul Manafort's 'exposure' to Ukraine is a joke when one considers it was George Soros (above) and Hillary Clinton (see chart below) that was really pulling all the strings behind the scenes…
And in case you thought it was just a right-wing conspiracy… Hillary's best buddy The Podesta Group has hired outside counsel in Ukraine…
SCOOP: Podesta Group has hired outside counsel in Ukraine lobbying controversy. Kimberly Fritts stmt: pic.twitter.com/r6AeSCw93u
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) August 19, 2016
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...