Sep 22

Today’s News 22nd September 2016

  • State Department Admits: Islamic State Terrorists Trying To Pose As Refugees

    Submitted by Pete Kasperowicz via Washington Examiner,

    State Department spokesman John Kirby acknowledged Wednesday that Islamic State terrorists are trying to mingle with refugee populations overseas in the hopes of making it to the U.S. posing as a refugee.

    "I wouldn't debate the fact that there's the potential for ISIS terrorists to try to insert themselves, and we see that in some of the refugee camps in Jordan and in Turkey, where they try to insert themselves into the population," Kirby said on "Fox and Friends."

     

    Still, he argued that the vetting process for these refugees is tough, and should be enough to keep terrorists out, although he admitted it's not a perfect process.

     

  • The "Deplorables" – Who We Are And What We Want

    Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    In numerous articles over the past several years I have made observations on a rule of life that I strictly adhere to: that all social conflicts can be boiled down to the reality of two opposing groups — those people who want to control the lives of others, and those people who simply want to be left alone.  You can read more about my philosophy on this in an article I published in 2014 titled 'Why Is Independence So Frightening To Some People?'

    The mainstream media and establishment institutions focused on propaganda will tell you that there are hundreds or thousands of dangerous cultural enclaves and ideologies out there that you should fear.  They will tell tales of rage and suspicion between the rich and the poor, haves and have-nots, whites and blacks, gays and straights, academics and working class, believers and atheists, Muslims and Christians, Republicans and Democrats, Eastern nations and Western nations, etc.  The establishment relies on these divisions as a rationale for the homogenization of cultures — they argue that if we erase borders, religion and sovereignty while enforcing multiculturalism and wealth redistribution, then these groups will have no reason to fight anymore and a Utopian fever orgy will be our inevitable reward.  Yes, it sounds quite magical.

    That said, I don’t hold any claims against any of these groups per se, as long as they respect my inherent and individual freedoms.  If they are determined to impose their ideology on me through force, that is another matter entirely.

    This is the only paradigm that actually matters in the end.  All other paradigms are a means for the powers that be to pit the masses against each other.  When you look at the world in this way, it is easier to let go of all the “sacred cows” and learned biases that blind us to the truth.

    I don’t affiliate with Republicans, but I am happy to support a Republican that proves he or she has no interest in dictating my principles or my future.  Same with a Democrat. Same with any black or white or brown person. Same with any gay or straight person.  I really don’t care; stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. Get in my way, however, and I will step on you.  If you’re bigger than me, I’ll dislocate your kneecaps and then step on you.  There is no despot so big that they are immune to the heel of a strategically placed boot.

    This, I would say, is a defining principle behind those of us who make up the so-called “alt-right;” the people Hillary Clinton recently referred to as “the deplorables.” When describing this subculture of “miscreants” I often use the title of the “liberty movement.” We are defined and unified by our desire for a society based on the integral love of freedom and a fervent opposition to collectivism and totalitarianism.  For this, we are called “deplorable.”  But let’s extrapolate on that a little…

    In our era, certain organizations have adopted a hard-line love affair with collectivism, and most of these groups today are allied with the far Left (socialist) side of the political spectrum.  This includes “neo-conservatives” who have never been conservative and, just like the socialists, have only ever pursued policies of bigger and more intrusive political and cultural bureaucracy.  Therefore, the paradigm of left vs. right now becomes tangible, because it is the left that seeks control, and the true right that wants to be left alone.

    To clarify even further, people who actually understand the false left/right paradigm only mention it when they are referring to the political class.  At the top of the pyramid and at the top of either major American party, there is no "Left", or "Right", there is only globalism.  However, for average people there is indeed an ideological spectrum.  This would not be such a problem except that at this time, it is people on the far LEFT of that spectrum that are in support of multiculturalism and globalization.  They are the group scrambling for control over everyone else and they are the group with funding and legal support from the elitist establishment.  Social justice lunatics and Black Lives Matter advocates have fashioned themselves as weapons for the elites.  Therefore, in this way, they have made the left/right paradigm real for those at the bottom of the pyramid.

    It’s interesting to me that the left, once considered the bastion citadel of rebellion against the machine, is now willingly diving head-first into the intestinal apparatus of the system to be mulched for fuel for the very same beast.  It just goes to show you how easily these fraudulent paradigms can change and how easily groups can be co-opted when they are oblivious to their own weaknesses.

    If you really want to know who we “deplorables” are it’s rather simple — we are the ones who refuse to participate in the operation of the machine.  We are the cogs who refuse to cooperate.  We will not grease the gears.  We will not stoke the furnace.  We will stop the whole damn thing in it’s tracks, because, for the sake of future generations, we must.

    This is why we are hated by socialists, cultural Marxists and the general inbred animal farm of the progressive zeitgeist.  We suggest that, in fact, not all steps forward are equal to “progress,” and not all progress is moral.  We maintain that what progressives call “progress” is actually classic and archaic barbarism wearing the silky lingerie of of humanitarianism.

    To assert that some progress is immoral is a sure way to trigger the modern collectivist left.  They just can’t fathom that anyone sane would disagree with the grand schemes of multiculturalism and economic harmonization.  We must be crazy.  We must be violent and aberrant monsters.  We must be filled with hate and racism and misogyny.  We must be “dealt with.”

    But here’s the deal…

    The institutions and people so desperate to define the deplorables never actually ask us to define ourselves for the public record.  They don’t WANT to hear what we have to say about ourselves.  They prefer to construct straw men.  It’s much easier to set fire to us that way.

    Oh sure, they’ll interview us once in a while, but an interview does not constitute an honest record of anything.  Just take a look at Bloomberg’s “interview” with Milo Yiannopoulos entitled The Pretty, Monstrous Face Of The Alt-Right in which they focus more on his salary, shopping habits and flamboyant homosexuality than his actual political or philosophical positions.  And, yet again, they call on the Southern Poverty Law Center, the cultural Marxist propaganda arm of the establishment, to give their take on who Yiannopoulos is.  Welcome to the club, Milo.

    Even I have been approached in the past by mainstream outlets including the BBC and The Economist for such interviews.  In the case of the BBC, I told them I would be happy to participate as long as I could bring my own video equipment to record the entire exchange.  They agreed, then never called me back.  I just ignored requests from The Economist; they are the rotting left ventricle of the heart of darkness.

    These people have no intention of letting us speak for ourselves.  They want to use us for ratings and then edit us into oblivion.

    The media certainly won’t refer to us as “the liberty movement” or as freedom fighters or any other label that might find favor with the general public.  Instead, they call us “populists,” which is a term with a decidedly fascist flavor to it.  The truth is, the rhetoric of elitists in Europe and in the U.S. is that those against globalism and multiculturalism are legitimate fascists.  If average people only understood the totalitarian leanings of your run-of-the-mill globalist they might find this accusation hilariously ironic.

    Alan Greenspan calls us “crazies” who will undermine the U.S. system.  Which is also ironic when you understand that it was Greenspan’s Federal Reserve that created the artificially low interest rate environment that initiated the derivatives bubble and credit crisis that has sealed America’s fiscal fate eight years later.  Greenspan even admitted back in 2013 that the Fed knew there was a debt bubble and “missed the timing” in dealing with it.  Yet, he blames us for America’s problems.

    In the past these hucksters ignored us.  We were a burgeoning movement rallying around marginalized figures like Ron Paul back then. It was better for them to pretend we didn’t exist.

    Now, we seem to be everywhere — busting up the EU with the Brexit referendum, overwhelming Merkel’s political power base in Germany, and pushing Donald Trump into what I have argued since the primaries will be a sure entry into the White House.  Now, all the full attention of the establishment is on us.  Imagine that.

    So, instead of listening to hypocrites and liars like those listed above, why not go to the source and ask a deplorable what we want.  I’ll be happy to explain our goals in my next article in this series, and set out to identify the movement that seems to have dumbfounded the progressive left and globalist acolytes alike.

    For now, I want to acknowledge that the rise of the deplorables does not necessarily ensure victory in the face of the elites.  As I have mentioned many times since before the success of the Brexit, it is possible that the elites are trying to give traditional conservative movements enough rope with which to hang ourselves.  That is to say, we are working to wrestle back control of a ship that is already sinking.  They might just step aside as we mutiny because in the end, they don't think it will matter.  Let’s not kid ourselves that this fight will be anything other than long and painful.

    Economically as well as socially, there is little chance of avoiding serious multiple crises over the course of the next few years.  It seems to me rather convenient that the catalysts for these crises are boiling over at a time of great awakening for the conservative guard and the liberty minded.  I do not think this is a coincidence.

    This is why I repeatedly remind people that a successful Brexit vote or a Trump presidency might send a message, but they are not solutions.  Do not be surprised if a Trump victory is followed by a global deluge of financial instability — instability that will be blamed on us.

    The narrative is already being set.  International financiers, central bankers and media personalities are consistently mentioning the great danger of the “populists.”  They say the deplorables are going to destroy the world.  This is nonsense, of course.  The world has already been destroyed by the banking elite and their cronies, but, the average person doesn’t really grasp this.  We have to educate them quickly because we are about to be targeted as scapegoats for one of the greatest engineered fiscal catastrophes of all time.

    In my next installment I will examine a list of issues that are at the core of "the deplorables" and our shocking ascendance in the sociopolitical sphere.  I will conclude by pointing out that every totalitarian action produces an equal and opposite reaction.  The progressive left and the globalists have become so intoxicated with collectivist power and so abusive in their application of the government authority that they have chiseled from the public, that now, everyone hates them.  Many people WANT to see the deplorables win.  It's not even necessarily about the viability of Trump.  They just want to watch as the pretentious faces of social justice thugs twist in shrieking horror when Trump takes the Oval Office, or as Britain flips the bird to the EU, or as Europe breaks apart over the madness of forced refugee policies.

    If anyone is to blame for the popular rise of the deplorables, it is the very leftists and globalists who despise us.

  • Texas Governor Threatens To Exit The Federal Refugee Program: "Empathy Must Be Balanced With Security"

    After taking in more refugees over the past 12 months than any other state in the U.S., Texas is threatening to exit the federal refugee program, effective 9/30/16, unless the Obama administration agrees to new security measures intended to protect Texas citizens.  The demands by Texas Governor Greg Abbot come just days after the recent bombings in New York and New Jersey and in response to Obama's recent announcement of plans to accept 110,000 refugees in 2017, up 57% since 2015

    Abbott released the following comments on his website saying, among other things, that the "refugee settlement program is riddled with serious problems" and that the "federal government lacks the capability or the will to distinguish the dangerous from the harmless."  Abbott also took the opportunity to blast Obama for "ineptly proposing a dramatic increase in the number of refugees" in 2017 saying that the U.S. is incapable of fully screening immigrants from nations like Syria.   

    “The federal government’s refugee settlement program is riddled with serious problems that pose a threat to our nation. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Director of National Intelligence have repeatedly declared their inability to fully screen refugees from terrorist-based nations. Even with the inability to properly vet refugees from Syria and countries known to be supporters or propagators of terrorism, President Obama is now ineptly proposing a dramatic increase in the number of refugees to be resettled in the U.S."

     

    “Empathy must be balanced with security. Texas has done more than its fair share in aiding refugees, accepting more refugees than any other state between October 2015 and March 2016. While many refugees pose no danger, some pose grave danger, like the Iraqi refugee with ties to ISIS who was arrested earlier this year after he plotted to set off bombs at two malls in Houston."

     

    “Despite multiple requests by the State of Texas, the federal government lacks the capability or the will to distinguish the dangerous from the harmless, and Texas will not be an accomplice to such dereliction of duty to the American people. Therefore, Texas will withdraw from the refugee resettlement program. I strongly urge the federal government to completely overhaul a broken and flawed refugee program that increasingly risks American lives.”

    Over the past 12 months, Texas has accepted 7,205 refugees, more than any other state in the country, with ~750 of them from Syrian.

    Source: Graphiq

     

    Below is the letter sent by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to the Federal Office of Refugee Settlement earlier today. 

    Texas Letter

  • Charlotte Riots Night 2: Police Unleash Tear-Gas, NC Governor Calls National Guard As Protests Turn Deadly – Live Feed

    Update 2: The situation is escalating quickly

    North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory declares state of emergency on request of Charlotte police chief

     

    North Carolina governor is also sending in the National Guard amid protests

    Update 1: The man shot earlier has died…

    As WSJ reports, the man fatally shot downtown just after 8 p.m. was shot by a civilian, according to the city of Charlotte.

     

     

    The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department “did not fire the shot,” the city said in a tweet. City officials also confirmed that a police officer had been transported to a hospital for injuries.

    As we detailed earlier, night 2 of the protest in Charlotte following the shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott – an allegedly armed black man – by a black policeman, has turned considerably more violent. 

    As YourDailyDish repoerts,

    The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department released a press release on the incident that read, “Officers observed a subject inside a vehicle in the apartment complex. The subject exited the vehicle armed with a firearm. Officers observed the subject get back into the vehicle at which time they began to approach the subject. The subject got back out of the vehicle armed with a firearm and posed an imminent deadly threat to officers who subsequently fired their weapon striking the subject.”

     

    On Wednesday morning, Police Chief Kerr Putney held a news conference regarding the killing. He provided new details, which seemed to corroborate the press release, contradicting the version of events that played out on social media Wednesday.

     

    Putney began by saying, “It’s time to change the narrative. Because I can tell you from the facts, that the story is a little bit different as to how it’s been portrayed so far, especially through social media.”

     

    The chief went on to describe the incident as such:

     

    “The officers gave loud, clear verbal commands that were also heard by many of the witnesses. They were instructing the subject, once he got out of the vehicle, to drop the weapon. Despite the verbal commands, Mr. Scott exited the vehicle as the officers continued to yell at him to drop it. He stepped out, posing a threat to the officers, and Officer Brentley Vinson subsequently fired his weapon, striking the subject.”

     

    The chief went on to describe what was found at the scene. “I can tell you a weapon was seized, a handgun, I can also tell you we did not find a book that was made reference to. We did find a weapon, and the witnesses corroborated it to, beyond just the officers.”
     

     

     

    This should not be a total surprise as we noted earlier comments:

    “We out like the Taliban!” one rioter was heard yelling on a live Facebook stream.

     

    “This ain’t no one-day action!” another shouted. “This is the first time people standing up!”

     

    “We ain’t playin’ no motherfuckin’ games, nigga!” asserted another individual.

    One person has been shot in Charlotte, North Carolina protests against the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. Riot police are firing tear gas into the crowd.

    WCNC reported medics confirmed a gun shot wound on the corner of College and Trade. The victim had life-threatening injuries.

    Live Feed:

    Alternative Live Feed:

    This is reportedly the pool of blood from tonight's shooting…

     

    But tonight is worse than last night – considering it is early…

     

    And now even the media is being targeted…

     

  • Wall Street Goes "All In" For Hillary Clinton

    Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    Hordes of industry executives will descend on the city to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s nomination for president and renew close associations that vexed the Democratic standard-bearer throughout her primary battle with Bernie Sanders.

     

    Blackstone, one of the nation’s largest private equity firms, will hold an official reception in Philadelphia on Thursday featuring its president, Tony James, sometimes mentioned as a possible Treasury Secretary in a Clinton administration.

     

    The financial contingent will be in an especially good mood following Clinton’s selection of Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate. Kaine has shown a willingness to fight for regional bank relief from the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. But more than that, he’s not Elizabeth Warren, the potential VP pick that long had Wall Street terrified.

     

    Republicans with ties to the financial industry will also be there, a sharp contrast to Donald Trump’s convention in Cleveland, which Wall Street largely shunned over fears of the GOP nominee’s populist agenda on trade, immigration and Wall Street reform.

     

    – From July’s post: Hillary Clinton is in Deep Trouble – “Hordes of Wall Street Executives” Descend Upon Philly

    Wall Street, America’s most despised industry, is putting all of its eggs in the Hillary Clinton basket. I must say, I’m actually pretty shocked at the extent to which the industry’s heavyweights are backing her. There’s really only one explanation – they know she’s a sure thing.

     

    You don’t go into Wall Street to help the world. You go in to make money, stroke your ego and perhaps one day be lucky enough to be deemed “master of the universe” by some finance humping media outlet like Bloomberg or CNBC. Wall Street oligarchs aren’t rallying around Hillary because they find Trump offensive. The only thing these people find offensive is not making money. They know Hillary, they’ve paid Hillary, and they are 100% confident she will do their bidding. Trump on the other hand is unpredictable and injects into the environment what the current crop on Wall Street hates more than anything else, risk.

    The U.S. economy is totally rigged. While in the past, you were expected to take on a great deal of risk to earn an outsized return, most large returns these days have been gamed to such and extent that they amount to riskless schemes through which the U.S. taxpayer funnels money upward to a handful of oligarchs. Hillary will unquestionably keep this system in place. Trump, we just don’t know.

    This is why the real players Wall Street want Hillary. They want the riskless pillaging of society to continue uninterrupted. As usual, money talks.

    As The Hill reports:

    Hedge fund moguls are pouring stunning amounts of cash into the main super-PAC supporting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

     

    George Soros and Donald Sussman, liberal financiers based in New York, have now given at least $10.5 million each to Priorities USA, an outside group that has already reserved more than $150 million in advertising to help Clinton win the White House.

     

    Pushing him over the $10 million mark, Soros sent the super-PAC an additional $2.5 million in August, according to the latest reports from the Federal Election Commission.

     

    Sussman sent $2 million in August too, giving him an identical total donation to Soros.

     

    Soros scaled back his political spending during the Barack Obama years. Stories later emerged suggesting he’d been unhappy with the way he’d been treated by the president.

     

    An email released last year by the State Department showed Clinton ally Neera Tanden telling the then-secretary of State that when she spoke with Soros at a dinner, he’d told her he regretted supporting President Obama over Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary.

     

    Recounting her conversation with Soros, Tanden told Clinton: “He’s been impressed that he can always call/meet with you on an issue of policy and said he hasn’t met with the President ever (though I thought he had.)”

     

    The latest injections of cash from Soros and Sussman continue a trend of Wall Street money flowing overwhelmingly to Clinton over her Republican rival Donald Trump.

     

    It’s highly unusual — perhaps unprecedented — for a Democratic presidential candidate to out-raise a Republican among the financial sector by the margin by which Clinton is out-raising Trump. 

     

    Citing data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, the Wall Street Journal reported in July that “seven financial firms alone have generated $47.6 million for groups working on Mrs.Clinton’s behalf.”

     

    The comparable amount raised for Trump at that time was $19,000. And though his haul from the financial industry has increased substantially by now, it still pales in comparison to Clinton’s.

     

    Any questions?

    screen-shot-2016-09-21-at-11-23-41-am

    For prior articles on Hillary Clinton’s love affair with Wall Street, see:

    Hillary Clinton is in Deep Trouble – “Hordes of Wall Street Executives” Descend Upon Philly

    Hillary Consolidates Wall Street Support as Republican Financiers Shift to Clinton

    The Real Reason Hillary Clinton Refuses to Release Her Wall Street Transcripts

     

    COMPROMISED – How Two of Hillary Clinton’s Top Aides Received Golden Parachutes from Wall Street

  • House Oversight Committee Orders Reddit To Preserve "Oh Shit" Guy's Posts

    The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), has issued a preservation order to Reddit related to all threads posted by Hillary’s tech guy from Platte River Networks, Paul Combetta (aka the “Oh Shit” guy).  The preservation order comes just days after a political researcher exposed a Reddit thread from July 2014 in which Combetta sought tech advice on how to “strip out a VIP’s (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived emails” (all of the details can be found in our previous post here:  “Dear FBI, This Is Intent: Hillary’s “Oh Shit” Guy Sought Reddit Advice On How To ‘Strip VIP’s Emails’“).

    In comments to The Hill, Chaffetz confirmed that the House Oversight Committee is pursuing the new Reddit discovery “with vigor” but noted that precautions were required to “verify the authenticity” of Combetta’s posts.  Meanwhile, Chaffetz did confirm that Reddit is “cooperating” with the preservation order. 

    The order “has the weight of law, you can’t destroy things and hope things magically get erased,” he told The Hill Wednesday.

     

    The allegations “fit the pattern of what we think was happening,” Chaffetz said.

     

    “We have to verify the authenticity but we are pursuing it with vigor,” Chaffetz said. “On the surface it may be accurate, but we’ve got to make sure [the Reddit posts] are preserved and we have to dive deeper into the authenticity.”

    Let’s just hope that Reddit takes these preservation orders more seriously than Combetta who admitted to the FBI in March 2015 that he “was aware of the existence of the preservation request and the fact that it meant he should not disturb Clinton’s e-mail data on the PRN server” even though he went ahead and deleted her emails anyway.  

    We first wrote about the “Oh Shit” guy three weeks ago when the FBI decided to dump their redacted investigation notes on the world on a Friday afternoon before Labor Day weekend (see “The “Oh Shit” Moment: Hillary Wiped Her Server With BleachBit Despite Subpoena“).  After reviewing all of the FBI notes in detail, we concluded that post by noting that “something tells us this “Undisclosed PRN Staff Member” [Combetta’s identity had not been revealed at that point] is not going to make out as well as Hillary when all the dust settles”…With each passing day that prediction seems to be drawing closer to reality.  

  • Redneck Investin Part 2 – The evolved Redneck – READ before RIOT

    Due to the events in Charlotte, of which the participants are mostly of the lower class, and spectators of the upper; we thought it timely to release Part 2 in our Redneck series, Redneck Investin’ – a Look from the other side.  You can read part 1 here.  We released Splitting Pennies – Understanding Forex for the common man to understand the financial system from another perspective.  We encourage all rioters to pick up a copy and understand ‘the man’ instead of vandalizing private property and becoming 5 second celebrities on the local news.  

    So you don’t have any money to invest?  Think again!  The only capital is in between your ears (intelligence).

    Redneck Investin’ 1.1

    Gift Card Arbitrage

    It’s possible on ebay to buy a face value gas card or gift card for less than the face value.  The amount less will depend on the auction – you won’t have any guarantees here.  But for example it’s possible to buy a gift card for a retailer, 20% or even 40% discounted!  That means you could theoretically buy a $100 gift card for $50, $60, $70, or $90.  In many cases they’ll be in the money or in some strange cases out of the money.  We’re not going to point to any particular ebay listings to be fair – but they’re there.  Know what to look for!  Be sure you’re bidding on a GIFT CARD or GAS CARD that can be used to BUY GAS, or in a retail shop to buy PRODUCTS.  Make sure you are NOT bidding on a REWARDS CARD or other form of ‘special discount’ card.  Gift cards are no different than cash insofar as their spending ability.  Good luck!

    Crisp $100 Bill sales

    For some reason unbeknownst to the author, buyers are willing to pay more than $100 for a crisp, unused $100 bill.  Why?  Don’t ask – we don’t know!  But it’s legal, and the premium can be upwards of 20% or even greater!  But there’s a catch, getting fresh bills aren’t easy.  Plus, if you want to buy a whole ‘strap’ it’s going to cost you $10,000 for the whole 100 lot of $100 bills, which may be beyond your 401 Keg budget.  So you’ll have to get a few individually broken out of the strap, which will need to be organized by your local bank branch.  They probably won’t call you when they come in, so this may involve you going into the branch daily at a certain time (usually, banks will receive money deliveries at the same time daily or weekly depending on the population of the local area.)  Anyway, as many as you can obtain, you can load them up on ebay and rake in a risk free tidy profit!  Don’t forget to calculate ebays fees, and shipping.

    Fountain Coin Cleaning

    WARNING – THIS MAY BE ILLEGAL IN SOME AREAS.  CHECK WITH LOCAL LAWS AND LANDOWNERS BEFORE TRYING THIS.  Some fountain owners may want a cut!

    Many people believe that it’s ‘good luck’ to throw coins into fountains.  Other people think it’s ‘good luck’ to collect these coins and deposit them into their bank account!  Do this at night, around 3am – 5am when there’s the least chance of a coin tosser seeing you.  It will depress them and they will not throw coins in other fountains, thus damaging your future income.  NEVER COLLECT ALL COINS IN A FOUNTAIN – it will confuse coin tossers the next day, they will think this is a ‘no toss’ fountain.  Always leave 20% of coins to remind tossers that this is a ‘please toss’ fountain.

    Golf Ball recovery and sales

    Golfers are, well, there’s a lot of golf balls in lakes and water traps near golf courses.  Public courses are not as highly protected as the “Elite” country clubs, and it’s more likely to find a fellow Redneck groundskeeper willing to let you in at night to go night diving for balls.  He may want a cut of your spoils – be fair and share!  This is an honest job; the balls are in the water usually rotting away covered with moss and other lake elements that will ultimately deteriorate the balls.  Fancy courses have systems to rake the balls out of the water, but most municipal courses don’t.  Be fair, show you care!  Don’t charge more than $1 or $2 per ball.  If you’re in Florida – beware of Alligators.  

    Be sensitive to the local culture.  Remember this sign, in California – no martinis in the pool, please!

    If you want a quick Forex education, checkout Splitting Pennies – the pocket guide designed to instantly make you a Forex genius!

    If you want to get started looking at investing, checkout Fortress Capital Forex

    For financial institutions, checkout Liquid Claims Securities Settlement Serivces.

  • CLiNToN PaY To PLaY…

    CLINTON PAY TO PLAY

  • Not Even Goldman Has Any Clue How The BOJ Will "Control" The Yield Curve

    The biggest news overnight, and certainly far bigger than this afternoon’s non-event from Janet Yellen, was the significant change in monetary policy announced by the BOJ which (belatedly) unveiled its re-revised “QQE”… this time “with Yield Curve Control” (or “QQEWYCC“), a phrase used in lieu of “Reverse Operation Twist”, whereby the BOJ is hoping to steepen the yield curve and undo the damage it itseld created in January when it introduced NIRP for the first time to Japan, without doing much of anything else.

    While we laid out the theoretical big picture elements of QQEWYCC both earlier, and two weeks ago, there is a small problem when one gets into the practical nuances of the proposed monetary experiment: nobody really knows how it will work, not even Goldman Sachs, whose BOJ expert Naohiko Baba admitted that he has no clue how the BOJ will actually execute its vision.

    Confirming that the “JGB market has become increasingly distorted”, Baba says that

    “it is very unclear at this time exactly how the BOJ intends to “control” the yield curve in the future. Based only on the official statement, we think it is likely it will maintain the yield curve at more or less the current level for the time being. However, the question is how it will control the overall level and shape of the curve when financial and economic conditions change in the future. While the JGB market needs to take time to study the BOJ’s intentions, with interest rate movements lessening, we think the pricing function of interest rates as a mirror reflecting real economic and financial conditions will be increasingly lost.”

    Ah yes, the old problem with nationalizing a market – whether it’s bonds or stocks – is that it is no longer, by definition, a market but merely a policy tool which has ceased to delivers any informational value whatsoever.

    And before market participants get too gloomy contemplating the existential void of participating in something that no longer exists, Goldman has some theoretical considerations on what the BOJ’s announcement meant, namely that under all that unclear verbiage unveiled last night, the central bank has begun a “stealth taper.” To wit:

    The BOJ emphasized that it has four means of easing at its disposal going forward: (1) the negative interest rate (short-term policy interest rate) on policy-rate balances in current accounts, (2) 10-year JGB yields (long-term interest rate), (3) expansion of asset purchases, and (4) expansion of the monetary base. The BOJ will continue to apply a negative rate of 0.1% for (1), while purchasing long-term JGBs so as to maintain long-term interest rates at around zero. We think the BOJ aims to control the yield curve by controlling these two interest rate targets, together with the introduction of new market operations as a backstop when interest rates rise.[1] The BOJ decided to maintain the pace of JGB purchases at around ¥80 tn a year for the time being, but it has effectively abandoned its previous monetary base target.

     

    Governor Kuroda of course denied this, but we think the introduction of yield curve control could be considered as paving the way for future tapering of JGB purchases. We think it is likely that by substantially changing the framework, the BOJ aims to attract the market’s focus to yield curve control and slowly move toward tapering in the background. In addition to the high likelihood that it will become increasingly difficult to maintain its large-volume JGB purchase program for technical reasons, the marginal benefits from expanding JGB purchases have already diminished vs. costs involved, as we have repeatedly mentioned. However, as many market participants forecast the forex rate based on the monetary base ratio between two countries, there is an obvious large risk to reducing purchases. Accordingly, we think the BOJ has judged that it needs to divert the market’s attention as early as possible in advance. As we mention later, our impression is that an exit from unprecedented easing is now much more distant. In our view, the BOJ needed to minimize market shock accompanying a shift in policy targets and also make the easing system longer-lasting and more sustainable.

    On this we agree with Goldman for one simple reason: in his erudite “take” of the BOJ’s announcement, Ben Bernanke (who was surely dejected that Kuroda did not take his advice to unleash helicopter money) today blogged that “it was puzzling that the BOJ retained its 80-trillion-yen quantity target for JGB purchases; one of these two targets is redundant. I presume that the BOJ was concerned that dropping the quantity target would lead market participants to infer (incorrectly) that the Bank was scaling back its program of monetary easing.”

    The fact that Bernanke said that it was incorrectly perceived that the BOJ is scaling back easing, is all we need to know that the BOJ is doing precisely that and by implication, that Goldman is right. In which case, watch out below,  USDJPY, not to mention Nikkei, and therefore Abe approval ratings.

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