- 72% Of Spaniards Support Government Interference With Business
Countries are divided by the role government plays in regulating businesses.
As Statista’s Sarah Feldman notes, Western Europe, as a region, falls more in favor of governments regulating businesses for the good of society, while the American public is divided on whether government regulation is beneficial for society at large.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Small business owners in America cite government regulations as the single biggest issue facing their businesses 14 percent of the time, with quality of labor and taxes preceding it.
Governments’ role in business is a major rallying point for the two main political parties in America, both historically and contemporarily.
- Russia, Central Africa Sign New Military Cooperation Agreement
Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Russia and the Central African Republic (CAR) signed a military cooperation agreement on August 21. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and his CAR counterpart Marie-Noelle Koyara met on the sidelines of the Army 2018 defense expo outside of Moscow to finalize that agreement. According to the Russian defense chief, Central Africa “is a promising partner on the African continent.” The document covers arms shipments and personnel training. Central African officers will undergo training courses at Russian military academies and colleges. This year, Russia has already sent light arms, rocket launchers, and anti-aircraft guns for two battalions. It has 175 military and civilian instructors deployed in that country to train the personnel.
In mid-December, the United Nations granted Russia an exemption to the arms embargo on the CAR, paving the way for deliveries of weapons to that war-torn country that is still immersed in an internal conflict. The embargo is effective until Jan. 31, 2019.
The UN ranks the CAR as the least-developed country in the world despite its minerals reserves. Fourteen thousand UN peacekeepers are stationed within its borders, but the government, led by President Faustin-Archange Touadera, believes that that operation is ineffective. He has relied more on Russia’s help.
This agreement is part of that trend. Russia’s regional influence is increasing. The Democratic Republic of Congo has recently decided to revive its 1999 agreement on military cooperation with Russia. In April, Mozambique agreed to open its ports to Russian naval vessels. It was recently reported that Niger is interested in purchasing Russian helicopters and firearms, including grenade launchers. Russia and Guinea are working on a military agreement, which would include free access for Russian military ships to the country’s ports, training, and other security-related issues. Russia exports Mil Mi-8/17 and Mi-24/35 helicopters to Angola, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda.
The Russian Federation has military partnerships with Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Uganda, South Sudan, Mozambique, and Angola. In 2017, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir asked Russia to protect his country “from the aggressive acts of the United States.” All in all, Russia is responsible for 30% of all arms supplies to the region.
The military cooperation goes hand-in-hand with progress in other areas. In March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went on a five-day African tour to visit Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. He signed trade agreements with Angola and Mozambique and also strengthened diplomatic ties with Zimbabwe’s new government.
Russian companies are exploring the Darwendale platinum deposit, one of the largest in the world. Russia’s Alrosa is present in Angola, a country rich in diamonds. Moscow and Luanda are engaged in talks over cooperation in hydrocarbon production. Last October, Russia signeda $20 billion agreement to construct two nuclear power plants in Nigeria.It recently established a special relationship with Rwanda toreconnect Russia with the East African community.
Benin, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia, among others, have all been recipients of Russian debt relief over the past decade. Russia is working with Zimbabwe’s and Guinea’s mining industries and also cooperates on nuclear power with Sudan.
Russia and the African Union (AU) are currently in the process of drafting a conceptual framework cooperation agreement. Moscow can offer its growingability to support peacekeeping operations and training for the African Union personnel, as well as the sharing of intelligence data about foreign terrorists with the African International data bank. The Russian Federation contributes to the UN peacekeeping operations in Western Sahara, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Liberia, Sudan, and South Sudan.
Russiashowcased African business at the 2018 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. It is set to host a Russian-African Union forum in 2019. According to Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov, the forum will roll out a comprehensive, strategic road map for more economic cooperation and a wide range of investment possibilities, plus effective ways of addressing regional security issues and improving public diplomacy in Africa.
Russia’s relationship with the Southern African Development Community is also on the rise.
The states of the region are seeking to diversify their foreign relationships. Moscow is helping them to achieve this goal, as it enjoys a reputation as a reliable and pragmatic partner that is able to weigh in on regional matters both diplomatically and militarily. It maintains good relations with everyone in the region, making Russia the right choice when seeking a partner for a peacekeeping operation. Russia’s burgeoning influence in sub-Saharan Africa is a part of broader picture, as its clout has grown immensely in the Middle East and North Africa.
- Corporation Building Spy-Grid In China Also Creating Drivers Licenses In The US
Authored by Daniel Taylor via ActivistPost.com,
Company that helps manufacture U.S. citizens drivers licenses brags of “building and managing databases of entire populations” across the globe.
Big Tech has gathered unprecedented amounts of personal data from millions of people. At the same time, a system of total surveillance has been constructed: Facial recognition, biometric scanning, cell phone surveillance and more have amassed a huge amount of information.
We see the stories about the growing surveillance state, but we don’t hear about the gigantic multinational corporation that is helping to build the physical infrastructure supporting it.
Idemia (formerly Morpho), is a billion dollar multinational corporation. It is responsible for building a significant portion of the world’s biometric surveillance and security systems, operating in about 70 countries. Some American clients of the company include the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the FBI.
The company website says that Morpho has been “…building and managing databases of entire populations…” for many years.
From the company site:
Morpho has been building and managing databases of entire populations for governments, law enforcement agencies and other government bodies around the world, whether for national ID, health cards, bank cards or even driver license programs.
In the United States, Idemia is involved in the making of state issued drivers licenses in 42 states.
The company is now pushing digital license trials in the U.S. Delaware and Iowa are among five states involved in the trials this year. With the mobile license, law enforcement will be able to wirelessly “ping” a drivers smartphone for their license. The move is part of a wider trend toward cashless payment.
Idemia is assisting China and India with building surveillance and ID systems, trafficking in huge amounts of biometric data across the world.
In China, Idemia has helped build the massive biometric scanning and surveillance system that is used to keep Chinese citizens under a tyrannical boot.
The company has provided biometric payment and authentication systems to the country.
The company website says:
“With a sales office in Hong Kong, Morpho offers services and solutions in the field of digital identity and smart transactions. The world leader in multibiometric identification technologies, Morpho supplies biometric identification systems to Chinese police forces and government immigration agencies.
Morpho has also provided facial recognition systems to police agencies in Shanghai, Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Jiangxi, Guangzhou and Wenzhou.”
In India, the controversial Aadhaar national ID card system is also enjoying the support of Idemia through Safran Identity & Security, now part of Idemia. The company states that it is “in charge of all technological aspects of Aadhaar”.
Morpho is one of the companies chosen to take part in an unprecedented program called Aadhaar to count everyone residing in India and then assign each person a unique identification number. Morpho is in charge of all technological aspects of Aadhaar.
Several court cases have gone to India’s supreme court on grounds of privacy violations from Aadhaar. The ID system has had serious security breaches, with access to a billion identities being sold for less than $10 through WhatsApp.
The social credit trap
One of the court filings (Mathew Thomas vs Union of India) details the rise of China’s social credit system, comparing the Indian Aadhaar initiative to the Chinese program.
The Chinese government initially permitted corporations to aggregate personal data of their customers and built algorithms that could then rate the worth of these customers. As such applications began to get integrated and large technology companies began to dominate every aspect of citizen lives, the ‘Social Credit Rating Systems’ that these companies ran became all the more pervasive.
Once this system had taken hold of the entire country, the State Council of the Central Government in China released an Outline of the Social Credit System Construction Plan(2014-2020), which specifies that such Social Credit Rating Systems would be integrated into their governance by 2020. This represents the integration of such infrastructure into the central architecture of the State, and would ensure a devastating amount of State control over its citizens.
A disturbingly similar pattern is being followed in the United States. Big Tech (Google, Apple, Facebook) has already gathered most of our personal data. It has also absorbed around 90% of Internet traffic, and is now openly allying with communist Chinese policies.
Facebook has begun rating users “trustworthiness” on the platform. At the same time, other major tech companies like Apple are removing content at the request of the Chinese government.
Between Idemia issuing digital drivers licenses to U.S. citizens and Big Tech’s data collection, we are inches away from a fully integrated national ID system and an accompanying social credit score.
At the moment, the United States does not have a government-backed program like the Chinese. However, if gone unchecked, a de facto social credit system could still take hold due to the pervasiveness of big tech influence.
Idemia is building the infrastructure of the massive world-wide biometric surveillance grid. Demand for “convenience” with wireless, cardless, cashless payment and shopping is driving us right into their hands.
- "It Was Stupid Of Me" – 'Mrs.Watanabe' Battered By Turkey's Meltdown
It was not just Barclays bankers that took on the chin from Turkey’s turmoil, Japan’s infamous ‘mom-and-pop’ investors who snapped up high-yielding lira-denominated bonds “because of the yield” have been destroyed.
Thanks to the ever-present foot of the Bank of Japan on the throat of yields in Japan, small investors “reached for yield” around the world in an effort to ‘safely’ invest their hard-earned yen for a ‘decent’ return.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, Individuals have snapped up so-called Uridashi, high-yielding bonds marketed to households that are frequently denominated in foreign currencies like the lira, Brazilian real and South African rand. These aren’t highly leveraged instruments, but usually regular bonds. However, they offer juicy returns thanks to elevated interest rates in emerging markets.
The appeal is obvious after years of rock-bottom rates. A recent online offer from Rakuten Securities touted a 23.1% yield on lira debt issued by the European Investment Bank. That echoes the 10-year yield on Turkish government bonds of 20.9%, and is far above the yields available on benchmark Japanese government debt.
That army of punters often dubbed “Mrs. Watanabe,” after the stereotypical Japanese homemaker, piled $7.6 billion worth into Turkey… and that has become a bloodbath of paper (or realized losses) for those JPY-based investors as bond prices collapsed along with the Lira relative to the yen…
Retail traders using margin made roughly 1.45 trillion yen ($13.1 billion) of Turkish lira-yen trades in July, according to Financial Futures Association of Japan data. That sum is less than 1% of yen-dollar trading volumes, but has more than tripled in a year. But as The Wall Street Journal reports, many of those involved in these lucrative-for-your-broker trades, have lost fortunes.
Yasuyuki Tokue, a 49-year-old legal professional who lives near Osaka, said he bought lira bonds with a face value of 7.5 million yen ($67,500) between 2015 and 2017.
“I was attracted by the high interest rate,” Mr. Tokue said. However, he said he ended up losing 1.2 million yen when he sold some bonds back to his broker in April, and his outstanding holdings have fallen in value.
”I made a mistake,” in failing to hedge currency risk, Mr. Tokue said.
We suspect few of them realized (or cared) that there is no market for trading Uridashi, brokers can buy them back at face value in the local currency for a fee, and sell them back to the underwriter or to another investor. In Mr. Tokue’s case, he said he paid fees equal to between 3.2% and 8% of the total on the different bonds he sold.
Another investor in Yokohama said he had lost about 300,000 yen on lira bonds bought in 2012, or about 65% of his original outlay including commissions.
“I’ve learned a lesson,” said this investor, who declined to be named. “It was stupid of me to invest in a single emerging-market bond.”
Of course, when all else is lost, there’s always hope… Mr. Tokue said the damage to his overall portfolio wasn’t that serious and his remaining position could regain some value.
“You never know – the lira may not be that cheap in the distant future,” he said.
We wonder if Mr.Tokue would be interested in some Tesla bonds, we here they are offering great yield advantage and upside potential.
- How A Free Market Inevitably Produces Dictatorship
Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Who rules the land?
A deeper and truer version of this question is: What rules the land? Is it the money (the aristocracy), or is it the people (the public, the residents on that land)? (For the interest of paleoconservatives, the issue of residents’ citizenship will come later here, as “immigrants” instead of as “citizenship”; but our basic focus is not ethnicity/nationality; it’s class: the money, versus the voters; not the natives, versus the foreigners.)
In a democracy, the public rule — the people do — and it’s on authentically a one-person-one-vote basis, and anyone who is a resident in that land can easily vote, just like anyone else who lives there, because only the residents there, during the specific time-period of the voting, are the ultimate decision-makers, over that land, and over its laws. This is what a democracy is: it’s one-person-one-vote, and, in the political sense, it’s total equality-of-rights and total equality-of-obligations — real and total equality-by-law: equal rights, and equal obligations, for all residents. A democracy applies the same requirements to everyone.
This does not mean that individuals are equal in their abilities and in their needs, and so it’s not a statement about the economy; it is purely a statement about the government — a political question. The economy is a separate matter, though it’s highly dependent upon the government — the laws that are in place and enforced. Many people confuse these two fields, and mistakenly think that the economy is basic to the government.
So: the economy is dependent upon the government; the government determines the economy, which, in any land, is highly dependent upon the laws that are in place and that are enforced — the government.
That’s only “natural persons” who control a democracy — no collectives of any type, corporate or otherwise, can vote, because, if it were otherwise, it would be an easy way to establish a dictatorship there: persons with the financial means could create any number of “artificial persons” who could vote, or could buy votes (such as by purchasing news-media to slant ‘reality’ selling politicians and political positions to the voters), and this money could produce a country controlled more by dollars, than by owners (i.e., than by actual persons, voters — not by artificial “persons” such as the wealth-collections that are known as corporations). If wealth-collections could vote, that would invite control over the land to be by wealth (the number of dollars) instead of by actual residents (the number of persons). It could even produce control by foreign wealth. Foreigners could end up controlling the country if the number of dollars is a bigger determinant of who rules than is the number of voters.
Obviously, no democracy will allow foreigners to control the land. Imperialism is inconsistent with democracy; any empire is dictatorial, by its very nature. It entails dictatorship over the residents in its colonies, even if not necessarily over the residents in the imperial land that had conquered the colonial area.
Empire is consistent with a free market, but it is inconsistent with democracy. No empire is democratic, because each colony is ruled by non-residents. (If the colony were ruled by its residents, it wouldn’t be a colony, and there wouldn’t be an empire.)
A federation is not an empire. The difference between them is that, whereas in a federation, the right of self-determination of peoples takes precedence over the federation’s interest in maintaining the status-quo; in an empire, there is no such right — an empire is a dictatorship.
The propaganda for a free market is funded very heavily by billionaires such as the Koch brothers and George Soros, because control over countries naturally devolves into control by wealth, instead of into control by people (and certainly not by residents), if a free-market economy exists there. Billionaires do whatever increases their power; and, beyond around $100,000-per-year of income, any additional wealth buys no additional happiness or satisfaction, but only additional status, which, for individuals who are in such brackets, is derived from increases in their power, because, at that stage of wealth, money itself is no longer an object, only status is, and additional status can be derived only from additional power. All of the empirical findings in the social sciences are consistent with this; and, whereas the income-point in most of those studies, beyond which additional dollars produce no additional happiness for the owner, has been $75,000 per year, there has been inflation since those studies were performed, and one might more accurately say today that $100,000-per-year is the income-point beyond which only status is increased by additional income; happiness or satisfaction is not increased by income above that point. This is a statement about nature; it is the reality in which any market — free or otherwise — exists. It is “human nature,” and that’s basic to all of the social sciences which pertain to humans, including political science, and economics.
In economic theory, the phrase that has been traditionally used to refer to this reality, even before recent empirical studies showed the reality to be this way, was “the declining marginal utility of money.” Beyond around $100,000/year, additional “bucks” are for status, not for happiness. Anyone who has no addiction to status, doesn’t care about having more money coming in beyond that amount. Beyond that amount, the additional marginal utility of each dollar received is actually zero. The wealth-addict might cravemore, but it won’t do him-or-her any actual good; it won’t make the person happier. That’s the reality, now proven in numerous empirical studies.
This reality has major political consequences. One is that a country with highly concentrated wealth (the bottom 50% own almost nothing) is serving the addictions of a few, not the needs of the many — and therefore concentrated wealth cannot be sustained in a democracy, but only in a dictatorship: a dictatorship of wealth, where what determines power isn’t the voters but the dollars.
An important philosophical champion of free markets is the libertarian philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe. In 2001, Hoppe published his DEMOCRACY: The God that Failed, which was considered a libertarian masterpiece. Hoppe unapologetically argued there that libertarianism and conservatism are one and the same — and that he wanted it, passionately: he hated democracy. Unlike many libertarians, who falsely allege that democracy is impossible without there first being libertarianism (a free market), Hoppe acknowledged and argued for the mutual inconsistency between libertarianism and democracy. Although I don’t share his preference for a rule by the wealth instead of a rule by the residents, and thus he is an ideological opponent — the opposite of a supporter of my own position, as it’s being set forth here (and far more briefly than his tome) — I consider him to be the fullest and most internally consistent libertarian philosopher, and perhaps the most significant libertarian political philosopher in this Century, thus far. Whereas lots of people call themselves “libertarian,” he actually is — fully — that. Of course, some libertarians don’t agree with Hoppe’s view; but, on 30 August 2011, Michael Lind at salon.com headlined “Why Libertarians Apologize for Autocracy: The experience of every democratic nation-state proves that libertarianism is incompatible with democracy,” and he empirically found that Hoppe was correct about this incompatibility.
Hoppe argues not only for an aristocracy, but for a hereditary one, and he even opposes immigration; so, if he were a democrat, at all, then he’d be excluding immigrants from voting. But he’s not even that much of a democrat. And he especially approves of hereditary monarchy. His reason for that preference is traditional libertarianism, which favors the private over the public: “Hereditary monarchies represent the historical example of privately owned governments, and democratic republics that of publicly owned governments.” Libertarianism opposes public ownership, favors private.
Like any philosopher, Hoppe has ignored crucial issues in order to sell his case (after all, it’s a philosophical, not a scientific, case; it is ideological propaganda alleging that libertarianism is good — instead of being anything scientific); and the most interesting thing that he has avoided discussing in it is anti-trust, anti-monopoly, anti-oligopoly — the issues about concentration of power. He ignores those issues. For example, whenever he uses the term “monopoly,” he is referring solely to “government,” never to the economy (he assumes that in a free market there can’t be any oligopolies or monopolies). He is, after all, a crank (a free-market political theorist and therefore someone who implicitly denies that government is basic to an economy, and who assumes the converse, that the government is instead built upon the economy), though he’s an erudite one and thus acceptable to his fellow-scholars. Erudition doesn’t mean, nor necessarily include, being scientific. And the scientific reality is that the political issue isn’t ‘the government’s monopoly on power’, but instead it’s simply any concentrations of power — both monopolies and oligopolies — which unequalize both rights and obligations in the society, such that whereas a few people (the aristocracy) have many rights and few (if any) obligations, most people (the public) have few rights and many obligations. The latter type of society is called a “dictatorship.” The more that it exists, the more that it comes to exist — and, consequently, the less that there can exist democracy.
The basic issue in political science is not “freedom” versus “slavery” (two concepts in economics); it is “democracy” versus “dictatorship” (two concepts in politics).
Power precedes the economy; it directs the economy, if and where an economy even exists.
Democracy is natural where wealth is nearly-evenly distributed. Dictatorship is natural where wealth is extremely-unevenly distributed. The latter is true because no nation can maintain a democracy if the wealth is highly unequal. If the wealth is highly equal, then the possibility for democracy to emerge is substantial. But if the wealth is highly unequal, then the possibility for democracy even to exist to any extent, is low. All of the extremely wealthy people would have to be honest in order for them to tolerate rule by the majority. Otherwise, they’d simply be using their news-media to deceive instead of to inform the public: that’s what the ‘news’-people would be paid to do, cover-up real problems, and manufacture ‘reality’ — manipulate the public, instead of inform the public. If the distribution of wealth is highly unequal, the ‘news’people will be paid to deceive the public, instead of to inform the public. This (and it includes the ‘charitable’ foundations) is why the majority of the public have come to believe the profoudly false assertion that “having a rich class is a benefit” to the public. They’ve been deceived.
Most of the world is dictatorial. That’s because, almost everywhere, wealth, and even income, is extremely unevenly distributed. The laws and their enforcement determine the distribution of wealth and of income. The natural tendency is toward dictatorship, because a free market produces increased economic concentration. Democracy is not natural. Dictatorship is natural. What’s natural for a body-politic is to fulfill addictions, not to fulfill needs.
As inequality of wealth increases, corruption also increases. Empirical studies find that successful people tend to be bad: it’s natural for the scum and not the cream to rise to the top in organizations. So, the wealthier a person is, the worse the person tends to be. And it’s not just that, but success itself tends to make a person worse than the person was before the success. So, it’s natural that at the very top, tend to be the very worst people. Good government is not natural; bad government is natural. Good government is unnatural.
Corruption is rule by deceit. An example of how that works at the federal-government level is here. An example of that in more detail is here. Another such detailed example, but at the state-or-local government level, is here. And an example of it within academia, and at the federal regulatory agencies, is here. So, in a country that has extreme wealth-inequality, the way in which the public’s ‘consent’, to the billionaires’ rule, is manufactured, is by means of deceit — a rot that’s throughout the entire body-politic and society. This is how an extreme inequality of wealth is produced. It cannot be done honestly. Transparency International has reported that corruption and “social exclusion” or bigotry tend to go together, but has ignored the possible relationship between corruption and the economic distribution of either wealth or income. Perhaps the billionaires who fund TI don’t want such correlations to be pointed out, if they exist; so TI doesn’t investigate this.
The reason why a free market inevitably increases dictatorship, is that dictatorship is natural, just as a free market itself is natural, and power pre-exists everywhere to upset and overturn any equality that might exist in either sphere. Power is natural. No economy exists but that power pre-exists. The political sphere pre-exists the economic sphere. The basic reality, in any society, is power.
Thus, the question has always been: What rules? Is it the wealth? Or is it the people? The natural condition is for wealth to rule, because money (especially all excess money, all income above $100,000 per year, and certainly all income above $1,000,000 per year — what can truthfully be called 100% political money, because it can be ‘given away’ with no real loss to the current owner) is power. Although wealth isn’t the only source of power, it is a major source of power. (It can even be the major source of power.) And power rules everywhere. By definition, power rules in politics; and, by nature, the wealthy tend to rule not only in the economy, but also in the government.
That’s what’s natural. Democracy isn’t natural, but a free market, and an aristocratic government, are both natural. And the political reality determines the economic reality.
PS: You have just read here an online book. This article, including all of its sources that are linked to, and the sources that are linked to in those sources, constitute more than an ordinary book. The complete case and its documentation are fully presented in it. To anyone who finds this book valuable, I would recommend, as follow-up, a book of the traditional sort: Marjorie Kelly’s masterpiece, The Divine Right of Capital.
- Rand Slumps As Trump Questions "South Africa Land Expropriations" From White Farmers
Just days after the first ‘Zimbabwe-fication’ actions of South African President Ramaphosa’s plan to confiscate white farmers’ land with no compensation and hand them to the black population begins, President Trump – seemingly following a story by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson – has asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations” raising concerns that the U.S. might target South Africa with possible sanctions next.
I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.” @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The reaction was swift in the Rand…
Here is the Tucker Carlson segment that appears to have triggered President Trump.
* * *
By way of background, we have written extensively on South Africa’s ‘Zimbabwe-fication’ plans, most recently here.
South Africa’s white farmers have been desperately trying to sell their lands at record pace ahead of planned government land seizures, according to a local farmer’s union. However, there are no buyers.
As Ryan Martinez writes for PlanertFreeWill.com, tensions among the country’s white farming community have been rising since the election of Cyril Ramaphosa who assumed office earlier this year and committed his African National Congress (ANC) to land expropriation.
ANC chairman Gwede Mantashe sparked panic last week when he said:
“You shouldn’t own more than 25,000 acres of land. Therefore, if you own more it should be taken without compensation.”
“People who are privileged never give away privilege as a matter of a gift,” he continued. “And that is why we say, to give you the tools, revisit the constitution so that you have a legal tool to do it.”
Mantashe comments were condemned by both white and black farmers, with unions predicting such a move would lead to job losses and a situation in which South Africa may no longer be able to feed itself.
Omri van Zyl, head of the Agri SA union, which represents mainly white commercial farmers, said:
“The mood among our members is very solemn. They are confused about the lack of any apparent strategy from the government and many are panicking.
So many farms are up for sale, more than we’ve ever had, but no one is buying.”
“Why would you buy a farm to know the government’s going to take it?”
The National African Farmers’ Union (Nafu), which represents the country’s black farmers, said the scheme would lead to job losses.
Nafu president Motsepe Matlala said:
“From a practical and economical point of view it will not work.”
“Land will be a central issue in the looming 2019 election year, and rhetoric is always easier than transformative action.”
AfriForum, an influential lobby group, recently warned the government its plans would be “catastrophic”. Ian Cameron, the group’s spokesman, said: “We’re really heading for a state of anarchy if something doesn’t change drastically.”
Local newspaper City Press is reporting that two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo were the first to be targeted for unilateral seizure after negotiations with the owners to purchase the properties stalled.
Analysts warn the move could undermine property rights and deter investment.
In Zimbabwe, violent land seizures which were authorized by Robert Mugabe in the 1990s which sent the country into a spiral of decline from which it has never recovered.
“Markets are sensitive to anything perceived to be ‘Zimbabwe-fication’ on the land-reform front,” market analyst Henrik Gullberg noted.
Agri SA states 20% of South Africa’s farms produce 80% of the food that feeds millions of people in southern Africa, and many of those properties would be affected by a 25,000-acre cap.
- Are 'Petroyuan' Futures Still A "High-Risk Endeavor"?
Authored by Irina Slav via Oilprice.com,
When the long-awaited yuan-denominated oil futures launched earlier this year, opinions were split: one camp argued with passion that the days of the petrodollar were numbered, its demise a certainty. The other camp argued with just as much passion the yuan has yet to catch up with the dollar as an international currency, and the Chinese futures had basically as much of a chance as a snowflake in Hell.
Now, six months later, opinions remain split, but now the two camps have some facts and figures in their arsenal. For example, a figure for the pro-petroyuan camp was the record surge in trading volume in June, to 137.5 million tons of crude for delivery in September. This translates into 137,503 lots, compared to a combined 2.6 million lots for Brent and WTI together, though, so the yuan contract still has a way to go to catch up.
[ZH: the following chart shows absolute contract volume diff – not straight comparison of actual crude volume]
The anti-petroyuan camp, however, seems to have a bit more going for it after six months of trade. Bloomberg cites traders as saying that the exchange rate of the yuan coupled with storage costs make the Chinese oil contract still a high-risk endeavor.
The yuan has been falling in recent months on the back of slowing economic growth and the tariff spat with the United States. There is a lot of space for surprises, however, and unpredictability is not something low-risk traders like, so exchange rates are one thing that could put them off the yuan contract.
Storage costs in China are another problem. They are much higher than elsewhere: US$0.95 per barrel per month in the Shanghai International Energy Exchange compared with US$0.05 per barrel per month at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, Bloomberg reports. The reason for the higher cost is limited storage capacity availability and the requirement that the cargo be stored at a specific storage facility rather than at any available.
So, in light of these unpleasant facts, what does the yuan-denominated futures contract have going for them?
Well, apparently, they could make sellers richer than if they choose to trade Middle East grades. The yuan contract last week traded at a considerable premium to all other oil futures, with the premium to the Middle East benchmark at US$3.35 per barrel.
That makes a profit of US$6.7 million for a cargo, according to Bloomberg calculations – certainly not a small sum. But is it worth all the risks?
Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t, but it looks like it is still too early to say. The seriousness of the risks, after all, is relative. This was evidenced in the record-high trading interest in yuan futures in early June that some observers, quoted by S&P Global Platts, attributed to the heightened price volatility in the Brent and WTI benchmarks. On the other hand, storage costs are a fixed problem that is not about to go away. It’s a risk that traders have probably already learned to factor into their calculations. Exchange rates are another cesspool of volatility, but volatility is a double-edged sword. Economic data from China may still surprise positively as it has before, despite the tariffs.
Ultimately, however, the question of whether the petrodollar will be replaced by the petroyuan is moot. The reason for this is simple: the dollar is the international reserve currency because most oil is traded in dollars, says international relations professor and China expert Douglas Bulloch. It is the international reserve currency because of the size and nature of the U.S. economy. Therefore, the only way for China to succeed in having its currency stand a fighting chance against the greenback is to continue opening up its economy. Oil trading is only part of that.
- Over The Last 7 Days Our Planet Has Been Violently Shaken By 144 Major Earthquakes
Authored by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,
Within the past few days, we have seen an enormous magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit Venezuela and a giant magnitude 8.2 earthquake hit Fiji. Where will the next one strike?
To many of us, it is becoming exceedingly clear that something very unusual is happening to our planet. I went and looked it up, and I was astounded to learn that the crust of the Earth has been shaken by 144 major earthquakes over the last 7 days, and that includes more than 50 on Sunday alone.
And remember, these are not small earthquakes. The USGS considers any earthquake that is at least magnitude 4.5 to be “significant”, and they are happening so rapidly right now that it is difficult to keep up with them.
Usually, only earthquakes that cause death and destruction get attention from the mainstream media, and that was definitely the case with the huge quake that hit the northern coast of Venezuela on Tuesday…
A major earthquake of magnitude 7.3 struck the northern coast of Venezuela on Tuesday and shook buildings as far away as the capital, Caracas, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake was centered near the town of Carupano, an area of poor fishing communities and was felt as far away as neighboring Colombia to the east and nearby island nations like Trinidad and Tobago, and St. Lucia, to the west and north.
This is certainly the last thing that the people of Venezuela need at the moment. Their currency was just devalued again, and at this point it is so worthless that people are literally throwing it into dumpsters.
According to media reports, the quake lasted for approximately two minutes, and it really shook people up. The following comes from Reuters…
“I feel like I’m about to faint. I’m shaking. It was long,” said telemarketing worker Sheny Fuentes, 22, speaking outside her work building in eastern Caracas. “I’m relieved that it doesn’t seem like damage was that bad. We would have been even more affected (given Venezuela’s economic crisis) – there are already people eating from the garbage and buildings aren’t well made,” she told Reuters.
The other day I noted that the magnitude 8.2 quake that just hit Fiji was the second largest “deep focus” earthquake ever recorded, and this quake in Venezuela was highly unusual as well.
In fact, seismologist Stephen Hicks says that it was one of “the largest ever recorded” in that entire region…
M7.3 earthquake today along the northern coast of Venezuela is one of the largest ever recorded earthquakes along the boundary between the Caribbean & South American plates. There was an M7.7 quake to the west in 1900 but this will have preceded detailed instrumental recordings
And this earthquake came right on the heels of an extremely active 48 hours for global seismic activity.
According to the Daily Mail, the “Ring of Fire” was shaken by a total of 69 major earthquakes on Sunday and Monday…
Sixty nine major earthquakes have hit Earth’s most active geological disaster zone in the space of just 48 hours.
Sixteen ‘significant’ tremors – those at magnitude 4.5 or above – shook the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ on Monday, following a spate of 53 that hit the region Sunday.
The vast majority of the earthquakes that shake our planet take place along the Ring of Fire. It roughly encircles the Pacific Ocean, and it runs right up the west coast of the United States.
As the Ring of Fire has become more seismically active over the past several months, it has increased concerns that “the Big One” may soon be coming to California. Just check out this excerpt from a Daily Mail article that was just published…
The tremors have raised concerns that California’s ‘Big One’ – a destructive earthquake of magnitude 8 or greater – may be looming.
Scientists have previously warned that Ring of Fire activity may trigger a domino effect that sets off earthquakes and volcanic eruptions elsewhere in the region.
Scientists assure us that it is only a matter of time before the west coast is hit by major seismic events, and I even included a major seismic event on the west coast in my apocalyptic novel about the future of America. We are seeing earthquakes increase in frequency and intensity all over the planet, and they are starting to happen in places that we don’t normally expect. For instance, just check out what happened in Italy last week…
A number of earthquakes struck the region of Molise on the nights of August 15th and August 16th and the morning of August 17th. An earthquake was also felt in Le Marche near the port city of Ancona.
A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck four kilometres from the southeastern town of Montecilfone, a village of 1,348 people, in the region of Molise, on the night of August 16th just after 8pm, according to Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV), which monitors seismic activity.
But until major shaking starts happening in the continental United States, most Americans are not going to pay attention.
It simply is not “normal” for 144 major earthquakes to happen in just one week. In addition, dozens of volcanoes are currently erupting all over the globe. We appear to have entered a time when the crust of our planet is going to become increasingly unstable, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is going to have very serious implications for the future of our society.
- Australia Leadership Crisis: Aussie Dollar Tumbles After PM Turnbull Loses Cabinet Support To Populist Leader
In the latest populist crisis to strike a G-10 nation (it has not been blamed on Vladimir Putin yet), Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – who narrowly survived a leadership challenge earlier this week – suffered what appeared to be a fatal blow to his leadership on Thursday after three key Cabinet ministers – including the Finance Minister – resigned, calling for an immediate meeting of the party and pledging support for right-wing populist Peter Dutton, Bloomberg reports.
Malcolm Turnbull After telling Turnbull that he should resign, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield and Jobs Minister Michaelia Cash held a news conference to announce their resignations and demand a special meeting of Liberal Party lawmakers so a leadership ballot in which could be held.
he resignations “mean it’s game over for him and Australia will have a new leader by the end of day,” said Haydon Manning, an associate professor of politics and public policy at Flinders University. “My money would be on Dutton but you can’t rule out another candidate giving it a go.”
Dutton, who narrowly failed to unseat the prime minister earlier in the week, said on Thursday he had the party’s support and demanded that Turnbull call another leadership vote. Treasurer Scott Morrison – a Turnbull ally – is preparing to run against Dutton if a ballot is held on Thursday, Sky News reported, without saying where it got the information.
According to ABC, Malcolm Turnbull was told he has lost the support of the Liberal party room and should step down as Prime Minister, while Labor leader Bill Shorten said Australia no longer has a functioning Government.
“It is not the Parliament that has failed, it is the Turnbull Liberal Government that has failed,” Mr Shorten told the chamber.
“This is the ultimate admission of surrender.”
Australia’s latest political upheaval has been driven by infighting between moderates and conservatives in the ruling Liberal party as its poll numbers fall ahead of an election due by May. The main opposition Labor party led by 10 percentage points in a poll released on Monday.
Today’s shock move came after senior Liberals said they believed Peter Dutton had enough support to become leader. Cormann, a key Liberal powerbroker, said he believed Mr Dutton was the best person to lead the country to the next election. “It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we went to see the PM yesterday afternoon to advise him that in our judgement, he no longer enjoyed the majority of support of Liberal members,” he said.
Turnbull, a former Goldman Sachs employee, came to power in 2015 in a party coup before winning an election the next year with a razor-thin majority. According to Bloomberg, amid internal party dissent, he abandoned signature policies this week designed to restore energy security and give tax relief to big businesses.
Cue another populist leader.
Dutton, a 47-year-old former policeman, has used a raft of television and radio interviews this week to outline a populist policy manifesto, including removing a tax on electricity bills for families and pensioners, a wide-ranging investigation into energy companies blamed for spiraling prices, and cuts to immigration.
The father-of-three is seen as a leader of the party’s right wing, and as the minister in charge of immigration rose to prominence as a staunch supporter of the government’s hard-line policy of detaining asylum seekers in offshore camps.
Human rights activists have accused Dutton of stoking racial division by urging a crackdown on “African gang violence” in Victoria state. He also criticized Alan Joyce for using his position as chief executive officer of Qantas Airways Ltd. to advocate for legalizing same-sex marriage.
Shortly after the news of Turnbull’s imminent exit emerged, Australia’s parliament was suspended as the Liberal leadership struggle descends into chaos. With key ministers deserting Malcolm Turnbull, Treasurer Scott Morrison looks set to run against Peter Dutton if another spill is called.
MPs filing out of the House of Reps Australia’s dollar sank as much as 0.7% to 0.7287 U.S. cents, while 10-year government bond yields dropped 1 basis point to 2.528 percent.
The news pressured US equities in thin trading.
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