May 23

Today’s News 23rd May 2018

  • 100s Of White South African Farmers Apply To Australia For Humanitarian Rescue

    Back in February, after literally years of scandal, abuse, and incompetence, South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma was finally forced to resign last week, and new President, Cyril Ramaphosa, was supposed to represent a positive, new chapter for South Africa.

    However, as Simon Black wrote at the time, Ramaphosa addressed the nation’s parliament in Cape Town and made clear that his priority is to heal the divisions and injustice of the past, going all the way back to the original European colonists in the 1600s taking land from the indigenous tribes.

    Ramaphosa called this “original sin”, and stated that he wants to see “the return of the land to the people from whom it was taken… to heal the divisions of the past.”

    How does he plan on doing that?

    Confiscation. Specifically– confiscation without compensation.

    “The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate redistribution of land to black South Africans.”

    Ramaphosa minced no words: he’s talking about taking land from white farmers and giving it to black South Africans.

    And as we noted at the time, the problem is – a 2017 government audit found white people owned 72 per cent of farmland in South Africa. According to the 2011 census, there are about 4.6 million white people in South Africa, accounting for 8.9 per cent of the population.

    And as Australia’s News.com reported, the racially charged issue of land rights and farm murders has been the subject of fierce debate in the country and internationally.

    According to civil rights group Afriforum, which represents around 200,000 white farmers largely from the Afrikaner minority, 82 people were killed in a record 423 attacks on farms last year. In 2018 so far, there have already been 109 attacks and more than 15 murders.

    Afriforum says it is forced to compile its own numbers because the South African government — which denies the attacks are racially motivated or that white farmers are killed in disproportionate numbers — stopped releasing farm murder statistics in 2008.

    “Our rural areas are trapped in a crime war,” Afriforum head of safety Ian Cameron said in a statement, adding that torture with irons, blowtorches, melted plastic and boiling water often continued for hours during the attacks.

    “Although the South African government denies that a violence crisis is staring rural areas in the face, the numbers prove that excessive violence plague these areas. Government cannot deny the facts — our people are being mowed down.”

    Which is why, earlier this month, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton floated the idea of fast-tracked humanitarian visas for white South African farmers, saying they faced “horrific circumstances” and needed help from a “civilised country.”

    “We’re looking at ways we can help people to migrate to Australia if they’re finding themselves in that situation.”

    And despite the facts of savage attacks on white farmers, this statement outraged South Africa’s government who claimed “the threat did not exist” and accused Mr Dutton of being an “out and out racist.”

    This was followed just a few weeks later by perhaps the most Orwellian statement yet, as the head of South Africa’s radical Marxist opposition party – who declared his party was “cutting the throat of whiteness” – called Australia a “racist country” for offering fleeing white farmers a refuge.

    Malema, who was convicted of hate speech in 2011 for singing the apartheid-era revolutionary song Shoot the Boer, Kill the Farmer and in 2016 told supporters he was “not calling for the slaughter of white people‚ at least for now”, said farmers should “leave quietly”.

    “We’re too busy,” he said. “Don’t make noise, because you will irritate us. Go to Australia. It is only racists who went to Australia when Mandela got out of prison. It is only racists who went to Australia when 1994 came. It is the racists again who are going back to Australia.”

    But he said they would be “poor in Australia”. “They are rich here because they are exploiting black people. There is no black person to be exploited in Australia, they are going to be poor.

    “They will come back here with their tail between their legs. We will hire them because we will be the owners of their farms when they come back to South Africa. As to what we are going to do with the land, it’s our business, it’s none of your business.

    “We want Africa back. Africa belongs to our people.

    Last year, some 82 people were killed in a record 423 farm attacks, and there have been 109 attacks and more than 15 murders in 2018, Afriforum, a South African civil rights group reported in March.

    And so, after those threats from Malema and Ramaphosa – and on the back of Australia’s offer, RT reports this week that more than 200 farmers from South Africa have applied for humanitarian visas in Australia after allegedly suffering attacks for being white, according to the Australian Home Affairs Ministry.

    “The type of criteria they of course have to meet – or the key one – is evidence of persecution, so that’s exactly what we will be looking at,” Home Affairs Deputy Secretary Malisa Golightly said.

    Home Affairs said 89 refugee visa applications relating to 213 people had been received, although they did not specify their ethnicity or any other details.

    Finally, as a reminder, the actions that Malema and Ramaphosa are taking are exactly what Zimbabwe did.

    Seeking to correct similar colonial and Apartheid-era injustices in his country, Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe initiated a land redistribution program in 1999-2000.

    Thousands of white-owned farms were confiscated by the government, and the farmers were forced out.

    Bear in mind that Zimbabwe used to be known as the breadbasket of southern Africa. Zimbabwe’s world-class farmers were major food exporters to the rest of the region.

    But within a few years of Mugabe’s land distribution, food production plummeted.

    Without its professional, experienced farmers, the nation went from being an agricultural export powerhouse to having to rely on handouts from the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

    Hyperinflation and a multi-decade depression followed.

    If there’s an economic model in the world that you DON’T want to follow, it’s Zimbabwe.

    And judging by the action in the Rand since this confiscation was announced, Zimbabwe is what they will get…

  • Sweden Warns Every Single Household To Prep For War

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    The government of Sweden has produced a 20-page pamphlet which they’ll be sending to each of the 4.8 million households in the country urging them to get prepared for…WAR.

    Although they haven’t been at war for over 200 years, for some reason, right now, they want their citizens to get prepped – and fast. This goes along with an article I wrote in January of 2018 when the government urged their people to be ready to cope “without help” for at least a week.

    Shortly before Christmas, the Swedish government quietly published a paper called “Resilience.” Initially, the requirement had been for people to be prepared for 3 days without help, but it seems like that was a baby step. The government itself wants to be prepared for a 3-month long civil emergency and they’re urging citizens to take responsibility, too.

    It really makes you wonder what is looming ahead, doesn’t it? (source)

    This, however, is a direct approach, with the preparedness instructions delivered to their doors.

    Here’s what the government of Sweden is recommending.

    The booklet, titled, If Crisis or War Comes, is an updated version of one distributed in the 1980s. It was compiled by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) and references several potential crises that could occur, according to the Swedish media:

    • disruptions to IT systems

    • incidents occurring in the rest of the world

    • climate change

    •  increased tension in the Baltic region

    The brochure warns Swedes of things that every prepper knows. “In the event of a societal emergency, help will be provided first to those who need it most. The majority must be prepared to cope on their own for some time.” Here’s what Swedish website The Local has to say about the warnings.

    “Water, food and warmth” as well as an ability to obtain information from authorities are the most important things in such a scenario.

    The guide provides a checklist of foodstuffs and goods it’s useful to have at home just in case, ranging from basic vegetables to long-lasting oat or soy milk, tinned protein like sardines or boiled meat, and items for providing warmth, access to communications, and for storing water.

    The booklet also has a checklist to help Swedes be better prepared to cope with misleading information and influence operations, noting that “the best protection against false information and hostile propaganda is to critically appraise the source” by asking questions like “is this factual information or opinion?” and “who has put this out?”.

    “We all have a responsibility for our country’s safety and preparedness, so it’s important for everyone to also have knowledge on how we can contribute if something serious occurs,” MSB General Director Dan Eliasson said in a statement.

    “Sweden is safer than many other countries but threats exist.” (source)

    Supply checklists are included, with suggestions for stocking up on things like mineral water, wet wipes, and tinned hummus. There are directions to bomb shelters, as well as instructions for what to do if ATMs, cellphones or the internet stop working.

    Here’s the English version of the brochure, which can be downloaded. (It was published in 13 languages.)

    Sweden urged citizens to be prepared to defend their country.

    The preparedness brochure also reminds citizens of the possibility of conscription (the draft) for anyone between the ages of 16 and 70, because everyone has “duty to contribute to total defence.”

    The mention of propaganda is repeated in this section.

    “If Sweden is attacked by another country, we will never give up. All information to the effect that resistance is to cease is false.” (source)

    But speaking of propaganda, there’s no mention of the unchecked immigration that has turned parts of major cities into war zones. Is it possible that the war of which they’re warning could be a civil one?

    An influx of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa has strained the welfare system and the criminal justice system.

    The crime in Malmo and Stockholm has skyrocketed. You can read about it in these articles:

    Violence against women has also increased dramatically.

    According to the Swedish Crime Survey, compared to 2015, attempted rape against girls 15 – 17 was up 46 percent in 2016.

    Rape of teens in that same date and age range is up 19 percent.

    Attempted rape of girls under 15 increased 16 percent; rape of young girls in that same age increased by 26 percent.

    Rapes against adult women increased by 7 percent…

    …The politically correct laws of Sweden mean that the perpetrators cannot be described to the public, including their ethnicity. The women of Sweden have had to change how they live or risk attack…

    …

    The fact that much of the crime is committed by migrants in a no-go zone is swept under the rug, which is pointed out in this article in Sputnik News (a Russian government-controlled news agency).

    (source)

    In the article quoted above, there are videos and quotes from police officers who are breaking their silence about the migrant crime wave.

    Could it be that the real enemies are already within Sweden? Whether their worry is the Russians, the refugees, or some other threat, one thing is certain.

    Sweden is getting ready for battle and we all need to pay attention.

  • Trump Is Pushing For 10% Cut In Aluminum, Steel Imports From EU

    While the US-China trade talks have dominated headlines in the financial press this week, the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday published details from the Trump administration’s ongoing trade negotiations with the European Union, which increasingly look like they, too, have arrived at an impasse.

    According to WSJ, Trump is pushing the EU to reduce steel and aluminum exports to the US by about 10%, according to several high-ranking EU officials who have apparently chafed at the administration’s demands. Officials have gone so far as to declare the measures illegal under World Trade Organization rules.

    Negotiations are unfolding rapidly as the EU seeks to extend its temporary exemption from steel and aluminum tariffs that the Trump administration has said will expire June 1.

    EU

    The Trump proposal has offered two avenues for arriving at the US’s desired result. One is a quota fixed at 90% of US imports from the EU in 2017. The other would impose tariffs on a certain quota of imports with the aim of achieving the same 10% reduction, according to Poland’s Entrepreneurship and Technology Minister Jadwiga Emilewicz, who added that EU governments discussed the matter on Tuesday. However, the exact scope and details of the quotas have not yet been made clear.

    “We are under the impression that somehow they want to limit steel imports to the U.S.,” European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said of continuing negotiations with Washington before briefing EU governments.

    “Aluminum as well,” she said, without providing details.

    European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom has reportedly been in regular contact with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross ever since the US surprised the world by announcing its steel and aluminum tariffs back in March. Still, despite their close cooperation, Malmstrom said that deciphering Trump’s wants and needs has been by far the most frustrating aspect of the negotiations.

    * * *

    When it comes to setting a benchmark for their discussions with Trump, European countries have interpreted South Korea’s trade concessions as a cautionary tale. Seoul agreed to cap its US steel exports at 70% of their average from the past three years – a decision that created daunting problems for Korean steelmakers.

    Seoul agreed to cap its U.S. steel exports at 70% of the average export total over the past three years. That created a daunting task for South Korean steelmakers, the third-largest supplier to the U.S., which filled their annual quota in nine out of 54 categories in the first four months of 2018. Quarterly limits imposed by the Trump administration pose another challenge, with any steel exports exceeding the cap facing delays, redirection or destruction.

    “The devil is in the details,” an EU official said. “There is more to a quota than catches the eye, it’s about how you manage it.”

    European officials have asked Trump not to punish US allies for a global steel glut precipitated by Chinese overproduction. The EU has readied countermeasures, including €2.8 billion ($3.3 billion) in levies against US goods, should the US reject the trade bloc’s offers to accept US import quotas and lower some EU trade barriers in exchange for receiving a permanent waiver on steel and aluminum tariffs. European officials have also scoffed at the US’s justification of tariffs on national security grounds, claiming this approach violates WTO rules.

    European officials have repeatedly called on Mr. Trump not to punish U.S. allies for the global steel glut driven by overproduction in China. The president’s national security justification for steel and aluminum tariffs amounts to illegal protectionism under WTO rules, according to the EU. The bloc also balks at the notion that its exports threaten the U.S.. Twenty two of the EU’s 28 members are also in North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

    “We are allies, but we are not vassals,” French State Secretary Jean-Baptiste LeMoyne said Tuesday at the Brussels gathering, adding the EU was prepared to counter the Trump administration if it doesn’t grant an unlimited waiver to the bloc.

    […]

    “We want to avoid a trade war,” German Economic Affairs and Energy Minister Peter Altmanier said Tuesday in Brussels. “It’s important to come to an agreement that is in the interest of both sides.”

    Overall, Trump’s trade relationship with China has continued to deteriorate despite a “trade truce” touted by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin over the weekend. And what’s worse, NAFTA negotiations have apparently stalled, ratcheting up the likelihood that Congress won’t be able to ratify a new agreement until next year at the earliest.

    Given these problems, preserving a strong trade relationship with the European Union is looking increasingly important – particularly where markets are concerned.

  • When Things Fall Apart: A Graduation Message For A Dark Age

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    Those coming of age today will face some of the greatest obstacles ever encountered by young people.

    In addition to being overtaxed and underemployed, they will also be forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences. 

    Unfortunately, we who should have known better, but we failed to guard against such a future.

    Worse, we neglected to maintain our freedoms or provide our young people with the tools necessary to survive, let alone succeed, in the impersonal jungle that is modern America. 

    Based on the current political climate, things could very well get much worse before they ever take a turn for the better.

    Here are a few pieces of advice that will hopefully help those coming of age today survive the perils of the journey that awaits:

    Be an individual. As John F. Kennedy warned, conformity is “the jailer of freedom, and the enemy of growth.” Worry less about fitting in with the rest of the world and march to the beat of your conscience.

    Learn your rights. We’re losing our freedoms for one simple reason: most of us don’t know anything about our freedoms. So grab a copy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, study them, and stand up for your rights before it’s too late.

    Speak truth to power. Don’t be naive about those in positions of authority. People in power, more often than not, abuse that power. To maintain our freedoms, this will mean challenging government officials whenever they exceed the bounds of their office.

    Resist all things that numb you. Resist all things that numb you, put you to sleep or help you “cope” with so-called reality. As George Orwell warned, “Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they rebelled, they cannot become conscious.” It is these conscious individuals who change the world for the better.

    Don’t let technology turn you into zombies. Techno-gadgets are merely distractions from what’s really going on in America and around the world. If you’re going to make a difference in the world, you’re going to have to pull the earbuds out, turn off the cell phones and spend much less time viewing screens. 

    Help others. None of us can exist very long without help from others. If we’re going to see any positive change for freedom, then we must help one another. That will mean gaining the courage to stand up for the oppressed.

    Give voice to moral outrage. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.” There is no shortage of issues on which to take a stand. Choose one and start making your voice heard.

    Cultivate spirituality, reject materialism and put people first. We must change our values to reflect something more meaningful than technology, materialism and politics. Standing at the pulpit of the Riverside Church in New York City in April 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. urged his listeners:

    [W]e as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motive and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

    Pitch in and do your part to make the world a better place. Don’t rely on someone else to do the heavy lifting for you. Don’t wait around for someone else to fix what ails you, your community or nation. As Gandhi urged: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

    Say no to war. Addressing the graduates at Binghampton Central High School in 1968, Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling declared:

    Too many wars are fought almost as if by rote. Too many wars are fought out of sloganry, out of battle hymns, out of aged, musty appeals to patriotism that went out with knighthood and moats… do not accept the shedding of blood as a natural function or a prescribed way of history—even if history points this up by its repetition… find another means that does not come with the killing of your fellow-man.

    Finally, prepare yourselves for what lies ahead. The demons of our age—some of whom disguise themselves as politicians—delight in fomenting violence, sowing distrust and prejudice, and persuading the public to support tyranny disguised as patriotism. Overcoming the evils of our age will require more than intellect and activism. It will require decency, morality, goodness, truth and toughness. As Serling concluded in his remarks to the graduating class of 1968:

    “Toughness is the singular quality most required of you… we have left you a world far more botched than the one that was left to us… Part of your challenge is to seek out truth, to come up with a point of view not dictated to you by anyone, be he a congressman, even a minister… Are you tough enough to take the divisiveness of this land of ours, the fact that everything is polarized, black and white, this or that, absolutely right or absolutely wrong. This is one of the challenges. Be prepared to seek out the middle ground … If you must swing left or you must swing right—respect the other side. Honor the motives that come from the other side. Argue, debate, rebut—but don’t close those wondrous minds of yours to opposition. In their eyes, you’re the opposition. And ultimately … ultimately—you end divisiveness by compromise. And so long as men walk and breathe—there must be compromise…”

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the only way we’ll ever achieve change in this country is for the American people to finally say “enough is enough” and fight for the things that truly matter. 

    It doesn’t matter how old you are or what your political ideology is. If you have something to say, speak up. Get active, and if need be, pick up a picket sign and get in the streets. And when civil liberties are violated, don’t remain silent about it. 

    Wake up, stand up, and make your activism count for something more than politics.

  • Israel Becomes The First State To Use F-35 Fighter Jets In Combat

    There is a running joke that while the US is the world’s biggest maker and exporter of weapons, no other country uses military equipment and weapons as much as Israel. And, when it comes to state-of-the-art fighter jets, this is now officially the case: an Israeli military official said Israel was the first regime in the world to have used the US-made F-35 stealth fighter jets in attack mode, claiming that the fighter jets have been twice used in the Middle East.

    “We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East. It had become part of our operational capabilities. We are the first to attack using the F-35 in the Middle East and have already attacked twice on different fronts,” Israeli air force chief Amikam Norkin said at a conference in Herzilya on Tuesday.

    The Israeli Air Force chief, however, did not specify which targets were actually hit by the jets, though Tel Aviv recently launched a massive attack inside war-ravaged neighbor Syria. It has also been blamed for a number of similar attacks, though weaker in scale.

    Israel has been “managing a campaign against Iranian forces, especially on Israel’s northern border” for the past two years, Norkin stressed, adding that Iran launched 32 missiles toward Israel in early May.

    He also displayed a photo that he said showed one Israeli F-35 over Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

    An Israeli Air Force F-35 fighter jet flies during an aerial demonstration at the Hatzerim Airbase. December 27, 2017

    Manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp, the F-35 is also known as the Joint Strike Fighter and, in Israel, by its Hebrew name “Adir” (Mighty). In December 2016, Israel was the first regime outside the US to obtain the fighter jet when it got the first two planes out of an order of 50. Tel Aviv has at least nine so far.

    Norkin said that while the F-35 did not take part in the most recent airstrike on Syria, it did so in the two previous strikes.

    It will hardly be the last time Israel uses ultramodern weapons against its neighbors as the Israeli regime has a storied history of airstrikes in the region; over the past few years, the Israeli military has launched sporadic attacks against various targets on Syrian soil. Earlier this month, Israeli jets attacked dozens of targets inside Syria in what some alleged was a provoked attack meant to give greenlight an Israeli airborne incursion into Syria where various Iranian military outposts were attacked.

    On May 10, minister of military affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, claimed that Israel had “hit almost all of the Iranian infrastructure in Syria” in response to a barrage of 20 rockets fired at Israeli military outposts in the occupied Golan Heights. However, the Syrian ambassador to China, Imad Moustapha, rejected the Israeli claim that its assault had been directed at Iranian infrastructure.

    In February, Israel was furious when the Syrian military hit at least one intruding Israeli F-16 warplane that attacked positions inside Syrian territory, sending it down in flames. The warplane was the first Israeli fighter jet lost in 35 years, since the regime’s war on Lebanon in 1982.

    A picture taken in the northern Jezreel Valley on February 10, 2018 shows the remains of an Israeli F-16 that crashed after being targeted by Syrian air defenses during attacks in the Arab country. 

    Reports said that the displaying of a photo of the fighter jet flying over Lebanon is considered an implicit threat to the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah. The Israeli regime has waged three wars on Lebanon — in 1982, 2000, and 2006. It has also carried out assassinations in Lebanese territory.

    The Israeli military also frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, where civilians are often collateral damage of such attacks. On May 17, Israeli fighter planes carried out bombing raids on several locations in northern Gaza.

    Israel has also launched several wars on the Palestinian coastal sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014. The military operation, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians. Over 11,100 others were also wounded in the war.

  • Ron Paul: Haspel Is Not The Problem…The CIA Is The Problem

    Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    As a general rule, when Dick Cheney favors a foreign policy position it’s best to be on the opposite side if you value liberty over war and authoritarianism. The former vice president’s enthusiastic endorsement of not only Gina Haspel as CIA director but of the torture program she oversaw should tell us all we need to know about Haspel.

    Saying that Haspel would make a great CIA director, Cheney dismissed concerns over the CIA’s torture program.

    Asked in a television interview last week about the program, Cheney said, “if it were my call, I’d do it again.”

    Sadly, the majority of the US Senate agreed with Cheney that putting a torturer in charge of the CIA was a good idea. Only two Republicans – Senators Paul and Flake – voted against Haspel. And just to confirm that there really is only one political party in Washington, it was the “yes” vote of crossover Democrats that provided the margin of victory. Americans should really be ashamed of those sent to Washington to represent us.

    Just this month, the New York Times featured an article written by a woman who was kidnapped and send to the secret CIA facility in Thailand that Haspel was said to have overseen. The woman was pregnant at the time and she recounted in the article how her CIA torturers would repeatedly punch her in the stomach. She was not convicted or even accused of a crime. She was innocent. But she was tortured on Haspel’s watch.

    Is this really what we are as a country? Do we really want to elevate such people to the highest levels of government where they can do more damage to the United States at home and overseas?

    As the news comes out that Obama holdovers in the FBI and CIA infiltrated the Trump campaign to try and elect Hillary Clinton, President Trump’s seeming lack of understanding of how the deep state operates is truly bewildering.

    The US increasingly looks like a banana republic, where the permanent state and not the people get to decide who’s in charge.

    But instead of condemning the CIA’s role in an attempted coup against his own administration, Trump condemned former CIA director John Brennan for “undermining confidence” in the CIA. Well, the CIA didn’t need John Brennan to undermine our confidence in the CIA. The Agency itself long ago undermined the confidence of any patriotic American. Not only has the CIA been involved in torture, it has manipulated at least 100 elections overseas since its founding after WWII.

    As President Trump watched Gina Haspel being sworn in as CIA director, he praised her: “You live the CIA. You breathe the CIA. And now you will lead the CIA,” he said. Yes, Mr. president, we understand that. But that’s the problem!

    The problem is not Haspel, it’s not John Brennan, it’s not our lack of confidence. The problem is the CIA itself. If the president really cared about our peace, prosperity, and security, he would take steps to end this national disgrace. It’s time to abolish the CIA!

  • For The First Time, Americans More Likely To Pay Their Cell Phone Bill Over Car Loan

    American consumers are now more likely to pay off their cell phone bill than their auto loan, a new report by PeerIQ has found. However, instead of focusing on this as a potential catalyst for more pain in the already precarious world of auto loans, the media, always the finder of silver linings, is emphasizing how this finding will boost demand for securities that are backed by cell phone purchases going forward. 

    Yes, Cell-Phone Backed lines of credit are coming to a Goldman Sachs retail branch near you. From Bloomberg:

    U.S. consumers are more devoted to their mobile phones than their automobiles.

    The sea change has taken place over the last few years as mobile devices become an integral tool not just for communication with loved ones or employers, but also everything from banking to dating to watching TV and listening to music. As cars grow relatively less important, borrowers struggling to pay back their loans on time are increasingly prioritizing payments on the latest iPhone instead of making sure they hold on to their pickup or coupe.

    The shift is increasing the attractiveness of bonds generated from mobile-phone loans, a small but growing portion of the asset-backed securities market. While just $7.7 billion of bonds backed by phone purchases have been issued since 2016 — and all by Verizon Communications Inc. — the number may increase over coming years.

    The reason for the skewed importance is simple: mobile phones have become a universal hub of information and accessibility, allowing consumers to order car rides wherever they need at the push of a button while enjoying the wealth of information and productivity provided by a cell phone, including having anything you want delivered directly to your house, making it a more important accessory than owning a car. Of course, one can simply spend hours each day on Facebook stalking one’s ex, which is what most use it for. 

    Bloomberg continues:

    “Payment priority of cell phones is higher than personal and auto loans and similar to or slightly lower than that of mortgage,” Ram Ahluwalia, the chief executive officer of PeerIQ, a New York-based provider of data and analytics for the consumer lending sector, said in an interview. “Now with Lyft and Uber, you can access transportation via cell phone. The car no longer is a central asset. Technological change is driving shifts in consumer behavior.”

    Yet despite the “stickyness” of mobile phone cash flows, so far Verizon has been the only company to take advantage of issuing securities backed by it’s cell phone contracts. Incidentally, based on their spreads, the market is treating such cell-phone backed securities on part with prime auto loans.

    “Back in 2008 cell phones probably weren’t as present as they are now and have moved up the scale,” said Ken Purnell, the head of ABS portfolio management at Invesco Advisers Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky. “In the ABS market it gives investors another very high-quality type of security to invest in that didn’t exist two years ago.”

    While the market is set for growth, so far there have only been six sales by Verizon, the largest U.S. mobile-phone carrier. Its bonds are backed by customers’ monthly device payments, which are usually bundled with their service bills. The spreads on the securities have tightened and are generally in line with prime auto debt.

    And while the above is good news for cell phone sellers and consumer hoping to find easy cell phone financing terms, it’s not so good for providers of auto loans, because as less creditworthy borrowers continue focus on paying off their cell phone bills instead of paying their car payments, this would lead to growing auto loan delinquencies. In 2007 and 2008, one of the reasons for the housing crisis was because it no longer made sense for homeowners to keep paying off their house: either it was worth less than what they paid, they had already extracted the equity from it it simply wasn’t a priority for them anymore, or they simply couldn’t afford it. Ten years later we are back in the same place.

    The article concludes:

    “Surveys are showing that the cell phone payment is a high priority for the consumer, and from that perspective we think that fundamentally they are pretty sound,” said Clayton Triick, an Atlanta-based portfolio manager at Angel Oak Capital Advisors, which manages $8.5 billion. ”More recently, spreads have just validated that.”

    Angel Oak sold its Verizon cell-phone bonds, but Triick said his team would consider buying similar securities in the future if there is an attractive entry point, perhaps when new issuers come to the market.

    The idea of creating a brand new bubble in the latest and greatest securitization – cell phone-backed debt securities – is appealing to many, and we have no doubt that companies will be ravenously elbowing each other out of the way to corner the market and issue the riskiest contract backed debt securities possible in as short amount of time as possible to help “diversify” the risk. This will ultimately create yet another more bubble we will have to deal with in the future. However, until then, everyone will be focusing on the new cash flows, ignoring how this will effect other outstanding paper; and nobody is pointing out that this could further exacerbate the already dire auto loan industry.

    Meanwhile, as readers will recall, the subprime auto industry is already in a crisis of its own. As we reported just days ago, default rates are now higher than during the financial crisis. 

    One month ago, when discussing the most recent trends in the US subprime auto loan space, we revealed how despite a virtual halt in direct loans by depositor banks to subprime clients following the financial crisis, the US banking sector now has over a third of a trillion dollars in indirect subprime exposure, in the form of loans to nonbanks financial firms which in the past decade have become the most aggressive lenders to America’s sub-620 FICO population.

    As we further explained, the banks’ total indirect exposure to subprime loans – not just auto loans, but also subprime mortgages, and subprime consumer loans – could be pieced together through public filings, and according to FDIC reports, bank loans to nonbanks subprime lenders soared this decade, with the following 5 names standing out:

    • Wells Fargo: $81 billion, up from $13.4 billion in 2010
    • Citigroup: $30 billion, up from $4.1 billion in 2010
    • Bank of America: $30 billion, up from $2.8 billion in 2010
    • JP Morgan: $28 billion, up from $10.4 billion in 2010
    • Goldman Sachs: $22 billion
    • Morgan Stanley: $16 billion

    Visually:

    But while the supply side of the subprime equation is clearly firing on all cylinders – as only the next crash/crisis will stop desperate yield chasers – things on the demand side are going from bad to worse, and according to the latest Fitch Autoloan delinquency data, consumers are defaulting on subprime auto loans at a higher rate than during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

    It will be ironic if the tipping point that sends the house of subprime auto cards crashing is something as trivial and “novel” as securitized cell phone bills.

    And come to think of it, how is it possible that deep into the “second longest expansion in US history”, millions of American consumers can’t even afford to purchase their cell phones outright and instead will serve as the basis for yet another prime, then subprime, securitization bubble product?

  • How The Feds Use Transportation Funds To Spy On You

    Authored by Mike Maharrey via The Mises Institute,

    A recent announcement by a local transit authority in Virginia sheds light on how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are building a massive, intrusive surveillance network built on America’s transportation system.

    The Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) recently announced plans to install more than 100 live surveillance cameras at stops along a rapid transit line. According to a WTVR report, GRTC plans to install approximately four cameras at 26 Pulse stops along Broad Street. The system will be live 24 hours a day and directly connected to the city’s 911 facility.

    The ACLU of Virginia opposes the system. The organization’s director of strategic communications said constant monitoring changes the nature of a community.

    “There’s very little evidence that this type of surveillance enhances public safety, and there is every reason to think that it inhibits people. That it causes us to behave differently than we would if we weren’t being watched,” Bill Farrar said, adding that the system will “keep tabs” on people who rely on public transit.

    “GRTC has said in promoting this, in promoting the need for this particular line, we want to help people get out of the East End food desert. So we’re saying use this to get the food that you need, but we’re going to watch you while you do it.

    GRTC Pulse is “a modern, high quality, high capacity rapid transit system serving a 7.6-mile route.” It was developed through a partnership between the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Virginia Department of Transportation, the City of Richmond and Henrico County.

    According to Style Weekly, “this new system will bring the total number of easily accessible, city or government-owned cameras available to police and other authorities to more than 300, including roughly 200 stationary cameras Richmond police already have easy access to, and 32 cameras owned by city police.”

    Farrar called the proliferation of cameras in the city “troubling.”

    “In practice, the use of these systems and the data they collect is almost always expanded, giving law enforcement more information than they need or should have about the personal lives of law-abiding people.”

    According to WTVR, the federal government required the installation of surveillance cameras along the new transit route as a condition of funding the project. 

    “Officials said the federal TIGER grant used to fund the half of the project required the installation of the camera system.”

    This spotlights how the federal government uses funding to incentivize state and local agencies to participate in the expansion of a national surveillance state. Not only do they attach strings to project funding such as this camera requirement in Richmond, they also finance many state and local surveillance programs outright.

    State and local agencies have access to a mind-boggling array of surveillance equipment. The federal government offers grants and other funding sources for this spy-gear. By tapping into federal money, law enforcement agencies can sometimes even keep purchases of surveillance technology “off the books.”

    In other words, they can purchase high-tech surveillance equipment without any local government or public oversight. In fact, city councils, county governments and mayors may not even know police have obtained the equipment. This makes it difficult to determine just how expansive the American surveillance state has become.

    When reports come out such as the recent revelation of Richmond’s transit stop cameras, it cracks open the door and allows us to see just how the feds work with state and local agencies to expand its massive surveillance network.

    In this case, it reveals that the federal government is piggybacking onto the transportation system to spy on Americans.

    MassPrivatel monitors the expanding surveillance state across the U.S. A recent blog post on its website asserted that the “DHS and the TSA’s role in turning public transportation into city-wide police surveillance networks is unmistakable.”

    Digging into this government scheme to turn the transportation system into a surveillance platform reveals a complicated web of state, local and federal government agencies, along with private organizations, all involved in expanding the surveillance state.

    A 2010 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report titled ‘Public Transit Information Sharing’ highlights the TSA and DHS’s role in creating a giant public transit surveillance network working through various partnerships. The report also reveals information sharing going on between local transit authorities, local law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA.

    Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the federal government, including DHS, has taken a number of actions to enhance the security of transportation systems. These actions include improving information sharing with its critical sector stakeholders, which is highlighted in the 2008 Department of Homeland Security Information Sharing Strategy, as well as the 2009 National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP). To help facilitate information sharing with the public transit industry, DHS and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have created and funded a number of mechanisms, including the Public Transportation Information Sharing and Analysis Center (PT-ISAC), which is administered by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). The PT-ISAC was created under the direction of the Department of Transportation (DOT) in 2003 and is currently funded by TSA via DOT’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA). In addition to DHS, other federal agencies, such as the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and FTA, have also taken action to enhance their efforts to share security-related information with public and private stakeholders, including public transit agencies.

    The APTA is a nonprofit organization serving as an advocate for the advancement of public transportation programs and initiatives in the U.S. Its website describes it as “the leading force in advancing public transportation.” But as the GAO report indicates, it also administers the PT-ISAC – a transportation surveillance program. PT-ISAC collects, stores and disseminates information related to transportation security. It also publishes The Transit And Rail Intelligence Awareness Daily (TRIAD).

    “The TRIAD is developed from the numerous sources of intelligence available to the Transportation community today, focusing on counter-terrorism, suspicious activity reports, and general security awareness. The Surface Transportation Security Information Library, available to those vetted to receive the TRIAD, acts as an information repository housing all sources of information provided in the TRIAD as well as other security products, information reviews, and intelligence not provided in the TRIAD. The information will remain available to users as a means for accessing the entirety of intelligence reviewed in the TRIAD and other relevant information, serving as a resource for future research into threats or mitigation techniques.”

    Where does information filling the Surface Transportation Security Information Library come from? Almost certainly from camera systems and other surveillance technology funded by the federal government, or required by it in transportation grant awards such as the one used to fund Richmond’s rapid transit line.

    Further digging revealed how this works.

    A private company called IIT operates the PT-ISAC for the APTA. The company website confirms the whole system operates as a two-way information highway with surveillance data moving back and forth between state, local and federal agencies.

    “The PT-ISAC collects, analyzes, and reports critical cyber and physical security and threat information from innumerable sources to include the U.S. private infrastructures, U.S. intelligence community, U.S, Government, U.S. Military, law enforcement, academia, and the international CERT community on a 24×7 basis. The PT-ISAC provides a secure, two-way reporting and analysis structure that enables the transmission of critical alerts and advisories as well as the collection, analysis and reporting of security information for transit agencies across the nation.”

    To sum this up, the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA continue to develop a massive, intrusive surveillance network built on America’s transportation system. A private, nonprofit organization administers the system and a private company actually runs it.

    Meanwhile, federal agencies including the DHS, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Justice fund the equipment used to collect reams of information on millions of Americans, and also requires participation in the surveillance state as a condition of funding various transportation infrastructure projects.

    This demonstrates the federal government’s dependence on state and local government actors to run the ever-growing surveillance. It also reveals its Achilles heel. If state and local governments prohibit participation in such schemes, they could effectively pull the plug on these surveillance programs.

    There are several steps state and local governments need to take.

    1. Refuse federal funds that require participation in surveillance programs.

    2. Prohibit storage and sharing of surveillance data with other agencies without a warrant.

    3. Institute warrant requirements for surveillance technologies such as stingrays, drones and mobile cameras.

    4. Require government agencies to get local government approval before acquiring or using surveillance technology.

  • Image Of Jewish Temple Photoshopped Over Jerusalem Mosque Embroils US Embassy In Controversy

    As if US-Palestinian relations weren’t already at the lowest point in perhaps all of history, they just sank even lower after a controversial photo (to put in mildly) surfaced of the American Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, receiving a large aerial photograph of Jerusalem as he toured the largely ultra-Orthodox Jewish city of Bnei Brak, just east of Tel Aviv.

    As Ambassador Friedman attended an event sponsored by an Israeli charity, one of the staff members presented him with the framed photograph which featured a photoshopped imagined Jewish Temple in the place where Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock currently stand. 

    Image source: Kikar Hashabat via Times of Israel

    The Israeli Haaretz newspaper describes the image as “bearing a simulation of the Third Temple” placed in the photograph at the heart of Jerusalem’s walled old city, with the ‘Third Temple’ featured front and center. 

    Israelis refer to the area on top of which Islam’s third holiest mosque sits as the “Temple Mount” as it is purported to be the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times, now the location of the Western Wall. There has long been a Jewish and Christian Zionist movement dedicated to restoring the temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in about 70 A.D. — an initiative that’s practically impossible because it would mean razing the Islamic holy site.

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    Concerning the long-term controversy that’s raged over the fate of the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock, the US has long held its official position of observing the status quo of the separate religious communities being allowed access their respective sites. 

    Haaretz explains that the photo of the ambassador with the image first appeared on an obscure Jewish website before quickly going viral:

    First reported on the ultra-Orthodox news site Kikar Hashabat, the photo was taken during a tour of Bnei Brak held by the Achiya organization, aids children who suffer from learning disabilities. 

    It was unclear at the time whether Friedman noticed the change and was endorsing the picture or not.

    Though the US Embassy is reportedly outraged at the incident which it says the ambassador did not endorse and was not immediately aware of, it’s seems hard to miss the huge stone temple prominently at the forefront of the image.   

    The embassy issued a statement claiming that Friedman “was not aware of the image thrust in front of him when the photo was taken. He was deeply disappointed that anyone would take advantage of his visit to Bnei Brak to create controversy.” 

    The official statement concluded with the following: “The U.S. policy is absolutely clear: we support the status quo on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount.”

    As Haaretz reports further:

    A U.S. Embassy official told Haaretz they have demanded an apology from the organization “for allowing one of their staff to present this controversial image to the ambassador during the visit.”

    For its part the Israeli charity responsible for the controversial photograph has issued an apology to Friedman and the embassy, saying further that Ambassador Friedman seemed unaware of the image’s content, and that the staff member indeed took advantage of the situation.

    Palestinian advocates on social media were immediately outraged:

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    The Achiya organization’s apology statement reads as follows: “We wish to thank the ambassador Mr. David Friedman and the staff members for their professionalism and courtesy … regretfully the entire event was marred by a cheap political act, the responsible staff member was identified and apologizes and we will deal with the matter internally in the organization.”

    Friedman, however, has been known for engaging in provocations aimed at showing his personal devotion to the Jewish state and preferred changes in US policy toward the conflict; for example, he’s long attempted to pressure the State Department to use terminology more friendly to the idea that the West Bank belongs to Israel, something rejected by official American policy. The ambassador has also been known to spearhead fundraising efforts — to the tune of tens of millions of dollars — for Beit El settlement in the West Bank, known as among the most radical Jewish settler movements in the region. 

    In both Gaza and Jerusalem tensions continue to mount after the US Embassy’s ceremonial opening in Jerusalem a week ago, which came on the same day 60 Palestinians were gunned down by Israeli live fire after protesters approached the border fence area between Israel and Gaza, with also resulted in over a thousand Palestinians wounded. The United Nations Human Rights Council has since voted to open a formal investigation into the killings.

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