Today’s News 24th February 2016

• Trump Takes Nevada By A Landslide; Rubio/Cruz All Tied Up – Live Feed

  And the juggernaut rolls on…

  

   

  Most major news wires have already called the Nevada GOP Caucus for Donald Trump (despite only 3% reporting) making it 3 in a row:

  • Trump 42%
  • Cruz 22.8%
  • Rubio 21.8%

  Marking Rubio's 4th loss to Trump in a row.

  Preliminary entrance polls taken of Republican caucus-goers show that nearly 6 in 10 are angry at the way the government is working, and about half of them supported the billionaire businessman.

  Trump was also supported by about 6 in 10 of those who said they care most about immigration, and nearly half of those who said they care most about the economy.

  Nevada caucuses winner Donald Trump was supported by 7 in 10 of those who preferred an outsider, according to early results of the entrance poll conducted for the Associated Press and television networks.

  And now the speech:

  The establishment is gonna need some more huff and puff…

   

  

  

  

  

  

• Oil Market Analysis Feb. 23, 2016 (Video)

  

   

  By EconMatters

  After short covering Monday, Tuesday pushed the oil market down with no help from OPEC and a Risk Off mode in financial markets. With a bad API report after hours look for weakness ahead of the Department of Energy Report on Wednesday morning.

   

  

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• The Age Of Authoritarianism: Government Of The Politicians, By The Military, For The Corporations

  Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy… But I knew it wasn't a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head… The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you. From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country—not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society—cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian.” ? Historian Howard Zinn

  America is at a crossroads.

  History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a militaristic state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom.

  Certainly, this is a time when government officials operate off their own inscrutable, self-serving playbook with little in the way of checks and balances, while American citizens are subjected to all manner of indignities and violations with little hope of defending themselves.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age—the age of authoritarianism. Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal.

  Don’t believe me?

  Let me take you on a brief guided tour, but prepare yourself. The landscape is particularly disheartening to anyone who remembers what America used to be.

  The Executive Branch: Whether it’s the Obama administration’s war on whistleblowers, the systematic surveillance of journalists and regular citizens, the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay, or the occupation of Afghanistan, Barack Obama has surpassed his predecessors in terms of his abuse of the Constitution and the rule of law. President Obama, like many of his predecessors, has routinely disregarded the Constitution when it has suited his purposes, operating largely above the law and behind a veil of secrecy, executive orders and specious legal justifications. Rest assured that no matter who wins this next presidential election, very little will change. The policies of the American police state will continue.

   

  The Legislative Branch:  It is not overstating matters to say that Congress may well be the most self-serving, semi-corrupt institution in America. Abuses of office run the gamut from elected representatives neglecting their constituencies to engaging in self-serving practices, including the misuse of eminent domain, earmarking hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracting in return for personal gain and campaign contributions, having inappropriate ties to lobbyist groups and incorrectly or incompletely disclosing financial information. Pork barrel spending, hastily passed legislation, partisan bickering, a skewed work ethic, graft and moral turpitude have all contributed to the public’s increasing dissatisfaction with congressional leadership. No wonder 86 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing.

   

  The Judicial Branch: The Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the justices of the United States Supreme Court have become the guardians of the American police state in which we now live. As a result, sound judgment and justice have largely taken a back seat to legalism, statism and elitism, while preserving the rights of the people has been deprioritized and made to play second fiddle to both governmental and corporate interests.

   

  Shadow Government: America’s next president will inherit more than a bitterly divided nation teetering on the brink of financial catastrophe when he or she assumes office. He or she will also inherit a shadow government, one that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country. Referred to as the Deep State, this shadow government is comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes right now.

   

  Law Enforcement: By and large the term “law enforcement” encompasses all agents within a militarized police state, including the military, local police, and the various agencies such as the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace but now extensions of the military, are part of an elite ruling class dependent on keeping the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens. In the latest move to insulate police from charges of misconduct, Virginia lawmakers are considering legislation to keep police officers’ names secret, ostensibly creating secret police forces.

   

  A Suspect Surveillance Society: Every dystopian sci-fi film we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science, technology and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful. By tapping into your phone lines and cell phone communications, the government knows what you say. By uploading all of your emails, opening your mail, and reading your Facebook posts and text messages, the government knows what you write. By monitoring your movements with the use of license plate readers, surveillance cameras and other tracking devices, the government knows where you go. By churning through all of the detritus of your life—what you read, where you go, what you say—the government can predict what you will do. By mapping the synapses in your brain, scientists—and in turn, the government—will soon know what you remember. And by accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc. Consequently, in the face of DNA evidence that places us at the scene of a crime, behavior sensing technology that interprets our body temperature and facial tics as suspicious, and government surveillance devices that cross-check our biometrics, license plates and DNA against a growing database of unsolved crimes and potential criminals, we are no longer “innocent until proven guilty.”

   

  Military Empire: America’s endless global wars and burgeoning military empire—funded by taxpayer dollars—have depleted our resources, over-extended our military and increased our similarities to the Roman Empire and its eventual demise. The U.S. now operates approximately 800 military bases in foreign countries around the globe at an annual cost of at least $156 billion. The consequences of financing a global military presence are dire. In fact, David Walker, former comptroller general of the U.S., believes there are “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that contributed to the fall of Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.”

  I haven’t even touched on the corporate state, the military industrial complex, SWAT team raids, invasive surveillance technology, zero tolerance policies in the schools, overcriminalization, or privatized prisons, to name just a few, but what I have touched on should be enough to show that the landscape of our freedoms has already changed dramatically from what it once was and will no doubt continue to deteriorate unless Americans can find a way to wrest back control of their government and reclaim their freedoms.

  That brings me to the final and most important factor in bringing about America’s shift into authoritarianism: “we the people.” We are the government. Thus, if the government has become a tyrannical agency, it is because we have allowed it to happen, either through our inaction or our blind trust.

  Essentially, there are four camps of thought among the citizenry when it comes to holding the government accountable. Which camp you fall into says a lot about your view of government—or, at least, your view of whichever administration happens to be in power at the time.

  In the first camp are those who trust the government to do the right thing, despite the government’s repeated failures in this department.

   

  In the second camp are those who not only don’t trust the government but think the government is out to get them.

   

  In the third camp are those who see government neither as an angel nor a devil, but merely as an entity that needs to be controlled, or as Thomas Jefferson phrased it, bound “down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution.”

   

  Then there’s the fourth camp, comprised of individuals who pay little to no attention to the workings of government, so much so that they barely vote, let alone know who’s in office. Easily entertained, easily distracted, easily led, these are the ones who make the government’s job far easier than it should be.

  It is easy to be diverted, distracted and amused by the antics of the presidential candidates, the pomp and circumstance of awards shows, athletic events, and entertainment news, and the feel-good evangelism that passes for religion today. What is far more difficult to face up to is the reality of life in America, where unemployment, poverty, inequality, injustice and violence by government agents are increasingly norms.

  The powers-that-be want us to remain divided, alienated from each other based on our politics, our bank accounts, our religion, our race and our value systems. Yet as George Orwell observed, “The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”

  The only distinction that matters anymore is where you stand in the American police state. In other words, you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution.

  

  

  

  

  

• The Evil Empire Has The World In An Economic "Death Grip"

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  In my archives there is a column or two that introduces the reader to John Perkins’ important book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

  An EHM is an operative who sells the leadership of a developing country on an economic plan or massive development project. The Hit Man convinces a country’s government that borrowing large sums of money from US financial institutions in order to finance the project will raise the country’s living standards. The borrower is assured that the project will increase Gross Domestic Product and tax revenues and that these increases will allow the loan to be repaid.

   

  However, the plan is designed to over-estimate the benefits so that the indebted country cannot pay the principal and interest. As Perkins’ puts it, the plans are based on “distorted financial analyses, inflated projections, and rigged accounting,” and if the deception doesn’t work, “threats and bribes” are used to close the deal.

   

  The next step in the deception is the appearance of the International Monetary Fund. The IMF tells the indebted country that the IMF will save its credit rating by lending the money with which to repay the country’s creditors. The IMF loan is not a form of aid. It merely replaces the country’s indebtedness to banks with indebtedness to the IMF.

   

  To repay the IMF, the country has to accept an austerity plan and agree to sell national assets to private investors. Austerity means cuts in social pensions, social services, employment and wages, and the budget savings are used to repay the IMF. Privatization means selling oil, mineral and public infrastructure in order to repay the IMF. The deal usually imposes an agreement to vote with the US in the UN and to accept US military bases.

   

  Occasionally a country’s leader refuses the plan or the austerity and privatization. If bribes don’t work, the US sends in the jackals—assassins who remove the obstacle to the looting process.

  Perkins’ book caused a sensation. It showed that the United States’ attitude of helpfulness toward poorer countries was only a pretext for schemes to loot the countries. Perkins’ book sold more than a million copies and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 73 weeks.

  Now the book has been reissued with the addition of 14 new chapters and a 30-page listing of Hit Man activity during the years 2004-2015. 

  Perkins shows that despite his revelations, the situation is worse than ever and has spread into the West itself. The populations of Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and the United States itself are now being looted by Hit Man activity.

  Perkins’ book shows that the US is “exceptional” only in the unbridled violence it applies to others who get in its way. One of the new chapters tells the story of France-Albert Rene, president of Seychelles, who threatened to reveal the illegal and inhumane eviction of the residents of Diego Garcia by Britain and Washington so that the island could be converted into an air base from which Washington could bomb noncompliant countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Washington sent in a team of jackels to murder the president of Seychelles, but the assassins were foiled. All but one were captured, tried and sentenced to execution or prison, but a multi-million dollar bribe to Rene freed them. Rene got the message and became compliant.

  In the original printing of his book, Perkins tells the stories of how jackals arranged airplane crashes to get rid of Panama’s non-compliant president, Omar Torrijos, and Ecuador’s non-compliant president, Jaime Roldos. When Rafael Correa became president of Ecuador, he refused to pay some of the illegitimate debts that had been piled on Ecuador, closed the United States’ largest military base in Latin America, forced the renegotiation of exploitative oil contracts, ordered the central bank to use funds deposited in US banks for domestic projects, and consistently opposed Washington’s hegemonic control over Latin America.

  Correa had marked himself for overthrow or assassination. However, Washington had just overthrown in a military coup the democratically elected Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, whose policies favored the people of Honduras over those of foreign interests. Concerned that two military coups in succession against reformist presidents would be noticed, to get rid of Correa the CIA turned to the Ecuadoran police. Led by a graduate of Washington’s School of the Americas, the police moved to overthrow Correa but were overpowered by the Ecuadoran military. However, Correa got the message. He reversed his policies toward American oil companies and announced that he would auction off huge blocks of Eucador’s rain forests to the oil companies. He closed down, Fundacion Pachamama, an organization with which a reformed Perkins was associated that worked to preserve Ecuador’s rain forests and indigenous populations.

  Western banks backed up by the World Bank are even worse looters than the oil and timber companies. Perkins writes:

  “Over the past three decades, sixty of the world’s poorest countries have paid $550 billion in principal and interest on loans of $540 billion, yet they still owe a whopping $523 billion on those same loans. The cost of servicing that debt is more than these countries spend on health or education and is twenty times the amount they receive annually in foreign aid. In addition, World Bank projects have brought untold suffering to some of the planet’s poorest people. In the past ten years alone, such projects have forced an estimated 3.4 million people out of their homes; the governments in these countries have beaten, tortured, and killed opponents of World Bank projects.”

  Perkins describes how Boeing plundered Washington state taxpayers. Using lobbyists, bribes, and blackmail threats to move production facilities to another state, Boeing succeeded in having the Washington state legislature give the corporation a tax break that diverted $8.7 billion into Boeings’ coffers from health care, education and other social services. The massive subsidies legislated for the benefit of corporations are another form of rent extraction and Hit Man activity.

  Perkins has a guilty conscience and still suffers from his role as a Hit Man for the evil empire, which has now turned to the plunder of American citizens. He has done everything he can to make amends, but he reports that the system of exploitation has multiplied many times and is now so commonplace that it no longer has to be hidden. Perkins writes:

  “A major change is that this EHM system, today, is also at work in the United States and other economically developed countries. It is everywhere. And there are many more variations on each of these tools. There are hundreds of thousands more EHMs spread around the world. They have created a truly global empire. They are working in the open as well as in the shadows. This system has become so widely and deeply entrenched that it is the normal way of doing business and therefore is not alarming to most people.”

  People have been so badly plundered by jobs offshoring and indebtedness that consumer demand cannot support profits. Consequently, capitalism has turned to exploiting the West itself. Faced with rising resistance, the EHM system has armed itself with “the PATRIOT Act, the militarization of police forces, a vast array of new surveillance technologies, the infiltration and sabotage of the Occupy movement, and the dramatic expansion of privatized prisons.” The democratic process has been subverted by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other court decisions, by corporate-funded political action committees, and by organizations such as the American Legislative Exchange Council financed by the One Percent. Cadres of lawyers, lobbyists, and strategists are hired to legalize corruption, and presstitutes work overtime to convince gullible Americans that elections are real and represent the workings of democracy.

  In a February 19, 2016 article in OpEdNews, Matt Peppe reports that the American colony of Puerto Rico is being driven into the ground in order to satisfy foreign creditors. 

  The airport has been privatized, and the main highways have been privatized in a 40-year lease owned by a consortium formed by a Goldman Sachs infrastructure investment fund. Puerto Ricans now pay private corporations for the use of infrastructure that tax dollars built. Recently Puerto Rico’s sales tax was raised 64% to 11.5%. A sales tax increase is equivalent to a rise in inflation and results in a decline in real incomes.

  Today the only difference between capitalism and gangsterism is that capitalism has succeeded in legalizing its gangsterism and, thus, can strike a harder bargain than can the Mafia.

  Perkins shows that the evil empire has the world in the grip of a “death economy.”

  He concludes that “we need a revolution” in order “to bury the death economy and birth the life economy.” Don’t look to politicians, neoliberal economists, and presstitutes for any help.

  

  

  

  

  

• In "Unprecedented, Historic" Move, Senate GOP Will Deny Obama Supreme Court Nominee Hearings

  The war between Obama and the Republican Party over Scalia’s Supreme Court replacement just went nuclear.

  One day after a 1992 video clip emerged of vice president Joe Biden emerged when the then-senator from Delaware said the Senate should not consider a Supreme Court nominee by president George H.W. Bush during an election year, this afternoon Senate Republicans went “all in” on a Supreme Court gamble, in which they vowed to deny holding confirmation hearings for any nominee from President Obama.

  LETTER: ‘this Committee will not hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee’ until 1/20/17 pic.twitter.com/rMKGkDOn58

  — Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) February 23, 2016

  The unprecedented decision, made before the president has named a nominee, marks a new chapter in Washington’s war over judicial nominations according to The Hill. In a battle of superlatives, CNN adds that the “historic move outraged Democrats and injected Supreme Court politics into the center of an already tense battle for the White House.”

  “I don’t know how many times we need to keep saying this: The Judiciary Committee has unanimously recommended to me that there be no hearing. I’ve said repeatedly and I’m now confident that my conference agrees that this decision ought to be made by the next president, whoever is elected,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday.

  He then added he would not likely meet with any nominee, a custom that high court nominees typically do before hearings. “I don’t know the purpose of such a visit I would not be inclined to take it myself.”

  The decision to not hold hearings is a historic move from the Senate, which has regularly held confirmation hearings for nominees since hearings became routine practice in 1955, the Senate historian’s office said Tuesday.

  McConnell was not alone: Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said he also would not meet with a nominee. “I don’t see the point in going through the motions, if we know what the outcome is going to be. I don’t see the point in going through the motions and creating a misleading impression.”

  Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told reporters at an afternoon press conference that the Republicans on the Judiciary committee submitted a letter to the Republican leaders unanimously opposing any hearing for a nominee to replace late Justice Antonin Scalia.

  South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said that’s the “consensus” view among Republicans on the committee and Cornyn said the same.

  “We believe the American people need to decide who is going to make this appointment rather than a lame-duck president,” Cornyn said Tuesday as he left a meeting of top Republicans discussing how to handle the White House’s promised nominee.

  Graham went so far as telling CNN he would not even meet with any nominee, should he or she make courtesy calls on the Hill. As did Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican. 

  The stakes for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his conference are high. A Fox News poll released earlier this month found that registered voters want Obama and Senate leaders to “take action to fill the vacancy now” by a margin of 62% to 34%. A Pew Research Center poll released Monday found a majority of Americans (56%) say the Senate should hold hearings and vote on Obama’s choice to fill the vacancy, with 38% saying they should not hold hearings until the next president takes office.

  “His vulnerable people are not going to get off the hook,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Senate Democrats’ chief political strategist. “The public is demanding [action], huge groups are demanding it. We’ve seen data that the millennials care more about the Supreme Court than anybody else.”

  Nonetheless, in a sharply worded statement on the Senate floor earlier Tuesday, McConnell bluntly warned the White House that the GOP-controlled Senate would not act on anyone he chooses to sit on the high court.

  As The Hill adds, the fierce debate could also cause a breakdown in bipartisan relations, threatening legislation on the agenda for the rest of this year.

  The biggest consequence may be the precedent it sets for future nominees to the nation’s highest court, however, in an era when parties have begun angling for the presidency earlier and earlier. If Republicans win the White House, Democrats are more likely to retaliate with filibusters to block judicial nominees.

  In the short term, their position will give Democrats a political cudgel to pummel vulnerable incumbents facing reelection.

  But McConnell sees it as a smart political bet. By “ripping the Band-Aid off,” in the words of one senior GOP aide, he is hoping to limit the political pain to a span of weeks instead of letting Democrats milk the issue for months.

   

  Republicans know they’re not going to confirm Obama’s nominee to replace legendary conservative jurist Antonin Scalia. A liberal successor would dramatically change the ideological balance of the court.

  Some see the move as strategically prudent: holding hearings this spring would allow the Obama administration and Democrats to shift the focus to the personal story of the nominee and away from the principle that a president should not make the pick in an election year. Democrats could stretch out stories about GOP obstruction for the rest of the year. Without Senate action, it will be tougher to fuel media interest.

  “It’s a smart gamble. They elect him leader to make these kinds of decisions,” said the senior aide. “We were in the middle of a recess, everyone was scattered, and he acted rightly and decisively. Everyone has rallied around him.”

  Others are not convinced and have warned that it would be a mistake to shut down Obama’s pick without a fair review. “It’s common sense to have hearings and then an up-or-down vote and say why you’re opposing a person,” said Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) in an interview. “To just say no [and have] no hearings, no vote, I think that puts us on the defensive. It looks like we’re afraid of something.”

  One of the chamber’s most vulnerable Republicans, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), wrote in an op-ed Monday that he and his colleagues have “a duty” to review and vote on the nominee.

  Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, initially warned that his party could “fall into the trap of obstructionists” if it rejects the nominee “sight unseen.”

  On thing is certain, the Democrats are outraged and unleashed sharp criticism contending that the GOP-led Senate was failing to do its job and would be risking its tenuous hold on the majority in the fall elections.

  Obama jabbed at Senate Republicans, tweeting Tuesday evening for Americans to tell the majority party in the Senate to “#DoYourJob.”

  “Refusing to even consider the President’s Supreme Court nominee is unprecedented,” he tweeted.

  Refusing to even consider the President’s Supreme Court nominee is unprecedented. Tell the Senate: #DoYourJob. https://t.co/kSrKv5e3Ae

  — Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 23, 2016

  But best of all, even Trump is somehow now involved.

  Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said McConnell was taking his marching orders from Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who had called on the Senate to delay consideration of any nominee.

   

  “That’s exactly what the Republican leader is doing: Delay, delay, delay,” Reid said. He angrily added that “333 days isn’t enough to do the work that we do ordinarily do in 67 days.”

  We eagerly look forward to Trump’s retort. And while we do, one thing is certain: if the Fed had harbored any hopes that some consensus over a fiscal policy stimulus would emerge in Congress and pick up the baton from money printing, it will be sorely disappointed.

  

  

  

  

  

• Canadian Oil Companies Have Stopped Paying The Rent

  Where possible, we try not to beat dead horses but when it comes to the death of the so called “Alberta dream,” it’s rather difficult to ignore the pace at which conditions continue to deteriorate in Canada’s beleaguered oil patch.

  We’ve covered Alberta’s demise extensively over the past twelve months, documenting everything from soaring food bank usage to the alarming spike in property crime in Calgary where vacant office space sits collecting dust and condos go unsold even as housing prices soar in British Columbia and Ontario.

  

  Last year, Alberta logged the most job losses the province has seen in 34 years, as the unemployment rate spiked to 7.1% from just 4.8% at the end of 2014. 2015 turned out to be worse for provincial job losses than 2009.

  

  Now, in the latest sign that the seemingly inexorable decline in crude will continue to weigh on Alberta’s flagging economy, we learn that O&G companies have simply stopped paying rent for surface access to private property. 

  “For the past five years, regular as clockwork, an oil and gas company’s cheque for $4,097 has arrived in Allison Shelstad’s mailbox sometime in January, rent paid for surface access to a natural gas well on the farmland southeast of Calgary her family has owned for more than 50 years,” The Calgary Herald reports. 

  

  This year, the check didn’t show up. And neither did checks for 765 landowners who have now appealed to the Alberta Surface Rights Board for relief. That’s the highest number of appellees in at least 12 years. 

  In total, the board is demanding that O&G producers fork over $1.7 million in lease payments, more than double 2014’s court-ordered back payments. As The Herald goes on to note, this dwarfs the figures from 2008-09: “During the downturn of 2008-09, only 268 and 241 landowners, owed $490,000 and $730,000, respectively, took their complaints to the board.”

  “I think (the oil industry) thought the big revenues were going to go on forever. They gave a lot of money away to the shareholders, and they kept quite a bit for themselves, probably the biggest part,” says 69-year-old Perry Nelson, who has 30 well leases and who has made his first ever application to the Surface Rights Board. “I don’t know how they went from windfall profits to where they are today.” 

  Well, they went from windfall profits to “where they are today” because crude prices collapsed by 60%. We’re not defending the industry but it’s not exactly like this is a mystery. North American production threatened Riyadh’s market share and the Saudis simply bankrupted the space. That’s all there is to it. 

  The problem for the Perry Nelsons and Allison Shelstads of the world is that while the government can demand that the companies pay, it cannot extract money that isn’t there to extract. In other words, if companies simply don’t have the money, provincial authorities are forced to foot the bill. And yes, that means landowners are effectively paying themselves for the rights to use the land they themselves own.

  Welcome to “lower for longer” Alberta. Blame Ali Al-Naimi.

  

  

  

  

  

• Truman Show USA – "Concerned Citizens" At Townhall Meetings Exposed As Paid Actors

  Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

  Here’s a bothersome trend that seems quite fitting for the smoke and mirrors driven, celebrity obsessed, hologram society that America has become. A company known as Crowds on Demand is actually in the business of providing fake protesters for causes, fake entourages for wanna be celebrities and seemingly even fake supporters for unpopular corporate activities.

   

  This just furthers my feeling that action is far more important than traditional protests in the 21st Century. They key to getting out of the mess we are in is to actively create a parallel economy and even monetary system adjacent to the current terminal one. That way, when this one blows up, we already have the infrastructure in place to move to another paradigm. One characterized by peaceful, voluntary human interaction and dominated by decentralization in virtually all aspects of human existence.

   

  – From the 2013 post: Protesters for Hire: For a Few Thousand Dollars We’ll Buy You a Small Entourage

  I first highlighted the company Crowds on Demand over two years ago in the above post. Turns out it’s much worse than I could have imagined.

   

  From NBC News:

  In Camarillo, citizens aren’t shy about expressing their opinions. But on a chilly Wednesday night in December, city officials say one man stood out.

   

  For nearly three minutes, Prince Jordan Tyson is on camera telling city leaders what he later admits, is a lie.

   

  In fact, Tyson, who is not from Camarillo, is a self described struggling actor from Beverly Hills and he now believes he was involved in a secretive new industry where actors are hired to try and sway public officials.

  In this case, a construction project in Camarillo he says he was hired to criticize.

   

  “It was scripted, they told me what to say,” Tyson told NBC4.

   

  Some of those scripted lines, he says were provided by recent UCLA graduate Adam Swart, CEO of a company called Crowds on Demand, which will stage rallies and demonstrations for any almost candidate or cause.

   

  Swart says he has employed actors to sway city officials in meetings across the country.

   

  “I have worked with dozens of campaigns for state officials, and 2016 presidential candidates,” Swart told NBC4, adding that he won’t name any names.

   

  “I can’t go in to detail… if I did, nobody would hire us.”

   

  The California Political Practices Commission tells NBC4 political campaigns are required by law to report expenditures.

   

  But, public records indicate only one committee in the entire state has ever reported paying “Crowds On Demand”, that committee is Six California’s, the campaign to split California in to 6 different states.

   

  State officials say some campaigns and politicians who hire “Crowds On Demand”… and fail to report campaign expenditures, could be breaking the law.

   

  Hiring actors is not illegal. Although, entertainment law attorney and USC professor Lincoln Bandlow says telling those actors what to do and say could lead to lawsuits, if someone feels harmed.

   

  “Paying someone to go out there and make false representations to a city council is going to give rise to possible fraud claims, possible intentional interference with business relations claims, maybe defamatory statement claims.”

   

  Swart would not confirm to NBC4 that he hired Tyson or gave him lines, but says he has hired actors on multiple occasions to try and sway city officials across the country.

   

  Swart tells NBC4 he has 20,000 actors across the country and most are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

  If there’s a hell, this guy’s going. Personally, I’d settle for prison.

  

  

  

  

  

• In Odd Twist, Canadian Bullion Dealer Offers To Pay Interest On Gold And Silver

  There are three certain things in life: death, taxes and paying vault storage fees to keep your gold safe. Or at least there were: recently the third of these certainties got somewhat muddied when, over the past year the government of India unleashed an attempt to soft-confiscate the nation’s publicly held gold, by offering to pay interest for said gold. Incidentally, the effort has failed miserably as India has been able to collect only a few tons of gold as part of this gold monetization scheme.

  Where India succeeded was to finally quash the old saying that gold does not pay dividends. It does, but until now the dividend was only available in one country.

  That has now changed and as of this moment, a Canadian physical gold distributor, Canadian Bullion Services (profiled recently by the Globe and Mail) has boldly gone where only India has gone before, and is offering to pay interest to its gold and silver customers if they hold their precious metals at the bullion dealer.  In fact, based on the tiering of interest, CBS will pay as much as 4.5%/year if the gold deposited for at least 3 years.

  Surprised? Wait until you see the full offer:

  Earn Interest on Your Bullion

   

  (BOOST) STORAGE ACCOUNT

   

  Canadian Bullion Services is happy to introduce a new service exclusively to our clients. Purchase gold and silver and hold gold and silver in secure storage; and earn interest just by keeping gold and silver in the Boost storage account.

   

  What is The Boost Storage Account?

   

  The Boost Storage Account is a proprietary program developed exclusively by Canadian Bullion Services.  In a nutshell, the program allows investors to:

  • Purchase gold and silver;
  • Hold gold and silver in secure storage; and
  • Earn interest just by keeping gold and silver in the Boost storage account.

  Is this a new idea?

   

  We would like to say we thought of it ourselves, but the idea is very popular in the Eastern parts of the world, where governments, banks, and bullion dealers have a variety of storage interest bearing accounts for their hard assets.

   

  Benefits at a glance:

  1. Purchase physical gold and silver for safety and growth.
  2. Have your gold and silver secure in a vault.
  3. Earn interest while your gold and silver is safely in storage.
  4. Get full transparency – receive monthly audited statements.

  The Program is right for you if:

  • You desire the safety of hard assets like bullion but want your bullion working for you;
  • You wish to participate in the potential growth of the bullion markets (hard assets only, no paper assets);
  • You would like to receive interest payments while storing your gold and silver;
  • You believe in a buy-and-hold strategy; and
  • You want your bullion stored safely and securely.

  How does the Boost Program work?

  • Purchase a minimum of 500 ounces of silver or 10 ounces of gold (does not matter which Mint)***
  • Store the gold and silver at one of Canadian Bullion Services secure depository vaults.
  • The Boost accounts are yearly accounts. Interest earned is based on holding time:
    • Store your bullion for 1 year and earn 2.5%/annum on your bullion*
    • Store your bullion for 2 years and earn 3.5%/annum on your bullion*
    • Store your bullion for 3 years and earn 4.5%/annum on your bullion*
  • At the end of the term you can renew your Boost Program or have your bullion delivered**
  • Your interest is earned monthly with actual physical bullion.

  Getting interest on your gold: that sounds suspiciously close to what fractional reserve banks do to incentivize depositors to fund them with the unsecured liability known as cash; a liability which as Europe is learning the hard way can be bailed in at any given moment. But that is impossible, because as Ben Bernanke will attest, gold is not money, it is tradition. So how can this be?

  Well, a quick look at footnote one, and some loud alarm bells should promptly go off:

  *Liquidity is at the end of your term only; you may not receive the exact bullion you purchased; the interest will accrue monthly with the purchase of more bullion, any funds remaining will be credited as cash in your account.

  At least the company is honest and warns you upfront that the gold you “receive” may not be the exact bullion you purchased, in other words this is nothing but the first incarnation of a bullion dealer rehypothecation scheme.

  But why? After all Canadian Bullion Services is a small dealer which allegedly only had a few million in revenue.

  Perhaps the answer can be found in the following recent press release, in which CBS announced it was now collaboration with precious metal vaulting legend, Brinks.

  Introducing Local Pick Up at Brinks-Revolutionary Service for Gold and Silver

   

  Canadian Bullion Services Inc. has now introduced its leading on-time pick up option at Brinks in Toronto.

   

  “With this new feature, clients can secure their price of gold and silver bullion and now pick up their order at Brinks in Toronto.” said Jamie Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer of Canadian Bullion Services.

   

  This new service was created to help individuals accelerate their precious metals holdings. Clients will no longer need to wait for their deliveries. This helps drive more business value for Canadian Bullion Services by lowering insurance costs and delivery costs while enabling clients to receive their product faster.

   

  * * *

   

  In the future, this service will be rolled out to all products and to Brinks in most major cities in Canada. For more information, please contact Jamie Cohen at Canadian Bullion Services.

  We wonder if CBS’ generous precious metal interest payment scheme is funded by Brinks or one of the other prominent names in the business such as Scotia Mocatta, HSBC or even JPM, all of which as we have documented in recent months, have been running precariously low on physical gold in their gold vaults.

  After all what better way to promptly replenish physical stores than to not only not demand gold storage fees but to offer to pay interest to the public for the “privilege” of holding its gold.

  In retrospect we can’t help but have flashbacks to FDR’s infamous executive order 6102, which promptly and overnight confiscated all physical U.S. gold.  At least this time around the “confiscation” of gold is on a voluntary, “handover” basis and those who part with their hard money are incentivized to do so with promises of some future paper money interest payment.

  At least for now.

  And if, like in India, dealers are unable to procure much needed physical, things just might escalate. Unless of course, there is nothing ulterior or sinister about this scheme, in which case those who are interested should call 416 214 4299 for further details.

  

  

  

  

• "Schlonged": As Trump Dominates New Polls, Here Are 10 Unforgettable Images

  Donald Trump is on an electoral roll.

  After sweeping to victory in New Hampshire, the bellicose billionaire steamrolled into South Carolina and as we noted on Saturday, served notice that “this is no longer a matter of whether he can make a serious run at the presidency, it’s now a matter of whether Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio can mount a serious challenge.”

  The GOP establishment, having watched Jeb Bush’s campaign crash and burn despite an impassioned plea to voters from his brother, is now left to ponder the unthinkable: Donald Trump might well win the Republican nomination.

  As for voters, Trump’s long list of incredibly inflammatory soundbites have had no effect on the electorate’s willingness to support his candidacy. In fact, nearly three quarters now say they could see themselves supporting Trump, a complete reversal from where things stood at this time last year.

  For his part, Trump is rubbing it in, as evidenced by this hilarious tweet that came on the heels of his big win in the Palmetto state:

  “@mikeliberation: This is the best reaction shot I’ve ever seen lol #Trump2016” pic.twitter.com/jqxI7QoxEY

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2016

  Now, heading into a bevy of primaries set to play out across the country, it appears as though everyone else is “playing for second,” to quote Nevada political analyst Jon Ralston.

  In Nevada for instance, Trump holds an astounding 26 point lead, polling at 45%.

  Meanwhile, in Illinois, a recent poll by Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute shows Trump ahead by 13 points, and an Elon University poll says he’s surged to a 9 point lead in North Carolina. He’s also ahead in Michigan and Massachusetts. At the risk of following Trump down the raunchy rhetoric rabbit hole, Cruz, Rubio, and everyone else are getting “schlonged.” 

  Thank you Vermont! #VoteTrumpVT https://t.co/8KGOpqDb9t

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016

  Thank you Michigan! #VoteTrumpMI
  Trump 35%
  Kasich 17%
  Cruz 12%
  Rubio 12%
  Carson 9%
  Via: ARG

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016

  Great poll! Thank you North Carolina! #VoteTrumpNC on 3/15!
  Trump 36%
  Cruz 18%
  Rubio 18%
  Carson 10%
  Kasich 7%
  Via @SurveyUSA

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016

  WOW! Thank you Massachusetts! See you soon. #VoteTrumpMAhttps://t.co/mNbDUPrEeh

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016

  Thank you Illinois! Great news! #VoteTrumpIL on 3/15!
  Trump 28%
  Cruz 15%
  Rubio 14%
  Kasich 13%
  Bush 8%
  Carson 6%
  Simon Poll/SIU

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016

  Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a rout. Plain and simple.

  Given all of the above, this seemed like an opportune time to bring you the following set of pictures that vividly demonstrate the extent to which the Teflon Don has secured an almost religious following among some American voters.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Making America great again one convert at a time.

  *  *  *

  And because we’d be remiss…

  

  

  

  

  

• The Economics Of "Free Stuff"

  Submitted by Jonathan Newman via The Mises Institute,

  The perennial promises of free stuff from political candidates are front and center again now that we are ensnared in another US election cycle. The knee-jerk response from some economists and libertarians is “TANSTAAFL!” And of course it’s true that There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, because somebody must bear the costs of the supposedly “free” stuff. Nothing is free because every action has an opportunity cost.

  Especially when the government is involved in doling out the gifts, all it means is that it was bought with money taken from others. Or, sometimes, the money is taken from the person receiving the gift, who thinks he’s gotten something for nothing. (This is a sleight-of-hand political trick that has fooled many for centuries.)

  But what if we interpret “free” in a more colloquial sense? Is it still preferable for the government to give away free stuff? Do unhampered markets provide for free stuff?

  Two Definitions of “Free”

  Today’s promises include free college, free healthcare, free paid time off of work, and all sorts of goodies. Although the above conclusion (no such thing as “free”) applies to all of these, I want to consider a different, more liberal definition of “free”: gifted.

  For example, if Bernie gives Jonathan an apple that Bernie either grew in his orchard or bought at the store and Bernie expects nothing in return, the apple is a free gift from Bernie to Jonathan. The production, purchase, and loss of the apple is costly, but Jonathan bears none of these costs. Jonathan would technically have to expend some time and effort to hold and consume the apple, and he would lose an apple’s worth of carrying capacity on his person, but ignoring these and other technicalities, we can casually say that the apple is a free gift from Jonathan’s perspective.

  So now consider this definition for the above examples: freely gifted college, freely gifted healthcare, freely gifted time off, etc. We realize that these already exist, and would exist absent government provision.

  There are innumerable scholarships offered by individuals, organizations, and colleges who want certain students to attend college. Organizations like St. Jude’s, Doctors Without Borders, and Operation Smile offer freely given medical services to patients. And many businesses already allow their employees vacation days, medical leave, and family leave without them skipping paychecks, although there is an important caveat here that this would be priced into their regular salary or wage unless the employing entrepreneurs want to give from their own means.

  This is all not to mention the freebies, BOGO coupons, “freemium” apps, and other marketing strategies retail stores employ.

  Why Do People Give Gifts?

  First, we must have more than we want to keep for ourselves.

  Widespread abundance like this is only possible with relatively unhampered markets and roundabout production in place, where entrepreneurs are correctly guessing consumer demands and a large capital structure made possible by saving yields plenty of consumer goods. We have to create wealth before we can exchange it, consume it, or give it away.

  But once we have such an abundance of means, the reasons for giving are countless and outside the scope of economics. An altruist might give out of generosity, but even a greedy businessman could give because of increased storage costs for all of their inventory, or as a plan to attract customers.

  It should be noted that self-interest motivates both the altruist and the greedy businessman. The altruist’s actions are self-interested because he is satisfying one of her own ends by relinquishing ownership of the donated means to somebody else.

  Voluntary vs. Involuntary Giving

  When the giver gives voluntarily and the receiver accepts the gift, we can say it represents a mutually beneficial arrangement. The same cannot be said for forced redistribution.

  When Bernie gives Jonathan the apple, Bernie is satisfying the highest ranked end he has for that apple. If, however, Bernie stole the apple from somebody else before giving it to Jonathan, then we can say with certainty that the exchange of the apple is not mutually beneficial.

  The same goes for college scholarships and medical care. If the government takes the means to give somebody free college, then it does not represent a mutually beneficial arrangement, or else the individual would have voluntarily donated the money for the student to go to school.

  Unlike private charities and scholarship funds, the government has no reason to dispense the gifts prudently or to minimize their own cut to maintain a donor base that is confident their donations are used efficiently and for the intended cause.

  Forced redistribution also tends to spur bitterness and conflict, as opposed to gratitude and goodwill.

  Proponents of Free Stuff Should Look to Capitalism, not Redistributionism

  The conclusion we can draw here is that we get just the right amount of “free” stuff through the voluntary interactions of individuals in unhampered markets. And, not only that, but as capitalistic economies inevitably grow and the people become increasingly wealthy, charitable giving can increase as well. As the supply of goods that satisfy our ends gets larger, those marginal goods are more likely to be valued in terms of giving them away rather than keeping them ourselves.

  Therefore, those that desire more free stuff should try to encourage more voluntary giving (maybe even leading by example), not forced redistribution. They should also be the loudest proponents of unhampered markets as any voluntary giving must come from wealth that has already been created and in such abundance as to allow for greater giving.

  

  

  

  

  

• "Suicidal" Trader Loses Everything, Launches Online Begging Site

  Back in November, when Martin Shkreli had just unleashed his ill-fated manipulation of Kalobios stock, one trader got crushed. As we reported then, one “E-trader”, Joe Campbell, decided to go $35,000 short KBIO the night before the massive ramp in the stock following the Shkreli press release and ended up owing ETFC “a wonderful $106K” margin call.

  His response was to launch a GoFundMe website opening up his plight to generous online donors. Surprisingly, many appeared on  short notice, providing several thousand in online donations to help him fill his margin hole.

  Now another trader finds himself in a comparable predicament, this time it is 24 year old Matt Reed, who yesterday suffered a massive loss after he decided to bet it all on FitBit calls (on margin) and lost everything, as the following Fidelity screengrab from his P&L indicates:

  

  Here is his narrative as documented last night on the momentum trading website StockTwits:

  • I’m down 200k aka basically everything and pretty much suicidal right now
  • kept buying on margins as it went up. Held too long as it went down
  • started small then after it did well I took figured why not put more in. Got behind kept trying to break even. Never did
  • Put just about what I had left in 15.5 calls here…my life is totally fucked right no; what I have left is fit 15.5 calls which will most likely be worthless on the open tomorrow
  • wasn’t hoping for a huge return just quick return to get lost money back but yes I learned the hard way about how they’re toxic
  • I went wrong by using margins and I don’t think I’ll be back in it to bounce back
  • I was doing great which is how I got onto margin. Got greedy but then January came and it got bad fast
  • May seem like a joke but I’m fucked
  • Last hope was calls so I doubt they’ll be worth anything by Friday
  • Worked 4 jobs the past few year to save up. Sucks seeing my life savings disappear in a little over a month
  • Thinking what I was at in December vs now just makes me sick, and I’m still working multiple jobs. As you can see this isn’t my calling
  • it was purely my fault for being too risky with margins and trying to quick flip during a bad month
  • This was a hard lesson to learn but must be a sign that I should never put my money into the stocks
  • I’d say learning about margins was the worst possible thing to ever happen to me. If I didn’t then I’d be up 50k right now

  The bottom line:

  • I’ve had a realized loss of 180k this year.
    
  • no do over for me…I’m outta the stocks. Clearly not for me

  So what did he do? Same thing as Campbell: a last ditch effort of generating some cash through online begging, in this case another GoFundMe website titled appropriately enough “Stock ruined my life.” This is what he said:

  Hello everyone this is a story a lot of you may have already heard about. I’ve recently lost all my money in the stock market. I had a good ride so I put everything I had in it. After a bad 2016 start I’ve ended up losing everything I put in. I’m trying to get some money back because what I had lost was money for a house down payment and a ring for my girlfriend. Unfortunately that’s all gone now.

  As he himself admits, while Campbell may have had a novelty first mover advantage, Reed is going to have a steep uphill climb if this is indeed his final option:

  • Hard to take someone setting up a gofundme seriously…hard for me to accept all this though
  • I’ve been praying yelling crying. Every emotion but happiness has been felt the past month or so

  Good luck. For now, however, online begging does not seem to be the best recourse for all those who chased momentum in a rigged market, and found themselves on the receiving end of a massive margin call. As of this moment, nobody has donated a single penny to the 24 year old now former trader.

  

  

  

  

  

• Bring On "The Toilet Paper Rebellion": "Public Patience" With Venezuela's Socialist Paradise Wears Dangerously Thin

  Late last month, we brought you the latest from Barclays on Venezuela, where Nicolas Maduro’s socialist paradise is rapidly collapsing in the face of falling oil prices.

  “The economic emergency decree and any measures that the government could take at this point may be too late,” the bank declared. “After two years of inaction and the recent decline in oil prices, a credit event in 2016 is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid.”

  In other words, Venezuela is careening towards the second-largest sovereign default in history (behind Greece) because even if Maduro manages to pay back what comes due this month, the real test comes this autumn when Caracas will need to come up with more than $5 billion in principal and interest.

  As Bloomberg notes, “Venezuela has $35.6 billion of dollar bonds outstanding and owes $67 billion once interest payments are included. State-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, known as PDVSA, has $33.5 billion of bonds, and $52.6 billion counting interest.” Incidentally, Reuters reported this afternoon that PDVSA is now in talks with foreign banks on a proposed restructuring.

  “Venezuela will not go into default, and the fact that we are talking with banks shows that there is interest in investing in Venezuela,” PDVSA president Eulogio Del Pino told reporters outside of national assembly this afternoon.

  

  “At the oil price that the futures curve is pricing in (USD/b32), the government would need to use more than 90% of the oil exports to make debt payments if we include market, bilateral, commercial, and Chinese Fund obligations,” Barclays said in January.

  In short, it seems unlikely that even with the “measures” announced by Maduro this month, the country will be able to service its debt and import a sufficient amount of food to keep the shelves stocked. By nationalizing pretty much everything, Hugo Chavez managed to leave the country entirely dependent on imports, paid for with oil revenue. That oil revenue is now crimped and Venezuela is rapidly running out of reserves (oh, and the gold is leaving):

  

  Although Maduro may be able to scrape together enough cash to carry on for a few months, this is going to end in tears one way or another.

  As we documented in “In Venezuela, ‘Savage Suffering’ Takes Hold Amid Frightening ‘Food Emergency,'” the country’s beleaguered masses are struggling to survive amid empty grocery store shelves and inflation that the IMF says will hit 720% this year.

  

  As we put it, “the public may have been unwilling to stage an outright rebellion with inflation at 200%, but at 720% it’s difficult to see how things won’t careen into outright social upheaval in the not so distant future. Especially once the country defaults and the public comes to realize just how wasteful the government is with what should be a vast store of national oil wealth.”

  Echoing that sentiment is Barclays whose latest missive on Venezuela suggest that although it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the country could manage to avoid a default in 2016, the public’s patience may be about to run out. Here’s more: 

  The key variable over the coming months will be public patience. In the attempt to meet debt payments, the government will likely need to impose an additional severe import cut, which, combined with the relative price distortions, will likely lead to a deepening of the scarcity problems and the economic and social crisis in general. The private sector reports inventories at levels that in some cases could be barely enough to satisfy a few days of demand. Some food companies have had up to 80% of their production capacity shut down because of a lack of inputs. The financial system is seeing FX allocations to its clients at levels close to zero, which could imply a sharp decline of imports over the coming months.

   

  So far the government has been successful in containing social pressures with a combination of military presence, fear and media control. Nonetheless, isolated events of looting and violence have been reported (El Nacional, January 31, 2016). In the absence of a catalyst, this might not escalate, but it is a very fragile situation. So far, Venezuelan society has been patient, but will this continue to be the case? The society, in some ways, has arguably opted for economic regression by adapting its consumption to the goods available and accessing them via channels other than the traditional distribution channels, such as barter and unofficial markets. Moreover, BCV data for the balance of payments for 2015 suggest that a large portion of imports could have been financed with private sector savings or sources other than government FX allocations. Therefore, there is a possibility that the government could further cut FX import allocations, limiting them to just essential goods. It is difficult to measure the level of social unrest, but the least that can be said is that this is a risky strategy for government that could increase the possibility of an escalation.

  In other words, a revolution may be imminent and you might want to fade this rather remarkable tightening in the country’s CDS spreads:

  

  As a reminder, 5-year CDS spreads recently blew out to levels Greek spreads hit in 2011 – right before the country defaulted.

  

  It seems unlikely that the opposition – which won a major victory at the polls in December – will be able to drive Maduro out in time for the country to avert a further economic collapse or a sovereign default. 

  Indeed, the fact that Maduro was able to win the Supreme Court’s backing for his “emergency” economic measures would appear to suggest that the political dynamics in Venezuela aren’t materially different. It’s one thing for the populace to feel as though their government has let them down, but it’s entirely another for the electorate to discover that they are essentially powerless to change things even when their vote clearly demonstrates a desire for something different.

  Bring on “the toilet paper rebellion” (trademark, Tyler Durden):

  .

  

  

  

  

  

• Nationalism And Populism Propel Trump

  Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

  As the returns came in from South Carolina Saturday night, showing Donald Trump winning a decisive victory, a note of nervous desperation crept into the commentary.

  Political analysts pointed out repeatedly that if all of the votes for Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Ben Carson were added up, they far exceeded the Trump vote.

  Why this sudden interest in arithmetic?

  If the field can be winnowed, we were told, if Carson and Kasich can be persuaded to follow Bush and get out, if Cruz can be sidelined, if we can get a one-on-one Rubio-Trump race, Trump can be stopped.

  Behind the thought is the wish. Behind the wish is the hope, the prayer that all the non-Trump voters are anti-Trump voters.

  But is this true? Or are the media deluding themselves?

  Watching these anchors, commentators, consultants and pundits called to mind the Cleveland Governors Conference of 1964.

  Sen. Goldwater had just won the winner-take-all California primary, defeating Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, assuring himself of enough delegates to go over the top on the first ballot at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

  But with polls showing Barry losing massively to LBJ, the panicked governors at Cleveland conspired to block his nomination.

  Michigan Gov. George Romney and Pennsylvania Gov. Bill Scranton were prodded to enter the race. Scranton would declare his availability in San Francisco with a letter accusing Goldwater of hostility toward civil rights — Barry had voted against the 1964 bill — and of excessive tolerance toward right-wing extremists such as the John Birch Society.

  And what became of them all?

  Goldwater won his nomination and went down in a historic defeat, but became a beloved figure and the father of modern conservatism.

  Of those who turned their backs on Goldwater that fall, none ever won a presidential nomination. Of those who stood by Barry that fall, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both would win the GOP nomination twice, and the presidency twice.

  And the conservative movement would hold veto power over party nominees and become the dominant philosophy of the GOP.

  Folks forget. Not only were there “liberal Republicans” and “moderate Republicans” back then, they dominated the landscape. Yet rare is the Republican today who would describe himself in such terms.

  Which brings us back to the anti-Trump cabal.

  While their immediate goal is to deny him the nomination, do they really think that if the party nominates Rubio, things can be again as they were before Trump? Do they not see that America and the West are undergoing a series of crises that will change our world forever?

  Bernie Sanders is not all wrong. There is a revolution going on.

  Late in the last century, when Robert Bartley was editorial editor, The Wall Street Journal championed a constitutional amendment of five words — “There shall be open borders.”

  Bartley, who told colleague Peter Brimelow, “I think the nation-state is finished,” wanted U.S. borders thrown open to people and goods from all over the world. To Bartley and his acolytes, what made America one nation and one people was simply an ideology.

  But what was silly then is suicidal today.

  Whatever one may think of Trump’s talk of building a wall, does anyone think the United States is not going to have to build a security fence to defend our bleeding 2,000-mile border?

  Given the huge trade deficits with China, Japan, Mexico and the EU, the hemorrhaging of manufacturing, the stagnation of wages and the decline of the middle class, does anyone think that if Trump is turned back, the GOP can continue on being a free-trade party financed by the Beltway agents of transnational corporations?

  Absent some major attack on the homeland, do our foreign policy elites believe the American people would support new U.S. interventions to defeat, occupy and tutor Third World nations in liberal democracy?

  Trump is winning because, on immigration, amnesty, securing our border and staying out of any new crusades for democracy, he has tapped into the most powerful currents in politics: economic populism and “America First” nationalism.

  Look at the crowds Trump draws. Look at the record turnouts in Republican caucuses and primaries.

  If Beltway Republicans think they can stop Trump and turn back the movement behind him, and continue on with today’s policies on trade, immigration and intervention, they will be swept into the same dustbin of history as the Rockefeller Republicans.

  America is saying, “Goodbye to all that.”

  For Trump is not only a candidate. He is a messenger from Middle America. And the message he is delivering to the establishment is: We want an end to your policies and we want an end to you.

  If the elites think they can not only deny Trump the nomination, but turn back this revolution and re-establish themselves in the esteem of the people, they delude themselves.

  This is hubris of a high order.

  

  

  

  

  

• Why Guggenheim Believes The 10 Year Treasury Will Drop Below 1%

  Yesterday we explained why according to Bank of America, despite the big equity squeeze Treasurys refuse to move lower, and in fact have continued to drift higher in price. We also noted that according to a Reuters blurb, Guggenheim CIO Scott Minerd said on Monday that he sees the 10-year Treasury note yield falling to 1 percent, perhaps even lower, before year-end.

  Below are key excerpts from his just released argument for why the best trade of the year will be to buy 10Years in May, or any other month for that matter, and go away until December 31.

  From The Great Recession Scare of 2016

  Markets are in a funk over the risks to the global economy—and there are many—but I believe future market historians will refer to the current period as “The Great Recession Scare of 2016.” At this point, market dynamics are playing out the way our macro research predicted over one year ago—that collapsing oil prices would lead to an increase in defaults in energy credits sometime in the first or second quarter of 2016, and that there would be a sympathetic widening in other high-yield sectors outside of energy. Our research tells us that beyond this spike in energy defaults fundamental conditions are copacetic, yet the markets and policymakers are reacting as if recession or full-blown financial crisis were at the gates, if not already upon us.

  For example, the decline in breadth, as exhibited by one of my most reliable indicators, the New York Stock Exchange Advance/Decline line, continues to make new cyclical lows, signaling that equity prices have further to fall. Our analysis indicates that the S&P 500 could drop to a range of 1,600 to 1,650 and the Nasdaq to 3,800 before we find a bottom. A fitting analogy for the recent rollercoaster in equities may be the sharp series of rallies we experienced in 2007 and 2008 before the market ultimately capitulated. At the same time, investors should remember that such a market decline does not necessarily portend a recession. For those of us who remember, after the market crash of October 1987 the next U.S. recession was still two years away, creating a great buying opportunity. I could say the same for the periods following similar market declines in 1994 and 1998.

  Central banks around the world, reacting to the same recessionary fears, are likely to cause long rates to sink materially lower than where we are today. I see the 10-year Treasury note falling to 1 percent, perhaps even lower, before year-end. According to technical analysis, the current target bottom for the 10-year Treasury note is 28 basis points! That may seem like voodoo, but technical analysis provided key insight to our macroeconomic team a year ago when we called for oil to hit $25 per barrel back when it was trading at $60.

  A barrel of oil at $25 or 10-year Treasurys yielding less than 50 basis points may seem like crazy numbers, but so do the negative interest rates that we are already seeing in Europe and Japan. As low as rates are today, I expect further declines in short-term and long-term rates, both in Europe and Japan, and that ultimately the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank will take their respective overnight rates to as low as -100 basis points. Such an event would likely cause Germany’s 10-year bund to trade at around -50 basis points. When you consider that the current spread relationship between bunds and Treasurys is about 150 basis points, you can easily see why the U.S. 10-year note at 1 percent is not that farfetched. Given that U.S. Treasurys have traded at yields lower than bunds, it is not hard to imagine that the 10-year note could yield less than 1 percent if the bund were to reach -50 basis points.

  More in the full note

  

  

  

  

  

• In "Dramatic Escalation," China Sends Fighter Jets To Disputed Islands

  On Tuesday, multiple media outlets jumped at the opportunity to report that China has built radar facilities at Cuarteron Reef, Beijing’s southern-most South Pacific sandcastle.

  “New radar facilities being developed in the Spratlys, on the other hand, could significantly change the operational landscape,”  Gregory Poling of CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said, explaining why the radar installations are actually a bigger deal than the deployment of HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island.

  Here’s a bit more from Poling:

  Construction of facilities at Cuarteron seems nearly complete and the artificial island now covers about 52 acres (211,500 square meters). Two probable radar towers have been built on the northern portion of the feature, and a number of 65-foot (20-meter) poles have been erected across a large section of the southern portion. These poles appear to be a high-frequency radar installation, as was first speculated on The Diplomat, which would significantly bolster China’s ability to monitor surface and air traffic across the southern portion of the South China Sea. In addition to these radar facilities, China has constructed a buried bunker and lighthouse on the northern portion of the feature, a number of buildings and a helipad in its center, communications equipment to the south, and a quay with a loading crane on the western end of the outpost.

   

  

  

  

  Poling goes on to say that Beijing has likely also put radar installations on other islands in the Spratlys, but that, as it turns out, isn’t the big story.

  Just moments ago, GOP mouthpiece Fox News said China has now deployed fighter jets to Woody Island, where imagery from ImageSat International (ISI) showed two batteries of eight surface-to-air missile launchers in place earlier this month. 

  “Chinese Shenyang J-11s (“Flanker”) and  Xian JH-7s (“Flounder”) have been seen by U.S. intelligence on Woody Island in the past few days, the same island where Fox News reported exclusively last week that China had sent two batteries of HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles while President Obama was hosting 10 Southeast Asian leaders in Palm Springs,” Fox reports, gleefully. “The dramatic escalation cames minutes before Secretary of State John Kerry was to host his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, at the State Department.”

  “There is no difference between China’s deployment of necessary national defense facilities on its own territory and the defense installation by the U.S. in Hawaii,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Monday, in an effort to play down the buildup on Woody.

  China raised eyebrows earlier this year when Beijing landed civilian aircraft on a 10,000 foot airstrip constructed atop Fiery Cross Reef.

  We’d love to be a fly on the wall for Kerry’s imminent meeting with Wang, who we’re sure will tell America’s top diplomat what he told the Western media last week: Don’t mind the missiles and the warplanes, focus on the lighthouses.

  *  *  *

  For those who missed it, here are the images from Woody which depict the SAM deployment:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• The Fatal Flaw That Has Doomed Our Economy

  Submitted by Bill Bonner of Bonner & Partners (annotated by Acting-Man.com's Pater Tenebrarum),

  We are searching for an insight. Each time we think we see it… like the shadow of a ghost in an old photo… it gets away from us. It concerns the real nature of our money system… and what’s wrong with it. Here… we bring new readers more fully into the picture… and try to spot the flaw that has doomed our economy.

  Let’s begin with a question. After the invention of the internal combustion engine, people in Europe… and then the Americas… got richer, almost every year. Earnings rose. Wealth increased. Then in the 1970s, after two centuries, American men ceased making progress.

   

  

  1859: Frenchman Etienne Lenoir builds a  double-acting, spark-ignition engine that can be operated continuously. The internal combustion engine is born.

   

  Despite more PhDs than ever… more scientists… more engineers… more capital… more knowledge… more Nobel Prizes… more college graduates… more machines… more factories… more patents… and the invention of the Internet… after adjusting for inflation, the typical American man earned no more in 2015 than he had 40 years before.

  Why? What went wrong? No one knows. But we have a hypothesis. Not one person in 1,000 realizes it, but America’s money changed on August 15, 1971. After that, not even foreign governments could exchange their dollars for gold at a fixed rate.

  The dollar still looked the same. It still acted the same. It still could be used to buy booze and cigarettes. But it was flawed money. And it changed the whole world economy in a fundamental way… a way that is just now coming into focus.

   

  Honest Money

  The Old Testament tells us that God chased Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden with this curse: “By the sweat of your brow, you will earn your food until you return to the ground.” From then on, you worked… you earned money… you could buy bread. Or lend it out. Or invest it.

  Dollars – or any form of real money – were compensation… for work, for risk taking, for accumulating knowledge and capital. Money is information. It tells us how much reward we’ve earned… how much things cost… how much profit, how much loss, how much something is worth… how much we’ve saved, how much we’ve spent, how much we need, and how much we’ve got.

   

  

  A “Flying Nike” gold distater of Alexander the Great (336-323 BCE). Ultimately, only a market-chosen money can be sound. The market chose gold as the most marketable commodity. There were no meetings or committees deciding on this, it happened spontaneously – governments simply usurped it.

   

  Money doesn’t have to be “hard” or “soft” or expensive or cheap. But it has to be honest. Otherwise, the whole system runs into a ditch. But the new money was a phony. It put the cart ahead of the horse. This was money that no one ever had to break a sweat to get. It was based on credit – the anticipation of work, not work that had already been done.

  Money no longer represented wealth. It now represented anti-wealth: debt. So, the economy stopped producing real wealth.  The Fed could create money that no one ever earned and no one ever saved. It was no longer the real thing, but a counterfeit.

  In this way, effort and reward were cut off from one another. The working man still had to labor. But it was the banker, gambler, speculator, lender, financier, investor, politician, or inside operator who made the money. And the nature of the economy changed. Instead of rewarding the productive Main Street economy, it rewarded insiders… and the financial sector.

   

  

  Financial profits as a share of total domestic corporate profits – by the mid 2000ds it had increased to 40%. Something had clearly gone wrong – click to enlarge.

   

  The penthouses of Manhattan and the summer houses of the Hamptons changed owners. Gone were the scions of Detroit factories and the titans of New York commerce. Gone were the people who had added to the wealth of the nation. In their place were the Wall Street hustlers… the people who moved money around… taking it from the people who made it and giving it to the financial industry, the money lenders, the insiders, and the Deep State.

  This process is misunderstood. It is thought that Wall Street greed and deregulation caused the shift. But Wall Street was just as greedy as it always was… And financial regulations increased dramatically throughout the entire period.

   

  

  Financial sector profits and economic productivity – a suspicious inverse correlation – click to enlarge.

   

  It was not human nature that had changed; it was the money. And it changed everything.

  

  

  

  

  

• Tom DeMark Warns If The S&P Closes Below This Level, It Could "Wreak Havoc To The Downside"

  The S&P 500 is three trading days from reaching “trend exhaustion,” according to infamous technical analyst Tom DeMark. “The foundation of the ongoing rally is suspect,” warns DeMark, noting that if the market closes below these key levels in the next three days, DeMark warns “the decline is going to be sharp.”

  

   

  As Bloomberg reports, a top in the S&P 500 would also be confirmed should the S&P 500 finish below 1,926.82 on Tuesday, or close less than 1,917 on Wednesday or Thursday, DeMark said.

  If any of those S&P 500 triggers occur, the benchmark index will decline at least 8.2 percent from Monday’s close to 1,786, a level last seen in February 2014, according to DeMark. Should the market top correspond with what he referred to as “bad news,” the S&P 500 could see deeper selling down to 1,736, an 11 percent decline. DeMark sees the ongoing market rally as temporary relief as investors exit short positions.

   

  “We’ve seen some pretty vicious short-covering come in, which has caused the market to move up,” said DeMark. “When that happens, it really plays havoc with the market once the downside move begins.”

   

  “The foundation of the ongoing rally is suspect,” DeMark, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, said in a phone interview. “The temporary buying produces a price vacuum beneath the market and accelerates the subsequent decline. The decline is going to be sharp.”

  *  *  *

  A handful of chart-based calls by DeMark have looked prescient in recent weeks, including a prediction on Feb. 11 that oil would rally and a Jan. 20 forecast for a temporary bottom in the S&P 500. And traders pay close attention to the levels he suggests.

  *  *  *

  The S&P 500 did indeed close below DeMark’s crucial 1,926.82 level today…

  

  

  

  

  

  

• Kyle Bass Returns Money To Investors After Throwing In Towel On Short Pharma Strategy

  Last year, Kyle Bass – and a few other enterprising members of the 2 and 20 crowd – had an idea.

  Changes in patent laws implemented in 2012 allow individuals to challenge patents for the bargain price of just $23,000. Apparently, the thinking was that there were too many patents being awarded and making the challenge process easier would go some ways toward ameliorating the “problem.” As we put it last March: “That makes sense. When too many people are inventing things, one way to stop such nonsense is to make suing inventors cost far less than it used to.”

  Not surprisingly, the new process is used far more frequently than the old way of going about things which required the party contesting the patent to file a civil suit.

  Now clearly, $23,000 is not a lot of money for a hedge fund with substantial AUM which means managers could theoretically challenge as many patents as they wanted to without incurring material costs. A simple strategy was born: challenge a drug company’s patent and then short the equity which would invariably tank if said patent is invalidated.

  That sounds shady but the likes of Bass claim the patents drive drug costs higher and keep them there. “The political debate has moved on to drug pricing,” he says, “but the key enabler of drug companies’ ability to raise prices ad infinitum is the fact that the US government grants a monopoly, and that monopoly is maintained by the US patent office.”

  A long-running biotech rally driven in part by M&A tied to specialty drug companies drove valuations into the stratosphere at one point, making short bets all that much more attractive.

  Well as it turns out, all of this was easier said than done because as FT reports, “Bass has returned most of the $700m he raised last year for a high-profile campaign against pharmaceuticals companies and their drug patents.”

  “More than half of Hayman’s challenges have been thrown out even before getting a hearing at the US Patent and Trademark Office,” The Times continues. Most of the important challenges “were rejected at the door,” RBC’s Michael Yee says, adding that the ones that were accepted “didn’t matter.”

  So just as Martin Shkreli can no longer go massively long insolvent biotechs and inflate the value of his holdings by driving up the price of a drug and subsequently pulling the borrow, it looks like Bass’s plan to go massively short and then pull the patent rug from beneath companies’ feet isn’t going to work anymore either. 

  Of course Bass can’t exactly abandon the strategy now, lest everyone would see the move as proof that his plan had nothing to do with lowering drug prices and everything to do with his short positions. 

  “We are not stopping,” he says, noting that he still has “all the capital he needs to pursue everuthing to its logical conclusion at the patent office.”

  When it comes to “logical conclusions,” he probably should have known last year that the government wasn’t likely to let him make a killing by filing $23,000 patent challenges one at a time. 

  That’s ok. If his China thesis is even half right he’ll make enough money for a dozen lifetimes. 

  Ironically, the following headline came across the wires this afternoon: “Bass Wins Right to Challenge Pozen Drug on Vimovo Arthritis Drug.”

  

  

  

  

  

• Venezuela's Gold Liquidation Begins: Maduro Quietly Exports 36 Tonnes Of Gold To Switzerland

  Two weeks ago, shortly before noting that Venezuela’s CDS is now at the same level where Greece was 3 months before its default, we wrote that as a result of a recently implemented gold swap with Deutsche Bank, Venezuela was preparing to liquidate its remaining gold holdings (ostensibly temporarily, if only on paper) in order to pay down its upcoming debt maturities.

  As it turns out Venezuela has already started moving much of its gold reserve to Europe where it will be located closer to swap-provider and ultimate custodian, and liquidator, Deutsche Bank, by way of Switzerland. According to BullionStar, Switzerland has imported a net of 35.8 tonnes of gold from Venezuela in January 2016.

  

  And so, the gold which deceased Venezuela leade Hugo Chavez so painstakingly tried to collect from Europe, is just a few short years later, about to make its way back to where it came from.

  More from BullionStar’s Koos Jansen
  

  Venezuela Exported 36t Of Its Official Gold Reserves To Switzerland In January

  This unusual high tonnage must be gold from the central bank of Venezuela – Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) – that has been swapping metal with banks or simply sold it in the open market. Remarkably, after Venezuela repatriated 160 tonnes in official gold reserves from 25 November 2011 until 30 January 2012, it started to slowly export this gold to the world’s largest gold trading and refining hub, Switzerland, in 2015. How much unencumbered official gold reserves Venezuela has left is unknown.

  Venezuela’s economy is in dire straits. Adding to failing economic policy by the government the country gets nearly all of its export revenue from oil, of which the price has declined roughly 70 % since 2014. Venezuela’s foreign exchange reserves are dwindling fast, from $24.2 billion dollars in February 2015 to $14.8 billion dollars in November 2015, while Inflation is said to be triple-digit and Credit Default Swap (CDS) data shows that traders see a 78 % chance on default, according Reuters. In an effort to avoid catastrophes the BCV has a very strong motive to employ its official gold reserves.

  The 35.8 tonnes of gold in question that arrived in Switzerland in January 2016 must be sourced from the vaults of BCV in Caracas, because Venezuela has no significant gold mine output, according to the US Geological Survey its annual production stands at approximately 12 tonnes, and its citizenry is unable to sell such tonnages. If we look at historic cross-border trade we find that gold export from Venezuela to Switzerland commenced in 2012 with 4 tonnes, followed by 10 tonnes in 2013, 12 tonnes in 2014 and 24 tonnes in 2015. It’s possible the shipments in 2012, 2013 and 2014 were largely sourced from Venezuela’s mine output, but it’s impossible the shipments in 2015 and 2016 were not sourced from the BCV.

  From the data provided by Switzerland’s customs department we can estimate the purity of the gold traded by using the average monthly gold price and subsequently compare the weight to the value disclosed in the reports. In the chart below we can see that until May 2013 the gold Venezuela was exporting to Switzerland was roughly 80 % pure, this could have been for example doré bars from mines or coin bars from the BCV, while starting from December 2013 the shipments were roughly 99.5 % pure, suggesting the gold came predominantly from BCV in London Good Delivery bars or US Assay office bars.

  

  Chart 1. Non-monetary gold import Switzerland from Venezuela, the purities are estimates.

   

  * * *

  Reuters wrote Venezuela’s gold involved in swaps does not enter the market. I beg to differ. Normally, in a swap the gold is sold spot from the client to the dealer in exchange for dollars, while both parties agree to reverse the purchase at a future date at a fixed price. If the gold is physically moved during the swap depends on several factors. Because Venezuela had repatriated 160 tonnes of gold in 2011/2012 this metal left the London Bullion Market Association’s chain of integrity. Hence, Gutierrez stated no bank is going to take gold collateral that’s held in Caracas. When BCV’s 50 tonnes stored in London were already on swap with Citibank, it was forced to bring gold to the bullion banks when it needed additional dollars. The gold moving to Switzerland is an example.

  It’s not possible to trace exactly how much gold BCV has exported for swap deals, or potentially sales, through foreign trade statistics. Official gold reserves are monetary gold, which is exempt from being disclosed in foreign trade statistics (click this link for a detailed analysis on how monetary and non-monetary gold transfers are recorded in foreign trade statistics and in balance of payments around the world). Whenever BCV chooses to ship any of its gold abroad, for swaps or sales, there are two options with respect to foreign trade statistics, (i) the monetary gold is exported abroad, or (ii) the monetary gold is demonetized in Venezuela and exported abroad. Only in the latter option the gold would show up in foreign trade statistics, as such data solely records movements in non-monetary gold. For all clarity, gold can leave the London Bullion Market Association’s chain of integrity although still being monetary gold, these are separated classifications.

  From all sources and evidence presented above actually I think both options are explored. We can clearly see demonetized gold going to Switzerland, but there are also hints monetary gold is exported abroad. Foreign trade statistics by the UK, Switzerland and Hong Kong – the major gold trading hubs – have not shown any gold import from Venezuela reflecting BCV’s declining reserves in March and April 2015 or export in July 2015, meaning Venezuela had probably exported metal invisibly as monetary gold. Needless to say, if BCV would sell any of its gold reserves directly to a fellow central bank, for example the People’s Bank Of China, the related shipments would never show up in foreign trade statistics.

  From all information at my disposal I cannot conclude how much gold BCV has on swap or unencumbered in the vaults in Caracas. Surely, Venezuela its official gold reserves are not as much as the World Gold Council portraits. According to the Council BCV still holds 361 as of Q4 2015, though the balance sheet at the BCV website from November 2015 states “Oro monetario 69,147,656,000”, which is worth $11 billion US dollars at an official exchange rate of 0.16, and roughly 296 tonnes of gold at a nine months rolling average gold price of $1,152.68 an ounce (which is how BCV gold is valued, pointed out by Manly). The 296 tonnes will not be fully unencumbered as bullion banks offer swaps while the gold remains on the client’s balance sheets (/double counting).

  Obviously Venezuela is in a tight spot. The country is trying desperately to survive on its last reserves and the bullion banks seem to offer shark deals. How long this can go on is anyone’s guess.

  

  

  

  

  

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