May 24

Today’s News 24th May 2017

  • If At First You Don't Succeed… A Timeline Of Elon Musk's Long List Of Failures

    At first glance, it’s easy to be impressed by Elon Musk’s impressive resume. He’s shooting for the stars with SpaceX, changing the future of transportation with Tesla, Hyperloop, and The Boring Company, and he’s already had a profound impact on the e-commerce and payments sectors through Paypal. It’s no coincidence that most of these are $1 billion+ companies. But, as Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, focusing only on his successes provides a superficial view of the man. To get the full perspective on his career, it is much more interesting to look at the failures and lows he has experienced. These are the moments when most people would have likely given up.

    FAILING OFTEN

    As every entrepreneur knows, any business venture can be upended by failures at any moment – and it is how one bounces back from those failures that counts. Today’s infographic from Kickresume shows Musk’s struggles and failures throughout his career, and how he persevered to become a modern business icon.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    As the ever-quotable Winston Churchill once said:

    Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill

    After being ousted out of his own company, having many rockets go bust, and fighting to keep Tesla and SpaceX from going bankrupt, Musk kept pushing forward with courage.

    WHAT WE CAN LEARN

    Entrepreneurs hold people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson in high reverence. Sometimes, we even put them on a pedestal, thinking we could only dream of making such a profound impact on the world. However, this is obviously a one dimensional view. These figures are not superhuman, and the reality is that they’ve all experienced tragic failures throughout the course of their careers. They’ve been disheartened, but they bounced back. We have to recognize that success in business isn’t what it appears to be on magazine covers and headlines. Failure is an everyday part of doing business, and it plagues almost every entrepreneur in some shape or form. The difference is in how you react to it.

    …and of course, it helps to be on the right side of government handouts too…

  • Did Trump's Islam Speech In Saudi Arabia Pave The Way For America's Next Big War

    Authored by Darius Shahtahmasebi via TheAntiMedia.org,

    The American public is most likely unaware of the giant stranglehold Saudi Arabia has on the U.S. government. Saudi Arabia uses its vast riches to manipulate the U.N., which explains how a country that brutally oppresses its female population was recently gifted a seat on the organization’s women’s rights commission. The Islamic Kingdom also wields incredible control over international media and has arguably had an increasingly unwelcome position of power in America’s foreign policy decision-making. As such, Donald Trump’s political career, in part, rests on appeasing his Saudi Arabian counterparts.

    And appeasing the Saudis is exactly what Trump has done. Trump’s speech regarding Islam was delivered to the leaders of 55 Muslim-majority nations, including Saudi Arabia. However, he conveniently ignored the troves of evidence that show Saudi Arabia directly sponsors the terror groups al-Qaeda and ISIS – two groups the U.S. claims to be at war with — as well as the fact that Saudi Arabia has been directly implicated in the 9/11 terror attacks. Instead, Donald Trump framed the entire issue of radicalization as a problem that rests with Iran. As he stated in Riyadh:

    “But no discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete without mentioning the government that gives terrorists all three—safe harbor, financial backing, and the social standing needed for recruitment. It is a regime that is responsible for so much instability in the region. I am speaking of course of Iran. From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.”

     

    It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room.”

    Iran’s prime enemies are actually Sunni-dominated terror groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS. The Islamic Republic and its proxies have been heavily engaged in fighting these terror groups in Syria. If eradicating terrorism was a priority for the United States and Saudi Arabia, Iran would be a natural ally considering Iran almost all but defeated ISIS in Iraq.

    Yet, Trump continued:

    "Among Iran’s most tragic and destabilizing interventions have been in Syria. Bolstered by Iran, Assad has committed unspeakable crimes, and the United States has taken firm action in response to the use of banned chemical weapons by the Assad regime—launching 59 tomahawk missiles at the Syrian air base from where that murderous attack originated.”

    While many analysts may focus on how Trump has gone from the most Islamophobic president ever elected to now omitting the words “radical Islamic terrorism” from his speech on Islam, these analysts continue to gloss over the fact that the entire speech appears to have been a geopolitical gesture to please Saudi Arabia and its allies. As the Iranian Foreign Ministry noted, Trump is no longer concerned with Islamophobia but what Iran has coined as “Iranophobia.”

    Iran is Saudi Arabia’s regional archrival. The two countries are fighting an enormous proxy war in Syria because Saudi Arabia views an Iranian-aligned government as a threat to its economic interests. Saudi Arabia is also currently bombing Yemen into oblivion as fears of a Shi’a led government capable of aligning itself with Tehran became a probable reality in 2015.

    Most hypocritical, however, was the following statement:

    “Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate Iran, deny it funding for terrorism, and pray for the day when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they deserve.”

    Even establishment outlets such as the BBC could not allow this statement to go unchecked. The BBC stated:

    “And amongst several cynical reactions to the speech from around the region on social media, some have pointed out that here in Saudi Arabia women are forbidden to drive and there are no parliamentary elections. In Iran, the country accused by Mr Trump of being behind much of the current terrorism across the Middle East, they have just had a free election and women are free to drive.” [emphasis added]

    Iran’s recent elections saw one of the heaviest turnouts in the country’s history, much higher than that of the United States. It is technically one of the most democratic countries in the region. While Iran would not be considered greatly democratic by Western standards, this is a testament to how undemocratic Iran’s rivals in the region are, including Saudi Arabia. Even prisoners were allowed to vote in Iran, something so-called democratic countries such as New Zealand disallow.

    Despite all of this “Iranophobic” sentiment, it is also worth noting that Iran’s alleged nuclear program is rarely discussed in the international arena anymore. This is because the Trump administration is well aware that the Iranian nuclear deal reached in 2015 is working – and there is no current nuclear threat from Iran. In this context, the U.S. government has to look for alternative modes of hyping up an Iranian threat to justify a massive arms deal.

    And yet, spearheaded by Trump, the Arab world has just announced a new military pact that will directly confront Iran. Called the “Riyadh Declaration,” the pact was signed by representatives from 55 Islamic nations that have vowed “to combat terrorism in all its forms, address its intellectual roots, dry up its sources of funding and to take all necessary measures to prevent and combat terrorist crimes in close cooperation among their states.”

    How can a coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, combat terrorism and extremism when Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabist philosophy is responsible for most of today’s terrorism-related problems? As noted by the Independent:

    “The state systematically transmits its sick form of Islam across the globe, instigates and funds hatreds, while crushing human freedoms and aspiration…The jaw simply drops. Saudi Arabia executes one person every two days…Raif Badawi, a blogger who dared to call for democracy, was sentenced to 10 years and 1,000 lashes. Last week, 769 faithful Muslim believers were killed in Mecca where they had gone on the Hajj. Initially, the rulers said it was ‘God’s will’ and then they blamed the dead.”

    The military pact will also include an “Islamic Military Coalition,” which will “provide a reserve force of 34,000 troops to support operations against terrorist organizations when needed.”

    The original text of the document was heavily infatuated with Iran but has since been amended. The original text also said these troops would be deployed to Syria and Iraq “when needed,” which is — again — clearly aimed at countering Iranian influence as Iran is heavily tied to both countries. Saudi Arabia has already expressed its intention to send troops into Syria multiple times before, with the exclusive goal of ensuring that “liberated areas [do] not fall under the control of Hizballah, Iran or the regime.”

    The United States, Britain, and associated forces are creeping into Syria as we speak, directly paving the way for an all-out confrontation with Syrian troops in al-Tanf. Just last week, the U.S. military bombed these troops, even though they are directly backed by Iran (and most likely Russia, too).

    This is no secret to the mainstream media. The Washington Post just released an article hours ago entitled “How Trump could deal a blow to Iran — and help save Syria,” with the conclusion that the battle for al-Tanf  is “a fight that the United States cannot and should not avoid.” Dealing a strategic blow to Iran and Syria will only empower ISIS given that they are the most heavily engaged entities fighting the terror groups in Syria.

    The Trump administration’s seeds are being sown in tandem with the corporate media. Trump’s speech had nothing to do with radical Islam. It was written by Stephen Miller, the “architect” of Donald Trump’s travel ban (a policy that also vehemently targeted Iran, among other countries).

    Selling a war with Iran to the American public may be difficult considering the Islamic nation twice elected a reformist who is open to making diplomatic deals with the United States. However, selling a war that will take place inside Syria is somewhat less problematic, even if that war is against the Syrian government, as the American public is easily manipulated by Assad’s alleged war crimes. As Iran is Syria’s closest ally, it will be easily drawn into a confrontation.

    If Saudi Arabia’s coalition of anti-Iranian Muslim nations illegally joins this battle arena, the resulting war will be catastrophic.

  • WannaCry Attackers Have Links To North Korea's Lazarus Group

    Cybersecurity researchers at Symantec say they've found linkes between the WannaCry Ransomware attackers was likely carried out by a hacking group with ties to North Korea.

    In a blog post, Symantec said the “Tools and infrastructure used in the WannaCry ransomware attacks have strong links to Lazarus, the group that was responsible for the destructive attacks on Sony Pictures and the theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh Central Bank.”

    Here's a summary of links provided by Symantec:

    • Following the first WannaCry attack in February, three pieces of malware linked to Lazarus were discovered on the victim’s network: Trojan.Volgmer and two variants of Backdoor.Destover, the disk-wiping tool used in the Sony Pictures attacks.
    • Trojan.Alphanc, which was used to spread WannaCry in the March and April attacks, is a modified version of Backdoor.Duuzer, which has previously been linked to Lazarus.
    • Trojan.Bravonc used the same IP addresses for command and control as Backdoor.Duuzer and Backdoor.Destover, both of which have been linked to Lazarus.
    • Backdoor.Bravonc has similar code obfuscation as WannaCry and Infostealer.Fakepude (which has been linked to Lazarus).
    • There is shared code between WannaCry and Backdoor.Contopee, which has previously been linked to Lazarus.

    Symantec discovered that the WannaCry attackers used some of the same hacking tools that were previousky used in other Lazarus Group attacks. There are also, the group reported, “a number of links between WannaCry itself and Lazarus.”

    The WannaCry ransomware, for example, shares some code with a piece of malware that has previously been linked to Lazarus.

    Symantec also found that the WannaCry attackers used some of the same network infrastructure as the Lazarus Group. “There are a number of crossovers seen in the C&C servers used in the WannaCry campaigns and by other known Lazarus tools.”

    Beginning a week ago Friday, the WannaCry virus infected thousands of computers around the world, threatening to destroy users' data unless a ransom was paid in bitcoin. Ultimately, the group received less than $100,000, and most of the data were destroyed.

  • The Republic Has Fallen: The Deep State's Plot To Take Over America Has Succeeded

    Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    No doubt about it.

    The coup d’etat has been successful.

    The Deep State – a.k.a. the police state, a.k.a. the military industrial complex – has taken over.

    The American system of representative government has been overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic corporate state bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad.

    When in doubt, follow the money trail.

    It always points the way.

    Every successive president starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt has been bought—lock, stock and barrel—and made to dance to the tune of the Deep State.

    Enter Donald Trump, the candidate who swore to drain the swamp in Washington DC.

    Instead of putting an end to the corruption, however, Trump has paved the way for lobbyists, corporations, the military industrial complex, and the Deep State to feast on the carcass of the dying American republic.

    Just recently, for instance, Trump agreed to sell Saudi Arabia more than $110 billion in military weapons.

    Meanwhile, Trump—purportedly in an effort to balance the budget in 10 years—wants to slash government funding for programs for the poor, ranging from health care and food stamps to student loans and disability payments.

    The military doesn’t have to worry about tightening its belt, however. No, the military’s budget—with its trillion dollar wars, its $125 billion in administrative waste, and its contractor-driven price gouging that hits the American taxpayer where it hurts the most—will continue to grow, thanks to Trump.

    This is how you keep the Deep State in power.

    The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, the military will get more militaristic, America’s endless wars will get more endless, and the prospect of peace will grow ever dimmer.

    As for the terrorists, they will keep on being played for pawns as long as Saudi Arabia remains their breeding ground and America remains the source of their weapons, training and know-how.

    Follow the money.  It always points the way.

    As Bertram Gross noted in Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, “evil now wears a friendlier face than ever before in American history.”

    Writing in 1980, Gross predicted a future in which he saw:

    …a new despotism creeping slowly across America. Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread intervention in international politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or military invasion…

    We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.

    The “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has perished.

    It will not be revived or restored without a true revolution of values and a people’s rebellion the likes of which we may not see for a very long time.

    America is a profitable business interest for a very select few, and war—wars waged abroad against shadowy enemies and wars waged at home against the American people—has become the Deep State’s primary means of income.

    After all, war is big business.

    In order to maintain a profit margin, one would either have to find new enemies abroad or focus on fighting a war at home, against the American people, and that’s exactly what we’re dealing with today.

    • Local police transformed into a standing army in the American homeland through millions of dollars’ worth of grants to local police agencies for military weapons, vehicles, training and assistance.
    • The citizenry taught to fear and distrust each other and to welcome the trappings of the police state.

    Had the government tried to ram such a state of affairs down our throats suddenly, it might have had a rebellion on its hands. Instead, the American people have been given the boiling frog treatment, immersed in water that slowly is heated up—degree by degree—so that they’ve fail to notice that they’re being trapped and cooked and killed.

    “We the people” are in hot water now.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the Constitution doesn’t stand a chance against a federalized, globalized standing army protected by legislative, judicial and executive branches that are all on the same side, no matter what political views they subscribe to: suffice it to say, they are not on our side or the side of freedom.

    From Clinton to Bush, then Obama and now Trump, it’s as if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.

    The republic has fallen to fascism with a smile.

    Elections will not save us.

    Learn the treacherous lessons of 2008 and 2016:  presidential elections have made a mockery of our constitutional system of government, suggesting that our votes can make a difference when, in fact, they merely serve to maintain the status quo.

    Don’t delay.

    Start now—in your own communities, in your schools, at your city council meetings, in newspaper editorials, at protests—by pushing back against laws that are unjust, police departments that overreach, politicians that don’t listen to their constituents, and a system of government that grows more tyrannical by the day.

    If you wait until 2020 to rescue our republic from the clutches of the Deep State, it will be too late.

  • Here Are The 66 Programs That Trump's Budget Eliminates

    President Trump's fiscal 2018 budget proposal would completely eliminate 66 federal programs, for a savings of $26.7 billion. 

    As The Hill reports, some of the programs would receive funding for 2018 as part of a phasing-out plan.

    Here are the programs the administration wants on the chopping block…

    Agriculture Department — $855 million

    • McGovern-Dole International Food for Education
    • Business-Cooperative Service
    • Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program Account
    • Single Family Housing Direct Loans

    Commerce Department — $633 million

    • Economic Development Administration
    • Manufacturing Extension Partnership
    • Minority Business Development Agency
    • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Grants and Education

    Education Department — $4.976 billion

    • 21st Century Community Learning Centers
    • Comprehensive Literacy Development Grants
    • Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants
    • Impact Aid Payments for Federal Property
    • International Education
    • Strengthening Institutions
    • Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants
    • Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants
    • Teacher Quality Partnership

    Energy Department — $398 million

    • Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy
    • Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program and Title 17 Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program
    • Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility

    Health and Human Services — $4.834 billion

    • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
    • Community Services Block Grant
    • Health Professions and Nursing Training Programs
    • Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program

    Homeland Security — $235 million

    • Flood Hazard Mapping and Risk Analysis Program
    • Transportation Security Administration Law Enforcement Grants

    Housing and Urban Development — $4.123 billion

    • Choice Neighborhoods
    • Community Development Block
    • HOME Investment Partnerships Program
    • Self-Help and Assisted Homeownership Opportunity Program Account

    Interior Department — $122 million

    • Abandoned Mine Land Grants
    • Heritage Partnership Program
    • National Wildlife Refuge Fund

    Justice Department — $210 million

    • State Criminal Alien Assistance Program

    Labor Department — $527 million

    • Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Training
    • OSHA Training Grants
    • Senior Community Service Employment Program

    State Department and USAID — $4.256 billion

    • Development Assistance

    Earmarked Appropriations for Non-Profit Organizations

    • The Asia Foundation
    • East-West Center
    • P.L. 480 Title II Food Aid

    State Department, USAID, and Treasury Department — $1.59 billion

    • Green Climate Fund and Global Climate Change Initiative

    Transportation Department — $499 million

    • National Infrastructure Investments (TIGER)

    Treasury Department — $43 million

    Global Agriculture and Food Security Program

    Environmental Protection Agency — $493 million

    • Energy Star and Voluntary Climate Programs
    • Geographic Programs

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — $269 million

    • Five Earth Science Missions
    • Office of Education

    Other Independent Agencies — $2.683 billion

    • Chemical Safety Board
    • Corporation for National and Community Service
    • Corporation for Public Broadcasting
    • Institute of Museum and Library Services

    International Development Foundations

    • African Development Foundation
    • Inter-American Foundation
    • Legal Services Corporation
    • National Endowment for the Arts
    • National Endowment for the Humanities
    • Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
    • Overseas Private Investment Corporation

    Regional Commissions

    • Appalachian Regional Commission
    • Delta Regional Authority
    • Denali Commission
    • Northern Border Regional Commission
    • U.S. Institute of Peace
    • U.S. Trade and Development Agency
    • Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

  • Ron Paul On The Drug War: Will The Trump Administration OD On Authoritarianism?

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

    Last week Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered federal prosecutors in drug cases to seek the maximum penalty authorized by federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Sessions’ order represents a setback to the progress made toward restoring compassion and common sense to the sentencing process over the past few years. Sessions’ action also guarantees that many nonviolent drug law offenders will continue spending more time in prison than murderers.

    Sessions’ support for mandatory minimums is no surprise, as he has a history of fanatical devotion to the drug war. Sessions’ pro-drug war stance is at odds with the reality of the drug war’s failure. Over forty years after President Nixon declared war on drugs, the government cannot even keep drugs out of prisons!

    As was the case with alcohol prohibition, the drug war has empowered criminal gangs and even terrorists to take advantage of the opportunity presented by prohibition to profit by meeting the continued demand for drugs. Drug prohibition enables these criminal enterprises to make profits far above the potential profits if drugs where legalized. Ironically, the so-called “law-and-order” politicians who support the drug war are helping enrich the very criminals they claim to oppose!

    The war on drugs also makes street drugs more lethal by incentivizing the creation of more potent and, thus, more dangerous drugs. Of course, even as Sessions himself admits, the war on drugs also leads to increased violence, as drug dealers cannot go to the courts to settle disputes among themselves or with their customers.

    Before 9/11, the war on drugs was the go-to excuse used to justify new infringements on liberty. For example, laws limiting our ability to withdraw, or even carry, large sums of cash and laws authorizing civil asset forfeiture were justified by the need to crack down on drug dealers and users. The war on drugs is also the root cause of the criminal justice system’s disparate treatment of minorities and the militarization of local police.

    The war on drugs is a war on the Constitution as well. The Constitution does not give the federal government authority to regulate, much less ban, drugs. People who doubt this should ask themselves why it was necessary to amend the Constitution to allow the federal government to criminalize drinking alcohol but not necessary to amend the Constitution to criminalize drug use.

    Today, a majority of states have legalized medical marijuana, and a growing number are legalizing recreational marijuana use. Enforcement of federal laws outlawing marijuana in those states is the type of federal interference with state laws that conservatives usually oppose. Hopefully, in this area the Trump administration will exercise restraint and respect state marijuana laws.

    Sessions’ announcement was not the only pro-drug war announcement made by the administration this week. President Trump himself, in a meeting with the president of Columbia, promised to continue US intervention in South and Central America to eliminate drug cartels. President Trump, like his attorney general, seems to not understand that the rise of foreign drug cartels, like the rise of domestic drug gangs, is a consequence of US drug policy.

    The use of government force to stop adults from putting certain substances into their bodies – whether marijuana, saturated fats, or raw milk – violates the nonaggression principle that is the bedrock of a free society. Therefore, all those who care about protecting individual liberty and limiting government power should support ending the drug war. Those with moral objections to drug use should realize that education and persuasion, carried out through voluntary institutions like churches and schools, is a more moral and effective way to discourage drug use than relying on government force.

  • Why China's Strategic Petroleum Reserve Is All That Matters For OPEC

    When OPEC sits down on Thursday, keeping the price of Brent above $50 (to avoid a budget catastrophe and social upheaval in Saudi Arabia) and below $60 (to prevent US production from going exponential), will be just one problem the cartel nations and various hangers-on will be desperate to solve. A much bigger one, literally, is the problem that led to this week’s OPEC meeting in the first place, and years of headache for OPEC and non-OPEC nations: a record global oil inventory glut.

    The supply glut that began in mid-2014 has dumped almost one billion barrels of petroleum into global inventories. However, of this only 35–45% has ended up in transparent OECD tanks. For OPEC, that is all the matters – in the past, OPEC oil ministers have repeatedly referenced the level of OECD petroleum inventories relative to their five-year average as a gauge of the rebalancing. And, as ScotiaBank notes, those inventories were more than 280 Mbbl above their five-year average as of January and, while European stocks have been falling into a healthier range, the same cannot be said of industry stocks in the US, which despite declining for several weeks, are just below all time highs.

    But forget OECD: an increasingly greater concern for OPEC is not the less than a third of above ground oil held in developed nations; it is the rest that is the big challenge. As ScotiaBank’s Rory Johnston points out in the following chart, the majority of the remainder was absorbed by China’s vast and growing strategic petroleum reserve (SPR), which means that “the lion’s share of functional—and thus needing to draw from an OPEC perspective—industry inventories remain in the OECD, and specifically in the US (chart 3).”

    As we have explained on several occasions over the past year, China’s SPR is far more important to the global oil (im)balance and inventory glut than the less than a third of total oil produced since the summer of 2014 and stored. This is due to one main reason: while ScotiaBank is correct that any draws will likely come from OECD storage, it forgets the demand side of the equation.

     


    Storage tanks in China’s strategic oil reserve complex in Zhoushan

    One year ago, JPMorgan estimated that the daily build of China’s SPR, had grown at a breakneck pace, from 491Kbpd average in 2015 to a record 1.191MMbpd in 2016 through May, equivalent to roughly 15% of the country’s total crude oil imports.

    More importantly, it was roughly a year ago when JPM calculated that China’s SPR was getting dangerously close to its estimated capacity, just over 500 million barrels.

    JPM also made a forecast that based on its assumptions, Chinese oil imports would slide by roughly the amount that would have been going into the SPR starting in late 2016 as the reserve hit capacity. When that did not happen, there was much confusion among the commodity space, until in late September 2011, satellite imagery from Orbital Insight revealed that the total size of China’s SPR was vastly greater than previously estimated.

    According to satellite images by  geospatial analytics startup Orbital Insight, China, has not only misrepresented how much oil it has stored, it has done so at a massive scale, with the real number dwarfing even JPM own estimate: the real amount of Chinese oil in storage, according to Orbital, was a whopping 600 million barrels as of May. Assuming JPM’s estimated rate of SPR accumulation of about 1mmbpd, the 600 million number as of May would have grown to well over 700 million barrels as of September. 

     

    Orbital’s figure as first reported by Bloomberg, is well over two times larger than China’s official estimates for strategic petroleum reserves and for commercial stocks, said Orbital Chief Executive Officer James Crawford.

    To be sure, in late 2016 other skeptics started warning that even with the revised size estimates, China’s SPR was likely approaching capacity. Last September, the IEA warned that “recent pillars of demand growth China and India are wobbling.” S&P Global Platts’ Ernsberger, cited by CNBC, said that the slowdown in Chinese demand was worrying for major oil producers.

    “The demand picture is very unsettling for OPEC and for all producers of crude and refined products (and this is seen most significantly in) the slowdown in growth in the Chinese market. China has returned more incremental demand for the oil market in the last five years than any other country in the world and more than almost any of the counties combine. But this year demand growth in China has stalled and that represents a significant change in the environment for producers both in OPEC and outside it.”

    Then 2016 came and went, and we find ourselves almost mid-way into 2017 and ask: has anything finally changed, and will all those predictions of an imminent Chinese SPR overflow finally prove accurate?

    We don’t know just yet, but according to data released by the General Administration of Customs data on Tuesday, China’s oil stockpiling pace finally tumbled to 1.36mbpd in April, from 1.6mbpd in March, the sharpest decline in reserve accumulation in years, and in line with the recent slowdown from record oil imports. If indeed China is finally at capacity for the SPR, the SPR stocpiling is about to fall off as cliff this month.

    In other words, all those forecasts that China’s SPR is almost full appear to be finally coming true, and at the worst possible time for OPEC, because if suddenly over 1 million in daily “demand” is pulled from the market, OPEC will suddenly find themselves with another huge glut now that Beijing is no longer waving it in. In fact, we contend that while OPEC’s decision on Thursday is fully priced in by the market, the only thing that matters for the future price of oil is how long until China halts SPR imports. Here, those who have faster access to commercial satellite imagery will be a distinct advantage over everybody else, even the momentum-chasing, headline scanning algos…

  • US Journalism's New "Golden Age"?

    The Washington Post and other big media are hailing a new journalistic “golden age” as they punish President Trump for disparaging them, but is this media bias a sign of good journalism or itself a scandal, asks Robert Parry, via ConsotriumNews.com…

    The mainstream U.S. media is congratulating itself on its courageous defiance of President Trump and its hard-hitting condemnations of Russia, but the press seems to have forgotten that its proper role within the U.S. democratic structure is not to slant stories one way or another but to provide objective information for the American people.

    The Washington Post building in downtown Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Washington Post)

    By that standard – of respecting that the people are the nation’s true sovereigns – the mainstream media is failing again. Indeed, the chasm between what America’s elites are thinking these days and what many working-class Americans are feeling is underscored by the high-fiving that’s going on inside the elite mainstream news media, which is celebrating its Trump- and Russia-bashing as the “new golden age of American journalism.”

    The New York Times and The Washington Post, in particular, view themselves as embattled victims of a tyrannical abuser. The Times presents itself as the brave guardian of “truth” and the Post added a new slogan: “Democracy dies in darkness.” In doing so, they have moved beyond the normal constraints of professional, objective journalism into political advocacy – and they are deeply proud of themselves.

    In a Sunday column entitled “How Trump inspired a golden age,” Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote that Trump “took on the institution of a free press – and it fought back. Trump came to office after intimidating publishers, barring journalists from covering him and threatening to rewrite press laws, and he has sought to discredit the ‘fake news’ media at every chance. Instead, he wound up inspiring a new golden age in American journalism.

    “Trump provoked the extraordinary work of reporters on the intelligence, justice and national security beats, who blew wide open the Russia election scandal, the contacts between Russia and top Trump officials, and interference by Trump in the FBI investigation. Last week’s appointment of a special prosecutor – a crucial check on a president who lacks self-restraint – is a direct result of their work.”

    Journalism or Hatchet Job?

    But has this journalism been professional or has it been a hatchet job? Are we seeing a new “golden age” of journalism or a McCarthyistic lynch mob operating on behalf of elites who disdain the U.S. constitutional process for electing American presidents?

    Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)

    For one thing, you might have thought that professional journalists would have demanded proof about the predicate for this burgeoning “scandal” – whether the Russians really did “hack” into emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and then slip the information to WikiLeaks to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

    You have surely heard and read endlessly that this conclusion about Russia’s skulduggery was the “consensus view of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies” and thus only some crazy conspiracy theorist would doubt its accuracy even if no specific evidence was evinced to support the accusation.

    But that repeated assertion is not true. There was no National Intelligence Estimate (or NIE) that would compile the views of the 17 intelligence agencies. Instead, as President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 8, the Russia-hacking claim came from a “special intelligence community assessment” (or ICA) produced by selected analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, or as Clapper put it, “a coordinated product from three agencies – CIA, NSA, and the FBI – not all 17 components of the intelligence community.”

    Further, as Clapper explained, the “ICA” was something of a rush job beginning on President Obama’s instructions “in early December” and completed by Jan. 6, in other words, a month or less.

    Clapper continued: “The two dozen or so analysts for this task were hand-picked, seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies.” However, as any intelligence expert will tell you, if you “hand-pick” the analysts, you are really hand-picking the conclusion.

    You can say the analysts worked independently but their selection, as advocates for one position or another, could itself dictate the outcome. If the analysts were hardliners on Russia or hated Trump, they could be expected to deliver the conclusion that Obama and Clapper wanted, i.e., challenging the legitimacy of Trump’s election and blaming Russia.

    The point of having a more substantive NIE is that it taps into a much broader network of U.S. intelligence analysts who have the right to insert dissents to the dominant opinions. So, for instance, when President George W. Bush belatedly ordered an NIE regarding Iraq’s WMD in 2002, some analysts – especially at the State Department – inserted dissents (although they were expunged from the declassified version given to the American people to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq).

    An Embarrassing Product

    Obama’s “ICA,” which was released on Jan. 6, was a piece of work that embarrassed many former U.S. intelligence analysts. It was a one-sided argument that lacked any specific evidence to support its findings. Its key point was that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a motive to authorize an information operation to help Hillary Clinton’s rival, Donald Trump, because Putin disdained her work as Secretary of State.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)

    But the Jan. 6 report failed to include the counter-argument to that cui bono assertion, that it would be an extraordinary risk for Putin to release information to hurt Clinton when she was the overwhelming favorite to win the presidency. Given the NSA’s electronic-interception capabilities, Putin would have to assume that any such undertaking would be picked up by U.S. intelligence and that he would likely be facing a vengeful new U.S. president on Jan. 20.

    While it’s possible that Putin still took the risk – despite the daunting odds against a Trump victory – a balanced intelligence assessment would have included such contrary arguments. Instead, the report had the look of a prosecutor’s brief albeit without actual evidence pointing to the guilt of the accused.

    Further, the report repeatedly used the word “assesses” – rather than “proves” or “establishes” – and the terminology is important because, in intelligence-world-speak, “assesses” often means “guesses.” The report admits as much, saying, “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”

    In other words, the predicate for the entire Russia-gate scandal, which may now lead to the impeachment of a U.S. president and thus the negation of the Constitution’s electoral process, is based partly on a lie – i.e., the claim that the assessment comes from all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies – and partly on evidence-free speculation by a group of “hand-picked” analysts, chosen by Obama’s intelligence chiefs.

    Yet, the mainstream U.S. news media has neither corrected the false assertion about the 17 intelligence agencies nor demanded that actual evidence be made public to support the key allegation that Russia was the source of WikiLeaks’ email dumps.

    By the way, both Russia and WikiLeaks deny that Russia was the source, although it is certainly possible that the Russian government would lie and that WikiLeaks might not know where the two batches of Democratic emails originated.

    A True ‘Golden Age’?

    Yet, one might think that the new “golden age of American journalism” would want to establish a firm foundation for its self-admiring reporting on Russia-gate. You might think, too, that these esteemed MSM reporters would show some professional skepticism toward dubious claims being fed to them by the Obama administration’s intelligence appointees.

    President Donald Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)

    That is unless, of course, the major U.S. news organizations are not abiding by journalistic principles, but rather see themselves as combatants in the anti-Trump “resistance.” In other words, if they are behaving less as a Fourth Estate and more as a well-dressed mob determined to drag the interloper, Trump, from the White House.

    The mainstream U.S. media’s bias against Putin and Russia also oozes from every pore of the Times’ and Post’s reporting from Moscow. For instance, the Times’ article on Putin’s comments about supposed secrets that Trump shared with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the White House had the headline in the print editions: “Putin Butts In to Claim There Were No Secrets…” The article by Andrew Higgins then describes Putin “asserting himself with his customary disruptive panache” and “seizing on foreign crises to make Russia’s voice heard.”

    Clearly, we are all supposed to hate and ridicule Vladimir Putin. He is being demonized as the new “enemy” in much the way that George Orwell foresaw in his dystopian novel, 1984. Yet, what is perhaps most troubling is that the major U.S. news outlets, which played instrumental roles in demonizing leaders of Iraq, Syria and Libya, believe they are engaged in some “golden age” journalism, rather than writing propaganda.

    Contempt for Trump

    Yes, I realize that many good people want to see Trump removed from office because of his destructive policies and his buffoonish behavior – and many are eager to use the new bête noire, Russia, as the excuse to do it. But that still does not make it right for the U.S. news media to abandon its professional responsibilities in favor of a political agenda.

    The run-down PIX Theatre sign reads “Vote Trump” on Main Street in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. July 15, 2016. (Photo by Tony Webster Flickr)

    On a political level, it may not even be a good idea for Democrats and progressives who seem to be following the failed strategy of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in seeking to demonize Trump rather than figuring out how to speak to the white working-class people who voted for him, many out of fear over their economic vulnerability and others out of anger over how Clinton dismissed many of them as “deplorables.”

    And, by the way, if anyone thinks that whatever the Russians may have done damaged Clinton’s chances more than her colorful phrase disdaining millions of working-class people who understandably feel left behind by neo-liberal economics, you may want to enroll in a Politics 101 course. The last thing a competent politician does is utter a memorable insult that will rally the opposition.

    In conversations that I’ve had recently with Trump voters, they complain that Clinton and the Democrats weren’t even bothering to listen to them or to talk to them. These voters were less enamored of Trump than they were conceded to Trump by the Clinton campaign. These voters also are not impressed by the endless Trump- and Russia-bashing from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC, which they see as instruments of the elites.

    The political danger for national Democrats and many progressives is that mocking Trump and thus further insulting his supporters only extends the losing Clinton strategy and cements the image of Democrats as know-it-all elitists. Thus, the Democrats risk losing a key segment of the U.S. electorate for a generation.

    Not only could that deny the Democrats a congressional majority for the foreseeable future, but it might even get Trump a second term.

  • Legendary Investor Asher Edelman Says "I Have No Doubt" PPT Behind Market Rally

    Legendary vulture investor Asher Edelman, the 1980s model for Gordon Gekko, strayed into what must’ve been uncomfortable territory for CNBC during an appearance on “Smart Money” when he discussed his view that the government’s “plunge protection team” is the only thing propping up the current market rally, and said he suspects that it has again been recently een intervening in the market to keep stocks at record highs.

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    Edelman simply notes that he doesn’t want to be in the markets right now because “I don’t know when the plug is going to be pulled.”

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    Few can explain the market’s recent resilience, holding near record highs despite weak economic data and intensifying geopolitical tensions. The main benchmarks have risen for the fourth straight day following last week’s “Trump Dump” despite a terror attack in the U.K., the worst soft economic data since February 2016, and surprisingly low trading volume.

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    The “plunge protection team” was created by President Ronald Reagan one year after the stock market crash in 1987, when the president called for the creation of the “Working Group on Financial Markets.”

    It’s believed – as the name would suggest and as has been profiled on countless occasions on this website previously – that the group’s mandate is to maintain stability in the market and head off any severe crashes like what was seen in 1987. It’s believed the group reports only to the president, though the head of the Treasury, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Reserve Chairman are also involved. The team, according to Asher, steps in to execute trades on all exchanges when the market isn’t behaving as it would like, working only with big banks like Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley. 

    “We have seen the most extraordinary lack of volatility in the VIX since Trump has been in office and it’s interesting the night he was elected you may recall the futures came down about 400 or 600 points.

     

    You may also recall that the next morning they were even again. Watching plunge protection for years, I had no doubt that’s what happened.“

    That may have been the case in the 1980s, however in recent years the PPT is the collaboration of the NY Fed and Citadel, which are most aggressive during times of substantial market stress and selling, when intervention is needed to stop the downward momentum in prices.

    Edelman says he believes one sign of TPP intervention is when a smaller, less-liquid stock suddenly rises late in the trading day.

    We’ve noted in the past that there appears to be a rule against mentioning the team on CNBC – with guests routinely getting “Schiff’d” for doing so.

    And once again, this time, the “theory” was treated with derision by his fellow hosts.

    “I think we all have so many questions here I don’t think I know where to begin,” Fast Money host Melissa Lee said.

    Some audience members were more enthusiastic.

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