- 91% Of Cypriots See 'Fake News' As A Problem (And They're Not Alone In The EU)
According to a recent Eurobarometer survey, at least seven in ten respondents in all 28 EU member states perceive fake news to be a problem in their country.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The share was highest in Cyprus with 91 percent saying “yes, it is definitely a problem” or “yes, it is a problem to some extent”.
Greece came second, followed by Italy.
In the UK, 84 percent of people said that fake news is a problem in their country.
- 30 Questions That Journalists Should Be Asking About The Skripal Case
Authored by Rob Slane via TheBlogMire.com,
There are a lot of issues surrounding the case of Sergei and Yulia Skripal which, at the time of writing, are very unclear and rather odd. There may well be good and innocent explanations for some or even all of them. Then again there may not. This is why it is crucial for questions to be asked where, as yet, there are either no answers or deeply unsatisfactory ones.
Some people will assume that this is conspiracy theory territory. It is not that, for the simple reason that I have no credible theory – conspiracy or otherwise – to explain all the details of the incident in Salisbury from start to finish, and I am not attempting to forward one. I have no idea who was behind this incident, and I continue to keep an open mind to a good many possible explanations.
However, there are a number of oddities in the official narrative, which do demand answers and clarifications. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist or a defender of the Russian state to see this. You just need a healthy scepticism, “of a type developed by all inquiring minds!”
Below are 30 of the most important questions regarding the case and the British Government’s response, which are currently either wholly unanswered, or which require clarification.
1. Why have there been no updates on the condition of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the public domain since the first week of the investigation?
2. Are they still alive?
3. If so, what is their current condition and what symptoms are they displaying?
4. In a recent letter to The Times, Stephen Davies, Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, wrote the following:
“Sir, Further to your report (“Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment”, Mar 14) may I clarify that no patients have experienced nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning.”
His claim that “no patients have experienced nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury” is remarkably odd, as it appears to flatly contradict the official narrative. Was this a slip of the pen, or was it his intention to communicate precisely this — that no patients have been poisoned by a nerve agent in Salisbury?
5. It has been said that the Skripals and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey were poisoned by “a military grade nerve agent”. According to some claims, the type referred to could be anywhere between five and eight times more toxic than VX nerve agent. Given that just 10mg of VX is reckoned to be the median lethal dose, it seems likely that the particular type mentioned in the Skripal case should have killed them instantly. Is there an explanation as to how or why this did not happen?
6. Although reports suggested the involvement of some sort of nerve agent fairly soon after the incident, it was almost a week before Public Health England issued advice to those who had visited The Mill pub or the Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury on the day that the Skripals fell ill. Why the delay and did this pose a danger to the public?
7. In their advice, Public Health England stated that people who had visited those places, where traces of a military grade nerve agent had apparently been found, should wash their clothes and:
“Wipe personal items such as phones, handbags and other electronic items with cleansing or baby wipes and dispose of the wipes in the bin (ordinary domestic waste disposal).”
Are baby wipes acknowledged to be an effective and safe method of dealing with objects that may potentially have been contaminated with “military grade nerve agent”, especially of a type 5-8 times more deadly than VX?
8. Initial reports suggested that Detective Sergeant Bailey became ill after coming into contact with the substance after attending the Skripals on the bench they were seated on in The Maltings in Salisbury. Subsequent claims, however, first aired by former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Ian Blair on 9th March, said that he came into contact with the substance at Sergei Skripal’s house in Christie Miller Road. Reports since then have been highly ambiguous about what should be an easily verifiable fact. Which is the correct account?
9. The government have claimed that the poison used was “a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia”. The phrase “of a type developed by Russia” says nothing whatsoever about whether the substance used in the Salisbury case was produced or manufactured in Russia. Can the government confirm that its scientists at Porton Down have established that the substance that poisoned the Skripals and DS Bailey was actually produced or manufactured in Russia?
10. The former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has claimed that sources within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have told him that scientists at Porton Down would not agree to a statement about the place of origin of the substance, because they were not able to establish this. According to Mr Murray, only under much pressure from the Government did they end up agreeing to the compromise wording, “of a type developed by Russia”, which has subsequently been used in all official statements on the matter. Can the FCO, in plain and unambiguous English, categorically refute Mr Murray’s claims that pressure was put on Porton Down scientists to agree to a form of words and that in the end a much-diluted version was agreed?
11. On the occasion that the FCO did attempt to refute Mr Murray’s claims, the wording they used included a straightforward repetition of the same phrase – “of a type developed by Russia”. Is the FCO willing and able to go beyond this and confirm that the substance was not only “of a type developed by Russia”, but that it was “produced” or “manufactured” in Russia?
12. Why did the British Government issue a 36-hour ultimatum to the Russian Government to come up with an explanation, but then refuse their request to share the evidence that allegedly pointed to their culpability (there could have been no danger of their tampering with it, since Porton Down would have retained their own sample)?
13. How is it possible for a state (or indeed any person or entity) that has been accused of something, to defend themselves against an accusation if they are refused access to evidence that apparently points to their guilt?
14. Is this not a clear case of the reversal of the presumption of innocence and of due process?
15. Furthermore, why did the British Government issue an ultimatum to the Russian Government, in contravention of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) rules governing such matters, to which both Britain and Russia are signatories, and which are clearly set out in Article 9, Paragraph ii of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)?
16. Given that the investigation, which has been described by the man leading it as being “an extremely challenging investigation” and as having “a number of unique and complex issues”, and given that many of the facts of the case are not yet known, such as when, where and how the substance was administered, how is it possible for the British Government to point the finger of blame with such certainty?
17. Furthermore, by doing so, haven’t they both politicised and prejudiced the investigation?
18. Why did the British Government feel the need to come forward with an accusation little more than a week into the investigation, rather than waiting for its completion?
19. On the Andrew Marr Show on 18th March, the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, stated the following:
“And I might just say in response to Mr Chizhov’s point about Russian stockpiles of chemical weapons. We actually had evidence within the last ten years that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination, but it has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok.”
Where has this intelligence come from and has it been properly verified?
20. If this intelligence was known before 27th September 2017 – the date that the OPCW issued a statement declaring the completion of the destruction of all 39,967 metric tons of chemical weapons possessed by the Russian Federation – why did Britain not inform the OPCW of its own intelligence which apparently contradicts this claim, which they would have had a legal obligation to do?
21. If this intelligence was known after 27th September 2017, why did Britain not inform the OPCW of this “new” information, which it was legally obliged to do, since it allegedly shows that Russia had been lying to the OPCW and had been carrying out a clandestine chemical weapons programme?
22. Also on the Andrew Marr show, Mr Johnson made the following claim after a question of whether he was “absolutely sure” that the substance used to poison the Skripals was a “Novichok”:
“Obviously to the best of our knowledge this is a Russian-made nerve agent that falls within the category Novichok made only by Russia, and just to get back to the point about the international reaction which is so fascinating.”
Is the phrase “to the best of our knowledge” an adequate response to Mr Marr’s request of him being “absolutely sure”?
23. Is this a good enough legal basis from which to accuse another state and to impose punitive measures on it, or is more certainty needed before such an accusation can be made?
24. After hedging his words with the phrase, “to the best of our knowledge”, Mr Johnson then went beyond previous Government claims that the substance was “of a type developed in Russia”, saying that it was “Russian-made”. Have the scientists at Porton Down been able to establish that it was indeed “Russian-made”, or was this a case of Mr Johnson straying off-message?
25. He also went beyond the previous claim that the substance was “of a type developed in Russia” by saying that the substance involved in the Skripal case “falls within the category Novichok made only by Russia”? Firstly, is Mr Johnson able to provide evidence that this category of chemical weapons was ever successfully synthesised in Russia, especially in the light of the OPCW’s Scientific Advisory Board stating as recently as 2013, that it has “insufficient information to comment on the existence or properties of ‘Novichoks‘“?
26. As Craig Murray has again pointed out, since its 2013 statement, the OPCW has worked (legally) with Iranian scientists who have successfully synthesised these chemical weapons. Was Mr Johnson aware that the category of “Novichok” chemical weapons had been synthesised elsewhere when he stated that this category of chemical weapons is “made only by Russia”?
27. Does the fact that Iranian scientists were able to synthesise this class of chemical weapons suggest that other states have the capabilities to do likewise?
28. Is the British Government aware that the main plant involved in attempts to synthesise Novichoks in the 1970s and 1980s was based not in Russia, but in Nukus in Uzbekistan?
29. Does the fact that the US Department of Defence decontaminated and dismantled the Nukus site, under an agreement with the Government of Uzbekistan, make it at least theoretically possible that substances or secrets held within that plant could have been carried out of the country and even back to the United States?
30. The connection between Sergei Skripal’s MI6 recruiter, Pablo Miller, who also happens to live in Salisbury, and Christopher Steele, the author of the so-called “Trump Dossier”, has been well established, as has the fact that Mr Skripal and Mr Miller regularly met together in the City. Is this connection of any interest to the investigation into the incident in Salisbury?
* * *
If there are any journalists with integrity and inquisitive minds still living in this country, I would be grateful if they could begin doing their job and research the answers to these sorts of questions by asking the appropriate people and authorities.
- Facebook Approached Australian Political Parties To Microtarget Voters
In the wake of a massive data harvesting scandal, it has emerged that Facebook approached at least two major Australian political parties during the final weeks of their 2016 election in order to help them “microtarget” voters using a powerful data matching tool, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Facebook offered “advanced matching” as part of their so-called Custom Audience feature to both the conservative (if not confusingly named) Liberal Party, as well as the “democratic socialist” Labor Party. The tool promised to allow the parties to compare data they had collected about voters – such as names, birth dates, phone numbers, postcodes and email addresses – and match that information to Facebook profiles.
The combination of data sets would then allow political parties to target Australian swing voters with custom tailored ads over Facebook, which advertised a 17% increase in matching rates using a beta version of the service provided to the Liberal Party.
Fairfax Media reports that while the conservative Liberal Party turned Facebook down over concerns that sending voter data overseas to Facebook servers would violate the Privacy Act and the Electoral Act, the Labor Party took Facebook up on their offer.
Asked specifically whether Labor used the tool, a Labor spokesman said in a statement: “A range of different campaign techniques and tools are used for campaigning, from doorknocking to phone banking to online. Labor works with different groups to get our message out, including social media platforms like Facebook.“
“All of our work is in complete compliance with relevant laws, including the Commonwealth Electoral Act, which makes it a criminal offence to misuse information on the electoral roll.” –Sydney Morning Herald
Under Australia’s Privacy Act (1988), I have the right to request all data held about me be destroyed or deidentified (reduced to demographic statistics), but given Facebook has shadow-profiles on people who never even used it, that’s kind of useless.
— Michael Vaughan (@Michael_06S) March 24, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
There are reports this morning that Facebook approached Australia’s major political parties during the 2016 election, offering a data matching tool which could target voters. #9News pic.twitter.com/A0Jc7ImtGL
— Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) March 23, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
That said, the Herald reports that the Labor Party (ALP) digital team would have “hashed” – or anonymized, any electoral roll data “on a local browser,” sources tell the Herald. This would have prevented personally identifiable information to be uploaded to foreign servers.
Both the Labor Party and Facebook sought to downplay the “advanced matching” feature.
The Custom Audiences tool is widely used by brands and advertisers to target potential customers.
“Lots of people use the custom audience tool. Civil society groups use it too with their massive databases. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as sinister as people think,” a Labor source said.
Facebook said in a statement: “All parties are offered the same training, materials and products – whether existing or new — at the same time. It is a decision for each campaign as to whether and how they choose to use them.”
The company has this week been unable to say whether data of Australian users is hosted locally or offshore. –smh
Facebook has been contacted by Australia’s privacy commissioner to with questions over Australians who may have been caught up in a massive data harvesting scandal which has unfolded over the last week – raising the possibility of sanctions against the social media giant.
News of Facebook’s attempt to help Australian political parties influence their 2016 election comes days after Mark Zuckerberg told CNN that the possibility of the social media giant influencing the 2016 U.S. election was “a pretty crazy idea.”
That’s kind of interesting considering that Facebook was also helping the Obama Campaign target voters using harvested data, similar to what Cambridge Analytica was doing for several GOP candidates in the 2016 election. Obama’s former campaign director admitted over Twitter that Facebook not only knew of the campaign’s data harvesting to “suck out the whole social graph,” but that they “didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.”
And WikiLeaked emails released during the 2016 election revealed that Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg really wanted “Hillary to win badly,” after Hillary came over to Sandberg’s house and was “magical with her kids.”
Then there’s Sandberg telling John Podesta “Look forward to working with you to elect the first woman President of the United States.”
Notably, there don’t seem to be any emails from Facebook executives to Trump’s campaign manager with similar sentiments.
- A Madman On The National Security Council?
Authored by Matt Purple via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
John Bolton is that most ludicrous of creatures: the unreconstructed Bush-era foreign policy thinker
Would that John Bolton were only a clown. The mustachioed alleged diplomat, briefly of the Bush administration – and initially criticized as too controversial even for that team – has now been appointed national security advisor. That position will give him the president’s ear on matters of foreign policy, as well as control over which other administration principals enjoy such access. Donald Trump pledged that if elected he would be a different kind of Republican president, and he’s delivered: under the last GOP administration, Bolton occupied a slightly lower-ranking position than he does now.
Bolton is indeed no circus act: he’s one of the sharpest and most dangerous national security operatives in Washington. To take just one example, last summer, Trump made it known that he was considering pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, a campaign promise he wanted fulfilled but that had been discouraged by his then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Sensing an opportunity, Bolton wrote an essay for National Review explaining in breezy (i.e. Trump-digestible) terms just how to abrogate the agreement. The piece is chockablock with nonsense: at one point it claims sans any evidence that the Obama administration believed the JCPOA was “disadvantageous to the United States.” It also offers scant evidence to underpin its claim that Iran was in violation of the deal, an assertion that’s been repeatedly repudiated by the authorities at the IAEA. But the truth wasn’t the point: the piece was meant to water a seed in the president’s mind, to lend expert opinion to Trump’s burning preference that the JCPOA be reversed.
That Bolton did this shouldn’t surprise anyone because this is how Bolton works: shrewdly and always towards the goal of more war. As Gareth Porter detailed in a rigorously reported piece for TAC, during his tenure under Bush, Bolton maneuvered behind the scenes to pump up a pretext for conflict between the United States and Iran. Among his methods was to pretend that satellite images of a military base at Parchin demonstrated Iranian nuclear experimentation. That supposed smoking gun is cited to this day by neocons as proof of Iran’s atomic dreams.
What makes Bolton unique among hawkish operators is that he doesn’t feel the need to hide any of these machinations.
The man wants to pulverize Tehran and he’s not afraid to say so. In 2015, Bolton wrote a piece for the New York Times subtly titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” Never mind that the adverbial clause in that sentence had no definitive evidence in its favor; it was off to war because, as Bolton put it, “extensive progress in uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing reveal [Iran’s] ambitions” (imagine if that standard was applied universally). The coming operation, Bolton promised, would be akin to Operation Opera in 1981 when Israel destroyed a single Iraqi nuclear reactor, except that this one would take out multiple installations at Natanz and Fordow and Arak and Isfahan and…
The details never add up because they’re not supposed to. Bolton’s wheelhouse has never been the tactical nitty-gritty; he’s an ideologue whose credo dogmatizes violence against enemies regardless of consequences or cost. On the Iraq war, he declared in 2015, “I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct.” On Libya, in 2011 before the Obama administration launched its calamitous intervention, Bolton recommended that the United States assassinate Moammar Gaddafi. On North Korea, he innocently suggested there was a “legal case” for a first strike. On Russia, you will not be surprised to learn that he thinks Trump needs to get tougher, including launching a cyber-attack that would be “decidedly disproportionate” to anything the Russians have done. He also thinks it’s time to revisit the “One-China Policy” that prevents us from antagonizing Beijing by recognizing an independent Taiwan.
There are all manner of vexatious wrinkles amidst those pronouncements. For instance, a foreign policy realist might note that the deposal of Iraq’s regime and the ascendance of Shiite power in Baghdad, which Bolton supported, greatly availed Iran, which Bolton detests. But again, such nuances are dwarfed by the big-picture concepts in which Bolton deals, like American Power and Dictatorships and Strength. Most foreign policy gurus, despite supporting generally hawkish policies, have at least disowned the war in Iraq and made some perfunctory efforts to adjust for its failures. Not Bolton, who is that most ludicrous of creatures: the unreconstructed Bush-era thinker. He belongs behind a glass display in the American History Museum, not enjoying a second wind at the apex of the federal bureaucracy.
But alas, the president himself has spoken. There are conditions to Bolton’s employment. CNN is reporting that Bolton promised Trump—quote—“he wouldn’t start any wars” if he became national security advisor, and surely that’s a promise he’ll keep. Bolton, after all, has never started (or fought in) a war in his life. What he will do is counsel Trump to take the most belligerent course of action possible in every given situation. Up first will be the Iran deal, which, with Bolton now at NSC and Mike Pompeo at State, seems certain to be the subject of a hardened stance from the White House, which will further isolate America from its allies, as the Europeans, more commercially entangled with Tehran than we are, decline to go along.
That brings us back to Trump, the insurgent who won the 2016 election pledging to repudiate the George W. Bush legacy and keep the United States out of foreign wars.
It’s a show of both neocon strength and Trump impressionability that a mere year and a half later the most warmongering personality in Washington has already clambered all the way up to national security advisor.
- Turkey's Erdogan Announces Iraq Military Incursion, Threatens Americans Over Manbij
On Sunday President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the beginning of Turkish military operations in Iraq’s Sinjar region a week after Turkey and allied Syrian FSA groups captured Afrin from Kurdish fighters. During that prior victory speech immediately on the heels of the Syrian Kurdish retreat from Afrin, Erdogan had promised further “extensions” of his forces in the region, including into Eastern Syria and Iraq, while making repeat historical references to the Ottoman empire.
Erdogan warned at the time that Turkish troops would keep pushing east further into Syrian Kurdish YPG territory (Kurdish “People’s Protection Units” which Turkey considers an extension of the terrorist PKK), which would eventually pit his forces against the US armed and trained Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
During Sunday’s speech he pledged to take Tal Rifaat (northwest of Aleppo) and Manbij: “the U.S. needs to transfer the control of Manbij to its real owners from the terrorist organization as soon as possible,” according to the Turkish daily Hurriyet. US-backed forces are present in both places.
Turkey’s president on Sunday: “We said we would go into Sinjar [Iraq]. Now operations have begun there.” Erdogan also in typically brazen fashion put Iraq’s government on notice, saying “We have told the central [Iraqi] government that the PKK is establishing a new headquarters in Sinjar. If you can deal with it, you handle it. But if you cannot we will suddenly enter Sinjar one night and clear this region of terrorists.”
It appears he is ready to make good on that promise, as the AP reports:
Turkey’s president has announced the country is conducting operations in northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels it deems “terrorists.”
Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said “operations” have begun in Sinjar to clear the mountainous area of Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, fighters.
Erdogan later said that if the PKK does not vacate Sinjar and Qandil, where it has its headquarters, “it would be inevitable for us to do so personally.”
Erdogan announced the new engagement to a crowd in the Black Sea province of Trabzon, declaring: “We said we would go into Sinjar. Now operations have begun there. The fight is internal and external.” However, it is unclear to what degree he is merely further reiterating his prior threats and to what degree the mustering of Turkish forces for an Iraq incursion has actually begun on the ground.
Reuters quickly cast doubt that ground operations had actually been initiated, citing Iraq’s Joint Operations Command which denied that foreign forces had crossed the border:
Iraq’s Joint Operations Command denied that any foreign forces had crossed the border into Iraq.
“The operations command confirmed that the situation in Nineveh, Sinjar and the border areas was under the control of Iraqi security forces and there is no reason for troops to cross the Iraqi border into those areas,” it said in a statement.
Sources in Sinjar said there was no unusual military activity in the area on Sunday.
Meanwhile, regional Arabic media has reported that a large Iraqi Army contingent has arrived in Sinjar on the heels of a withdrawal of PKK fighters from the region – actions which Erdogan’s threats were clearly designed to precipitate.
PKK fighters first moved into Sinjar in 2015 and waged an effective campaign against ISIS, but announced their withdrawal last week in the wake of Turkey’s threat of invasion, though it is unclear how many PKK fighters have remained in the area.
For now, it appears that Erdogan – fresh off the momentum of the Turkish annexation of Afrin – has gotten Baghdad to move on the PKK without firing a single shot. And it appears he is trying the same tactic regarding the US-backed SDF, which is unlikely to move the Americans toward action or realignment of interests.
During the same speech announcing operations in Sinjar, Erdogan said, “Hopefully we will take control of Tal Rifaat in a short span of time.” He also threatened Syrian Kurds in Manbij while naming their US sponsors: “the U.S. needs to transfer the control of Manbij to its real owners from the terrorist organization as soon as possible,” according to the Turkish daily Hurriyet.
In comparison to his rhetoric aimed at the Iraqi government, the Turkish president’s words regarding American forces were softened: “Of course we will not point gun to our allies, but we will not forgive terrorists.”
It will be interesting to see to what degree the ‘mad Sultan’ actually makes good on his threats and promises, especially as his forces inevitably inch closer to American bases in northern Syria.
- PetroYuan Futures Open – Over 10 BillIon Notional Trades In First Hour
After all the preparation, all the expectation, cheerleading and doomsaying, China’s Yuan-denominated crude oil futures contract began trading tonight and appears to be off a good start with well over 10 billion yuan notional traded within the first hour.
So far it has tracked WTI futures well, trading at around a $2 premium to WTI (when translated from yuan to USD)…
Additionally, well over 23,000 contracts have traded within the first hour for a notional trading volume of over 10 billion yuan – more than $1.5 billion notional… signaling significant demand.
Offshore Yuan is moving in sync with ‘Petroyuan’ futures – as WTI tends to track the USD.
As we most recently noted, after numerous “false starts” over the last decade, the “petroyuan” is now real and China will set out to challenge the “petrodollar” for dominance. Adam Levinson, managing partner and chief investment officer at hedge fund manager Graticule Asset Management Asia (GAMA), already warned last year that China launching a yuan-denominated oil futures contract will shock those investors who have not been paying attention.
This could be a death blow for an already weakening U.S. dollar, and the rise of the yuan as the dominant world currency.
But this isn’t just some slow, news day “fad” that will fizzle in a few days.
A Warning for Investors Since 2015
Back in 2015, the first of a number of strikes against the petrodollar was dealt by China. Gazprom Neft, the third-largest oil producer in Russia, decided to move away from the dollar and towards the yuan and other Asian currencies.
Iran followed suit the same year, using the yuan with a host of other foreign currencies in trade, including Iranian oil.
During the same year China also developed its Silk Road, while the yuan was beginning to establish more dominance in the European markets.
But the U.S. petrodollar still had a fighting chance in 2015 because China’s oil imports were all over the place. Back then, Nick Cunningham of OilPrice.com wrote…
Despite accounting for much of the world’s growth in demand in the 21st Century, China’s oil imports have been all over the map in recent months. In April, China imported 7.4 million barrels per day, a record high and enough to make it the world’s largest oil importer. But a month later, imports plummeted to just 5.5 million barrels per day.
That problem has since gone away, signaling China’s rise to oil dominance…
The Slippery Slope to the Petroyuan Begins Here
The petrodollar is backed by Treasuries, so it can help fuel U.S. deficit spending. Take that away, and the U.S. is in trouble.
It looks like that time has come…
A death blow that began in 2015 hit again in 2017 when China became the world’s largest consumer of imported crude…
Now that China is the world’s leading consumer of oil, Beijing can exert some real leverage over Saudi Arabia to pay for crude in yuan. It’s suspected that this is what’s motivating Chinese officials to make a full-fledged effort to renegotiate their trade deal.
So fast-forward to now, and the final blow to the petrodollar could happen starting today. We hinted at this possibility back in September 2017…
With major oil exporters finally having a viable way to circumvent the petrodollar system, the U.S. economy could soon encounter severely troubled waters.
First of all, the dollar’s value depends massively on its use as an oil trade vehicle. When that goes away, we will likely see a strong and steady decline in the dollar’s value.
Once the oil markets are upended, the yuan has an opportunity to become the dominant world currency overall. This will further weaken the dollar.
The Petrodollar’s Downfall Could be a Lift for Gold
Amongst all the trouble ahead for the dollar, there are some good news too. The U.S. might have ditched the gold standard in the 1970’s, but with gold making a return to world headlines… we could see a resurgence.
For the first time since our nation abandoned the gold standard decades ago, physical gold is being reintroduced to the global monetary system in a major way. That alone is incredibly good news for gold owners.
A reintroduction of gold to the global economy could result in a notable rise in gold prices. It’s safe to assume exporters are more likely to choose a gold-backed financial instrument over one created out of thin air any day of the week.
Soon after, we could see more and more nations jump on the bandwagon, resulting in a substantial rise in gold prices.
- Is Anarcho-Capitalism Possible?
Authored by Antony Mueller via Mises Canada,
Even if one agrees that anarcho-capitalism has become a necessity, the question arises whether such a governance is possible. After all, at first sight, insurmountable problems seem to prevent the flourishing of a stateless society. Libertarianism means a private law society. Private businesses in the marketplace provide the traditional functions of the state. The voluntary contract-order of anarcho-capitalism substitutes the hierarchical commando-coordination of activities of the state. The basic meaning of anarcho-capitalism is an order where horizontal cooperation based on voluntary exchange dominates the coordination of human activities.
Although a libertarian order amounts to a revolution as to its consequences, the path to its creation must be non-revolutionary. The spontaneous order of an anarcho-capitalist society requires that it comes about as a gradual process of privatizations. Beginning with the sale of semi-public enterprises and public utilities, privatization should extend step by step to education and health and finally encompass security and the judicial system. Supervised by an Assembly whose members are selected by lot from the constituency of the citizens, the function of government would be handed out to a private government management company.
Under anarcho-capitalism, most of what the state supplies in services could fall to a fraction of the present volume. On a world-wide scale, military spending alone comprises around 1.7 trillion US-dollars annually. The so-called ‘public services’ would not only become better and cheaper, but it would also turn out that under a free market, the demand for education, healthcare, defense, and domestic security would be much different from how it is now. Therefore, to privatize many of the activities, which now are under the authority of state would not only lead to a decrease of the costs per unit of the services but also reduce the volume of supply because a large part of the current supply of so-called ‘public goods’ is a useless waste. Losing none of the genuine benefits of education, healthcare, and defense, the budgets for these provisions could fall to a fraction of their present size.
If one includes the overblown judicial and public administration apparatus into the reduction of state activity, government spending, which nowadays is close to fifty percent of the gross domestic product in most industrialized countries, could come down to the single digits. Taxes and contributions could fall by ninety percent.
Different from what is presently the dominant belief, to privatize the police functions, and the judiciary is not such a big problem. It would mean to extend what is already going on. In the United States of today, for example, private policing, such as by security guards, happens already at a grand scale and comprises more than one million persons. In some countries, including the United States, the number of private police and security already exceeds the number of official policemen. The private provision of judicial services is on the rise. Arbitration courts experience a strong and increasing demand including services for cross-border disputes.
These trends will go on because private protection and arbitration is cheaper and better than the public provision. In Brazil, for example, which entertains one of the most expensive judicial systems of the world, currently about eighty million cases are pending without decision, and legal uncertainty has become monstrous. In the United States, many parts of the judicial system have gone berserk.
- Eric Peters: "The Chinese Know This. Why Are They Doing It?"
Some contemplations from the latest “Weekend Notes” by One River Asset Management CIO, Eric Peters, on recent developments in China…
Contemplation
He went for a long walk, trees bare. Considered his discussions with historians, experts, strategists, analysts. Articles, analyses, theories. The largest nation on earth, with 18.5% of humanity’s population, the 2nd biggest GDP, had lifted term limits for its leader. No one seemed to care, which itself seemed fascinating, said something.
But what? He wondered. Nearly everyone accepted the rough narrative that by lifting term limits, Xi Jinping strengthened his control, allowing him to complete the anti-corruption drive, and the Belt and Road Initiative.
He didn’t buy it. Xi Jinping surely had time to groom a successor with similar beliefs and priorities before his 2nd term ends in 2023. Besides, there’s precedent for former leaders to remain active in the wings, well beyond their formal rule.
The 2-term limit was introduced in 1982 to save China from the ruin of uninterrupted leadership – Mao’s late legacy prompted the constitutional change. Throughout history, great nations and empires fail when they surrender their institutions to an individual.
The Chinese know this. Why’d they do it?
Is Beijing preparing for instability? Chinese banks have $40trln balance sheets (50% of global GDP, 3x Chinese GDP). US banks hold $17tlrn balance sheets (less than 1x US GDP).
Might China be preparing for internal economic instability? Or perhaps it’s that the West is in deep political disarray, fractured, fighting itself.
The unipolar American world order is crumbling, the US relinquishing leadership. Such transitions have historically produced periods of profound global risks, opportunities – Beijing knows this. What’s the trade? He wondered.
* * *
… and on the history of (de)regulation in the US, and why it is only a matter of time before the government cracks down on the internet giants of the day:
Glory Days:
“May Day 1975 marked the start of Wall Street deregulation,” said the historian. “Banks and brokerages flourished thereafter, expanding their power and political influence.” 1998 marked peak deregulation with Clinton’s repeal of Glass-Steagall. “Pump and dump schemes of all sorts propagated; Wolf of Wall Street excesses. Then came the dot com IPO madness which led to Sarbanes Oxley.”
The final debauchery was exposed in 2008, and led to sweeping Dodd-Frank financial regulation. “Wall Street’s been in lock-down ever since.”
“The 1996 Telecom Act protected America’s nascent internet companies,” continued the historian. AOL started in 1985. Netscape launched in 1993, went public in 1995. Amazon launched in 1994. Yahoo 1995. Facebook 2004. YouTube 2005. “The Act protected them from liability for anything republished on their sites.” They were too weak to withstand such liability and needed nurturing to foster innovation.
“But Facebook has a $460bln market cap. It’s not responsible for what it publishes but the NY Times is. That’s now preposterous.”
“When Wall Street lacked regulation, any product, no matter how absurd, was welcomed through the front door and pumped out to clients through the back door,” explained the historian.
“The greater the flow, the higher the profits. Those were the glory days.” Then regulations raised costs, stymied product development, crushed the profit model.
“Today’s internet companies suck in free customer data through the front door, and sell it out the back door. The greater the flow, the higher the profits. They’re dominant. They’ll soon be regulated.”
- Hedge Fund CIO: "The Market Generals Are Dead"
Submitted by Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management, as excerpted from his latest Weekend Notes
“Every market has its generals,” said the CIO, atop the hill, surveying the battlefield. “Bull markets march onward, upward until their leaders die,” he said, lowering his binoculars, smoke rising from the valley floor.
Banks led the last great bull market. Fueled by reckless lending and leverage, loose regulation, moral hazard, and the wondrous illusion of boundless riches that accompany all reflexive markets, these generals charged ever upward, looting, pillaging. Leading the troops. Until they didn’t.
The S&P 500 peaked in October 2007, then fell 58%. When it bottomed seventeen months later in March 2009, Citigroup stock lay in the dust, trampled, mangled, mutilated beyond all recognition.
Citi’s stock price had collapsed 98.3% from its 2007 highs. It never really recovered. Bank of America plunged 95%. Morgan Stanley fell 91%. Goldman 82%. JP Morgan 72%.
“I suspected that regulation would be the death of the current market’s technology generals,” he said, turning to his table, unrolling a map. “I was right.”
From the 2009 lows through the recent highs, the S&P 500 advanced 331%. In that drive, Facebook rallied 413% (from its 2013 IPO), Amazon surged 2102%, Apple 1123%, Netflix 5349%, and Google 586%.
“The generals are dead.” From recent highs, Facebook has stumbled 18%, Amazon 8%, Apple 10%, Netflix 10%, Google 14%.
“Trading market tops is difficult,” he explained, “That’s where we are now.” With his finger, he traced the advances and retreats of the S&P 500 since WWII. Nearly every top was a volatile series of skirmishes lasting 6-18mths, before the real decline. The notable exception being 1987.
“The generals are dead, but the economy remains strong.” Employment, wages, profits too. “The bull case is all backward looking. It describes why it makes sense to stay invested. But it’s intellectually bankrupt,” he said, repositioning his troops on the map. “You get paid for the future, not the past.”
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...