- Paul Craig Roberts: "Putin's Nukes Could Wipe Out Entire American East Coast" In Minutes
Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,
Suffice to say, though children are at play, this is not a game.
Those who have been toying with outright war against Russia, and an escalation of the conflict in Syria, are putting the lives of all Americans at risk.
Of course, the threat of nuclear annihilation has been with us since the earliest days of the Cold War, but Russia has now positioned itself with the largest and most destructive nuclear arsenal of any country in the world.
Economist and political critic Dr. Paul Craig Roberts explains how diplomatic relations have broken between Russia and the United States, after the U.S. knowingly attacked pro-Assad Syria forces… that, of course, was the cherry on top of a host of insults, deliberate antagonism and a strategy that could only result in further chaos and war.
The end of negotiations is unfortunately, given that fighting it out could mean thermonuclear war that would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look trivial in comparison.
After a period of some patience, Russia is now warning that the United States is dangerously close to turning a proxy war into a direct world war – and they are deadly serious about defending the motherland and their sworn allies – namely Assad.
Any further attack could result in immediate destruction.
Putin is a formidable opponent and Russia a powerful enemy. At present time, they have the capability of wiping the entire East Coast of the United States off the map – where more than 100 million people live. Will the ranking misleaders in Washington continue to gamble with all of our lives?
via the Express:
VLADIMIR Putin’s nuclear stockpile could completely destroy the east coast of the US in one clean swipe should the Russian leader launch an attack on the West, an expert has warned.
A staggering 112.6million people could be at risk of extermination from the deadly missiles.
Russia has the largest haul of nuclear weapons of any country in the world and reportedly has the most powerful bomb named the SS-18 – menacingly nicknamed the Satan.
Experts estimate Russia has 55 of the deadly weapons, but only five would be needed to destroy the East Coast of the US.
[…]
“Five or six of these ‘Satans’ as they are known by the US military, and the East Coast of the United States disappears.”
Dr Roberts said: “The atomic bombs that Washington dropped on these helpless civilian centres while the Japanese government was trying to surrender, were mere popguns compared to today’s thermo-nuclear weapons.
What’s more, the Russian have hinted strongly at the possibility that they would be able to disable electronics, communications and defense shields in the U.S. via electromagnetic warfare – perhaps an EMP.
Worst of all, the American misleaders haven’t even got a good reason for putting the population at such a risk – strategy in the middle east is muddied at best, and prodding for war with Russia doesn’t carry a clear narrative either.
The world could change, and American power could end in a few decisive minutes.
Hopefully it would never come to that, but we shouldn’t live in a false world where we pretend these situations can’t harm us.
- The Dark Agenda Behind Globalism And Open Borders
Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
When people unfamiliar with the liberty movement stumble onto the undeniable fact of the “conspiracy” of globalism they tend to look for easy answers to understand what it is and why it exists. Most people today have been conditioned to perceive events from a misinterpreted standpoint of “Occam’s Razor” — they wrongly assume that the simplest explanation is probably the right one.
In fact, this is not what Occam’s Razor states. Instead, to summarize, it states that the simplest explanation GIVEN THE EVIDENCE at hand is probably the right explanation.
It has been well known and documented for decades that the push for globalism is a deliberate and focused effort on the part of a select “elite;” international financiers, central bankers, political leaders and the numerous members of exclusive think tanks. They often openly admit their goals for total globalization in their own publications, perhaps believing that the uneducated commoners would never read them anyway. Carroll Quigley, mentor to Bill Clinton and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is often quoted with open admissions to the general scheme:
“The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland; a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank… sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.” – Carroll Quigley, Tragedy And Hope
The people behind the effort to enforce globalism are tied together by a particular ideology, perhaps even a cult-like religion, in which they envision a world order as described in Plato’s Republic. They believe that they are “chosen” either by fate, destiny or genetics to rule as philosopher kings over the rest of us. They believe that they are the wisest and most capable that humanity has to offer, and that through evolutionary means, they can create chaos and order out of thin air and mold society at will.
This mentality is evident in the systems that they build and exploit. For example, central banking in general is nothing more than a mechanism for driving nations into debt, currency devaluation, and ultimately, enslavement through widespread economic extortion. The end game for central banks is, I believe, the triggering of historic financial crisis, which can then be used by the elites as leverage to promote complete global centralization as the only viable solution.
This process of destabilizing economies and societies is not directed by the heads of the various central banks. Instead, it is directed by even more central global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements, as outlined in revealing mainstream articles like Ruling The World Of Money published by Harpers Magazine.
We also find through the words of globalists that the campaign for a “new world order” is not meant to be voluntary.
“… When the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people … will hate the new world order … and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people.” – HG Welles, Fabian Socialist and author of The New World Order
“In short, the ‘house of world order’ will have to be built from the bottom up rather than f rom the top down. It will look like a great ‘booming, buzzing confusion,’ to use William James’ famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.” – Richard Gardner, member of the Trilateral Commission, published in the April, 1974 issue of Foreign Affairs
“The New World Order cannot happen without U.S. participation, as we are the single most significant component. Yes, there will be a New World Order, and it will force the United States to change its perceptions.” – Henry Kissinger, World Action Council, April 19, 1994
I could quote globalists all day long, but I think you get the general idea. While some people see globalism as a “natural offshoot” of free markets or the inevitable outcome of economic progress, the reality is that the simplest explanation (given the evidence at hand) is that globalism is an outright war waged against the ideal of sovereign peoples and nations. It is a guerrilla war, or fourth generation warfare, waged by a small group of elites against the rest of us.
A significant element of this war concerns the nature of borders. Borders of nations, states and even towns and villages, are not just lines on a map or invisible barriers in the dirt. This is what the elites and the mainstream media would like us to believe. Instead, borders when applied correctly represent principles; or at least, that is supposed to be their function.
Human beings are natural community builders; we are constantly seeking out others of like-mind and like-purpose because we understand subconsciously that groups of individuals working together can (often but not always) accomplish more. That said, human beings also have a natural tendency to value individual freedom and the right to voluntary association. We do not like to be forced to associate with people or groups that do not hold similar values.
Cultures erect borders because, frankly, people have the right to vet those who wish to join and participate in their endeavors. People also have a right to discriminate against anyone who does not share their core values; or, in other words, we have the right to refuse association with other groups and ideologies that are destructive to our own.
Interestingly, globalists and their mouthpieces will argue that by refusing to associate with those who might undermine our values, it is WE who are violating THEIR rights. See how that works?
Globalists exploit the word “isolationism” to shame sovereignty champions in the eyes of the public, but there is no shame in isolation when such principles as freedom of speech and expression or the right to self defense are on the line. There is also nothing wrong with isolating a prosperous economic model from unsuccessful economic models. Forcing a decentralized free market economy to adopt feudal administration through central banking and government will eventually destroy that model. Forcing a free market economy into fiscal interdependencey with socialist economies will also most likely undermine that culture. Just as importing millions of people with differing values to feed on a nation after it has had socialism thrust upon it is a recipe for collapse.
The point is, some values and social structures are mutually exclusive; no matter how hard you try, certain cultures can never be homogenized with other cultures. You can only eliminate one culture to make room for the other in a border-less world. This is what globalists seek to achieve. It is the greater purpose behind open border policies and globalization – to annihilate ideological competition so that humanity thinks it has no other option but the elitist religion. The ultimate end game of globalists is not to control governments (governments are nothing more than a tool). Rather, their end game is to obtain total psychological influence and eventually consent from the masses.
Variety and choice have to be removed from our environment in order for globalism to work, which is a nice way to say that many people will have to die and many principles will have to be erased from the public consciousness. The elites assert that their concept of a single world culture is the pinnacle principle of mankind, and that there is no longer any need for borders because no other principle is superior to theirs. As long as borders as a concept continue to exist there is always the chance of separate and different ideals rising to compete with the globalist philosophy. This is unacceptable to the elites.
This has led not so subtle propaganda meme that cultures that value sovereignty over globalism are somehow seething cauldrons of potential evil. Today, with the rising tide of anti-globalist movements, the argument in the mainstream is that “populists” (conservatives) are of a lower and uneducated class and are a dangerous element set to topple the “peace and prosperity” afforded by globalist hands. In other words, we are treated like children scrawling with our finger paints across a finely crafted Mona Lisa. Once again, Carroll Quigley promotes (or predicts) this propaganda decades in advance when he discusses the need for “working within the system” for change instead of fighting against it:
“For example, I’ve talked about the lower middle class as the backbone of fascism in the future. I think this may happen. The party members of the Nazi Party in Germany were consistently lower middle class. I think that the right-wing movements in this country are pretty generally in this group.” – Carroll Quigley, from Dissent: Do We Need It?
The problem is that these people refuse to confront the fruits of globalization that can be observed so far. Globalists have had free reign over most of the world's governments for at least a century, if not longer. As a consequence of their influences, we have had two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Great Recession which is still ongoing, too many regional conflicts and genocides to count and the systematic oppression of free agent entrepreneurs, inventors and ideas to the point that we are now suffering from social and financial stagnation.
The globalists have long been in power, yet, the existence of borders is blamed for the storm of crises we have endured for the past hundred years? Liberty champions are called “deplorable” populists and fascists while globalists dodge blame like slimy slithering eels?
This is the best card the globalists have up their sleeve, and it is the reason why I continue to argue that they plan to allow conservative movements to gain a measure of political power in the next year, only to pull the plug on international fiscal life support and blame us for the resulting tragedy.
There is no modicum of evidence to support the notion that globalization, interdependencey and centralization actually work. One need only examine the economic and immigration nightmare present in the EU to understand this. So, the globalists will now argue that the world is actually not centralized ENOUGH. That’s right; they will claim we need more globalization, not less, to solve the world’s ailments.
In the meantime, principles of sovereignty have to be historically demonized — the concept of separate cultures built on separate beliefs has to be psychologically equated with evil by future generations. Otherwise, the globalists will never be able to successfully establish a global system without borders.
Imagine, for a moment, an era not far away in which the principle of sovereignty is considered so abhorrent, so racist, so violent and poisonous that any individual would be shamed or even punished by the collective for entertaining the notion. Imagine a world in which sovereignty and conservatism are held up to the next generation as the new “original sins;” dangerous ideas that almost brought about the extinction of man.
This mental prison is where globalists want to take us. We can break free, but this would require a complete reversal of the way in which we participate in society. Meaning, we need a rebellion of voluntary associations. A push for decentralization instead of globalization. Thousands upon thousands of voluntary groups focusing on localization, self reliance and true production. We must act to build a system that is based on redundancy instead of fragile interdependencey. We need to go back to an age of many borders, not less borders, until every individual is himself free to participate in whatever social group or endeavor he believes is best for him, as well as free to defend against people that seek to sabotage him; a voluntary tribal society devoid of forced associations.
Of course, this effort would require unimaginable sacrifice and a fight that would probably last a generation. To suggest otherwise would be a lie. I can’t possibly convince anyone that a potential future based on a hypothetical model is worth that sacrifice. I have no idea whether it is or is not. I can only point out that the globalist dominated world we live in today is clearly doomed. We can argue about what comes next after we have removed our heads from the guillotine.
- Stock Funds Suffer Biggest Outflow Since 2011; Hedge Funds Most Since 2009
One month ago we pointed out that the pain for active money managers is fast approaching unbearable status when according to a recent BofA analysis, the outflows from active funds in 2016 have surpassed a record $200 billion, with the bulk of cash outflows shifting over to much cheaper (and better performing) passive funds, though as BofA notes, flows have slowed since last year suggesting that there may be a broader cash outflow from the equity asset class, as increasingly more Americans retire and pull out of the market entirely.
We have covered the underlying dynamics behind this shift for years, which mostly involves activist central bankers, lack of market volatility, underperformance of short books, high fees charged by active managers and generally an inability to generate significant alpha by the active investment community.
And unfortunately for the active managers of the world, the latest fund flow data from ICI shows no signs that the pain will relent any time soon. As Reuters reported today, U.S.-based stock mutual funds reported the largest outflows in five years, based on ICI data. $16.9 billion was pulled from stock mutual funds in the seven days through Oct. 19, more than in any other week since August 2011.
While most of the money was withdrawn permanently, some of the funds were reallocated, as has been the frequent case in the past 5 years, to passive strategies: stock exchange-traded funds took in $2.4 billion. And why not: with ETFs charging a fraction of what active managers demand, and closely hugging market indices which for the 7th year in a row will outperform the vast majority of hedge funds, this seems like the sensible thing to do, even if it means that many hedge and mutual fund managers will soon be out of a job.
“The trend to passive ETFs has persisted throughout the year,” said Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA. “Active funds have failed to keep up with common benchmarks this year, and investors are looking for lower-cost alternatives.”
The outflows from stock mutual funds come ahead of the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election and a potential interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve that could push equities lower.
“Investors sharply rotated out of large- and mid-cap mutual funds last week, just as the start of earnings season kicked off,” said Rosenbluth.
Meanwhile, while the broader active universe had a bad week, the more focused hedge fund world had an even worse month and an absolutely abysmal quarter. According to eVestment, hedge funds suffered $10 billion in outflows in September, while in the third-quarter investors pulled $29.2 billion from the hedge funds industry, which has clearly lost its allure and mystique to would be investors, who are now far more interested in getting their money out, rather than in. This would be the largest quarterly outflow from hedge funds since the first quarter of 2009.
For all of 2016, outflows have grown to a total of $60 billion and rising.
The good news is that the hedge fund industry still manages roughly $3 trillion at end of September. The bad news is that the outflows are soaring at a time when the S&P is trading at all time highs which means that “it is only downhill from here.” The even worse news is that as we reported last week, hedge fund compensation is set for a “massive” pay cut, with portfolio managers expecting a 34% reduction in their compensation this year.
But perhaps the best news is that as the following chart from Bloomberg shows, it has now become virtually impossible to launch a hedge fun, with only those with an immaculate track record or existing rainmakers able to obtain the seed capital needed to do their own thing.
This means that a generation of some of the brightest young men and women will have no choice but to seek jobs that contribute at least marginally to society, even if it means collecting far lower pay.
- Hyperinflation Looms As 'Black Market' Egyptian Pound Crashes To Record Low
With all eyes on the drop in the British Pound, it is another 'pound' that is utterly collapsing. Despite its official exchange rate is 8.88 per dollar, Egypt’s pound dropped to 16.11 per dollar in the black market, another record that extends declines over the past month to 19% and down over 40% since it devalued in March.
The Sovereign CDS market (which prices for both default and devaluation) is pricing in a further dramatic devaluation of the official rate…
Bloomberg reports that Africa’s third-biggest economy will close a $12 billion lifeline from the International Monetary Fund within two months, according to Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, as pressure grows on the country to weaken its currency to lure foreign investment and stimulate growth.
Ever since General Sisi ousted the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian economy has remained in shambles. Businessmen are fed up. They are ignoring government gag orders, and are making their voices heard. And why not? They are losing sales, missing deadlines, and scrapping expansion plans because of limited access to U.S. dollars.
Where are the greenbacks that Egyptians demand? Well, even though General Sisi has passed the begging bowl, the cupboard is pretty bare (as the accompanying chart shows). This, in part, is due to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood did one thing well: they blew through foreign exchange reserves like wildfire. Not surprisingly, the Sisi administration is squeaky tight about holding on to its limited reserves.
As we noted in March, the only sure-fire way to save the pound and eliminate Egypt’s USD shortage is to install a currency board. This would allow the quantity of pounds in circulation to be determined by a free-market mechanism.
So, just what is a currency board? Operating under currency board rules, a monetary authority issues notes and coins convertible on demand into a foreign anchor currency at a fixed exchange rate. As reserves, a currency board holds low-risk, interest-bearing bonds denominated in the anchor currency. The reserve levels are set by law and are equal to 100 percent, or slightly more, of its monetary liabilities. A currency board generates profits
(seigniorage) from the difference between the interest it earns on its reserve assets and the expense of maintaining its liabilities. By design, a currency board has no discretionary monetary powers and cannot engage in the fiduciary issue of money. Its operations are passive, and automatic. The sole function of a currency board is to exchange the domestic currency it issues for an anchor currency at a fixed rate. Consequently, the quantity of domestic currency in circulation is determined solely by market forces, namely the demand for domestic currency.There have been many currency boards, and none have failed. By design, they can’t be broken. Even the currency board designed by John Maynard Keynes, which was installed in North Russia, during the civil war, worked like a charm.
But, you may ask, what about Argentina’s Convertibility System (1991 2001). That system was not a currency board. It might have had the appearance of a currency board, but appearances can be deceiving, particularly in Argentina. Even though it linked the peso to the USD at a one-to-one rate, the Convertibility System was a system that operated with monetary discretion – unlike a currency board. And over long periods of time,
the discretion was wild.A currency board would give Egypt stability, and while stability might not be everything, everything is nothing without stability.
- America After Election 2016: The Gullible & The Shattered
Submitted by David Kearns via Strategic-Culture.org,
I'm looking forward to a market crash to awaken the electorate out of our rut, honestly. Because if a Loony Tunes candidate {meaning Donald Trump – DK} doesn't give Democrats the courage to put up a push-left candidate {Bernie Sanders, or some facsimile – DK}, then catastrophe is the only correction we have left. – commenter «Snapshotist»
Both inside the US and around the world, political observers have been waiting a long time for an election that would promise relief from the most noxious features of the American system, such as neoliberal economic austerity policies that hamstring governments' ability to maintain basic services and safety nets, military aggression and destabilization of regimes across a wide swathe of the globe, wholesale violation of privacy via NSA surveillance, trade agreements designed to maximize the power of international corporations over national governments, facilitation of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure in the face of dire climate change consequences, a financial system sucking wealth away from the population and accelerating wealth inequality, and more.
Alas, while it is high time that the US lead the way in reversing these trends, the outcome of the 18 month struggle to elect a new presidential administration looks likely to scuttle all hopes for serious leadership and reform on any of these critical issues. It follows, therefore, that in the near term (if not longer), progress will not be possible unless new forms of politics arise to deliver pressure from below on Washington, DC. But how much hope can we have for that?
When will see this again? Crowds lining up hours in advance for a Bernie Sanders rally, New York, April 13th, 2016
A Trump Contribution?
By all indications, Clinton will win the election on November 8th, and virtually every political commentator will rejoice at the apparent demise of the Donald Trump phenomenon. As strange as it may seem, however, some of the passion of the Trump movement could provide fuel to the fire of reformist politics in the US. To be sure, Trump's campaign has gone far towards legitimizing and normalizing bigotry and ignorance, and this residue will persist. But Trump has also galvanized powerful resentment against an insular, self-serving political class. This sentiment dovetails with a major thrust of Bernie Sanders's advocacy of social democratic policies and empowerment of the population to reverse the accumulation of all power in the hands of wealthy campaign donors and corporations.
Further, let us not forget, Trump has consistently promoted the idea of shelving antagonism towards Russia in favor of cooperation, together with reducing the role of the US military around the world. The point is not whether Trump genuinely means what he says (although one of his advisors who spoke with us insists that he does). The point is that Trump brought these positions out into the light, which has allowed increasing numbers of Americans to question the nation's reflexive reliance on military might, expansion, and aggression as a pillar of its foreign policy. If the left is truly serious about unseating Washington's neoliberal status quo, it should make every effort to harness some of the frustration that coalesced into the Trump movement towards broadly shared goals – getting the money out of politics being the most obvious.
The Gullible Left
For the moment, of course, the huge majority of the left is consumed with the impending election, and with the perceived imperative of defeating Trump by supporting Clinton as the «lesser evil» candidate. At first glance this seems eminently reasonable. But the certitude that has swept the country regarding the preferability of Clinton over Trump ought to give us pause. For those paying close attention, it is not necessarily clear which candidate is the lesser evil. The flaws marring each candidate are so grotesque, and the variables confronting the next administration are so uncertain, that one can easily support a case in either direction. A small segment of the left will reject both Brahmins and cast affirmative votes for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, of course. But the readiness of much of the left – the gullible left – to ignore Clinton's corruption, crimes, and cynicism is preemptively sapping the strength of the resistance that will be needed to push Madame President to pursue even half-baked progressive reforms on any issue.
Meanwhile, as the gullible left and center coalesce meekly around Clinton, the real election is taking place behind the scenes: Clinton and her inner circle are lining up the key personnel who will largely determine the course of policy in her administration. Thanks to Wikileaks' publication of Clinton's current campaign chairman, John Podesta, we know very well that this process is far advanced by now. As David Dayen put it recently in «The New Republic»:
If the 2008 Podesta emails are any indication, the next four years of public policy are being hashed out right now, behind closed doors…. Who gets these cabinet-level and West Wing advisory jobs matters as much as policy papers or legislative initiatives. It will inform executive branch priorities and responses to crises. It will dictate the level of enforcement of existing laws. It will establish the point of view of an administration and the advice Hillary Clinton will receive. Its importance cannot be stressed enough, and the process has already begun. This is a fight over who dominates the Democratic Party’s policy thinking in the short and long term.
Dayen adds that «…if liberals want to have an impact on that process, waiting until after the election will be too late». Well, one wonders why Dayen is so optimistic. Another Wikileaks release revealed that Clinton had more or less decided on Tim Kaine as her running mate all the way back in mid-2015 (!). Surely many of the top positions have long since been scripted, and for those still in play, can anyone – even David Dayen — imagine public pressure making a difference in the selection?
In short, the world should prepare itself for a Hillary Clinton administration that is full of Washington establishment clones and is diligently protected from criticism by a like-minded media establishment. Moreover, and more important, we can already see the Clinton administration maneuvering to avoid the gridlock that minimized President Obama's effectiveness by pushing key foreign and domestic policies further to the right, into the arms of the Republican Party. It is not difficult to locate telling indications on this score…
«Sorry, I can't vote for Mrs. Strangelove»– commenter «natureboy», renouncing Clinton for her hawkishnessThe implications of Clinton's ascendancy on US foreign policy are already coming into view, and they are more than a little disturbing. An article from Washington Post White House correspondent Greg Jaffe on October 20th delivered news just as bad as we expected:
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House…. the bipartisan nature of the recent recommendations, coming at a time when the country has never been more polarized, reflects a remarkable consensus among the foreign policy elite. This consensus is driven by a broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly stressed the dangers of overreach and the need for restraint, especially in the Middle East… Taken together, the studies and reports call for more-aggressive American action to constrain Iran, rein in the chaos in the Middle East and check Russia in Europe.
Clinton is preparing a foreign policy more aggressive than Obama's, in other words. And – take note – she'll enjoy bipartisan support for it.
«The entire concept is a form of corporate blackmail»— David Dayen, characterizing Clinton's preparation of a tax repatriation policy that will permanently lower the tax obligations of large corporations.As far as domestic policy is concerned, meanwhile, all recent revelations point to a posture even more friendly to large corporate interests than that which has obtained under Obama. For example, an important investigation from David Dayen just a few days ago exposed the Clinton circle's coordination with top Democrats and Republicans in preparing an enormous and permanent reduction on taxation of profits corporations earn abroad. As journalist Matt Taibbi once described a similar proposal: «Let's give a big tax break to the biggest tax cheats».
Yes, we can expect a few corporate-written trade deals to follow the tax reduction on profits earned overseas. And Wall Street will not be left out. Clinton has many options to assist her finance sector sponsors, including an important plan David Sirota and Avi Asher-Shapiro revealed last week. It would deliver hundreds of billions of dollars worth of individuals' retirement accounts into the hands of asset managers employing aggressive alternative investment strategies, and net the managers billions a year in fees.
Campaign contributions do indeed bring corporations colossal returns in the US.
- Texas County Enacts "Emergency Paper Ballots" After "Software Glitch" In Voting Machines
Just yesterday we noted several social media complaints from Texas voters who alleged that when they voted a straight republican ticket that voting machines were switching their presidential selection to Clinton/Kaine. While most undoubtedly dismissed these reports as conspiracy theories, new official reports from Chambers County, Texas suggest that there might be some truth to the voting machine “irregularities”. According to an NBC affiliate, polling stations in Chambers County had to enact emergency protocols yesterday and revert back to paper ballots
after a “glitch” was discovered in the county’s voting
machines.The issue was actually discovered on Monday morning when Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne was casting her own ballot and the voter next to her noticed that one of her votes was not filled in when she reviewed her electronic ballot Hawthorne told 12News on Tuesday.
An error in the voting machine programming by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) caused votes for one statewide court of appeals race not to be entered when a voter tried to vote straight ticket in either party according to a release from Chambers County.
ES&S is the vendor that Chambers County contracts with to program their voting machines.
The Texas Secretary of State’s office informed Hawthorne to create emergency paper ballots to continue voting until the problem could be fixed according to the release.
Below is the official press release from the Chambers County Clerk:
Of course, these confirmed reports from Chambers County seem eerily similar to problems reported yesterday on social media from people who also experienced problems when voting a “straight republican ticket.”
The following report also surfaced in Arlington, Texas from a person who voted a straight republican ticket only to find just before submitting her ballot that her presidential choice had been switched to Clinton/Kaine. After reporting the error to polling officials, the voter was told that these errors “had been happening.”
This Reddit user also noted multiple reports of voting errors across the state of Texas.
Of course, the real question is how many people submitted erroneous ballots before this “glitch” was caught and how many other “software glitches” exist in other counties around the country that will never be caught?
- Project Veritas 4: Robert Creamer's Illegal $20,000 Foreign Wire Transfer Caught On Tape
Project Veritas has just released Part IV of it’s multi-part series exposing numerous scandals surrounding the DNC and the Clinton campaign, including efforts to incite violence at Trump rallies and, at least what seems to be, illegal coordination between the DNC, Hillary For America and various Super PACs.
Part IV focuses on a $20,000 foreign donation made by an undercover Project Veritas journalist to Americans United for Change (AUFC). Ironically, shortly after the $20k donation wire was released, the contributor’s “niece” was offered an internship with Creamer’s firm, Democracy Partners.
In the new video, Creamer says: “Every morning I am on a call at 10:30 that goes over the message being driven by the campaign headquarters … I am in this campaign mainly to deal with what earned media with television, radio, with earned media and social media, not with paid media, not with advertising.” He also mentions a conference call discussing a woman potentially coming forward to accuse Trump of inappropriate behavior.
Creamer, a seasoned Chicago activist who is married to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), whose Republican opponent, Joan McCarthy Lasonde has called for her to resign over her husband’s activities, also talks about his work with Barack Obama, whom he says he has known since the 1980s, when Obama was a community organizer in Chicago: “He’s a pro, I’ve known the President since he was a community organizer in Chicago.”
Elsewhere, Creamer adds: “I do a lot of work with the White House on their issues, helping to run issue campaigns that they have been involved in. I mean, for immigration reform for the… the health care bill, for trying to make America more like Britain when it comes to gun violence issues.”
In the effort to prove the credibility of the undercover donor featured in the videos and to keep the investigation going, Project Veritas Action made the decision to donate twenty thousand dollars to Robert Creamer’s effort. Project Veritas Action had determined that the benefit of this investigation outweighed the cost. And it did.
“First thing, like I said, thank you for the proposal. And I’d like to get the $20,000 across to you. The second call I’m going to make here is to my money guy and he’s going to get in touch with you and auto wire the funds to you,” said the PVA journalist.
Creamer told the PVA journalist to send the money to Americans United for Change. Shortly after the money was released, the “donors” “niece” – another Project Veritas Action journalist – was offered an internship with Creamer.
In an effort to see how far Creamer would go with the promise of more money, another Project Veritas journalist posing as the donor’s money liaison requested a meeting with Creamer. During that meeting, Creamer spoke about connections he had with Obama and Clinton.
AUFC President, Brad Woodhouse, subsequently returned the money, after Project Veritas started to release their undercover videos, citing “concerns that it might have been an illegal foreign donation.” Oddly, Woodhouse was not terribly concerned about the “legality” of the donation when he chose to accept it a month prior.
In an unexpected twist, AUFC president Brad Woodhouse, the recipient of the $20,000, heard that Project Veritas Action was releasing undercover videos exposing AUFC’s activities. He told a journalist that AUFC was going to return the twenty thousand dollars. He said it was because they were concerned that it might have been an illegal foreign donation. Project Veritas Action was pleased but wondered why that hadn’t been a problem for the month that they had the money.
While the latest video focuses on the “$20,000 illegal foreign contribution” from an undercover Project Veritas journalist, the following comments from Robert Creamer were also rather intriguing in light of recent White House efforts to vehemently deny any connections between he and President Obama.
“Oh Barack Obama’s was the best campaign in the history of American politics, I mean the second one, I mean the first was good too. I was a consultant to both, the second one, was everything hit on every level and every aspect.
He’s a pro. I’ve known the President since he was a community organizer in Chicago.
I was just at and event with him in Chicago actually, on Friday last. He is just as good as ever. I do a lot of work with the White House on their issues. Helping to run issued campaigns that they have been involved in. I mean, for immigration reform for the…the health care bill…trying to make America more like Britain when it comes to gun violence issues.”
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As a reminder, video 3 directly linking Donna Brazile and Hillary Clinton to efforts to disrupt Trump events.
Video 2 provided the democrat playbook on how to commit “mass voter fraud”:
Video 1 revealed DNC efforts to incite violence at Trump rallies:
- "We Are Late In The Game": David Rosenberg On The Market's Flashing Red Signs
Last week, some readers were left wondering why, if the economy is as strong as the president is pretending it is (even though a leaked email from Donna Brazile revealed the truth behind the propaganda), did Gluskin Sheff strategist recommend unleashing a multi-trillion, “helicopter money” stimulus drop. The reason: we can officially close the book on the “bullish” Rosie and welcome back the old, grizzled, much more familiar version of the former Merril Lynch strategist: one bearish enough that the following litany of indicators that are “flashing red” for a late cycle economy, brings us back in time to some of his vintage pre-crisis writing.
Courtesy of the Financial Post, here is David Rosenberg explaining why “all signs are flashing this market is ‘late in the game’”
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Late in the game: that is precisely where we are. And it’s not even an opinion any more. It is a market fact.
The TSX has not made a new high in over two years and it has been 17 months for the broad NYSE Composite stock index.
The yield curve is flattening. Leading economic indicators are sputtering.
Uber-tight credit spreads and ultra-low cap rates in real estate serve as confirmations of late-cycle pricing.
Traditional valuation metrics for equities are every bit as high if not higher than they were in the Fall of 2007.
We are well past the peak in autos and just passed the peak of the housing cycle.
Not just that but the broad measures of unemployment have stopped going down as well.
And the mega Merger Mania we are seeing invariably takes place at or near cycle peaks, as companies realize that they can no longer grow their earnings organically. We have just witnessed five multi-billion dollar deals this past week alone — $207 billion globally (AT&T/Time Warner; TD Ameritrade/Scottrade) in what has been the most active announcement list since 1999 … what do you know, near the tail end of that tech bull market too.
We also were at the receiving end of a really disappointing consumer confidence report out of The Conference Board — sliding to a three-month low of 98.6 in October from 103.5 in September, the sharpest slide of the year.
And it wasn’t just the politics or gas prices — just a general malaise.
Assessments of business conditions now and perceptions for the next six months deteriorated significantly, as they did for the jobs market and spending intentions for homes and appliances.
This sentiment index generally peaks between 60% and 70% of the way through the cycle and so if that traditional pattern holds for this one, it would mean bracing for a recession to start any time from October 2017 to May 2018.
Forewarned is forearmed.
There also is this little issue of excess valuations, as in the 24x price-to-earnings multiple on reported GAAP earnings which is about 40% “rich” compared to the norm of the past 80 years.
On top of that, we have twice as many bulls as bears in the sentiment survey data.
That said, there is not the same level of euphoria as there usually is at the top of the market, and this is reflected by the wave of mutual fund redemption in equities for much of this year and the fact that global portfolio managers are sitting tied for the highest cash ratios of the past 15 years.
So while cautious, the lack of extreme bullishness is actually a good thing and suggests that whatever correction or even bear market we see, the selloff should be limited and no, it will not look anything like 2008/09.
That said, having cash on hand, reducing the beta of the portfolio, focusing on the running yield, and stepping up in quality across the capital structure, are all going to pay off in terms of preserving the capital and generating decent mid-single digit net returns at the very least. That’s with a view towards allocating the dry powder at better price levels that will allow for a return to high-single digit or even double-digit returns once the dust settles.
What is important to know is that the backdrop is one of late cycle. Most of the patterns, both in the realm of financial assets and the real economy, are flashing this signal — one of a very mature market.
Now, I am not sure if this is the seventh inning, or the ninth, but it is likely somewhere in between. That’s important to know — we are not in the third or fourth, let alone the first or second. And even in the seventh, we still have to get out of our seat and stretch.
That does not mean a stretch for risk — it actually means dialing in the risk, at the margin.
It isn’t just the valuations and the heightened political risks in the U.S. and throughout Europe, or the recent slate of soft macro data for the most part. It also is about what the corporate sector is flagging about how much more growth there is in this economic cycle, having celebrated its seventh birthday four months ago.
What I’m referring to specifically is Kimberly-Clark’s financial results for the latest quarter, which surprised to the downside and the company also cut its sales guidance for the year (for which the stock price was clocked with a 4.7% loss on the news).
So I have to say that if this classic consumer staple giant, who makes Huggies diapers and Kleenex tissue, can’t grow these basic goods, what does it say for consumer goods and services that are truly discretionary in nature?
This does not at all bode well for the coming holiday shopping season, and if you have looked at the payroll data in recent months, the retailers are expecting some nice tidings. They may be in for a rude surprise.
This is the environment where the Fed is choosing to raise rates, which is incredible. The futures market is still priced for a near-70% chance of a December move. The two-year U.S. Treasury note auction yesterday went quite poorly (the bid-cover of 2.53x was the second lowest since December 2008) and the yield backed up to a four-month high of 0.85%.
We’ll see how brave the Fed will be — we know what happened last year after the Fed went and for two or three months, it wasn’t a pretty picture.
Now New York Fed president Bill Dudley did say that he would like to raise rates again before year-end but caveated that with “… subject to the economy continuing to evolve in line with my expectations”.
Well, if his forecast is aligned with the median on the FOMC, then implicitly he is expecting 3% real GDP growth for the fourth quarter. Good luck with that (a number we have not seen materialize in two years).
One thing is certain: if the Fed does raise rates at the short end, we may well end up seeing yields decline further out the curve — as we did following last year’s rate hike.
Classic. This is what happens when the Fed starts to tighten into the eighth year of the cycle and into the slowest-growth-year of this elongated expansion.
We also have this ongoing “conundrum” (as Alan Greenspan once put it) of there being a global savings glut (at a time when the world’s central banks have taken $18 trillion of “safe yield” onto their balance sheets and out of the hands of the general investing public).
In fact, the authors of a report commissioned by the Council on Foreign Relations said that the global savings “glut” has reached epic proportions. The volume of inflow of savings from abroad into U.S. securities totalled an eye-popping $750 billion in the past two years — $500 billion of which was diverted to Treasuries and Agencies, as America played the role (and still does) as the world’s smartest kid in summer school when it comes to delivering positive yields on AAA-rated paper.
What this leaves us, therefore, is the prospect of a continued flattening of the yield curve. Again, classic late cycle development.
Now you will hear cries from many circles to ignore the yield curve, it has lost its edge as a leading indicator due to all sorts of reasons, mostly related to central bank interventions. Don’t believe them.
Back in 2000, the experts said to ignore the yield curve — it is irrelevant in a Dotcom world. Wrong.
In 2007, the gurus also said to ignore the yield curve in a world of abundant credit.
It still matters, and if we were to get the same response this time to the Fed as we did just over a year ago, we would then be two, maybe three more hikes away from a complete inversion of the Treasury curve.
Maybe it has lost some of its predictive power, but it has called each of the last 10 recessions of the post-World War Two period with precision. So I wouldn’t exactly abandon it just yet.
David Rosenberg is chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc. and author of the daily economic report, Breakfast with Dave. Follow David and his colleagues at twitter.com/gluskinsheffinc
- Over 80 Groups Want Russia Off The UN Human Rights Council, There’s Just One Problem
Submitted by Darius Shahtahmasebi via TheAntiMedia.org,
More than 80 human rights groups and other related non-governmental organizations have called on the United Nations to drop Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council over its military campaign in Syria.
The groups, which include Human Rights Watch, CARE International, and Refugees International, signed an appeal that was launched ahead of the upcoming elections to fill 14 seats on the 47-nation council.
Given the media’s ongoing narrative against Russia’s bombardment of eastern Syria, the call to pull Russia from a council dedicated to human rights may be a well-founded request.
However, one should bear in mind that Saudi Arabia is also a member of this Council. Saudi Arabia is responsible for a recent assault on a Yemeni funeral that killed over 140 civilians and injured over 500 others. The aftermath of the attack was aptly described as a “lake of blood.”
China is a member of this U.N. Human Rights Council. Indonesia is a member of this Council. Though it isn’t often reported by the mainstream media, Indonesia has brutally repressed the people of West Papua simply because a mining company based in West Papua pays the Indonesian government a heap of tax (their biggest taxpayer). Though the West Papuan people have attempted to rise up against Indonesia’s occupation of their country, the Indonesian military suppresses their attempts simply to preserve their tax revenues and protect the interests of the very powerful mining company.
Given that the rest of the Council members’ atrocities are overlooked by these so-called human rights organizations, the motives of these groups should be called into question.
So what is really at play here? Is it the case that these NGOs are deeply concerned with human rights and have therefore drawn the line at Russia’s military campaign in Aleppo? Or are these groups acting as the mouthpieces of their respective governments and donors, including wealthy human rights abusers such as Saudi Arabia?
Unfortunately, the case against the motives of groups such as Human Right Watch’s was made over a decade ago. Anti-War released an article in September of 2001 that seriously called into question the objectives and the funding behind Human Rights Watch:
“For a century there has been a strong interventionist belief in the United States – although it competes with widespread isolationism. In the last 10 years, attitudes have hardened: human rights interventionism is becoming a consensus among the ‘foreign policy elite.’ Human Rights Watch itself is part of that elite, which includes government departments, foundations, NGO’s and academics. It is certainly not an association of ‘concerned private citizens.’ HRW board members include present and past government employees, and overlapping directorates link it to the major foreign policy lobbies in the US. Cynically summarized, Human Rights Watch is a joint venture of George Soros and the State Department.” (emphasis added)
Further, NGO Monitor found that in 2009, Human Rights Watch held a fundraising dinner in Saudi Arabia, using their alleged anti-Israel bias to solicit funds from prominent Saudis. Human Rights Watch has actually been critical of Saudi human rights abuses for years, including the treatment of women, the justice system, basic freedoms, and its treatment of Yemen — yet HRW has no problem soliciting funds from them.
Not to mention the fact that George Soros gave a grant to Human Rights Watch of $100 million in 2010. (Don’t know who George Soros is? Click here.)
Putting Saudi Arabia, a country with a long history of human rights abuses, in the same sentences as “fundraising dinner” and “Human Rights Watch” should tell one something about the dedication these groups truly have towards human rights.
No one is going to miss Russia on a human rights council. But if these groups were impartial and truly cared about human rights, the appeal they signed would call for the removal of more than just Russia given the list of human rights abusers that currently sit on the Council.
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