- The Saker: How I Became A Kremlin Troll
Today, with the kind permission of Phil Butler, I am posting the full text of my contribution to his book “Putin’s Praetorians: Confessions of the Top Kremlin Trolls“. There are a couple of reasons for that. The main one is that I strongly believe that this book deserves a much bigger visibility than it has received (this is also why, exceptionally, I am placing this post in the top “analyses” category and not elsewhere). Please read my review here to see why I feel so strongly about this book. Frankly, I am rather shocked by the very little amount of reviews this book as generated. I don’t even know if somebody besides Russia Insider has bothered writing a review of it or not, but even if somebody has, it is still a crying shame that this most interesting volume has been so far ignored by the alternative media including the one friendly to Russia. So by posting my own contribution here I want to bring back this book to the “front page”, so to speak, of our community. Second, I want to ask for your help. Right now the Kindle version of the book has 15 reviews on Amazon and only 1 review for the printed paper version. This is not enough. I am therefore asking you to 1) buy the book (Amazon wants reviews by purchasers) and 2) write a review on Amazon. Guys – that is something most of you can do to help, so please do so! We need to show the world that there is what I call “another West” which, far from being russophobic is, in fact, capable of producing real friends and even defenders of Russia. So, please, do your part, help Phil in his heroic struggle, get the paper version of the book and review it on Amazon!
Thanks a lot for your help, hugs and cheers,
The Saker
* * *
How I became a Kremlin troll by The Saker
By birth, experience, and training, I truly had everything needed to hate Putin. I was born in a family of “White Russians” whose anti-Communism was total and visceral.
My childhood was filled with (mostly true) stories about atrocities and massacres committed by the Bolsheviks during the revolution and subsequent civil war. Since my father had left me, I had an exiled Russian Orthodox Archbishop as a spiritual father, and through him, I learned of all the genocidal persecutions the Bolsheviks unleashed against the Orthodox Church.
At the age of 16, I had already read the three volumes of the “Gulag Archipelago” and carefully studied the history of WWII. By 18 I was involved in numerous anti-Soviet activities such as distributing anti-Soviet propaganda in the mailboxes of Soviet diplomats or organizing the illegal importation of banned books into the Soviet Union through the Soviet merchant marine and fishing fleet (mostly at their station in the Canary Islands). I was also working with an undercover group of Orthodox Christians sending help, mainly in the form of money, to the families of jailed dissidents. And since I was fluent in Russian, my military career took me from a basic training in electronic warfare, to a special unit of linguists for the General Staff of the Swiss military, to becoming a military analyst for the strategic intelligence service of Switzerland.
The Soviet authorities had long listed me, and my entire family, as dangerous anti-Soviet activists and I, therefore, could not travel to Russia until the fall of Communism in 1991 when I immediately caught the first available flight and got to Moscow while the barricades built against the GKChP coup were still standing. Truly, by this fateful month of August 1991, I was a perfect anti-Soviet activist and an anti-Communist hardliner. I even took a photo of myself standing next to the collapsed statue of Felix Derzhinsky (the founder of the ChK – the first Soviet Secret police) with my boot pressed on his iron throat. That day I felt that my victory was total. It was also short-lived.
Instead of bringing the long-suffering Russian people freedom, peace, and prosperity, the end of Communism in Russia only brought chaos, poverty, violence, and abject exploitation by the worst class of scum the defunct Soviet system had produced. I was horrified. Unlike so many other anti-Soviet activists who were also Russophobes, I never conflated my people and the regime which oppressed them. So, while I rejoiced at the end of one horror, I was also appalled to see that another one had taken its place. Even worse, it was undeniable that the West played an active role in every and all forms of anti-Russian activities, from the total protection of Russian mobsters, on to the support of the Wahabi insurgents in Chechnya, and ending with the financing of a propaganda machine which tried to turn the Russian people into mindless consumers to the presence of western “advisors” (yeah, right!) in all the key ministries. The oligarchs were plundering Russia and causing immeasurable suffering, and the entire West, the so-called “free world” not only did nothing to help but helped all the enemies of Russia with every resource it had. Soon the NATO forces attacked Serbia, a historical ally of Russia, in total violation of the most sacred principles of international law. East Germany was not only reunified but instantly incorporated into West Germany and NATO pushed as far East as possible. I could not pretend that all this could be explained by some fear of the Soviet military or by a reaction to the Communist theory of world revolution. In truth, it became clear to me that the western elites did not hate the Soviet system or ideology, but that they hated Russian people themselves and the culture and civilization which they had created.
By the time the war against the Serbian nation in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo broke out, I was in a unique situation: all day long I could read classified UNPROFOR and military reports about what was taking place in that region and, after work, I could read the counter-factual anti-Serbian propaganda the western corporate Ziomedia was spewing out every day. I was horrified to see that literally everything the media was saying was a total lie. Then came the false flags, first in Sarajevo, but later also in Kosovo. My illusions about “Free World” and the “West” were crumbling. Fast.
Fate brought me to Russia in 1993 when I saw the carnage of meted out by the “democratic” Eltsin regime against thousands of Russians in Moscow (many more than what the official press reported). I also saw the Red Flags and Stalin portraits around the parliament building. My disgust by then was total. And when the Eltsin regime decided to bring Dudaev’s Chechnia to heel triggering yet another needless bloodbath, that disgust turned into despair. Then came the stolen elections of 1996 and the murder of General Lebed. At that point, I remember thinking “Russia is dead.”
So, when the entourage of Eltsin suddenly appointed an unknown nobody to acting President of Russia, I was rather dubious, to put it mildly. The new guy was not a drunk or an arrogant oligarch, but he looked rather unimpressive. He was also ex-KGB which was interesting: on one hand, the KGB had been my lifelong enemy but on the other hand, I knew that the part of the KGB which dealt with foreign intelligence was staffed by the brightest of the brightest and that they had nothing to do with political repression, Gulags and all the rest of the ugly stuff another Directorate of the KGB (the 5th) was tasked with (that department had been abolished in 1989). Putin came from the First Main Directorate of the KGB, the “PGU KGB.” Still, my sympathies were more with the (far less political) military intelligence service (GRU) than the very political PGU which, I was quite sure by then, had a thick dossier on my family and me.
Then, two crucial things happened in parallel: both the “Free world” and Putin showed their true faces: the “Free world” as an AngloZionist Empire hell-bent on aggression and oppression, and Vladimir Putin as a real patriot of Russia. In fact, Putin slowly began looking like a hero to me: very gradually, in small incremental steps first, Putin began to turn Russia around, especially in two crucial matters: he was trying to “re-sovereignize” the country (making it truly sovereign and independent again), and he dared the unthinkable: he openly told the Empire that it was not only wrong, it was illegitimate (just read the transcript of Putin’s amazing 2007 “Munich Speech”).
Putin inspired me to make a dramatic choice: will I stick to my lifelong prejudices or will I let reality prove my lifelong prejudices wrong. The first option was far more comfortable to me, and all my friends would approve. The second one was far trickier, and it would cost me the friendship of many people. But what was the better option for Russia? Could it be that it was the right thing for a “White Russian” to join forces with the ex-KGB officer?
I found the answer here in a photo of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vladimir Putin:
If that old-generation anti-Communist hardliner who, unlike me, had spent time in the Gulag, could take Putin’s hand, then so could I!
In fact, the answer was obvious all along: while the “White” and the “Red” principles and ideologies were incompatible and mutually exclusive, there is also no doubt that nowadays true patriots of Russia can be found both in the former “Red” and “White” camps. To put it differently, I don’t think that “Whites” and “Reds” will ever agree on the past, but we can, and must, agree on the future. Besides, the Empire does not care whether we are “Red” or “White” – the Empire wants us all either enslaved or dead.
Putin, in the meantime, is still the only world leader with enough guts to openly tell the Empire how ugly, stupid and irresponsible it is (read his 2015 UN Speech).
And when I listen to him I see that he is neither “White” nor “Red.” He is simply Russian.
So, this is how I became a Kremlin troll and a Putin fanboy.
- As Australia's Housing Bubble Bursts, Optimism For The Year Ahead Crashes To Record Low
Zero Hedge readers might have noted our increasingly bearish tone on all things Australian – economic that is, since the cricket team just whipped the English in the first test match in Brisbane. The focal point of our concern is the housing market and, earlier this month, we discussed how the world’s longest-running bull market – 55 years – in Australian house prices appears to have come to an end. We followed this up with “Why Australia’s Economy Is A House Of Cards” in which Matt Barrie and Craig Tindale described how Australia’s three decades long economic expansion had mostly been the result of “dumb luck”.
As a whole, the Australian economy has grown through a property bubble inflating on top of a mining bubble, built on top of a commodities bubble, driven by a China bubble.
Last week, in "The Party's Over For Australia's $5.6 Trillion Housing Market Frenzy", we highlighted some scary metrics for Australia’s housing bubble cited by Bloomberg. In particular, we showed how the value of Australian housing is more than four times gross domestic product. This is higher than other western nations, like New Zealand, Canada and the UK, which are experiencing their own housing bubbles. The ratio of house values to GDP in the US seems positively tame in comparison.
It seems that it’s nor just us and other market commentators who are becoming progressively more pessimistic on Australia’s outlook. Australians are coming round to the same opinion, as Australia's Domain.com explains (note: Roy Morgan is an Australian market research company).
The number of Australians optimistic about the year ahead has dropped to a never-before-seen low as mortgage holders eye a combination of record-high household debt and the possibility of interest rate hikes in 2018.
According to a Roy Morgan survey taken in mid-November, 31 per cent of people think 2018 will be “better” than 2017 – the lowest figure recorded since the survey began in 1980.
Along with a slide in positivity, the survey showed a spike in active negativity, with 30 per cent expecting next year to be “worse” than 2017 and 39 per cent saying it will be “the same”. Younger Australians are more positive than older generations, with almost half (46%) of 18-24-year-olds expecting next year to be better, while just 20 per cent of over 65s feel that way. In fact, a noticeable drop in optimism can be seen as Australians age.
AMP notes that the greater level of optimism among younger Australian’s is probably due to them being saddled with less debt. Their older countrymen are becoming fearful that a rise in interest rates could lead to a housing crash.
“(Older Australians) have the debt,” AMP Capital chief economist and head of investment strategy Shane Oliver told Domain. “There’s a growing problem in Australia where a lot of people might own their home by the time they’re 65 but they still have a lot more debt than previous generations.
“If you were going to worry about a property price collapse, you wouldn’t be as worried about it if you were a younger Australian – they might actually see an opportunity. If you’re an older Australian with a lot of debt it might be more of a worry for you.” Households are sitting on record high debt, above 190 per cent of income, which is why talk of interest rate hikes have been hitting confidence.
While the Australian central bank sees a rate hike as unlikely in the “near-term”, Domain.com notes that the next move is likely to be up.
Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe reiterated last week he sees the next move from the central bank as being upwards, and while most economists expect those hikes in late 2018 or even 2019, ANZ is hanging onto its call that two rate hikes await next year.
While Australian citizens are the second most-indebted in the world, the country’s banks are the most exposed to housing debt.
They are also potentially in the firing line for a government enquiry as AMP’s Shane Oliver tells Domain.com.
Meanwhile, confidence in the institutions to which Australians are so deeply indebted has scarcely been lower, with scandals and the threat of a royal commission a part of the landscape.
“The bank questions seem to keep coming – it seems to have a life of its own,” Dr Oliver said. “This idea of the royal commission or commission of inquiry… putting aside the should we or shouldn’t we… that constant talk that there’s some sort of problem with the banks is probably affecting people as well.”
This was Australia’s ABC News earlier today.
The calls for a full inquiry have been relentless for years, emanating from a broad section of the community — from farmers, small business and households, jaded and disillusioned with the industry's rampant profiteering, fee gouging and blatant disregard for the law. How many times can a Commonwealth Bank chairman sincerely apologise for a yet another breach of trust? What, pray tell, will be the cause of next year's?
But the overwhelming reason for an inquiry rests on just one principle — accountability. What has been forgotten in the endless round of scandals in recent years is that the Australian banking sector is a taxpayer subsidised industry. It's an industry that pays ridiculously bloated salaries to its leaders; that showers itself with massive bonus payments when profits are soaring but instantly demands taxpayer protection and support when the tide turns.
Having resolutely opposed a formal enquiry, the Australian government may have its hand forced as Liberal National Party Senator, Barry Sullivan, is threatening a to put a motion to the senate, possibly as early as this week. This might undermine confidence in Prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Furthermore, as ABC News notes, the banks have also taken the usual, and likely misguided step, of appealing to their biggest critics.
Senior Coalition members are terrified, having been forced for so long to walk the tightrope between hauling bankers into line and staunchly opposing an inquiry. If the motion gets up, it would be a major loss of face for Mr Turnbull and the Government, with serious ramifications for his grip on leadership.
In a show of desperation, the banks have opted to go straight to the public, the area where they possibly have the least support, with a multi-million dollar propaganda campaign on free to air television and newspapers. And the fight is likely to get ugly.
With pessimism on the part of Australian public already at record low levels, we suspect that a messy political confrontation between politicians and the banking sector could only be an additional negative for the popping of Australia’s housing bubble. AMP’s Shane Oliver is not optimistic, as Bloomberg notes.
And the general sense of “malaise” could be here to stay, according to Shane Oliver.
“It seems the old days of ‘she’ll be right, mate died off with the Holden Ute,” he said.
For those unfamiliar with the Australian vernacular, a Holden Ute is an iconic pick-up truck. Sales hit record lows last year and the Adelaide manufacturing plant is being shut at the end of this year.
- Did NBC Push An Unfounded Conspiracy Theory On Behalf Of CIA?
Authored by Wayne Madsen via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Retired National Security Agency (NSA) chief technology officer William Binney is being branded as a "conspiracy theorist" by corporate media outlets, most notably, the Comcast-owned National Broadcasting Corporation, for co-authoring a controversial memo issued this past summer by a group of former intelligence officers – Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
The memo opined that the leak of Democratic National Committee e-mails during the 2016 presidential campaign were not the result of Russian state-sponsored hacking but the result of an inside job by a DNC staffer who loaded the purloined e-mails onto a thumb drive. That view is contrary to an assessment made in a 2017 intelligence assessment by 17 US intelligence agencies. That assessment claimed that Russian government-sponsored hackers broke into the email servers of the DNC and then provided the emails to WikiLeaks. However, the assessment was not the unanimous view of 17 US intelligence agencies, but merely four – the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was provided a chapeau of legitimacy by the Director of National Intelligence. Contrary to news reports, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and intelligence elements of the military services did not provide input to the assessment.
Binney was also accused by NBC "national security reporter" Ken Dilanian of pushing the "conspiracy theory" that the "NSA is collecting and storing nearly every US communication."
Far from being a conspiracy theory, NSA's unconstitutional eavesdropping program, code-named STELLAR WIND and officially known as the “President’s Surveillance Program,” was proven in classified documents revealed by NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden and, earlier, by Justice Department prosecutor Thomas Tamm. A metadata-capturing program called PRISM ensnared the personal data of millions of Americans from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL.
What raised the hackles of Dilanian and other media shills for the intelligence community is that Binney was invited to a meeting with Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo on the "hallowed" 7th floor executive level at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, had two CIA technology experts sit in on the meeting.
Pompeo was reportedly urged to meet Binney by President Trump after the president saw one of Binney's interviews on Fox News and suggested that Pompeo meet with the retired NSA official.
Dilanian wrote that although Binney "has been feted in Europe and elsewhere as a truth-telling whistleblower . . . American officials of all political persuasions say his allegations about the NSA are false." Dilanian offered up pure uninformed conjecture. Many current and former NSA, CIA, Justice Department, FBI employees, of all political persuasions, have confirmed that Binney's statements about illegal NSA eavesdropping are correct. And, they have been proven correct by deliberations of the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
Dilanian is nothing more than a CIA embedded reporter at NBC News. While Dilanian was the Tribune Washington bureau national security reporter, he was accused of submitting his stories to the CIA in advance of publication. Tribune owns the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. In one email, Dilanian wrote to the CIA press officer: "I’m working on a story about congressional oversight of drone strikes that can present a good opportunity for you guys." In other cases, the CIA made significant re-edits of Dilanian's stories. Dilanian left Tribune in May 2014 for the Associated Press. While the Tribune Washington bureau chief later called Dilanian's e-mail exchanges with the CIA a violation of the newspaper chain's news policy, the AP had no problem with Dilanian's e-mail pen pals at the CIA. Dilanian later moved to NBC News.
NBC News, which has had a long relationship with the CIA since the agency's implementation of the news media infiltration project called MOCKINGBIRD in the early 1950s, apparently has had no problem with Dilanian's shilling for the CIA. The NBC attack on Binney appears to have been coordinated by Dilanian and his copy editors at the CIA who were not happy about Pompeo's meeting with the NSA whistleblower. Pompeo has been all over the map on accepting the US Intelligence Community's assessment on Russian hacking of the DNC computers, first accepting the assessment, then agreeing that it had no impact on the presidential election, and wavering back and forth to please Trump.
There is some credence to Binney's contention that weak DNC security led to either an internal compromise of sensitive e-mails or an external hack. Then-DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile did not create a Cybersecurity Advisory Board until after the e-mail hacking became public in August 2016. Instead of asking non-partisan technical experts to serve on the advisory board, Brazile packed it with Democratic Party hacks, ironic, since the title of her new book is "Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House." Among the members of Brazile's advisory board were former members of the Obama administration, including Rand Beers, formerly with the Department of Homeland Security; Nicole Wong and Aneesh Copra of Albright Stonebridge Group; and Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who was a lawyer for Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Albright Stonebridge is the lobbying firm of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
According to a retired technical officer with the US Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Technology Development Services (TDS), the computer systems maintained by TDS have had their security weakened by senators who want ease of access to the systems maintained by the DNC, the Republican National Committee, and the four campaign committees of the Senate and House – the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC), the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). The DCCC was reportedly penetrated by hackers while the DNC was also being hit. However, based on the revelations by the retired TDS official, Binney is correct in stating that the "inside hack" was done either by DNC and/or DCCC authorized users or by those who penetrated the systems from the US Senate or House of Representatives computers.
US Senate and House computer systems and network have been vulnerable to outside penetration ever since 2002, when Foxcom Wireless, a Jerusalem-based Israeli wireless start-up firm, received a contract to install a wireless system in the US Capitol and Senate and House office buildings. Foxcom was heading into bankruptcy before landing the lucrative contract for the US Capitol complex. Foxcom Wireless moved its headquarters to Vienna, Virginia and renamed itself MobileAccess Networks. In 2011, Mobile Access, Ltd. was bought by Corning, Inc. and merged into its Corning Cable Systems subsidiary.
It was discovered after the contract with the US House that Foxcom paid $280,000 to Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was later convicted for bribery, mail fraud, and tax evasion, who helped secure the contract by lobbying members and staff of the powerful House Administration Committee, which was seen, at the time, as a corrupt congressional version of New York's infamous Tammany Hall. The powerful committee has been dubbed the "City Hall" of Capitol Hill.
There was not a single member, except for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who voiced objections to the Foxcom contract.The deal had the personal support of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, later convicted of lying to federal investigators about details of his paying hush-money in a pedophile scandal.
The congressman who originally introduced Foxcom to the House Administration Committee was House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer. Hoyer's sister, Bernice Manocherian, once served as the executive president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest Jewish influence-peddling operation in the United States. House Administration Committee members who approved the deal with the Israelis were committee chairman Bob Ney and Representatives Candice Miller, Zoe Lofgren, and Juanita Millender-McDonald. Ney was later convicted of conspiracy and making false statements in the Abramoff influence-peddling scandal.
Foxcom ensured that its "contract" to "re-wire" Congress saw no oversight from TDS technicians or employees of either the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms or House Information Resources Office. The House Information Resources Office reports to the Chief Administrative Office of the House. Today, it is convenient for the media to ignore what Abramoff's actions have since allowed the Israeli mafia – the true culprits in the 2016 DNC/DCCC hacks – to have accomplished. Many of the Trump Organization's global partners are members of this particular mafia and its various branches.
NBC hacks like Dilanian and the perpetual happy-faced bobblehead Katie Tur, as well as their dubious colleagues at CNN, Wolf Blitzer – the former public affairs officer for AIPAC – and Jake Tapper, are not able to see prior to 2016 to discover that the security holes within the telecommunications networks of Congress – with access to the DNC and RNC – were placed by Israeli intelligence agents in the early and mid-2000s. Brazile's expert cyber-security committee could never turn their attention toward the Israelis, given the large amounts of money Haim Saban and Harvey Weinstein lavished on the Democratic Party.
Russia may be getting the blame for HackGate, but Israeli mobsters, hailing originally from places as diverse as Lithuania, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, deserve all the credit.
- "Hong Kong House Prices Could Soar Another 10% Next Year" – Have They Just Rung The Bell?
Hong Kong property was in Algebris Investments’ top tier of six most inflated bubbles from its longer list of the world’s fourteen biggest bubbles. The territory is ranked as the most expensive housing market in the world for the seventh successive year in 2017, with the medium home price selling for 18.1 times the median household income, according to Forbes. Last week, we discussed how the record price per square foot for a Hong Kong residence was smashed twice on the same day by the same buyer. The buyer paid HK$600 million, or HK$131,000 per square foot for an apartment in the exclusive “The Peak” district. Later that day, the same buyer paid HK$560m for another apartment measuring 4,242 square feet, equivalent to HK$132,000 per square foot. These two purchases beat the previous record of HK$105,000 per square foot paid on 17 September 2017.
In his analysis, Algebris portfolio manager, Alberto Gallo, used a variety of measures to identify irrational behaviour, two of which are “The trend is your friend” and “Sky is the limit”, both which apply to the latest prognostications for Hong Kong property prices from three of its leading real estate agents. According to Bloomberg.
Hong Kong’s red-hot housing market shows no signs of cooling anytime soon. Prices in the city have climbed 11 percent this year, defying skeptics waiting for the bubble to burst and government attempts to rein in the world’s most expensive housing market through a raft of taxes and mortgage curbs.
If anything, the frenzy has intensified in recent months as investors have poured money into property. Buyers have set new records for everything from luxury homes in the exclusive Peak neighborhood to undeveloped residential land. There have also been blockbuster deals for commercial property in the heart of Hong Kong’s central district. “Now it is very hot, because of the hot money rushing in,” said Raymond Ho, deputy senior director of residential development and investment at Savills Plc. “There is more record-breaking coming.”
Runaway growth has put the city in bubble risk territory, according to the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index. Even so, mass-market home prices will rise 8 percent to 10 percent next year, according to property consultancy Colliers International Group Inc. Real estate consultant Knight Frank LLP expects prices of such homes to climb 5 percent next year, while luxury housing advances 8 percent.
Helpfully, Bloomberg has conducted a survey of Hong Kong property bulls to discover their reasoning as to why the “Sky is the limit” for prices.
Here are five reasons why property bulls say the city’s housing market will continue to defy expectations of a slowdown:
1. Demand Outstrips Supply
An average 20,000 new private residential units come to market each year, barely enough to cover the 20,000 mainland Chinese who become permanent residents each year — allowing them to avoid the punitive stamp duties slapped on foreign buyers — let alone anyone else. The number of unsold apartments in the third quarter fell to the lowest levels since 2015, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
2. Money’s Easy
Cash-rich developers are pulling out all stops to entice buyers. At its Cullinan West project, Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. is offering buyers finance of as much as 120 percent of the purchase price: 90 percent toward buying the new property, and 30 percent to pay down their existing mortgage. More than 95 percent of the 321 units offered over the weekend sold, Sun Hung Kai said. They were priced about 11 percent higher than a March sale at the same development, according to BOCOM International Holdings Co. Other developers offer rebates to buy furniture or interest-only loans for the first three years.3. … and Cheap
In a sign that mortgage wars between banks are raging even amid the prospect of rising interest rates, HSBC Holdings Plc is offering to match low rates from rival lenders. Hong Kong’s largest mortgage lender is offering some clients a rate of Hibor plus 1.28 percent if they get similar terms from other banks. That works out to less than 2 percent.“These rates are highly affordable and will continue to be, even if the U.S. pushes up rates 25 or 50 basis points,” said Marcos Chan, senior director of head of research for Hong Kong, Southern China and Taiwan at CBRE Inc.
4. The Bank of Mom and Dad
The biggest obstacle for new home buyers is coming up with the minimum 40 percent down-payment required by Hong Kong Monetary Authority loan-to-value ratios. Step in the Bank of Mom and Dad. Hong Kong’s de-facto central bank has warned young buyers are increasingly turning to their parents, with home purchases being financed partially by proceeds from refinancing mortgages. That also makes it harder for others whose families aren’t asset-rich to get on the property ladder.The average number of monthly refinancings rose to 3,100 in the first three quarters of this year from 2,200 in 2016, according to HKMA data.
Through August, the value of refinancing was equal to almost 50 percent of primary sales, according to Cusson Leung, head of research for Hong Kong property and conglomerates at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “We have the sense that most of the financing is going into buying property.”
5. Soaring Land Prices
Aggressive bids by mainland developers keen to build up land banks have pushed Hong Kong prices to records. Non-local developers account for 68 percent of all government land purchases this year, according to Colliers.In February, two mainland companies paid a record HK$22,118 per square foot for a waterfront site. Those costs will ultimately result in higher apartment prices once developments are completed, causing neighboring property owners to raise their own expectations.
“People translate a land sale into the final built price, and when it is way above the market everyone will raise their own prices,” said Denis Ma, head of Hong Kong research at consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.
We don’t know when the HK property bubble will burst, but the cascading selling we’ve seen in Chinese financial markets – from government bonds to corporate bonds to equities following October’s Party Congress – is hardly reassuring. Furthermore, as was noted above, Hong Kong mortgages tend to be priced off Hong Kong interbank rates and 1-month HKD Hibor has recently spiked to its highest rate since December 2008, in the midst of the last crisis, which hardly augurs well.
- The Future Is What We Make Of It – Part 1
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. … Most of us are about as eager to change as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.
– James Baldwin
2017 has been a really strange year for me.
As tens of millions of my fellow Americans have experienced mental breakdowns following the election of Donald Trump, an unexpected sense of calm has come over me and I can’t remember the last time I was this optimistic about the future.
Importantly, the optimism I feel isn’t the demented, tribal and transient sort that many people experience when their politician of choice wins an election. I strongly disliked both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and I refused to support or vote for either. As such, I already knew going into November 2016, that we’d emerge on the other side with a dangerous authoritarian in power, and I mentally prepared myself to push back against whoever won. Although I think Trump is a terrible President and a fake populist, I think his winning the election might serve as the necessary kick in the ass our society needs in order to evolve.
If Hillary Clinton had been elected, she would’ve been given an incredible amount of slack from our depraved corporate media. In fact, the entire first year of her Presidency would’ve been dominated by non-stop slobbering about how amazing it was that the U.S. chose a female leader. This would’ve overshadowed anything she actually did and we’d continue to hear endless platitudes about how exceptional America is from our corrupt, self-proclaimed “elites” via the propaganda press machine. In short, Hillary Clinton would’ve gotten a gigantic pass by the media class which claims to keep the public informed.
All of this reminds me of the James Baldwin quote I put at the top of this post:
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. … Most of us are about as eager to change as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.”
With Trump’s election, the mask is finally off. Even Trump supporters admit that his election was a reaction to how corrupt and fraudulent our economy and society had become during the 21st century – first under Bush and then Obama. Independents such as myself, despite finding Trump revolting and dangerous, tend to agree with this assessment.
The only significant group of people who simply refuse to admit this fact are those who proudly proclaim themselves to be part of “the resistance.” Many of them thought everything was going just fine for the country while Obama was President simply because things were going well for them, which is just human nature. If things are going fine for you on a individual level, there isn’t much incentive to peek behind the curtain and question what’s really going on. You’re simply too busy feeling good about yourself and focusing on getting ahead. I know because I’ve been there.
During my Wall Street career from 2000-2010, I was primarily focused on my career and having fun with friends. Part of this was age related, but it was even more so due to the fact that I was on the fast track and my personal future — from a materialistic and superficial perspective at least — looked bright. It wasn’t until around the time of the financial crisis that I started to see the world from a radically different perspective. I started digging into our shady monetary and financial system, and from there, started looking into other industries, as well as the nefarious and unconstitutional practices of my government’s military-industrial-surveillance complex. The learning curve was exceptionally steep, but it’s been well worth the effort and I finally started the process of confronting reality, as opposed to living comfortably in my own bubble of privilege. Many others “woke up” during this same wave.
While all that’s well and good, there’s a catch. Although “waking up” is an exhilarating process, it’s simultaneously a terrifying and vulnerable time, especially in the early stages. I certainly spent a couple of years with visions of imminent apocalyptic doom, which made me more susceptible to going down all sorts of unproductive rabbit holes that merely sucked away my energy versus inspiring me with productive drive. It wasn’t until I heard about Bitcoin and recognized its revolutionary potential that I began to turn the corner and see a better path forward. Accepting reality for what it is, is productive, but wallowing in fear and despair is not.
At the exact same time I was fretting about the future and expecting collapse, others were working passionately on building the Bitcoin ecosystem. My fear and kvetching didn’t add much value to the world, while those who had focused their energy on creating a better world were helping to push humanity’s evolution forward in a tangible way. This realization forced me to once again question my entire worldview and mindset, which is why you’ve probably noticed a significant change in the tone and content of my writings this year.
While none of us knows what the future holds, it’s guaranteed things won’t get significantly better if we just cower in a corner in the fetal position shivering about what “the powers that be” are about to do to us. A revolutionarily better future will only emerge if we create it.
Which brings me to both the problem and opportunity presented by “the resistance.”
It’s tempting to just write these people off as useful idiots being easily corralled into the vicious arms of neocons and deep state psychopaths following the emotional trauma inflicted upon their psyche by the election of Donald Trump. It’s tempting to do that, because in many ways that’s a fairly accurate description of what’s going on, but I want to try to be less judgmental right now. When thinking back to the early days of my awakening, I remember how malleable my mind was to all sorts of influences, both positive and negative. This is what happens to people when your entire worldview is suddenly shattered or disrupted. Human nature is to look for an alternative narrative that can help you once again make sense of the world. Unfortunately for most card-carrying members of “the resistance,” nefarious characters within corporate media and U.S. intelligence agencies were ready with a comforting narrative which gave them permission to avoid confronting reality: Russia did it.
As idiotic as the whole obsession with Russia has been in 2017, it serves a very useful purpose for the entrenched and discredited U.S. power structure. It effectively gives permission to that segment of the population who thought everything was hunky dory during the Obama administration to continue with that worldview. If everything can be blamed on meddling Russians, then we don’t actually have to confront the rapacious oligarchs running this country into the ground. This is the real tragedy of “the resistance.” By creating and pushing the Russia narrative, these master manipulators are intentionally preventing tens of millions of Americans from confronting how bad things really are. As such, a considerable percentage` of the population simply refuses to admit that our big problems were not created by Vladimir Putin, but are very much a home grown affair.
This presents the danger and the opportunity. If the millions of people in “the resistance” continue to blindly blame our deep problems on Russia while fantasizing about how awesome everything would’ve been if Hillary had been elected, we’re in for some serious trouble as a society. On the other hand, if some meaningful percentage of this group can move beyond their initial election trauma and face reality for what it is, the future is very bright. Let’s never forget that the 2016 election was as much about staying home as it was about voting for Donald Trump. Enough of the country was pissed off about the corruption and degeneracy of the status quo to elect this guy as a middle finger to the “experts” and “elites.” People don’t love Trump, they just despise the status quo.
While I think most rank and file “resistance” members continue to be happily manipulated at this stage since it allows them to avoid confronting how truly screwed up this country has become, I suspect a certain percentage of them can eventually come out of their stupor and evolve into productive agents of change. Tomorrow’s post will dive more deeply into why I think that’s the case.
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- Keith Olbermann: "I'm Retiring From Political Commentary"
Keith Olbermann, anti-Trump video blogger, self-proclaimed leader of the ‘Resistance’, and former ESPN, MSNBC, Current TV and Fox Sports host announced on Monday that he is retiring from political commentary. The progressive provocateur made the announcement during the final episode of “The Resistance,” a political show sponsored by GQ that airs on YouTube.
“I am retiring from political commentary in all media venues” Olbermann said. “Thank you for all the kind words and all the support. Have fun storming the castle. My work here is done. Matter of fact, so is Trump’s.”
He framed his departure by stating that “I am confident now even more so than I have been throughout the last year that this nightmare presidency of Donald John Trump will end prematurely and end soon, and I am thus also confident that this is the correct moment to end this series of commentaries.” He added that Trump will either be removed from office or forced to resign by his own party sometime in the next 13 months.
Clarifying his departure, the 58-year-old insisted that he wasn’t being fired and was in good health: “No illness. No scandal. No firing. Just I’ve said what I’ve had to say. It was as obvious as I made it seem. I give my work everything I can, so it’s not like I can dial it back.”
In a twitted preview of his retirement, Olbermann said that “After “Pocahontas,” Trump’s an ex-president waiting to happen – imminently. So this will be the last episode of #TheResistanceGQ. If you’re a political account and I unfollow you it ain’t personal.” Doubling down on the Pocahontas incident, Olbermann then added that “The good news: I’m finishing it because, especially after the “Pocahontas” debacle, I think Trump is unavoidably, inevitably, and in every possible path open to him, FINISHED “
In the wind-up to his announcement, Olbermann reiterated his running line for the past year, claiming that it is all but inevitable that Trump will either be removed from office or resign from the White House. He asserted that the Republican will be impeached over the Russia investigation or forced by Republicans to leave office.
“I’ve made my point…I’d like to go back and enjoy some of my life again,” said Olbermann, who seemed to take credit for what he predicts will be Trump’s downfall. Olbermann went on to complain about his time on the show, saying that he has “not enjoyed one minute of it.”
“As, I’m certain, it has also been for you, for me it has been unadulterated pain and revulsion and horror. The process has become nearly 24/7,” said Olbermann, who says he produced the show without pay. Olbermann also took one last dig at mainstream television news networks and the “dim-witted world of American political TV reporting, which is still trying to get dim-witted Trump supporters to watch their network.”
Nearly seven years earlier, Olbermann surprised his fans with a similar abrupt exit from media: in Jan. 2011, he announced his departure from MSNBC during the final episode of his show, “The Countdown with Keith Olbermann.” A few months later he joined Current TV, the network founded by Al Gore. That gig lasted just over a year. Olbermann was accused by colleagues of failing to show up to work according to The Daily Caller, which added that in a statement announcing Olbermann’s departure, Gore said that “the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers…are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.
- Hawaii Reinstates Cold-War Era Warning To Prepare For North Korean Attack
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
The previously retired air raid warning sirens from the Cold War era in Hawaii will be wailing again come December. Only this time, it’s due to the rising tensions between the United States and North Korea.
Hawaii has long been a military defense outpost, sparking fears that North Korea could target the island.
“I suppose that’s necessary as a precaution,” said Ted Tsukiyama, a Hawaiian resident, and WWII veteran.
“But I don’t think North Korea is gonna attack,” Tsukiyama said. “They’d be foolish to threaten South Korea or Japan or the United States.”
But the concerns are growing as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has repeatedly threatened to drop a bomb over the Pacific Ocean, and President Donald Trump has threatened North Korea with “fire and fury” and designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. In turn, North Korea has continually failed to abide by the United Nations sanctions placed on them, as they advance their weapons of mass destruction.
Sirens were installed around Hawaii after the second world war started, according to Tsukiyama, and there would be periodic tests.
“I remember hearing the sirens going off. The radio would give us a warning: ‘This is only a test, don’t get alarmed,’” said Tsukiyama, who was born and raised in Hawaii.
According to Vern Miyagi, administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA), which is part of the state’s Department of Defense, the chances North Korea will act are unlikely, but making sure Hawaii is prepared is still vital.
“If North Korea launches against us or our allies, the retaliation would be complete and they would defeat North Korea’s ambition to continue its regime. The regime would probably end,” explained Miyagi.
He notes Hawaii is protected under the U.S. Pacific Command’s defensive umbrella, the anti-ballistic missile system, and it is home to the Pacific Command, the military’s headquarters for the Asia-Pacific region.
Miyagi has pointed out that “Hawaii is a likely target because we’re closer to North Korea than most of the continental United States… As we track the news and see tests, both missile launches, and nuclear tests, it’s the elephant in the room. We can’t ignore it. People of Hawaii need to know what Hawaii is doing in preparation for this.”
Hawaii has been ramping up their preparations in advance for a potential nuclear attack by North Korea.
The Aloha State is currently attempting to educate its 1.4 million residents, as well as its visitors, on how to prepare for a nuclear attack. Hawaii has become one of the first states in the nation to initiate a nuclear preparedness campaign and starting December 1, it will reinstate the “attack warning” siren, which it hasn’t tested since the Cold War. The siren will follow the monthly “attention alert” signal, which warns people of an incoming tsunami or hurricane.
The state has also been holding community meetings and broadcasting public service announcements on TV and the radio to prepare people for a possible attack. Gone are the days of “duck and cover” during the Cold War; today, the mantra is “shelter in place,” preferably in a concrete structure. Officials also recommend having enough food and water to survive for 48 hours and being prepared with supplies to last up to 14 days.
If North Korea launches a missile, officials estimate it would only take 20 minutes to reach its destination. It would take about five minutes for the United States government to determine where the missile is going, which would leave about 12 to 15 minutes to warn the public.
- Here We Go Again: Wells Fargo Is Under Investigation For Gouging Clients
After reporting last month that Wells Fargo’s foreign-exchange unit was being investigated by regulators and that the bank had fired four employees – and demoted another – after discovering certain unspecified improprieties in its FX shop, more details about the exact nature of the bank’s latest scandal – which follows revelations that the bank’s retail division created millions of fake customer accounts, and its auto lending unit overcharged borrows – have finally been unearthed by the Wall Street Journal.
WSJ reports that the bank's FX sales desk routinely gouged customers by charging them up to eight times as much as the industrywide standard. Furthermore, when confronted by clients about the high fees, traders and salespeople were encouraged to lie about the reasoning for them.
And once again, it appears Wells Fargo’s idiosyncratic incentives encouraged traders and salespeople on the bank’s foreign-exchange desk to take advantage of their clients’ ignorance and gouge them with exorbitant fees. Those who remember the cross-selling scandal that precipitated the resignation of CEO John Stumpf last year will recall that the 5,000 or so branch employees who were fired by the bank reportedly blamed management’s unrealistic quotas for their behavior.
Foreign-exchange employees got bonuses based solely on how much revenue they brought in, say more than a dozen current or former Wells Fargo employees. No other big bank in the U.S. calculated bonuses of currency traders in such a defined and individual way. Wells Fargo said Monday that it began making changes to those compensation plans earlier this year.
The bank also charged some of the highest trading fees around, according to current and former employees. For more than a decade, customers were sometimes charged anywhere from 1% to 4% on basic transactions such as converting euros to dollars and complicated trades like hedging.
Those percentages can be at least two to eight times higher than the industrywide average of 0.15% to 0.5%, depending on the trade, customer and volume, according to foreign-exchange bankers throughout the industry.
For what it’s worth, Wells Fargo contests WSJ’s description…
Wells Fargo disputes the descriptions of its foreign-exchange fees by current and former employees. The bank said Monday its fees in 2016 had a weighted average of 0.09 percentage point across all transaction sizes. Clients served by its middle-market banking team were charged a weighted average of 0.18 percentage point, according to Wells Fargo.
Some foreign-exchange bankers at Wells Fargo relied on the fact that customers often didn’t bother to double-check how much they were charged, fee levels weren’t straightforward, and complaints could be batted away, the current and former employees say.
As WSJ had previously reported, a “large trade” involving Restaurant Brands International – the food-service conglomerate that owns Tim Hortons, Burger King and Popeyes – initially aroused regulators’ suspicions.
Amazingly, the price-gouging on the trade was apparently so egregious it resulted in a loss to the company. The Ontario-based company complained about the size of its trading fee and…well…the rest is history.
While WSJ didn’t offer many details about the transaction, the restaurant chain has been on something of an M&A spree in recent years: First the company bought Tim Hortons in 2014, then famously purchased Popeyes Louisiana Chicken last year.
Apparently, none of the traders’ traditional tactics for dealing with customer complaints worked on RBI. One manager told WSJ the sales desk would tell customers – in a stunning feat of mendacity worthy of their rivals at Goldman Sachs – that the higher fee was due to a “time fluctuation” when the trade was executed, or some other such nonsense. The dispute was resolved when the bank refunded RBI nearly $1 million. Inside the bank, the incident even has its own nickname: “the Burger King trade”.
One former Wells Fargo manager says employees would tell customers who expressed surprise at the size of a trading fee that market prices were different at the moment when the transaction was executed and blame “time fluctuation” for any difference.
The bank’s foreign-exchange customers have included telecommunications firm CenturyLinkInc., vehicle-parts supplier Federal-Mogul Holdings Corp. and nonprofit groups such as the National Bone Marrow Donor Program.
Regulators have been investigating the foreign-exchange business at Wells Fargo, including a big trade involving Restaurant Brands International Inc., the owner of Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, according to people familiar with the matter.
The trade resulted in a loss to Restaurant Brands, people familiar with the matter have said, which led to a dispute between the Oakville, Ontario, company and the bank. The dispute centered on how bank employees handled the trade, rather than its pricing. Wells Fargo refunded about $900,000 to Restaurant Brands, people familiar with the refund say.
In addition to blaming market fluctuations, Wells Fargo traders devised another brilliant excuse: Blame the machines.
Wells Fargo’s foreign-exchange business also charged unusually high fees for trades with different currency conversions, known as “Bswift” transactions, current and former employees say.
“And if anybody did complain, it was an easy tap dance,” one former employee says. He says employees would say the pricing had been done automatically by the bank’s computer system so “there’s no accountability for the spread."
Wells Fargo sent an internal email Nov. 2 detailing new guidelines for Bswift transactions, according to a copy of the email reviewed by the Journal. The guidelines include specific handling and pricing procedures for those trades.
According to WSJ’s account, it isn’t clear exactly how regulators became involved – presumably RBI tipped them off, but it’s possible senior executives at the bank, hoping to get out in front of the scandal, decided to come clean. Early this year, a restructuring at the bank moved its foreign-exchange desk from its international division into its capital markets division. Once the new management took over and began reviewing internal controls at the desk, they discovered malfeasance that apparently goes beyond the infamous RBI trade.
The business was moved in early 2017 from Wells Fargo’s international division into its investment-banking and capital-markets operation. Since then, executives have changed internal systems, added more stringent rules around pricing and required more frequent compliance checks, current and former employees say.
Issues with the Burger King trade were found following those checks and customer complaints, people familiar with the matter say. The continuing internal review of Wells Fargo’s foreign-exchange operation is separate from the review sparked by the sales scandal, some of the people said.
A compliance training session in early November detailed what Wells Fargo called “approved margins” for different volumes of foreign-exchange transactions, according to an internal document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Employees say fee levels remain higher than industry norms, and some compensation practices aren’t due to change until next year.
Both the Fed and the Comptroller of the Currency are involved in investigating the Burger King trade. The US Attorney from the Northern District of California is also looking into it.
As WSJ explains, bonuses in Wells’ FX shop were based on a system that essentially allows salespeople to eat what they kill.
Current and former bank employees say its pricing practices were rooted in a culture and compensation system that looked to maximize revenue. Bonuses were defined as 10% of revenues exceeding revenue targets.
If a banker’s revenue target was $5 million and the person brought in $6 million, he or she would earn a $100,000 bonus, or 10% of the additional $1 million in revenue. Bankers typically received such bonuses twice a year in cash, rather than stock, as part of a signed contract, they added.
It’s rare among foreign-exchange groups in other banks to have so-called defined-bonus plans focused on individual earnings, according to people in the industry.
After Wells Fargo moved the foreign-exchange business into its investment bank earlier this year, managers began telling employees that bonuses would become “discretionary” by the end of 2017. Under this more typical arrangement, management would decide employee bonuses, and bankers wouldn’t know exactly how much they would receive. It would be based on a variety of factors, not just revenue.
Wells Fargo has 18 foreign-exchange sales and trading offices, including in New York, San Francisco, Charlotte, N.C., London and Hong Kong. A few hundred people work in the group world-wide.
Current and former employees say Wells Fargo’s foreign-exchange customers are largely midsize businesses that don’t trade often or in large volumes and therefore lack “market insight."
However, RBI isn’t the only Wells client that has complained about gouging. In November 2016, Ecolab Inc., a water, hygiene and energy company based in St. Paul, Minn., complained after the bank took a hefty 1% fee on a $100 million swap deal. Like RBI, Ecolab also received a refund.
In another example, data-management firm Veritas Technologies LLC had a fee agreement already worked out with Wells. But after making one trade on behalf of Veritas, Wells Fargo bankers told Veritas that the bank’s fee was 0.05 percentage point higher than the agreed rate. Veritas was, understandably, not pleased.
One of the most damning details in the story – and something sure to draw the ire of regulators – is that one former employee who spoke out about the fee gouging was demoted and eventually pushed out of the bank.
During a meeting of foreign-exchange managers in the mid-2000s, Cathy Witt said it wasn’t right to celebrate high fees by ringing a bell, people familiar with the situation say. Ms. Witt, an employee in the bank’s Chicago foreign-exchange group, warned that Wells Fargo could become known as a “bucket shop,” a derisive term for a disreputable finance firm, some of the people say.
A few weeks later, Ms. Witt was summoned to a meeting in St. Louis, told that her comments had been offensive and demoted on the spot, according to people familiar with the matter. She also was told to apologize to other managers for her unprofessional behavior, the people say. She later left the bank.
For such a small shop, the Wells Fargo traders reportedly did quite a bit of celebrating. Management would publicly praise traders for locking in large fees in emails to the entire desk. Traders in San Francisco were reportedly encouraged to ring a brass bell every time they sealed a trade.
In what was perhaps the most hilarious detail in the story, the FX traders even charged exorbitant fees to other Wells Fargo businesses like Wells Fargo rail – all to help pad their bonuses.
The operation also charged high fees to other parts of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo Rail, which leases locomotives and railcars, and the bank’s corporate-trust division are often charged 1% to 1.5% on currency transactions, according to current and former employees.
Of course, the timing of this revelation couldn’t be worse for Wells: It comes just as new CEO Tim Sloane – who recently appeared before a Congressional hearing, where he was told by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren that he should resign, just like she told his predecessor – has been making themedia rounds to try and rehabilitate the bank’s image after the cross-selling scandal. And the fact that its breaking only months after the bank was forced to refund customers whom it deceived into buying unnecessary auto insurance isn’t helping.
However, Wells has one thing going for it: Most of the working public don’t understand what the foreign exchange market – or even that there is a foreign exchange market – much less how it works and how one might go about cheating clients. The unceasing wave of FX scandals hardly did anything to dent the reputation of BNY Mellon, or Barclays, or DB in the eyes of the public.
But given Wells’ recent track record, retail customers might make an exception.
- "Because We Can!!"
Authored by Robert Gore via The Burning Platform blog,
Sexual predation is the tip of the abuse-of-power iceberg…
Truths are emerging from the sexual predation scandals. Put a person in a position of power and there’s an appreciable chance he or she (most of the allegations so far have been against men) will sexually impose on someone—male or female, above or below the age of consent—with less power. The scandals shine a light on the prevalence of such predation. There’s no reason to think that future revelations won’t work their way through virtually every corner of American life. Non-consensual sex and, beyond a certain point, unwanted advances are unacceptable and must lead to civil and criminal liability, especially in those situations in which the perpetrator has power over the victim.
This is as it should be, and even much of the politically driven anguish and celebration is understandable and excusable. The discomfiture of Bill Clinton’s many zero-integrity apologists as they try to reclaim at least a veneer of decency—a few even admitting that perhaps they got it wrong back in the 1990s—would be gratifying if it wasn’t so disgusting. If there were a gram of decency in any of them, they’d issue personal apologies to the women they labeled as sluts, whores, bimbos, and trailer park trash back then. Of course that won’t happen, which invalidates their opportunistic “reappraisals” of the vile ex-President.
There are two potential problems with the current scandals. You don’t have to be a full-blown conspiracy theorist to question the timing.
The establishment concocted a story of Russian influence on Trump, his campaign, and members of his administration that has backfired spectacularly.
It’s obvious that there’s nothing to the establishment’s story, and it has boomeranged into two very real stories about Russia, Hillary Clinton, and the Obama administration: Uranium One and Fusion GPS (see “The Rout Is On,” SLL).
If you’re implicated in the crumbling concoction or either of the two new scandals, you’d like to change the subject.
In America, there’s no better way to get people’s attention than with sex. Appeal to this prurient preoccupation and you’ve got a surefire diversion. Harvey Weinstein answered Establishment prayers: a Hollywood movie mogul, powerful, and among his alleged victims are a slew of comely actresses. He looks like a piggish thug, or a thuggish pig. Talk about a figure Americans love to hate.
Next up was Kevin Spacey, whose alleged transgressions—perhaps in a bow to sexual diversity—are homosexual in nature. There might be some resentment of Spacey in Washington. His House of Cards portrayal of President Francis Underwood as a bad apple tarnishes the .000002 percent in government who aren’t. There are people who still haven’t forgiven Frank Capra for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather, two movies that portrayed politicians in an unsympathetic light.
If someone was trying to divert attention those are two blockbusters. However, there a much greater danger than that sexual predation will divert the masses’ attention from Russiagate, Uranium One, and Fusion GPS. Eventually Americans will lose interest in the latest accusations, the accusers, the accused, and their alleged depredations. That point may already have been reached. Investigations, lawsuits, and judicial proceedings will grind on for years, far longer than the American attention span.
Many commentators have correctly pointed out that these scandals are not about sex, they’re about power. The leitmotif of these tawdry tales is: I’m doing what I’m doing to you because I can. Horrifying as it had to been for the victims, they’re the tip of the abuse-of-power iceberg. This must be the beginning of the beginning, we’re nowhere close to the end. The powers that be have had their way with the world for decades, and for many of their victims the price has been far higher than traumatization.
Consider the Yemeni mother holding her child, who’s dying of starvation. She has no ties to those making war in her country. She knows that rich Saudi Arabia has shut her poor country off from food and medicine, and many are dying from starvation and disease. She knows that the rich United States, a country she had thought of as a good place, with good people, is helping Saudi Arabia destroy Yemen. She knows she would bear any indignity or horror, including death itself, if it would save her child.
Dead Yemenis join the millions who have died over the past few decades in America’s senseless wars. America’s deaths are always in the thousands and are well and endlessly mourned. Its victims’ deaths are often in the millions, mostly ignored, but when noticed hypocritically justified as sacrifices to some American greater good. Eventually the survivors figure out it for themselves: the dead are “less than,” and they’ve been killed because America can.
As the cynicism deepens, they realize something else. Wars aren’t just about blood and power, they’re about treasure. America manufactures endless war, weapons, mayhem, and death the same way it manufactures autos and computers, and for the same reason—profit. The rhetoric is a smokescreen: the people who profit don’t want them to end. Is there any evil more monstrous than murdering millions for money?
It’s no consolation to the people of those lands, but most Americans are victims of the same depraved cabal. They are looked upon in the same way and for the same purpose as a starlet invited to Harvey Weinstein’s hotel room: to be used and abused. The “less than” are robbed, coerced, defrauded, swindled, herded, conscripted, patronized, propagandized, lied to, and opiated. Those who question this state of affairs are mocked, scorned, deplored, harassed, marginalized, ostracized, silenced, and eliminated.
A river flows into the heart of darkness from this wellspring of evil: the belief that other people are the involuntary means to one’s own ends. It’s the predators’ view of the world, whether that view encompasses victims of their sexual violence, honest and productive people and businesses plundered, countries conquered and subjugated, or any other “less than” they’ve exploited. They will do it because they can…until they can’t, which won’t happen if exposure and retribution are confined to sexual predation.
Anyone who claims your life, your body, your mind, your work, or your property without your consent is a predator. The predators among us must be brought to justice. “Because we can” must become an inviolate: “No, you cannot.” No one is a “less than.” Only when that becomes the consistent reality will humanity staunch the evil from which all others flow.
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