- The Power Of "Nyet" – How One Word Staggered Imperial Washington
Submitted by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,
The way things are supposed to work on this planet is like this: in the United States, the power structures (public and private) decide what they want the rest of the world to do. They communicate their wishes through official and unofficial channels, expecting automatic cooperation. If cooperation is not immediately forthcoming, they apply political, financial and economic pressure. If that still doesn’t produce the intended effect, they attempt regime change through a color revolution or a military coup, or organize and finance an insurgency leading to terrorist attacks and civil war in the recalcitrant nation. If that still doesn’t work, they bomb the country back to the stone age. This is the way it worked in the 1990s and the 2000s, but as of late a new dynamic has emerged.
In the beginning it was centered on Russia, but the phenomenon has since spread around the world and is about to engulf the United States itself. It works like this: the United States decides what it wants Russia to do and communicates its wishes, expecting automatic cooperation. Russia says “Nyet.” The United States then runs through all of the above steps up to but not including the bombing campaign, from which it is deterred by Russia’s nuclear deterrent. The answer remains “Nyet.” One could perhaps imagine that some smart person within the US power structure would pipe up and say: “Based on the evidence before us, dictating our terms to Russia doesn’t work; let’s try negotiating with Russia in good faith as equals.” And then everybody else would slap their heads and say, "Wow! That's brilliant! Why didn't we think of that?" But instead that person would be fired that very same day because, you see, American global hegemony is nonnegotiable. And so what happens instead is that the Americans act baffled, regroup and try again, making for quite an amusing spectacle.
The whole Edward Snowden imbroglio was particularly fun to watch. The US demanded his extradition. The Russians said: “Nyet, our constitution forbids it.” And then, hilariously, some voices in the West demanded in response that Russia change its constitution! The response, requiring no translation, was “Xa-xa-xa-xa-xa!” Less funny is the impasse over Syria: the Americans have been continuously demanding that Russia go along with their plan to overthrow Bashar Assad. The unchanging Russian response has been: “Nyet, the Syrians get to decide on their leadership, not Russia, and not the US.” Each time they hear it, the Americans scratch their heads and… try again. John Kerry was just recently in Moscow, holding a marathon “negotiating session” with Putin and Lavrov. Above is a photo of Kerry talking to Putin and Lavrov in Moscow a week or so ago and their facial expressions are hard to misread. There’s Kerry, with his back to the camera, babbling away as per usual. Lavrov’s face says: “I can’t believe I have to sit here and listen to this nonsense again.” Putin’s face says: “Oh the poor idiot, he can’t bring himself to understand that we’re just going to say ‘nyet’ again.” Kerry flew home with yet another “nyet.”
What’s worse, other countries are now getting into the act. The Americans told the Brits exactly how to vote, and yet the Brits said “nyet” and voted for Brexit. The Americans told the Europeans to accept the horrendous corporate power grab that is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the French said “nyet, it shall not pass.” The US organized yet another military coup in Turkey to replace Erdo?an with somebody who won’t try to play nice with Russia, and the Turks said “nyet” to that too. And now, horror of horrors, there is Donald Trump saying “nyet” to all sorts of things—NATO, offshoring American jobs, letting in a flood of migrants, globalization, weapons for Ukrainian Nazis, free trade…
The corrosive psychological effect of “nyet” on the American hegemonic psyche cannot be underestimated. If you are supposed to think and act like a hegemon, but only the thinking part still works, then the result is cognitive dissonance. If your job is to bully nations around, and the nations can no longer be bullied, then your job becomes a joke, and you turn into a mental patient. The resulting madness has recently produced quite an interesting symptom: some number of US State Department staffers signed a letter, which was promptly leaked, calling for a bombing campaign against Syria in order to overthrow Bashar Assad. These are diplomats. Diplomacy is the art of avoiding war by talking. Diplomats who call for war are not being exactly… diplomatic. You could say that they are incompetent diplomats, but that wouldn’t go far enough (most of the competent diplomats left the service during the second Bush administration, many of them in disgust over having to lie about the rationale for the Iraq war). The truth is, they are sick, deranged non-diplomatic warmongers. Such is the power of this one simple Russian word that they have quite literally lost their minds.
But it would be unfair to single out the State Department. It is as if the entire American body politic has been infected by a putrid miasma. It permeates all things and makes life miserable. In spite of the mounting problems, most other things in the US are still somewhat manageable, but this one thing—the draining away of the ability to bully the whole world—ruins everything. It’s mid-summer, the nation is at the beach. The beach blanket is moth-eaten and threadbare, the beach umbrella has holes in it, the soft drinks in the cooler are laced with nasty chemicals and the summer reading is boring… and then there is a dead whale decomposing nearby, whose name is “Nyet.” It just ruins the whole ambiance!
The media chattering heads and the establishment politicos are at this point painfully aware of this problem, and their predictable reaction is to blame it on what they perceive as its ultimate source: Russia, conveniently personified by Putin. “If you aren’t voting for Clinton, you are voting for Putin” is one recently minted political trope. Another is that Trump is Putin’s agent. Any public figure that declines to take a pro-establishment stance is automatically labeled “Putin’s useful idiot.” Taken at face value, such claims are preposterous. But there is a deeper explanation for them: what ties them all together is the power of “nyet.” A vote for Sanders is a “nyet” vote: the Democratic establishment produced a candidate and told people to vote for her, and most of the young people said “nyet.” Same thing with Trump: the Republican establishment trotted out its Seven Dwarfs and told people to vote for any one of them, and yet most of the disenfranchised working-class white people said “nyet” and voted for Snow White the outsider.
It is a hopeful sign that people throughout the Washington-dominated world are discovering the power of “nyet.” The establishment may still look spiffy on the outside, but under the shiny new paint there hides a rotten hull, with water coming in though every open seam. A sufficiently resounding “nyet” will probably be enough to cause it to founder, suddenly making room for some very necessary changes. When that happens, please remember to thank Russia… or, if you insist, Putin.
- Bank Of Japan Shocks Market, Shuns Government Pressure: Leaves QE, Rates Unchanged, Questions Policy Effectiveness
Expectations were extremely high heading into tonight's BoJ decision, and market liquidity disappeared with massive violent swings in FX, rates, and equity markets before Kuroda unleashed his disappointing statement:
- *BANK OF JAPAN TAKES ADDITIONAL ACTION
- *BOJ EXPANDS PURCHASES OF ETFS TO 6T YEN
- *BOJ DOUBLES USD LENDING PROGRAM TO $24B
But…
- *BOJ MAINTAINS POLICY BALANCE RATE AT MINUS 0.100%
- *BOJ BOARD VOTES 7-2 TO KEEP NEG RATE UNCHANGED
- *BOJ MAINTAINS MONETARY BASE TARGET AT 80T YEN
Finally, details are emerging of the stimulus package, NHK reporting:
- ~7.5t yen of fiscal spending
- ~6t for fiscal investment and loan financing program
- 15,000 yen handouts for low-income people
- 10.7t yen for infrastructure spending such as maglev line, ports
- 10.9t in SME support to weather Brexit
And most fascinatingly…
- *KURODA ORDERS ASSESSMENT OF POLICY EFFECTIVENESS NEXT MEETING
Raising doubts about the whole house of cards.
So to summarize, Kuroda left rates unchanged, left QE unchanged, implicitly raised doubts about the effectiveness of the world's monetray policy machinations.. and increased the stock market ETF buying to make sure that the illusion of normality is maintained.
As we noted this afternoon, the worst case for Yen shorts would be if the BOJ simply does what both the ECB and the Fed did in recent days and punts to September.. and sure enough: markets are unahppy…
JGB Futures are crashing most sicne 2013…
As 2Y Yields soar…
Yen strength is weighing on US equity futures through the carry trade and gold is jumping…
As one twitter-er noted so eloquently: US equities have rallied for weeks in part on BOJ expectations. Now nothing much, oil on its knees, earnings neg (still).. ok good luck buying
* * *
As we detailed earlier, before the statement, 32 of 41 analysts (the most in 3 years) expected an expansion of QQE2 shifting to ETFs (because that worked so well), but surprises will be hard to come by…
“It’s Kuroda — you can’t underestimate what he is going to do,” said Yasuhide Yajima, chief economist at NLI Research Institute. “What’s certain is that Kuroda has to do something extreme or unthinkable if he wants to surprise.”
2Y JGB yields were screaming for moar….
JGBs had been halted…
And FX market liquidity disappeared..
Total chaos. Nikkei Futs crash 600 points instantly…
* * *
Morgan Stanley economists Robert Feldman, Takeshi Yamaguchi and Shoki Omori, writing in the firm's Global Macro Summer Outlook, say Japan's policy approach is having weak short-term impact:
"The BOJ’s negative interest rate policy (NIRP) has bull-flattened the yield curve, but has yet to improve the economy or prices; indeed NIRP may have worsened inflation expectations, and started a credit crunch for small businesses."
The spectrum of forecasts includes a boost to government bond buying to as much as 100 trillion yen a year — up from 80 trillion, quadrupling exchange-traded fund buying and cutting the policy interest rate to -0.3 percent. A more radical option: a pledge to maintain the BOJ’s balance sheet in its forward guidance.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has added pressure for bolstering monetary stimulus at this meeting. Abe in a surprise announced his economic package on Wednesday, which economists including Daiju Aoki saw as an intention to pressure the central bank by showing the government it is doing what it can to spur growth.
So this was a big disappointment.
Some may see it as a step toward hitting policy limits, with growing concerns about the sustainability of the easing program. There’s a limit to the amount of bonds in the market and the faster the BOJ buys them, the sooner it hits the ceiling. The size of the BOJ’s balance sheet is now more than 80 percent of Japan’s gross domestic product.
Charts: Bloomberg
- Did The DNC Hire Actors (At Below Minimum Wage) To Work At The Convention?
Great news… The Democrats are 'creating jobs."
Following the exposure of a fake Trump job advertisement designed by The DNC to embarrass Trump, it is interesting that a Craigslist ad calling for "Actors Needed for National Convention" has surfaced…
Whether the ad is real or fake is unclear, but the text suggests below minimum wage compensation (7-plus hours work for $50) and the number of walkouts from the Convention indicates perhaps a need for cheering happy seat-fillers…
Actors Needed For National Convention (Philadelphia)
compensation: $50.00Looking for 700 people to be utilized as actors during the National Convention.
We currently have a number of empty seats that will need to be filled as we are currently removing a number of people and need to refill their seats for the remainder of the conference.
You will be paid $50.00 each night for the remainder of the convention. You will be required to cheer at all times and will be asked to dress properly and possibly wear some promotional material.
Which makes sense if one looks at the following shocking video from film director, Josh Fox, best known for his Oscar-nominated anti-fracking documentary Gasland, captured inside the DNC…
As DailyWire.com reports, Fox tells the camera… "This is amazing, this place is empty. There is nobody left in here. I mean this whole stadium, look at this," as he pans his cellphone to show the lack of cheering Dems.
He continues in disbelief, adding, "This is not voter enthusiasm…. I can't believe my eyes. I've never seen anything like this. This is the primetime of the Democratic National Convention right after the nomination of Hillary Clinton and this place is emptied out like crazy. I'm stunned."
"This is insane. The whole California delegation is pretty much gone," he adds. "I mean this has got to be something very worrisome for the Democrats. Voter enthusiasm wins elections."
The director goes on to explain that the states that Hillary won got seating up close to the stage and the Bernie state delegates were sent up to the cheap seats.
Is it then totally surprising that The DNC needed to hire 'seat-fillers'?
* * *
And here is proof:
PROOF: "Seat filling" delegate's place if they leave their seats. #DNCinPHL #DNCWalkout #DemExit # #NeverHillary pic.twitter.com/gBst2Fi2AX
— Griefage (@Griefage) July 28, 2016
- Exposing Hillbama's Big Lie: The Central Issue In The U.S. Presidential Campaign
Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Saker,
The central issue in the U.S. Presidential campaign can’t even be discussed in U.S. newsmedia, because America’s media have been almost uniformly complicit all along in hiding from the American public the crucial factual information that’s necessary in order for the public to vote in an intelligent and truthfully informed way about it. No news medium wants to report its own having been complicit in anything; so, the cover-up here just continues; it has a life of its own, even though it’s a life that brings the world closer and closer to a situation which would kill billions of people, as things get increasingly out-of-control the longer this coverup continues. The cycle of virtually uniform lying thus persists, despite the growing danger it produces. This article will need to be lengthy, because the American public have been almost consistently lied-to about so many very important things — things associated with the nation’s central issue — an issue even bigger than terrorism, and than global warming, and than rising economic inequality and corruption, but which is still virtually ignored. This article is thus intended to be ‘Drano’ for a political system that has become clogged by lies just jammed down into it, now backing up and pouring out onto America’s political floor. The overflowing sludge has got to be cleaned up, and discarded. Or else — and very suddenly — it will kill us all.
This central issue is whether or not to continue to move forward with the American government’s plan, ever since the Soviet Union and its military alliance the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991, to extend NATO — the anti-Russia military club — right up to Russia’s borders, surround Russia with NATO nuclear missiles a mere five minutes flight-time to Moscow, and simultaneously build a “Ballistic Missile Defense” or “Anti Ballistic Missile” (BMD or ABM) system to nullify Russia’s retaliatory missiles against an unannounced blitz U.S.-NATO invasion to take over, if not totally eliminate, Russia and its resistance to U.S. power. This operation is an ugly reality, but it is an American-led reality, and the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election will bring it into its final stage, either by ending it, or by culminating it — two drastically different outcomes, but one side or the other will prevail in this political contest, and the present article links to the documentation that America’s voters will need to be aware of that shows not only that they’ve been lied-to, but how and why they’ve been lied-to. The documentation is all-important, especially because the facts that are being documented have been hidden so successfully for so long. This is not a world that Americans want to know, but it is a world that especially the few Americans who are in control, don’t want the American public to know. That’s a toxic combination (public ignorance, which the people in control want to continue), but it is tragically real (as the documentation here will make clear).
U.S. President Barack Obama has stated, on many occasions, that the U.S. is the only “indispensable” country, and that any country which refuses to capitulate to American global supremacy is an enemy. This applies especially to Russia and to China — two formerly communist nations. Thus, the ‘Cold War’ is being resumed, and U.S. arms-makers are booming again, even though the ideological excuse (the “red scare,” communism) is now gone.
For example, Obama told graduating cadets at West Point, on 28 May 2014:
“The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. … Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums. … It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world. The question we face, the question each of you will face, is not whether America will lead, but how we will lead — not just to secure our peace and prosperity, but also extend peace and prosperity around the globe.”
He was telling West Point graduates there, that economic competition can become a cause for America to go to war, and that America’s global supremacy is their job to enforce.
Obama placed this into a moralizing framework, as he always so skillfully does (for propaganda-purposes; he’s terrifically gifted at that), by saying to those cadets:
“America’s willingness to apply force around the world is the ultimate safeguard against chaos, and America’s failure to act in the face of Syrian brutality or Russian provocations not only violates our conscience, but invites escalating aggression in the future. … In the 21st century American isolationism is not an option. We don’t have a choice to ignore what happens beyond our borders. … As the Syrian civil war spills across borders, the capacity of battle-hardened extremist groups to come after us only increases. Regional aggression that goes unchecked — whether in southern Ukraine or the South China Sea, or anywhere else in the world — will ultimately impact our allies and could draw in our military. We can’t ignore what happens beyond our boundaries. And beyond these narrow rationales, I believe we have a real stake, an abiding self-interest, in making sure our children and our grandchildren grow up in a world where schoolgirls are not kidnapped and where individuals are not slaughtered because of tribe or faith or political belief. I believe that a world of greater freedom and tolerance is not only a moral imperative, it also helps to keep us safe.”
He was equating there the imposition of American control, as being “a world of greater freedom and tolerance,” which “helps to keep us safe.” Was it that, and did it do that, in Iraq? What about in Libya? What did it do for Ukraine? Is it really doing that in Syria? What about all of the refugees that are pouring out of all of those countries, which are being ‘saved’ by Obama’s policy, which has been America’s policy for decades, and which is not challenged, and which is bipartisan in every regard except for the style of lying rhetoric that’s being used to ‘justify’ it?
Obama’s predecessor in office, George W. Bush, was working on the same plan, when he invaded Iraq in 2003. His allegations that he was certain that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear-weapons program, and saying against “Saddam’s WMD program” that “a report came out of the Atomic — the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don’t know what more evidence we need”, all of it were just bald lies from him, because all of it was false, and he knew that it was false. He knew that there was no such ‘IAEA’ ‘report’. And the press didn’t even challenge him on it, but instead just parroted the President’s lies as if they should automatically be taken as truths. (And the press also hid the IAEA’s immediate announcement that there was no such report.) It’s happening again, but the stakes this time are even more dangerous.
We’re going into a Presidential election, in which one candidate, Hillary Clinton, clearly wants to continue the policy that has been in place since 1990 (and which her husband played a major role in), and in which the other candidate, Donald Trump, wants to stop it — he says we should end it. So, he is accused of being a ‘Soviet agent’. The same aristocracy that own the ‘news’ media and that control both of the political Parties, is being threatened by Trump’s repudiation of their program. They use moralisms — rightist ones for Republicans, and leftist ones for Democrats — to condemn him, but the real reason they are determined to defeat him is to continue their war which (on its U.S. side) never really was against communism; it was always a war for global conquest, global control; that’s how America’s controllers have been controlling this country since at least 1990. They want to continue it, though it’s heading all of us toward disaster.
In support of this aggressive agenda — a metastatically cancerous NATO — Obama in 2014 perpetrated a very bloody Ukrainian coup (propagandized as ‘democracy demonstrations’), carried out by U.S.-paid rabid racist-anti-Russian fascists, nazis actually (and from a tradition in Ukraine that descended from the pro-Hitler, anti-Stalin, side of Ukraine during World War II — the side that did Ukraine’s pogroms, etc.) and which had been allied with the Axis powers during WW II — but that now were in the pay of the U.S. government.
Some of the top members of Congress who have responsibility over foreign affairs refuse even to become acquainted with the evidence disproving the U.S. government’s lies on this. Elizabeth Murray was shocked to find in government officials, this intentional refusal to see evidence. She had served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council before retiring after a 27-year career in the U.S. government. (She should be the head of the CIA.) On 24 July 2016, in an article titled “Rep. Rick Larsen Bases Russia Policy on Myth”, she described her efforts to inform congressman Larsen about the reality of the U.S. operation in Ukraine. Wikipedia says: “Richard Ray ‘Rick’ Larsen is the United States Representative for Washington’s 2nd congressional district and a member of the Democratic Party. … Larsen is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. … He formerly worked as director of public affairs for the Washington State Dental Association and as a lobbyist for the dental profession. … the Second District was represented by future U.S. Senator Henry M. ‘Scoop’ Jackson between 1941 and 1953.” (Jackson later became famous as “the Senator from Boeing,” the first of the Democratic Party neoconservatives.)
Murray wrote (and the links here are added by me):
I mentioned to Rep. Larsen that I had just returned from Russia with a U.S. delegation, and that all the people in Russia I had spoken with — including teachers, students, journalists, medical doctors, entrepreneurs and war veterans — had no desire for a nuclear war with the United States, but instead expressed the wish for peaceful, normalized relations . . . During our time in Yalta, I had organized a ‘swim for peace’ with Americans and Russian war vets swimming together in the Black Sea, which had caused quite a stir in local Russian language media. I explained to Rep. Larsen my understanding of why the Russian public is suspicious about U.S. moves in the region (based on what I heard from people there), and why they would expect the United States to be the first to make a unilateral confidence-building measure in the direction of nuclear disarmament. Russians were savvy to the Nuland ‘Yats’ youtube recording (in which Victoria Nuland is distinctly heard telling U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt that ‘Yats is the guy’ just prior to the regime change in which Arseniy Yatsenyuk became prime minister, and which directly implicated the U.S. in the Ukrainian coup), felt threatened by the recent NATO/Operation Anakonda maneuvers that took place during our delegation’s visit, and were extremely concerned about other provocative U.S. moves in the region, including economic sanctions on Russia and Crimea, the latter enacted after a majority of Crimeans voted to rejoin Russia in response to what they saw as outside interference in the affairs of Ukraine.
Larsen immediately responded with rebuttals, stating flat-out he didn’t believe there was a U.S. role in the Ukrainian events — that what I’d just told him was ‘not what I’ve been hearing’ – and he went on to talk about how the Baltic states felt threatened by Russia, etc. He didn’t know what ‘Operation Anakonda’ was and seemed unaware that the largest-ever NATO military maneuvers since WWII had just taken place on Russia’s borders. I offered to send his office additional information about that and the Ukrainian events – an offer he ignored.
The path we’re on can end only in one of two ways: Either the U.S. ‘news’ media will get real and start reporting the crucial realities (such as that the aggression in Ukraine wasn’t Putin’s ‘seizure’ of Crimea but the immediately prior coup — and its necessary ethnic cleansing afterwards — by Obama’s hirees, which started being organized by him no later than 1 March 2013, and which culminated nearly a year later), these being the crucial realities that contradict the official lies and thus might (if we’re extremely lucky) compel the U.S. government to reverse its present course; or else, there will be a surprise blitz attack by U.S.-NATO against Russia, or else by Russia against U.S.-NATO. The closer we get to the end of this matter, the more difficult the former option becomes, and the more inevitable the latter option — a blitz attack (by either side) — becomes. That’s the reality.
Obama’s ‘mono-polar world’ is a fiction, and the sooner that he and his Big Lie can be exposed (by the Western press, to the Western publics), the safer everyone will be. Discomforts on the parts of those who have promulgated and propagandized that lie will be vastly less than the disastrous alternative, which would destroy the world for everyone.
* * *
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
- Pokemon 'No': Nintendo Suffers Worst Week In 27 Years
After admitting to investors last Friday (after the close) that they won’t be able to rely on Pokemon Go to bolster profits, the company came clean this week that a widely anticipated accessory for the blockbuster app will be delayed until September. The effect is simple – Nintendo shares are down 27% this week – the worst week since Aug 1989 (when the exuberance over Super Famicom died).
Thanks to this double Pokemon “no,” Nintendo has lost over $14 billion of market capitalization in the last week.
As Bloomberg details, Pokemon Go Plus, a 3,500 yen ($33) Bluetooth gadget that helps users detect nearby virtual pocket monsters, was supposed to be Nintendo’s one measurable benefit from the explosive popularity of the game. It was set to go on sale in Japan this week, until Nintendo, Pokemon Co. and developer Niantic Inc. pushed back the accessory’s debut.
In addition, the delay will probably force analysts to adjust their estimates, which were already in disarray because of the lack of clarity over how Pokemon Go will impact the company’s bottom line. Nintendo maintained its outlook for 35 billion yen in profit for the current fiscal year when it reported earnings shortly after announcing the delay.
“The delay is disappointing, especially since it’s just a Bluetooth accessory that has already been available for pre-order,” said Atul Goyal, an analyst at Jefferies Group. “The sales will still accrue to Nintendo with a delay. Just as all eyes turn to Nintendo, the company’s management can’t seem to get their communication right.”
Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. estimated that Pokemon Go Plus would add 45 billion yen in sales and 8.2 billion yen in income to Nintendo for the current fiscal year, based on its original sale date. Analysts at Bank of America Corp. were predicting an extra 10.5 billion yen in profit.
“Is Nintendo really not even capable of producing a low-end accessory these days?,” said Serkan Toto, founder of consultant Kantan Games Inc. “It has now delayed the launch to a time when at least the initial hype around the game will definitely be over. In contrast to Pokemon Go earnings, Nintendo would have pocketed most of the margin for the device.”
While the Pokemon Go Plus delay was announced in Japan and the U.S., it wasn’t clear what the impact would be in other places where the game has debuted.
Maybe The Bank of Japan will buy them? Stranger things have happened.
- USDJPY Plunges Again
Japanese ‘markets’ are total disaster tonight…
Liquidity is gone… as another 104.00 run breaks…
Yen futures again show the surge in volume…
“There was no visible news, but markets are nervous ahead of the BOJ meeting,” said Yuji Saito, Tokyo-based head of the foreign-exchange department at Credit Agricole SA.
This siwhat happens when everything becomes binary – based on a handful of ivory tower academics fumbling in the dark.
- Democrats Hacked Again: FBI Probing "Cyber Intrusion" At Fundraising Group
Those pesky Russian hackers are working overtime.
According to Reuters, the FBI is probing a “cyber intrusion” at yet another Democratic organization, this time the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) which may or may not be related to an earlier hack at the Democratic National Committee. The previously unreported incident at the DCCC, which raises money for Democrats running for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, is said to have been intended to gather information about Democratic donors.
We anticipate another media freakout, one which again blames the Kremlin, is imminent. As Reuters puts it, “the breach and its potential ties to Russian hackers are likely to sharpen concern, so far unproven, that Moscow is attempting to meddle in U.S. elections. The issue has clouded this week’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.”
The DCCC intrusion could have begun as recently as June, two of the sources told Reuters. That was when a spoof website was registered with a name closely resembling that of a main donation site connected to the DCCC. For some time, Internet traffic associated with donations that was supposed to go to a company that processes campaign donations instead went to the spoof site, two sources said. How this went on as long as it did is unclear: perhaps in addition to having problems with “email”, the Democratic party is simply unable to keep keep up with modern technology.
Sure enough, a Russian “trail” has emerged quickly. Reuters’ sources said the Internet Protocol address of the spurious site resembled one used by a Russian government-linked hacking group, one of two such groups suspected in the breach of the DNC, the nationwide strategy setting and money-raising body for the Democratic Party.
The DCCC had no immediate comment. Donation processing company ActBlue had no immediate comment.
Reuters adds that the FBI referred questions to a statement it made on Monday on the DNC hack: “The FBI is investigating a cyber intrusion involving the DNC and are working to determine the nature and scope of the matter. A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously, and the FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.”
While private cyber experts and the government were aware of the DNC hack months ago, embarrassing emails were leaked last weekend by the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group just as the party prepared to anoint Hillary Clinton as its presidential candidate for the Nov. 8 election.
The revelation of the DCCC breach is likely to further stoke concerns among Democratic Party operatives, many of whom have acknowledged they fear further dumps of hacked files that could harm their candidates. WikiLeaks has said it has more material related to the U.S. election that it intends to release.
While fingers will surely point to Russia, earlier today Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the U.S. intelligence community was not ready to “make the call on attribution” as to who was responsible for the DNC hack. The White House said earlier the FBI had not disclosed any information about who was behind the hack.
Clapper, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, acknowledged that “there’s just a few usual suspects out there” who might be responsible for the cyber intrusion, suggesting it was the work of a state actor rather than an independent hacking group.
Russian officials have dismissed the allegations of Moscow’s involvement. “It is so absurd it borders on total stupidity,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
So far nobody has claimed responsibility.
- DNC Grand Finale: Ladies Night, Hillary Unleashed (And Katy Perry!) – Live Feed
It's the day everyone has been waiting for – Ladies' night. The grand finale of four days of Democratic dreamery as Kary Perry takes the stage (after Barbara Mikulski – the first woman elected to the Senate). The night will be capped off by Chelsea Clinton introducing her mother – the first female nominee for President from a major party (Victoria Woodhill was first female nominee in 1872).
Dont know if the Equal Rights party was considered a major political party back then. If it was than HRC not the 1st pic.twitter.com/Xl2fiE6EzV
— Helyn Bolanis (@helynbolanis) July 28, 2016
Live Feed (due to 'gavel in' at 1630ET)…
As The Hill reports, Clinton will formally accept the Democratic presidential nomination on the final night of the party’s national convention in Philadelphia Thursday night. Campaign manager Bobby Mook said the former secretary of State will “stitch together” the themes from the first three nights of the convention.
Clinton will make the case that she’s a fighter for working-class Americans and dismiss Trump as a representative of the “ultra-wealthy” who has stepped all over the middle class on his way to the top.
She’ll frame herself as a natural leader with the “steadiness” Americans can count on and frame Trump as erratic and reckless.
And Clinton will look to highlight the stakes of the election and how she will protect the “values” the nation was founded on against what she sees as a threat from Trump, whom Democrats view as a divisive and dangerous figure.
“Hillary is going to stitch together each of these themes and talk about how this election is really a moment of reckoning for voters,” Mook said. “Are we going to succumb to some very powerful forces that are tearing at our social fabric, that are dividing us economically and socially? Or are we going to come together to solve these problems?”
Clinton will return to the theme of her 1996 book about how it “takes a village” to build a strong society.
The 2016 spin on that theme is how “we are stronger together,” Mook said.
The campaign will be looking to highlight the historic nature of Clinton’s nomination as she becomes the first female standard-bearer for a major political party in the U.S.
* * *
The big question is – can she trump Trump's longest acceptance speech ever?
Trump's speech clocked in at about an hour and 15 minutes, by various counts, making it the longest of any acceptance speeches in the last four decades. Trump's speech was as long as Mitt Romney's and Barack Obama's speeches combined in 2012.
* * *
Today's tentative schedule:
Thursday, July 28
The session begins at 4:30 p.m.
- Henrietta Ivey, a Michigan home care worker who advocates for a $15 an hour minimum wage.
- Beth Mathias of Ohio, who works two jobs
- Jensen Walcott and Jake Reed. Walcott was fired from her job in Bonner Springs, Kan., for asking why her co-worker, and friend, Reed, made more than she did for the same job
- Khizr Khan, whose son, , Humayun S. M. Khan, is one of 14 American Muslims killed after 9/11 serving in the U.S. Armed Forces
- Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan
- Candidates of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
- Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin
- League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski
- Rep. Sea Patrick Maloney of New York, co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, and LGBT rights activist Sarah McBride
- U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Democratic women of the Senate
- Chelsea Clinton, Clinton's daughter
- Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Democratic nominee
The spin all wek has been dramatic, media watchers are getting whiplash as the liberal media desperately attempt to distract from the leaked emails content to the conspiracy theory that Trump and Putin did it…
- Japanese Bond Futures Halted Without Warning
At 2051ET, Japanese government bond futures suddenly halted trading. There was no limit moves or sudden surge in volume and the Osaka Excchange has confirmed it is investigatingthe reasons for the halt. Following the earlier flash-crash in USDJPY, one wonders just what is going on.. and what is coming?
- *TOKYO EXCHANGE CONFIRMS HALT OCCURRED IN 10-YR JGB FUTURES
And sure nough once everyone started to look:
- *JGB FUTURES RESUMED; HALT BETWEEN 9:51 TO 10:12 A.M. TOKYO
Following this week’s terrible tail in the 2Y JGB auction, and repeated claims by primary dealers that BoJ had killedthe JGB market, it is unsurprising that such a ‘glitch’ could happen… but within an hour of the biggest BoJ announcement in history is too suspicious.
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