Jun 29

Today’s News 29th June 2018

  • Visualizing The Economic Impact Of Violence

    When you regularly buy goods or services, it helps fuel the economy at both the local and national level.

    But, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins asks, what if you live in a place like Syria, that is torn apart by a seven-year long civil war?

    Aside from the obvious humanitarian costs, these dire circumstances would ultimately change your spending behavior, how businesses operate, and how capital gets utilized. The fact is that conflicts, homicides, terrorism, and other types of violence can hinder productivity and wealth creation, and this ultimately has an impact on families around the world.

    CALCULATING AN ECONOMIC IMPACT

    In today’s chart, we use data from the Global Peace Index 2018 report, which tries to put a figure on the expenditures and economic effects related to “containing, preventing and dealing with the consequences of violence”.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    According to the report, the economic impact of violence to the global economy was $14.76 trillion in 2017 in constant purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. This is roughly 12.4% of world gross domestic product (GDP), or $1,988 per person.

    While those figures themselves are quite staggering, how it all breaks down is even more interesting.

    VIOLENCE BY TYPE

    Violence comes in many forms, so how does factor into the economic impact?

    The Institute for Economics and Peace, the non-profit think tank that has authored the report for the last 12 years, breaks down economic impacts as follows:

    The vast majority of impact comes from military and security spending, which are both aimed at the prevention or containment of violence. Meanwhile, homicide and conflict – two more direct violent actions – are the next two biggest factors.

    Here’s how this breaks down by region:

    Dollars are going to military and security spending in North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. Meanwhile, it’s actual violence like homicides, conflict, and terrorism that cause economic havoc in South America, Central America, and Africa.

    THE COUNTRIES MOST AFFECTED

    Which countries are impacted the most by violence, as a percentage of their GDP?

    Here are the top 10, as per the report:

    Syria, which has been in its civil war for seven years now, is the country most affected by the economic impact of violence. Meanwhile, war-torn Afghanistan is not far behind.

    Interestingly, the cost of violence in Latin American countries is comparable to regions that have been at war for years. El Salvador ranks a surprising fourth place, due to its issues with gang activity and a sky-high homicide rate, and Colombia makes the list as well.

  • The European Intervention Initiative: A New Military Force Established In Europe

    Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The predictions have come true about the emergence of a new defense group that will change the European security environment.

    On June 25, the defense chiefs from nine EU countries signed off on the creation of a new force called the European Intervention Initiative (EII), which is spearheaded by French President Emmanuel Macron. The new organization will have a common budget and a doctrine establishing its guidelines for acting and joint planning for contingencies in which NATO may not get involved. The group includes the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia, Spain, and Portugal. Italy may join soon. The initiative is not tied to the EU’s Common European Defense, which includes the PESCO agreement as well as NATO. Great Britain has always opposed the idea of creating a European defense alliance, fearing it would undermine transatlantic unity. Now it has done an about-face, as the rifts within the US grow deeper.

    The new force is to be much more efficient than anything else the EU has to offer, with a streamlined decision-making process that will permit a quick reaction time. Its relatively small number of members will give it more flexibility in comparison with the EU or NATO. For instance, the EU’s four multinational military battle groups that were created as far back as 2007 have never been deployed.

    Its main mission is to offer a rapid response to crises that could threaten European security. The operations are to be conducted independently from US control. The UK will remain a member of this European defense entity even after it leaves the EU next year. Denmark, which retains a special opt-out status and has not joined PESCO, is a signatory to the EII. This is a step on the path to creating a real European armed force to unite non-EU participants with those who keep their distance from the European deterrent headed by Brussels. If the process gains traction, Norway, a NATO member that is outside the EU, plus Sweden and Finland, which are EU members outside of NATO, may consider joining the EII as well. Sweden and Finland are already members of the UK Joint Expeditionary Force.

    Will it undermine NATO? To a certain extent it will. Any defense group outside the alliance that acts independently weakens it. At the same time, this gives NATO an opportunity to focus on the European theater of operations without being distracted by other hot spots. Any coin has two sides. Afghanistan is an example of NATO solidarity but is also an example of how a crisis that takes place outside of the alliance’s primary area of responsibility has weakened NATO’s standing in Europe.

    Europeans have participated in the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, conflicts in which they have no interest, in order to please the US. The real threat to Europe comes from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The planned creation of migrant reception centers in Africa may require military involvement. Washington views Europe’s migrant crisis as a far-flung problem that does not directly impact its own national security interests. NATO forces Europeans to focus more on the so-called Russian threat that no one takes seriously, despite the fact that defending its own borders is a pressing issue.

    Europe can never be truly independent without the capability to mount a robust defense on its own. For instance, the EU needs a joint border force to prevent illegal immigration, which is plainly a real threat. The interests of the new group and Russia are not in conflict. Far from it. If the Russian-backed Syrian government finally wins, the flood of refugees to Europe will significantly diminish. Some migrants may return home. Russia has an important role to play in Libya, another source of refugees. Those interests coincide, while conversely, the US is more interested in countering Iran, which will exacerbate tensions, prompting more people to move to Europe seeking refuge from war. If an international operation in Libya is approved by the UN Security Council, the EII and Russia may act together, unified by a common interest.

    With the EU still unable to bring its plans to fruition, the project led by President Macron stands a very good chance of creating a European group that would become an independent global player. NATO and the EU are being torn apart by internal conflicts while the EII is not. That group will be able to stand up to real threats, not imaginary ones.

    Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, as NATO and the EU defense initiatives are failing to meet the interests of European security, forcing those nations to seek other alternatives, such as the EII. The threat of the Russian bogeyman has failed to paper over those differences. The quest continues. Whatever is in store for the newborn alliance, this is very bad for NATO, as this news is coming just a couple of weeks before the summit that may break up the alliance and consign the much-vaunted concept of “Western unity” to its grave. 

  • Military Seizes Control Of Water Supplies As Venezuelan Infrastructure Collapses

    If there’s one group that has benefited from Venezuela’s economic collapse, it’s the country’s military, which has been handed control over much of the country’s remaining industry as the collapse has intensified. Venezuela’s army, about 160,000 strong, controls the mineral-rich Arco Minero del Orinoco, and some of its top officers are also serving as executives of Venezuela’s state-run oil company.

    VZ

    And as the collapse of social services has caused water supplies to dwindle, the military has recently hijacked what spigots remain, transforming access to water into a luxury that most Venezuelans can’t afford. Many of the pipes and reservoirs have fallen into disarray – or seen their supplies drastically diminished – the military is stepping in to take charge of the “equitable distribution” of what little remains. As part of the government’s socialist policy program, the cost of water is supposed to be subsidized – at least in theory. But with the state-owned water utility, known as Hidrocapital, has effectively abdicated its responsibilities, the military is increasingly stepping in, commandeering trucks and vans used by private individuals who have tried to step in and service parts of the capital, according to a Bloomberg report.

    Venezuela’s military has come to oversee the desperate and lucrative water trade as reservoirs empty, broken pipes flood neighborhoods and overwhelmed personnel walk out. Seven major access points in the capital of 5.5 million people are now run by soldiers or police, who also took total control of all public and private water trucks. Unofficially, soldiers direct where drivers deliver — and make them give away the goods at favored addresses.

    Rigoberto Sanchez, who runs a water tanker that ferries water from the El Paraiso water-filling station in Caracas to an array of customers in the city, says his No. 1 business hazard is being intercepted by the military.

    Those who want more must pay. Private tankers like Sanchez had been filling up and reselling water for many times its worth. Then, military personnel were deployed to the capital’s water points in May in an emergency supply plan.

    The El Paraiso station is blocks from El Guaire, a filthy river carrying sewer water that the late President Hugo Chavez pledged to clean enough for a swim back in 2005. Even before the sun heats the muddy waters, the scent is putrid. It is untreated. Unpotable and drinking water must come from elsewhere.

    Depending on driving distance from the water point, Sanchez charges about 18 million bolivars to fill an average residential building’s tank. For bigger jobs he can charge up to 50 million. While that’s just $17 at black-market exchange rates, compares that to a month’s minimum wage of about $1.

    Recently, Sanchez has a new expense: Military officers have begun commandeering trucks, according to a dozen water providers in Caracas. Drivers are forced to go wherever officers tell them without the expectation of pay. Sometimes they’re led to government buildings, others to military residences or private homes. In other cases, soldiers simply block access to springs and wells. At a filling station near a large park in Eastern Caracas, a lock had been placed on the water lever.

    […]

    “They hijack our trucks, just like that,” said Sanchez, leaning on a rusty railing. “Once that happens, you’re in their hands, you have to drive the truck wherever they want you to.”

    President Nicolas Maduro last month appointed Evelyn Vasquez, a Hidrocapital official, as the head of a new water ministry. But Norberto Bausson, who ran the utility back in the 1990s, said that “institutional incompetence” is risking a “disaster” should Venezuela have a exceptionally dry year. Already, the utility sometimes cuts service int he capital for as long as two days at a stretch.

    Three

    People in Caracas, who on average only have access to water for 30 minutes every morning and night, frequently rush home from work and social gatherings to shower or collect water, racing against the clock before supplies are once again shut off. And while the situation in Caracas is dire, circumstances are even worse for poor Venezuelans living in the more remote provinces. To wit, a report from charity Caritas recently revealed that only 27% of poor Venezuelans have continuous access to safe drinking water. 65% have access for three days a week or less, while in the state of Miranda, not a single poor family has access for more than three days a week.

    VZ

    These shortages have made gathering the day’s supply of water a tedious part of the morning routine for many families.

    When water makes a rare appearance at Odalys Duque’s two-bedroom home, it’s usually at dawn and wakes her with a rattle at the bottom of a plastic drum. She then has to rush to align buckets, bins and pots in hopes of gathering every drop for her husband and two small children.

    In mid June they’d had none for three weeks. Instead, they survived on what was left in a roof tank and what her husband could carry in paint buckets strapped on his shoulders from a well at the bottom of the sprawling hillside slum of Petare.

    “It’s an ugly situation that keeps getting uglier,” said Duque, 32. “The little one cries when I pour the bucket of cold water on him, but at least we still get something. My family that lives higher up the mountain hasn’t had water in months.”

    […]

    The situation governs much of Duque’s life. For drinking water, she waits for particles to settle at the bottom of plastic buckets and then pours the surface water into a pot where she boils it at least half an hour. For laundry, she’ll wash several loads of clothes and linens in the same dirty water.

    Elderly people and children from neighborhoods even higher up the mountain knock on her door asking for water. “I always give them something, even if it’s just a glass,” she said.

    The lack of access to clean water, as horrifying as it sounds in Latin America’s socialist paradise, is perhaps even more galling because of the $500 million in loans the country has received over the past decade from the Latin American Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to upgrade its water-treatment infrastructure. Unfortunately for the people of Venezuela, none of it appears to have helped.

    While water shortages threaten the population with malnutrition and other diseases as people are forced to drink unclean or non-potable water just to survive, Bloomberg recently pointed out another shocking development: The cost of a single cup of coffee in Caracas has eclipsed one million bolivars (equal to about 29 US cents) That’s about one-third of the average monthly wage in the country, which has slipped to roughly $1 thanks to the government’s frantic money printing.

    Coffee

  • Brandon Smith: "Trade War Provides Perfect Cover For The Elitist Engineered Global Reset"

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    Over the past several months, I have been examining the underlying or hidden motivations behind the currently expanding global trade war, including the impressive level of cognitive dissonance surrounding the issue.

    The political left doesn’t seem to have an intelligent grasp of economic issues in the slightest.  I’m not seeing any critical discussion from leftist media outlets or pundits on fiscal uncertainties, and the only reaction that is common from them is that they hope that the trade war results in the financial downfall of the US so that Trump can be voted out in 2020.  They may very well get their wish, but they seem to imagine themselves celebrating at the end of the disaster, and I predict they’ll be so concerned with their own financial survival that they won’t have time to celebrate…

    The initial reaction in conservative circles to the trade war was unfortunately overconfident denial, with many refusing to call the situation a “trade war” at all and some predicting an end to the conflict before it began. Obviously those assumptions are proving incorrect.

    Now that acceptance of the trade war as a reality is setting in, the Trump bandwagon is doubling down and embracing blind enthusiasm for what they assume will be a victorious outcome, no matter how long it takes. Though the team-geopolitics mentality is enticing in some ways, I don’t find much in the facts and evidence department to support the notion of America winning a global trade war. As I outlined in my article America’s Debt Dependence Makes It An Easy Economic Target, as long as the U.S. retains historic levels of debt on a government, corporate and consumer level, and as long as we remain addicted to foreign investment in that debt, trade war opponents have all the ammunition they need.

    The argument I now see regurgitated over and over is that this trade war has actually been “going on for decades”, and only now do we “have a president with the guts to do something about it.” I’m not sure where this nonsense meme was started, but it’s everywhere.

    The U.S. has NOT been engaged in a trade war “for decades,” not with China or any other nation. It has been involved in a subversive trade arrangement which benefits the elitists on both sides of the world while the common people suffer. Only in the past year have we seen a “trade war” develop, but even now, it is a staged war that will once again empower international banks and global elites.

    It is hard to argue the longstanding trade war meme when considering the facts. While China has indeed enjoyed a trade surplus with the U.S. for many years, this was strictly maintained in exchange for Chinese investment in U.S. Treasury debt and the U.S. dollar. In fact, it’s absurd to claim that the U.S. has been “disadvantaged” in global trade when it is the dollar that is used to facilitate nearly ALL international trade as the world reserve currency. Dollar denominated assets have been the go-to safe haven investment for decades for this exact reason.

    Back in 2008 during the initial stock market collapse, mainstream media economists and some alternative economists alike argued incessantly that emerging market investors and foreign central banks would “never” pull back from American markets because “King Dollar” was the premier safety net during fiscal crisis. Clearly, the U.S. has enjoyed a special advantage in global trade; namely the dollar, and it is this advantage alone that has fueled the American economy for years.

    The argument that foreign markets have swallowed up American manufacturing is also a bit of a misdirection. As I have mentioned time and time again, U.S. corporations are the true culprits behind the bloodletting in American manufacturing jobs as they relocated all industry into cheaper labor markets. Trump could have stipulated that these same corporations would be required to bring some or most of this manufacturing back into the U.S. before they enjoy tax cut incentives. He didn’t. Instead, he gave them a massive tax cut for nothing, and the majority of the capital gained through that tax cut has already been spent – not on more American jobs or innovation, but on corporate stock buybacks to keep equities propped up just a little bit longer.

    Tariffs on U.S. goods implemented by other countries are almost always tied to the U.S. dollar’s world reserve advantage. The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs as well as tech jobs has always been tied to the U.S. corporate desire for cheap labor. No, we have not been in a trade war for decades, quite the opposite.

    So what has changed? Why are the old arrangements being abandoned? Is Trump really upsetting the old world order and battling the globalists, or, is he simply helping them to stage the foundation of their “new world order”?

    I would suggest that readers look into the International Monetary Fund’s concept of the “global economic reset” for more insight into why this is happening. I would also suggest that people pay close attention to the “predictions” of George Soros back in 2009 on the future of the U.S. economy.

    The plan for this global reset seems to revolve around the diminishing of the U.S. as a major economic power. This does not necessarily mean the U.S. will be replaced directly. Instead, as Soros suggests, nations like China will fill the void as “smaller economic engines”. This is often referred to as “harmonization,” but what it really means is that the standard of living for ALL but a highly select minority will be deliberately reduced to a common denominator, and what is more common today than poverty?

    For many nations, a lower standard of living is the norm.  For Americans, harmonization means we have a long way to fall yet.  For the reset to take hold effectively in the US, globalists will have to misdirect various groups within the population in different ways in order to avoid revolt.

    The Trump fandom is being enticed with notions of a return to a golden era with The Don on his white steed leading the charge.  However, NO president has the power to reverse the economic damage already done in the US; the only solution is a long process of rebuilding the economy from the ground up after the ashes settle.  Any honest president not under the control of the banking cabal would have to be forthright about this fact.  Even under the best possible conditions of reformation, a depression and currency crisis is assured.  You cannot fight against math, and the math of US debt versus US inflation spells stagflationary instability for many years, far beyond the one or possibly two terms of Donald Trump.  When this reality finally hits the Trump Administration devout square in the face, they will be enraged, and the first scapegoat that will be held up to them will be foreign governments like China.

    For the liberty movement subset not necessarily enamored with Donald Trump, the lie of the “multipolar world” has been concocted. In essence, we are being told that the death of the dollar will mean the death of globalist centralization, so we should cheer for such an outcome. In truth, there is no “multipolar world.” The IMF and the Bank for International Settlements continue to hold sway over the central banks of the world, in the East as much as the West.

    With Russia and China’s calls for the IMF to become the defacto overseer of global monetary trade policy, and even calling for a new global currency system under the control of the IMF, I hardly see any indication that we are moving away from centralization if the U.S. currency falters.  In fact, we will see even more centralization if the globalists get their way.

    The key to the reset is undoubtedly the end of the dollar as the world reserve currency.  Without this status, the U.S. loses all economic trade advantage as well as the advantage of perpetual debt monetization. As the dollar’s influence is reduced globally inflation becomes a more pronounced threat at home. The trade war makes the shift away from the dollar possible for international banking elites while they avoid blame for the suffering it will cause the public.

    “De-dollarization” is already gaining steam as Russia and China make deals to decouple from the currency while increasing financial cooperation using their own. What trade war cheerleaders don’t understand is that a trade war with China is not a trade war with China alone. As the No. 1 exporter/importer in the world, if China decides to dump the dollar as world reserve its trading partners may very well do the same in order to secure their own import/export relationships.

    As a domino effect ensues, I believe it will be the IMF that steps in as a “mediator” to provide the framework for a new system, probably under the Special Drawing Rights basket, and probably leading to a global cryptocurrency system, which the IMF has been praising recently as the next stage of evolution for money and monetary policy.

    I have mentioned consistently over the past half year that a trend has developed in terms of the Trump administration’s behavior in the trade war. Specifically, whenever the Federal Reserve raises interest rates or expands cuts to its balance sheet, Trump conveniently expands his rhetoric on tariffs.

    When the Fed increases balance sheet cuts, stocks take a hit of 1,000 points or more like clockwork. And, like clockwork, the mainstream media blames the drop in stocks on the trade war and Trump rather than the Fed. I think that this trend will accelerate into the end of 2018, and that stocks will hit critical downward velocity if the Fed does not reverse course.  In my view, the Fed has no intention of reversing course because they prefer to see a major market crisis at this time.

    But more than simply providing cover for the Fed’s controlled demolition of equities, the trade war may also provide cover for the controlled demolition of the dollar as multiple foreign creditors and trading partners turn America’s greatest strength into its greatest weakness.

    The dollar itself is nothing more than an imagined symbol; it is a tool for international bankers. And, like any tool, it can be replaced. The trade war provides the perfect historical narrative for the end of the dollar. The story told to future generations will be that the U.S., emboldened by Trump’s rhetoric and nationalism, fueled by the dangerous ideas of “conservative populists”, bumbled into self-destruction and harmed the rest of the world in the process. The IMF and other globalist institutions will step in, stating that no single country should ever be allowed to wield the power of the world’s reserve currency again. They will then offer their pre-planned solution to the very problem they originally created.

    Whether or not this plan for the global reset works will rely on the awareness of conservatives specifically. Getting caught up in the fervor of trade war rhetoric will cripple our ability to prepare and to fight back against the true culprits behind U.S. decline. Our fury will be wrongly directed at foreign economies instead of the banking elites, where it belongs.

    *  *  *

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  • Milo Banned From Paypal After Shooting, Says He Made "Private" Joke About Murdering Journalists

    Conservative pundit Milo Yiannopoulos on Thursday defended himself against accusations that “private” comments he made to journalists were responsible for the Annapolis newsroom shooting earlier in the day which left five dead and several others injured.

    Yiannapolous was asked by the Observer and Daily Beast to comment on two unrelated articles published Tuesday, Yiannopoulos – who is known as a provocateur – texted the Observer’s Davis Richardson “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight,” while emailing the Beast’s Will Sommer the same response.

    When asked to elaborate, Milo told the Observer that his statement was his “standard response to a request for comment,” which he also sent to the Daily Beast‘s Will Sommer, who published it as well.

    In the aftermath of Thursday’s newsroom shooting roughly 48 hours later, people began pointing fingers at Yiannopoulos – suggesting that his comments to the journalists inspired the shooting.

    Additionally, both PayPal and Venmo payment platforms reportedly banned Milo in response.

    In response, Milo took to Facebook to defend himself hours after the incident – saying that he was trolling the journalists in private responses. “Basically as a way of saying, ‘F—k off,’ he said. 

    “You’re about to see a raft of news stories claiming that I am responsible for inspiring the deaths of journalists,” Yiannopoulos wrote. “The truth, as always, is the opposite of what the media tells you.”

    “I sent a troll about ‘vigilante death squads’ as a *private* response to a few hostile journalists who were asking me for comment, basically as a way of saying, ‘F—k off.’ They then published it,” he continued. “Amazed they were pretending to take my joke as a ‘threat,’ I reposted these stories on Instagram to mock them – and to make it clear that I wasn’t being serious.”

    Some have suggested that the decision by The Beast and Observer to publish Milo’s “standard response to a request for comment” may have been irresponsible.

    As we reported earlier, a 39-year-old Maryland man is the prime suspect in Thursday’s shooting incident at the Capital Gazette. 

    He was identified using facial recognition technology, and local authorities are executing a search warrant on his home, NBC News reported, citing multiple senior law enforcement officials. And in a report that echoed the last assault on an American journalist – where a disgruntled former employee murdered one of his former colleagues on camera at a CBS affiliate in Virginia – CNN said the shooter had “previous interactions” with the newspaper.

  • Is The Media Deliberately Trying To Spawn Civil War 2.0?

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Everyone is talking about a looming civil war on American soil, but they’re all blaming the “other” side. The media is deliberately trying to stir things up with breathless headlines about how awful the “other” side is. And it’s working so well it could lead us right to Civil War 2.0.

    The fact is, both the Left and the Right are to blame, threatening those who don’t have the same worldview. What it’s essential for us to keep in mind is that these are the opinions of the extremes of both sides. We in America have had conservative and liberal points of view along with everything in between for decades without the constant, looming threat of violence.

    Here are some examples.

    For example, Wendy Wolfe Herd, CEO of the dating app Bumble and a member of Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30, was the victim of a cyber attack launched by a “neo-Nazi organization” that posted Herd’s personal details online, as well as the contact information of her staff.

    The cyber attack occurred a couple of weeks after the Charlottesville rally last August, in which a man was with charged with a federal hate crime after driving into the crowd of counter-protesters. Herd released a statement saying that her company was “joining forces to ban all forms of hate from Bumble including racism, hate speech, and bigotry.” She believes this is why she and her employees were targeted. Herd now travels with bodyguards.

    At the same time, the Far Left is also stirring the pot and threatening dissenters with violence. Some guy named Hamilton Nolan recently posted an article on the “progressive” website Splinter that seemed to have referenced the politically-motivated bombings that took place during Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford’s administrations in response to the Vietnam War.  While some of his points about the warmongers in Congress are legitimate, he goes way, wayyyy off into the ether in his calls to action. Here are some excerpts from his essay, entitled “This Is Just the Beginning.”

    This is all going to get more extreme. And it should. We are living in extreme times. The harm that is being done to all of us by the people in the American government is extreme.

    … I do not believe that Trump administration officials should be able to live their lives in peace and affluence while they inflict serious harms on large portions of the American population. Not being able to go to restaurants and attend parties and be celebrated is just the minimum baseline here. These people, who are pushing America merrily down the road to fascism and white nationalism, are delusional if they do not think that the backlash is going to get much worse.

    …Read a fucking history book. Read a recent history book. The U.S. had thousands of domestic bombings per year in the early 1970s. This is what happens when citizens decide en masse that their political system is corrupt, racist, and unresponsive. The people out of power have only just begun to flex their dissatisfaction. The day will come, sooner that you all think, when Trump administration officials will look back fondly on the time when all they had to worry about was getting hollered at at a Mexican restaurant. When you aggressively fuck with people’s lives, you should not be surprised when they decide to fuck with yours. (source)

    Who even is this guy and why does he have such a platform? Literally, nobody I know has ever heard of him before this essay that is getting so much press, although apparently, he used to work for Gawker. He even got to post a follow-up essay with some of the familiar hatred from people who were outraged by his first essay. (And while I wholeheartedly disagree with Nolan, I can completely relate to the hate mail – the internet breeds some craziness and people think nothing of threatening your life and the lives of your loved ones.)

    There was also an NYU professor who was proclaimed a “hero” by AntiFa for doxxing employees of ICE. I don’t like ICE anymore than these folks but posting their personal information and addresses online is nothing but a call for violence.

    And after the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia asked Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, some guy from West Virginia vandalized the place, allegedly throwing animal poop at the establishment.

    Politicians are getting in on the hate-mongering too.

    Politicians are getting media attention from the hullabaloo as well.

    Most notably, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who I swear is only famous for her sh*t-disturbing ways, has said that anyone who disagrees with her should be treated horribly, particularly those who work for the current administration.

    If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” (source)

    Threats against Republican politicians have skyrocketed, leading to speculation that this is the impetusbehind quite a number of sudden early retirements.

    I’m not really a fan of Democrat OR Republican politics, but the pattern here seems to lean toward the threatening behavior coming from the Left side of the aisle. If anyone has some credible links about Republican members of Congress recently making calls for incivility against the Democrats, please post them in the comments and I’ll update the article.

    And big surprise, the media is pushing this narrative.

    It’s essential to note that the threats and anger have been going on for quite some time now. But it seems like there is a whole lot more of it because it’s the topic du jour in the mainstream of late. Just like Selco warned us in his recent article, the media has an agenda and they are playing us like a violin. If there is a Civil War, you can be sure that those in the MSM are every bit as responsible for stirring up the hatred and division as the people who hacked Herd’s website and the dude who wrote the essay I cited.

    Look how neatly they are making us hate and fear one another.

    I guess my question is, are you going to let yourself be manipulated?

    • Are the other parents of kids on your son’s baseball team actually the enemy because they voted for someone different, or are they just the folks who select the really good, name-brand popsicles when it’s their turn to bring the treats?

    • Is your next door neighbor who had the campaign sign for the candidate you detested in her front yard during the last presidential race actually the antiChrist or is she just the one with the best tomatoes on the block?

    • What about the guy at the dog park with the two sweet-natured Golden Retrievers? Did you think he was pretty cool before you saw the unfortunate bumper sticker on his SUV?

    If we are directly threatened, we absolutely must defend ourselves. It’s our natural human right to do so. But politics? Bumper stickers? Don’t be a snowflake. You don’t have to engage in the hate.

    We need to look at the individual people and we need to ignore the media that tells us they’re the enemy. Maybe they want to drum up a war, but we can be the majority who stops it. We can refuse to participate and take the bait.

  • Euro Spikes After EU Leaders Agree "Vaguely Worded" Deal On Migrants

    Just hours after Day 1 of the EU Summit ended in acrimony with Italian threats of veto and a cancelled press conference, AP reports that European Union leaders got a breakthrough deal on how to deal with migration after all-night talks to overcome Italian demands for more help.

    Emmanuel Macron, French President:

    “Just a word to say that after nine hours of talks and work, a deal has been reached and it is good news for France.

    It is the fruit of combined work and it’s European cooperation that won as opposed to a non-deal or a national decision that would have been neither efficient nor lasting.”

    The immediate reaction was a kneejerk higher in EURUSD…

    Details are very sparse but European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted that the leaders have “agreed conclusions including migration”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    EU diplomats said that the leaders finally found agreement on a vaguely worded concept centering on reception centers to deal with migrants and asylum seekers in EU nations which would volunteer to have them.

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been under intense pressure to find a breakthrough to stave off a government crisis at home, and said after the deal was announced that “the EU will face migration presssure for along time” and confirmed that the EU Council “has agreed a coherent approach on immigration.”

    Quite frankly we are shocked and cannot wait to hear what Austria and Italy and Hungary got in return for acquiescence… or whether this ‘deal’ is really no deal at all.

  • Massive Data Leak Could Affect 300 Million Americans

    A new data leak could affect almost every single American, perhaps more than Equifax’s massive 2017 data breach of nearly 150 million individuals.

    Earlier this month, the renowned security researcher Vinny Troia announced that he discovered an unsecured database containing around 340 million individual records. According to Troia, the database included profiles of a few hundred million Americans belonging to Exactis, a Florida-based marketing and data-aggregation firm.

    Troia told Wired that the catch contains about two terabytes of data that includes personal information of almost every American adult, along with millions of businesses.

    While the database does not include credit-card numbers or Social Security information, it does include phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses and personal characteristics for every name, such as interests and personal habits, plus the number, age, and gender of the person’s children. Other types of information found: religion, whether a person smokes, kind of pet. Even though the millions of individual profiles did not include financial information, it was more than enough data to help scammers steal identities.

    “It seems like this is a database with pretty much every US citizen in it,” said Troia, who is the founder of his own New York-based cyber security company, Night Lion Security.

    Troia searched the database for about 40 or 50 names and “everybody he searched for came up. I searched for celebrities; I searched for people I know.”

    WIRED then asked him to search for ten people, which he only found six of them. “I don’t know where the data is coming from, but it’s one of the most comprehensive collections I’ve ever seen,” he stated.

    Troia explained to Wired that he was able to access the database on the internet, and he warned that plenty of other people could have as well. Once the unsecured database was discovered, he contacted Exactis and the FBI about the vulnerability, and since, the database has disappeared from the public domain.

    If Troia’s numbers are remotely accurate, this leak could be one of the most significant data security breaches in several years, surpassing last year’s Equifax breach and the Facebook debacle with Cambridge Analytica.

    On the ‘About Us’ section on Exactis’ website, the company said it managed 3.5 billion consumer, business, and digital records including “demographic, geographic, firmographic, lifestyle, interests, CPG, automotive, and behavioral data.”

    “When I looked myself up, I found the name of my mortgage lender, the value class of my home and whether or not I had certain kind of credit card,” Troia added.

    Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, told Wired that corporations are routinely data mining Americans, which the leak could be used to impersonate others.

    “If you have a profile on someone, that person should be able to see their profile and limit its use,” Rotenberg said.

    “It’s one thing to subscribe to a magazine. It’s another for a single company to have such a detailed profile of your entire life.”

    Exactis refused to speak with Wired or any other media outlets, and it is still unclear whether hackers made off with the terabytes of raw data of almost every single American.

  • "WWSD?"

    Submitted by Nick Colas via DataTrekResearch.com,

    “You’re making this harder than it has to be.” 

    In my time at SAC, I rarely heard Steve Cohen give his traders advice about their portfolios, but that’s exactly what he told one PM who was having a particularly hard day. It was easy enough to see what had gone wrong. Too much capital in all the wrong places, not enough intraday hedging. All textbook stuff, even if this particular (very experienced) trader couldn’t see it through his stress.

    Over the years I have come to appreciate the real meaning of Steve’s advice. He wasn’t saying that outperforming the market is easy. Rather, his message was to structure your process so you don’t make it even harder. His on-staff psychologist, Ari Kiev, drilled that into us every week during mandatory sessions to discuss our trading. Keep things simple. Routinize your entire process, from data collection to risk management. Lather, rinse, repeat.

    I always return to Steve’s dictum on volatile days like today because it helps cut through the noise and frame authentic market narratives.

    Three examples, all based on “Not making things harder than they have to be”:

    #1. Be very careful about extrapolating moves that happen at the end of a quarter. Today’s outsized sector losers were Technology and Financials, the performance bookends of the last 3 months.

    • Financials are so bad (-3.1% three month returns) than even long suffering Consumer Staples (-1.4% over the same period) look good in comparison.
    • Tech (+7.0% three month returns) is fully half the S&P’s 3.6% return for the last 90 days.

    The underperformance of small caps today (Russell -1.6%, S&P -0.86%) fits the same pattern. This asset class is +8.7%/+9.5% (Russell/S&P Small Caps) over the last 90 days, more than double the return of US large caps.

    One last point about today’s wonky action: the open was fine. We’ve run enough analysis over the years to believe the old maxim that “Retail opens the market and institutions close it” still applies. Today’s selloff wasn’t driven by an adverse event (retail is the lightning rod for those). Rather, it felt like institutions reweighting winners and losers.

    #2. Price leads fundamentals, not the other way around. The painful case study here: Financials and the shape of the yield curve. Ask any good bank analyst and they will caution that the difference between short term and long term rates is only one factor in the sector’s fundamentals. Credit quality, loan growth, and regulatory issues matter too.

    But the ever-flattening Treasury yield curve (32 bp today, a new +10 year low) is hurting Financials for a macro – not micro – reason: it signals the real possibility of a recession in the next 12-24 months. That, along with some quarter end pressure, pushed the S&P Regional Bank Index lower by 1.9%. Even large cap Financials were “better” than that in today’s session, down 1.2%.

    #3. Sell when you can, not when you have to. We’ve been picking up on an “Everything old is new again” market narrative in recent weeks that bears a mention, especially because we have not raised it with you before.

    The issue is market liquidity, and May’s Italian bond market rout put it back on traders’ radar screens. Elections there spooked sovereign debt investors, but since the ECB wasn’t in the market at the time real “natural” bids were few and far between. Two-year yields went from 27 basis points to 2.4% in 3 days. That simply should never happen.

    The growing fear now: US equity market structure has changed dramatically in the last decade and remains untested in stress situations that last more than a few days. It has certainly not lived through a recession, for example. Layer on what the Treasury yield curve is saying on that point, and we understand why equity market structure concerns are bubbling up to the surface in earnest for the first time since the “Flash Boys” book came out.

    The bottom line from all this: simple thoughts don’t always drive stock prices, but respecting their power is basic intellectual risk management.Today’s market action means little, but against the backdrop of rising recession fears it illuminates an important macro worry. That skittishness then becomes fertile ground for other concerns, like the proverbial butterfly of Italian bond markets causing a hurricane in US equities. Yes, we still believe US equities will produce 5-8% returns this year. But we respect the simplest arguments against that optimism.

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