May 07

Today’s News 7th May 2017

  • Thank God 'The People' Are Back in Power: Kushner Family Pitches 'Invest $500k, Immigrate to America' Visa Program in China

    Representatives from the Kushner family descended upon the Ritz Carlton in Beijing to pitch wealthy Chinese the EB-5 visa program aka crony capitalism.

    Nicole Kushner, Jared’s sister, was alleged to be in attendance.

    The pitch was “Invest early, and you will invest under the old rules,” according to the Washington Post.

    The event, which was closed to foreign press, was hosted by the Chinese company Qiaowai — who is working on behalf of the Kushner family for one of their projects in New Jersey.

    It’s dubbed the ‘Kushner 1’ project, like Airforce 1 only cooler: “This project has stable funding, creates sufficient jobs and guarantees the safety of investors’ money, read one of the promotional brochures.

    The materials painted Jared as a ‘celebrity’ in America, encouraging rich Chinese to trust their status and business acumen in America — which is funny considering the ruinous state of their crown jewel property 666 5th avenue (extra anti-Christ). The Kushner’s are trying to restructure the 666 deal, bringing in Chinese insurance giant Anbang, in an effort to finance a massive expansion and conversion of the top floors into posh condos.

    Thank God ‘the people’, plumbers, electricians and all of the other rubes, are running America again. Get the wall up, unless of course all Mexican migrants are willing to fork over $500,000 to invest.
    Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

  • How Volkswagen Quietly Stashed Half A Million Rigged Cars Around The Country

    Volkswagen bought back hundreds of thousands of emissions-cheating cars. We just discovered what it has done with them all…

     

    As Bloomberg reports, the German automaker agreed last year to buy back about 500,000 diesels that it rigged to pass U.S. emissions tests if it can't figure out a way to fix them. Except for a handful of 2015 models, VW dealers can't sell the cars until – and unless – the company comes up with repairs to satisfy regulators. The question they face then is – what to do with the hundreds of thousands of diesel cars it is being forced to buy back?

    Well, now we know… the company is hauling them to storage lots across America…

    VW spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan said "the program is unprecedented in terms of its size and scope and we have devoted significant resources and personnel to help ensure that it is carried out as seamlessly as possible."

    As Jalopnik's David Tracy reports, after a bit of hunting on forums, and a couple of tips from readers and friends, I seem to have found three such “regional facilities”: one in Pontiac, Michigan; one in San Bernardino, California; and one in Baltimore, Maryland.

    The Pontiac Silverdome is a bit of a shitshow in southeast Michigan. It used to be the proud home of the Detroit Lions and the Pistons, and it was even the venue for Super Bowl XVI, multiple NCAA tournament games and some FIFA World Cup matches. But now the huge building lies dormant, with its interior decaying and its parking lots cracking after years of neglect. This makes it the perfect place for VW to stash their bought-back TDIs.

    See here for more images…

    On a remote part of Norton Air Force Base (in San Bernardino, California), which has been decommissioned for over 20 years now, as is now part of the San Bernardino International Airport, lie thousands of California-plated Volkswagens and Audis awaiting their fate…

     

    Google Street View even has the images..

    See here for more images…

    The Port of Baltimore is stuffed full of Volkswagens waiting to die. As one Jalopnik readers noted "a total of five storage lots with what had to be thousands of cars, ranging from older Mk5 Jetta models to high line Audi A3s, Passats and MQB Mk7 Golfs and a huge quantity of Jetta Sportwagens… Several of the lots stretched much farther than I could see."

    See here for more images…

    The images above bring to mind the apocalyptic scenes from 'where cars go to die' during the last crisis in America, but for VW, this seemed to sum it all up nicely…

    "The public doesn’t realize the monumental undertaking that they’ve pulled off to do this in a year and a half," said Matthew Welch, general manager of Auburn Volkswagen near Seattle.

     

    "Nothing like this has ever been done."

    And while VW has only itself (and government regulations) to blame for this scene, we wonder how long before we see the same images for GM vehicles… after all, with inventories at 10-year highs as sales start to collapse, we are feeling a terrible sense of deja vu all over again…

  • France Warns Media Not To Publish Hacked Macron Emails, Threatens With Criminal Charges

    After 9 gigabytes of Macron-linked documents and emails were released on an anonymous pastebin website on Friday afternoon in what Macron’s campaign said was a “massive and coordinated” hacking attack, France – fearing a similar response to what happened with Hillary Clinton after 35,000 John Podesta emails were released one month before the US presidential election – cracked down on the distribution of the files, warning on Saturday it would be a “criminal offense” to republish the data, and warning the French media not to publish content from any of the hacked emails “to prevent the outcome of the vote being influenced.”

    Quoted by Reuters, the French election commission said in a statement that “on the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot.” Following a rushed meeting on Saturday morning, the commission which supervises the electoral process, said that the data been “fraudulently obtained and could be mixed with false information.” It is unclear, however, how it hopes to enforce any punitive claims, especially when much of the initial document distribution appears to have taken place offshore.

    Domestically, in a similar reaction to the US media’s response to the Podesta emails, French TV news channels chose not to mention the hack, although the left-leading Liberation prominently featured the news on its website. Liberation author Cedric Mathiot wrote that the leak, and its timing, “wants to create chaos” adding that the information was distributed in an “unethical method.”

    On Friday night, as news of what has been hashtagged as @MacronLeaks on twitter spread, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of the National Front, tweeted “Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately kept silent?” In a tweeted response, Macron spokesman Sylvain Fort called Philippot’s tweet “vile”.

    In another parallel to the Clinton leaks, Macron’s En Marche! party said the leaked documents dealt with “the normal operations of a campaign and included some information on campaign accounts.” It said the hackers had mixed false documents with authentic ones to “sow doubt and disinformation.”

    But in the biggest parallel to the Clinton hacking, few have touched upon the actual contents of the documents, which some say confirm prior allegations of illicit financial dealings and offshore accounts, and instead merely sought to attack the messenger. Indeed, as journalist Kim Zetter noted overnight, “Telling journos to not report on hacked emails misses point that nearly all important leaks occur because someone broke law or a contract” and then followed up with the following rhetorical question, flipping the situation by 180 degrees: “If GRU, intending to assault dem., hacks Trump & publishes emails showing his direct connection to Russia, should journos report on those.“

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    As reported on Friday evening, WikiLeaks tweeted that the leak contained “many tens of thousands” of emails, photos and attachments dated up to April 24, but it noted that it had come “too late” to affect the election results. In a follow up tweet, the controversial whistleblowing organization posted a tweet sharing the location of all #MacronLeaks archives which are “now available as uncensorable magnet links http://archive.is/aULcm“

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    Since there has been no suggestion WikiLeaks is responsible for this hack, speculation about the source of the hack has grown, with Russia once again emerging as the “usual suspect.”

    Cited by Reuters, Vitali Kremez, director of research with New York-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, said his review indicates that APT 28, a group tied to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak. He cited similarities with U.S. election hacks that have been previously attributed to that group. Kremez also said that APT28 last month registered decoy internet addresses to mimic the name of En Marche, which it likely used send tainted emails to hack into the campaign’s computers. Those domains include onedrive-en-marche.fr and mail-en-marche.fr.

    “If indeed driven by Moscow, this leak appears to be a significant escalation over the previous Russian operations aimed at the U.S. presidential election, expanding the approach and scope of effort from simple espionage efforts towards more direct attempts to sway the outcome,” Kremez said.

    We expect the Kremlin to deny all allegations shortly.

    To cover all bases, others have also accused the “Alt Right” of being responsible for the leak:

    Ben Nimmo, a UK-based security researcher with the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council think tank, said initial analysis indicated that a group of U.S. far-right online activists were behind early efforts to spread the documents via social media. They were later picked up and promoted by core social media supporters of Le Pen in France, Nimmo said.

     

    The leaks emerged on 4chan, a discussion forum popular with far right activists in the United States. An anonymous poster provided links to the documents on Pastebin, saying, “This was passed on to me today so now I am giving it to you, the people.”

     

    The hashtag #MacronLeaks was then spread by Jack Posobiec, a pro-Trump activist whose Twitter profile identifies him as Washington D.C. bureau chief of the far-right activist site Rebel TV, according to Nimmo and other analysts tracking the election. Contacted by Reuters, Posobiec said he had simply reposted what he saw on 4chan.

     

    “You have a hashtag drive that started with the alt-right in the United States that has been picked up by some of Le Pen’s most dedicated and aggressive followers online,” Nimmo told Reuters.

    Sunday’s election, whose result is expected in just over 24 hours, is seen as “the most important in France for decades, with two diametrically opposed views of Europe and the country’s place in the world at stake.” Tune in then to find out if Wikileaks is correct, and the #MacronLeaks is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot, unable to chisel away at Macron’s lead over Le Pen which the latest polls calculate to be as much as 25 points.

  • Paul Craig Roberts: 'Sauron' Rules In Washington

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    “The problem is that the world has listened to Americans for far too bloody long.” – Dr. Julian Osborne, from the 2000 film version of Nevil Shute’s 1957 book, On the Beach

    A reader asked why neoconservatives push toward nuclear war when there can be no winners. If all die, what is the point?

    The answer is that the neoconservatives believe that the US can win at minimum and perhaps zero damage.

    Their insane plan is as follows: Washington will ring Russia and China with anti-ballistic missile bases in order to provide a shield against a retaliatory strike from Russia and China. Moreover, these US anti-ABM bases also can deploy nuclear attack missiles unknown to Russia and China, thus reducing the warning time to five minutes, leaving Washington’s victims little or no time in which to make a decision.

    The neoconservatives think that Washington’s first strike will so badly damage the Russian and Chinese retaliatory capabilities that both governments will surrender rather than launch a response. The Russian and Chinese leaderships would conclude that their diminished forces leave little chance that many of their ICBMs will be able to get past Washington’s ABM shield, leaving the US largely intact. A feeble retaliation by Russia and China would simply invite a second wave US nuclear attack that would obliterate Russian and Chinese cities, killing millions and leaving both countries in ruins.

    In short, the American warmongers are betting that the Russian and Chinese leaderships would submit rather than risk total destruction.

    There is no question that neoconservatives are sufficiently evil to launch a preemptive nuclear attack, but possibly the plan aims to put Russia and China into a situation in which their leaders conclude that the deck is stacked against them and, therefore, they must accept Washington’s hegemony.

    To feel secure in its hegemony, Washington would have to order Russia and China to disarm.

    This plan is full of risks. Miscalculations are a feature of war. It is reckless and irresponsible to risk the life of the planet for nothing more than Washington’s hegemony.

    The neoconservative plan puts Europe, the UK, Japan, S. Korea, and Australia at high risk were Russia and China to retaliate. Washington’s ABM shield cannot protect Europe from Russia’s nuclear cruise missiles or from the Russian Air Force, so Europe would cease to exist. China’s response would hit Japan, S. Korea, and Australia.

    The Russian hope and that of all sane people is that Washington’s vassals will understand that it is they that are at risk, a risk from which they have nothing to gain and everything to lose, repudiate their vassalage to Washington and remove the US bases. It must be clear to European politicians that they are being dragged into conflict with Russia. This week the NATO commander told the US Congress that he needed funding for a larger military presence in Europe in order to counter “a resurgent Russia”. 

    Let us examine what is meant by “a resurgent Russia.” It means a Russia that is strong and confident enough to defend its interests and those of its allies. In other words, Russia was able to block Obama’s planned invasion of Syria and bombing of Iran and to enable the Syrian armed forces to defeat the ISIS force sent by Obama and Hillary to overthrow Assad.

    Russia is “resurgent” because Russia is able to block US unilateral actions against some other countries.

    This capability flies in the face of the neoconservative Wolfowitz doctrine, which says that the principal goal of US foreign policy is to prevent the rise of any country that can serve as a check on Washington’s unilateral action.

    While the neocons were absorbed in their “cakewalk” wars that have now lasted 16 years, Russia and China emerged as checks on the unilateralism that Washington had enjoyed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. What Washington is trying to do is to recapture its ability to act worldwide without any constraint from any other country. This requires Russia and China to stand down.

    Are Russia and China going to stand down? It is possible, but I would not bet the life of the planet on it. Both governments have a moral conscience that is totally missing in Washington. Neither government is intimidated by the Western propaganda. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said yesterday that we hear endless hysterical charges against Russia, but the charges are always vacant of any evidence.

    Conceivably, Russia and China could sacrifice their sovereignty for the sake of life on earth. But this same moral conscience will propel them to oppose the evil that is Washington in order not to succumb to evil themselves. Therefore, I think that the evil that rules in Washington is leading the United States and its vassal states to total destruction.

    Having convinced the Russian and Chinese leaderships that Washington intends to nuke their countries in a surprise attack (see for example), the question is how do Russia and China respond? Do they sit there and await an attack, or do they preempt Washington’s attack with an attack of their own?

    What would you do? Would you preserve your life by submitting to evil, or would you destroy the evil?

    Writing truthfully results in my name being put on lists (financed by who?) as a “Russian dupe/agent.” Actually, I am an agent of all people who disapprove of Washington’s willingness to use nuclear war in order to establish Washington’s hegemony over the world, but let us understand what it means to be a “Russian agent.”

    It means to respect international law, which Washington does not. It means to respect life, which Washington does not. It means to respect the national interests of other countries, which Washington does not. It means to respond to provocations with diplomacy and requests for cooperation, which Washington does not. But Russia does. Clearly, a “Russian agent” is a moral person who wants to preserve life and the national identity and dignity of other peoples.

    It is Washington that wants to snuff out human morality and become the master of the planet. As I have previously written, Washington without any question is Sauron. The only important question is whether there is sufficient good left in the world to resist and overcome Washington’s evil.

  • Visualizing America's Retail Apocalypse

    The steady rise of online retail sales should have surprised no one. As Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, back in 2000, less than 1% of retail sales came from e-commerce. However, online sales have climbed each and every year since then, even through the Great Recession. By 2009, e-commerce made up about 4.0% of total retail sales, and today the latest number we have is 8.3%.

    Here’s another knowledge bomb: it’s going to keep growing for the foreseeable future. Huge surprise, right?

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

     

    SIGNS OF A RECKONING

    Retailers eye their competition relentlessly, and the sector also has notoriously thin margins.

    The big retailers must have seen the “retail apocalypse” coming. The question is: what did they do about it?

    Well, companies like Sears failed the shift to digital altogether – in fact, it is even widely speculated that the former behemoth might file for bankruptcy later this year.

    The majority of other companies, on the other hand, are trying to combine “clicks and bricks” into a cohesive strategy. This sounds good in theory, but for established and sprawling brick and mortar retailers with excessive overhead costs, such tactics may not be enough to ward off this powerful secular trend. Target, for example, has had impressive growth in online sales, but they still only make up just 5% of total sales. As a result, the company’s robustness is also in doubt.

    Wal-Mart took another route, which could potentially be the smartest one. The company hedged their bets by buying Jet.com, which was one of the fastest growing online retailers at the time. Later, they followed up by buying an online shoe retailer to help fill a perceived gap in footwear. Recent reports have surfaced, saying that these acquisitions are leading to staff shakeups, as the company re-orients its focus.

    After all, going online is not just a tactic to boost sales in the new era of retailing. It has to be a mindset, and one that is central to the company’s strategy. Hopefully Wal-mart gets that, otherwise they will also be in trouble as well.

    APOCALYPSE NOW

    In the midst of all of this is what is described as the “retail apocalypse”.

    There are two main metrics that are pretty black and white:

    Number of Bankruptcies: We’re not even one-third through 2017, and we already have about as many retail bankruptcies as the previous year’s total. If they continue at the current pace, we could see over 50 retailers bankrupt by the end of the year.

    Number of Store Closings: So far we’ve seen roughly 3,000 store closings announced in 2017, and Credit Suisse estimates that could hit 8,600 by the end of the year. That would easily surpass 2008’s total, which was 6,200 closings, to be the worst year in recent memory.

    Here’s some of the companies that have already filed for bankruptcy:

    • Gordmans Stores
    • Gander Mountain
    • Radioshack (again)
    • HHGregg
    • BCBG Max Azria
    • Eastern Outfitters
    • Wet Seal
    • The Limited
    • Vanity Shop of Grand Forks
    • Payless Inc.
    • MC Sports

    And here are the store closings occurring as a result of the retail apocalypse:

  • Doug Casey On The End Of Western Civilization

    Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

    Nick Giambruno: The decline of Western Civilization is on a lot of people’s minds.

    Let’s talk about this trend.

    Doug Casey: Western Civilization has its origins in ancient Greece. It’s unique among the world’s civilizations in putting the individual—as opposed to the collective—in a central position. It enshrined logic and rational thought—as opposed to mysticism and superstition—as the way to deal with the world. It’s because of this that we have science, technology, great literature and art, capitalism, personal freedom, the concept of progress, and much, much more. In fact, almost everything worth having in the material world is due to Western Civilization.

    Ayn Rand once said “East minus West equals zero.” I think she went a bit too far, as a rhetorical device, but she was essentially right. When you look at what the world’s other civilizations have brought to the party, at least over the last 2,500 years, it’s trivial.

    I lived in the Orient for years. There are many things I love about it—martial arts, yoga, and the cuisine among them. But all the progress they’ve made is due to adopting the fruits of the West.

    Nick Giambruno: There are so many things degrading Western Civilization. Where do we begin?

    Doug Casey: It’s been said, correctly, that a civilization always collapses from within. World War 1, in 1914, signaled the start of the long collapse of Western Civilization. Of course, termites were already eating away at the foundations, with the writings of people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx. It’s been on an accelerating downward path ever since, even though technology and science have been improving at a quantum pace. They are, however, like delayed action flywheels, operating on stored energy and accumulated capital. Without capital, intellectual freedom, and entrepreneurialism, science and technology will slow down. I’m optimistic we’ll make it to Kurzweil’s Singularity, but there are no guarantees.

    Things also changed with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Before that, the US used gold coinage for money. “The dollar” was just a name for 1/20th of an ounce of gold. That is what the dollar was. Paper dollars were just receipts for gold on deposit in the Treasury. The income tax, enacted the same year, threw more sand in the gears of civilization. The world was much freer before the events of 1913 and 1914, which acted to put the State at the center of everything.

    The Fed and the income tax are both disastrous and unnecessary things, enemies of the common man in every way. Unfortunately, people have come to believe they’re fixtures in the cosmic firmament. They’re the main reasons—there are many other reasons, though, unfortunately—why the average American’s standard of living has been dropping since the early 1970s. In fact, were it not for these things, and the immense amount of capital destroyed during the numerous wars of the last 100 years, I expect we’d have already colonized the moon and Mars. Among many other things…

    But I want to re-emphasize that the science, the technology, and all the wonderful toys we have are not the essence of Western Civilization. They’re consequences of individualism, capitalism, rational thought, and personal freedom. It’s critical not to confuse cause and effect.

    Nick Giambruno: You mentioned that the average American’s standard of living has dropped since the early 1970s. This is directly related to the US government abandoning the dollar’s last link to gold in 1971. Since then, the Federal Reserve has been able to debase the US dollar without limit.

    I think the dollar’s transformation into a purely fiat currency has eroded the rule of law and morality in the US. It’s similar to what happened in the Roman Empire after it started debasing its currency.

    What do you think, Doug?

    Doug Casey: All the world’s governments and central banks share a common philosophy, which drives these policies. They believe that you create economic activity by stimulating demand, and you stimulate demand by printing money. And, of course, it’s true, in a way. Roughly the same way a counterfeiter can stimulate a local economy.

    Unfortunately, they ignore that, and completely ignore that the way a person or a society becomes wealthy is by producing more than they consume and saving the difference. That difference, savings, is how you create capital. Without capital you’re reduced to subsistence, scratching at the earth with a stick. These people think that by inflating—which is to say destroying—the currency, they can create prosperity. But what they’re really doing, is destroying capital: When you destroy the value of the currency, that discourages people from saving it. And when people don’t save, they can’t build capital, and the vicious cycle goes on.

    This is destructive for civilization itself, in both the long term and the short term. The more paper money, the more credit, they create, the more society focuses on finance, as opposed to production. It’s why there are many times more people studying finance than science. The focus is increasingly on speculation, not production. Financial engineering, not mechanical, electrical, or chemical engineering. And lots of laws and regulations to keep the unstable structure from collapsing.

    What keeps a truly civil society together isn’t laws, regulations, and police. It's peer pressure, social opprobrium, moral approbation, and your reputation. These are the four elements that keep things together. Western Civilization is built on voluntarism. But, as the State grows, that’s being replaced by coercion in every aspect of society. There are regulations on the most obscure areas of life. As Harvey Silverglate pointed out in his book, the average American commits three felonies a day. Whether he’s caught and prosecuted is a subject of luck and the arbitrary will of some functionary. That’s antithetical to the core values of Western Civilization.

    Nick Giambruno: Speaking of ancient civilizations like Rome, interest rates are about the lowest they’ve been in 5,000 years of recorded history. Trillions of dollars’ worth of government bonds trade at negative yields.

    Of course, this couldn’t happen in a free market. It’s only possible because of central bank manipulation.

    How will artificially low interest rates affect the collapse of Western Civilization?

    Doug Casey: It’s really, really serious. I previously thought it was metaphysically impossible to have negative interest rates but, in the Bizarro World central banks have created, it’s happened.

    Negative interest rates discourage saving. Once again, saving is what builds capital. Without capital you wind up as an empty shell—Rome in 450 A.D., or Detroit today—lots of wonderful but empty buildings and no economic activity. Worse, it forces people to desperately put their money in all manner of idiotic speculations in an effort to stay ahead of inflation. They wind up chasing the bubbles the funny money creates.

    Let me re-emphasize something: in order for science and technology to advance you need capital. Where does capital come from? It comes from people producing more than they consume and saving the difference. Debt, on the other hand, means you’re living above your means. You’re either consuming the capital others have saved, or you’re mortgaging your future.

    Zero and negative interest rate policies, and the creation of money out of nowhere, are actually destructive of civilization itself. It makes the average guy feel that he’s not in control of his own destiny. He starts believing that the State, or luck, or Allah will provide for him. That attitude is typical of people from backward parts of the world—not Western Civilization.

    Nick Giambruno: What does it say about the economy and society that people work so hard to interpret what officials from the Federal Reserve and other central banks say?

    Doug Casey: It’s a shameful waste of time. They remind me of primitives seeking the counsel of witch doctors. One hundred years ago, the richest people in the country—the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, and such—made their money creating industries that actually made stuff. Now, the richest people in the country just shuffle money around. They get rich because they’re close to the government and the hydrant of currency materialized by the Federal Reserve. I’d say it’s a sign that society in the US has become quite degraded.

    The world revolves much less around actual production, but around guessing the direction of financial markets. Negative interest rates are creating bubbles, and will eventually result in an economic collapse.

    Nick Giambruno: Negative interest rates are essentially a tax on savings. A lot of people would rather pull their money out of the bank and stuff it under a mattress than suffer that sting.

    The economic central planners know this. It’s why they’re using negative interest rates to ramp up the War on Cash—the push to eliminate paper currency and create a cashless society.

    The banking system is very fragile. Banks don’t hold much paper cash. It’s mostly digital bytes on a computer. If people start withdrawing paper money en masse, it won’t take much to bring the whole system down.

    Their solution is to make accessing cash harder, and in some cases, illegal. That’s why the economic witch doctors at Harvard are pounding the table to get rid of the $100 bill.

    Take France, for example. It’s now illegal to make cash transactions over €1,000 without documenting them properly.

    Negative interest rates have turbocharged the War on Cash. If the central planners win this war, it would be the final deathblow to financial privacy.

    How does this all relate to the collapse of Western Civilization?

    Doug Casey: I believe the next step in their idiotic plan is to abolish cash. Decades ago they got rid of gold coinage, which used to circulate day to day in people’s pockets. Then they got rid of silver coinage. Now, they’re planning to get rid of cash altogether. So you won’t even have euros or dollars or pounds in your wallet anymore, or if you do, it will only be very small denominations. Everything else is going to have to be done through electronic payment processing.

    This is a huge disaster for the average person: absolutely everything that you buy or sell, other than perhaps a candy bar or a hamburger, is going to have to go through the banking system. Thus, the government will be able to monitor every transaction and payment. Financial privacy, even what’s left of it today, will literally cease to exist.

    Privacy is one of the big differences between a civilized society and a primitive society. In a primitive society, in your little dirt hut village, anybody can look through your window or pull back the flap on your tent. You have no privacy. Everybody can hear everything; see anything. This was one of the marvelous things about Western Civilization—privacy was valued, and respected. But that concept, like so many others, is on its way out…

    Nick Giambruno: You’ve mentioned before that language and words provide important clues to the collapse of Western Civilization. How so?

    Doug Casey: Many of the words you hear, especially on television and other media, are confused, conflated, or completely misused. Many recent changes in the way words are used are corrupting the language. As George Orwell liked to point out, to control language is to control thought. The corruption of language is adding to the corruption of civilization itself. This is not a trivial factor in the degradation of Western Civilization.

    Words—their exact meanings, and how they’re used—are critically important. If you don’t mean what you say and say what you mean, then it’s impossible to communicate accurately. Forget about transmitting philosophical concepts.

    Take for example shareholders and stakeholders. We all know that a shareholder actually owns a share in a company, but have you noticed that over the last generation shareholders have become less important than stakeholders? Even though stakeholders are just hangers-on, employees, or people who are looking to get in on a shakedown. But everybody slavishly acknowledges, “Yes, we’ve got to look out for the stakeholders.”

    Where did that concept come from? It’s a recent creation, but Boobus americanus seems to think it was carved in stone at the country’s founding.

    We’re told to protect them, as if they were a valuable and endangered species. I say, “A pox upon stakeholders.” If they want a vote in what a company does, then they ought to become shareholders. Stakeholders are a class of being created out of nothing by Cultural Marxists for the purpose of shaking down shareholders.

    *  *  *

    There’s major turmoil ahead for Western Civilization.  We expect the fallout to be far worse than 2008. Most investors can’t handle that sort of chaos. But Doug Casey and his team know how to turn it into huge profits. They’re sharing need-to-know information about the coming global economic meltdown in this time-sensitive video. Click here to watch it now.

  • Why Charles Gave Expects "Total Mayhem" In France Even If Macron Is Elected

    Venerable French investor Charles Gave has been managing money and researching markets for over 40 years; as such France’s elder statesman of asset allocation perhaps best captures the mood ahead of the most crucial Presidential election in a generation. In conversation with Dr. Pippa Malmgren, Charles breaks down national politics to understand why voters have rejected the establishment and the market impact of both outcomes, and what to expect from tomorrow’s election.

    First, Gave, who says “I’m not so sure that Macron will win”, is asked by Malmgren to walk RealVision viewers through what Macron’s agenda would look like in case of a victory. Gave is unable to do so for several simple reasons:

    Well, first, nobody knows. Because during the whole campaign, all these talks were on one hand, on the other. I’m in favor of apple pie, and motherhood, you see. Basically he has, to my knowledge, very little program. So he’s running. That is what Hollande said. That he was going to make some fundamental changes without hurting people. And so Macron is a big, empty suit. That’s what he is. You did the right curriculum vitae, he went to the right schools. And you have the feeling that the guy never had an original idea in his life. He was always a good student.

     

    And moreover, there is a strong suspicion that he’s a kind of golem created by Hollande and all these guys. So since they knew they were going to lose the election, they created a guy in a hologram that would run for them and prevent them from losing power. So to a certain extent, the French political system has been captured by what you can call the Technocratic class. And whether from the left or the right, it didn’t make any difference. And this Technocratic class is presenting Macron as a brand new fellow. He is nothing brand new. These guys have been in power for 50 years for God’s sakes. So this is basically nothing.

    Gave is then asked for his take on the market’s reaction, first to the outcome which now appears to be fully priced in, i.e., a Macron victory. The French investor’s response should be concerning to those who believe France is in for a period of calm and stability.

    If Macron is elected, as I already said, I’m not sure it’s not going to be a triumphant election. So I’m not sure they will have that much legitimacy at first. And second thing is that just after, we have the election for the French Parliament. And then it’s going to be a total mayhem. Because you have four main different currents in France. The extreme left, the Macron left, you see? You have the Fillon right, and you have Le Pen’s right. So you have four. The way it’s done before is that you had only three. Extreme left and the left were joined. And you had the election, you had three guys, and if anyone from the Front National had any chance of being elected, then the worst position of the other two retired. Right away. And said, you must vote for my usual enemy, but we don’t want to. It’s what’s called the Front Republic.

     

    But you see, it’s kind of easy to organize if the organization of the parties are very strong and can force people to retire and to stop running. But if you have four, the organization of the parties having lost all credibility, then nobody is going to retire. Until we are going to have elections. And you could have a majority of MP’s from the Front National The majority of MP’s from Melenchen. Anything is possible. So the fact that Macron is elected doesn’t reduce at all. Not at all. The political risk in France. It may reappear at the election time, big time. So anybody who buys on the idea that the problem is solved in France, let’s move to the next one will have to wait till the middle of June.

    Alternatively, what if Le Pen wins:

    If Le Pen wins, it’s pretty simple. The bond market in France, Italy, Spain cannot open on Monday morning. And I suppose the euro is dead in the following week. And then you have to buy Europe like crazy. Southern Europe.

    Why Southern Europe? Because it is Germany’s markets that would bear the brunt of the selloff, as the dissolution of the euro and European Union would effectively bring about the end of Germany’s economic hegemony (while at the same time benefitting France).

    The Germans have made a colossal mistake, which is that they have all the production in Germany. So they’re extremely efficient, well-organized, and they have developed massive current account surpluses. Half of that surplus is in cars. The margin on cars is around 4%. Imagine that the euro breaks down. The deutschmark comes back. The deutschmark goes up 15, 20%. And the whole German industry, all the production base in Germany, becomes bankrupt in no time at all. Compare that to France. France we have magnificent big companies that have been intelligent enough to produce everywhere in the world, to operate from everywhere in the world, and be totally independent from what’s happening in France. What they have in France is their headquarters. And that’s about it. So if Europe breaks, you should be long France on the stock market, and short Germany. Big time.

    Would a Le Pen victory also mean the end of the EU? Gave answers:

    I wrote a book in 2002, sometime around then, called “Lions Led by Donkeys in France.” It was kind of a bestseller. And I made the point in the book that the euro is going to destroy Europe, the European institutions. And I said, we must get rid of the euro to save Europe. So name of the game, if we have some kind of a crisis like that, is to basically close the market for three weeks and organize an orderly dismembering of the euro. But to maintain what has been good so far, which is the kind of common market. And it’s a difficult call because the movement towards the euro was also a movement to create a European nation.

     

    And so the institutions today are basically federal in nature. But nobody in Europe has ever voted for them. So to a certain extent, the guys with power in Brussels have not been elected by anybody, and you cannot fire them. So it’s totally Technocratic. So we have a hell of a problem. We should not only destroy the euro, but should move back to what Europe was in 1988 or 1987 before they put all these Federalist legislations in. That is going to be a tall order. But if the euro disappears and Europe has a problem, then the negotiating between the UK and Europe is going to be amusing. Because UK is going to say, look, who are we going to negotiate with?

    Finally, on his big picture thoughts ahead of tomorrow’s decisive election:”it’s going to be a close call, a lot closer than people think. And then we have the elections afterwards, which are going to be a total gamble.” Gave adds that in a sense Le Pen has already won because the “worst case scenario” for her, the 2022 elections, is still achievable. As for the parliamentary elections, “Le Pen could have anywhere between 40 to 100 MP’s (she currently has two)…. which would be a total disaster for the ruling class.”

    In other words, even if Macron triumphs on Sunday, “the National Front isn’t going anywhere.” Furthermore, Le Pen’s niece Marion Le Pen is poised to inherit the mantle of party leadership in time for the next presidential election in 2022. The younger Le Pen, already a French MP, would have a distinct advantage over her astringent aunt:

    Marion, she’s very young. She’s 27, 28. She’s an MP in the French Parliament. She’s extremely pretty. And she represents what’s probably very good in the French Catholic Right. She’s very much a Christian person. Very much so. So a lot of people have problems voting for Mrs. Le Pen today. A lot of the Fillon’s elector would have absolutely no problem voting for Marion, you see what I mean? So she has a big appeal on the Classical French Right. Big one. Big one.

    His parting words:”be careful. If she wins, you will have a disaster in the lot of the European bond market. Doesn’t mean a total disaster for the good quality companies. But the risk is not on the stock market. The risk is on the bond market. So be careful. Don’t overstay on the bonds in Europe.”

    While these are the core excerpts from the interview with Charles Gave, there is much more in the full 40 minute version found on RealVision TV.

  • Shocking Footage: Venezuelan National Guard Truck Drives Through Crowd Of 'Dissidents'

    Authored by Daniel Lang via SHTFplan.com,

    For several weeks Venezuela has been rocked with protests and riots as the Maduro regime increasingly tightens its grip on the population. It seems as if security forces are brutally cracking down on dissidents on a daily basis now. Wednesday in particular, saw some incredibly tense clashes between protesters and government forces in the capital city of Caracas. According to Bloomberg:

    Injuries throughout the city included 134 traumas and 17 cases of people overcome by gas, Mayor Ramon Muchacho of the opposition-dominated Chacao municipality said in a post on his Twitter account. Those hurt included lawmakers Freddy Guevara and Julio Montoya. The opposition coalition, known as MUD, said in a statement that more than 300 people were injured in today’s clashes.

     

    The South American nation has been riven by protests for weeks, and President Nicolas Maduro has called for a popular assembly to write a new constitution, a fresh attempt to consolidate control. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest what they say is a plummet into autocracy. Protests over the past month have resulted in at least 30 deaths, and opposition politicians have vowed to continue street actions.

    Of course, those are just statistics. To really appreciate the human costs of these events, you have to see it with your own eyes rather than just read about it. Take a look at what happened yesterday in Caracas, after an armored vehicle owned by the Venezuelan National Guard caught fire.

    This is what civil unrest really looks like. It’s dirty, chaotic, and bloody. Let’s hope it never escalates to this point on our streets.

  • The Last Time This Happened, China Devalued

    "It's quiet, too quiet", "the calm before the storm", "the deep breath before the plunge" – you name the idiom, there is nowhere it applies more than US equity markets (lowest closing range in 65 years).

    Dow has done nothing for 8 days… the longest streak since 1952…

     

    However, if ever there was a catalyst for chaos, it is the collapse in uncertainty around the Chinese Yuan…

    As Bloomberg notes, the eerie stability in the yuan is reminiscent of the period leading up to China’s unexpected currency devaluation in August 2015. The one-year implied volatility of the yuan has dropped to about 4.7 percent, from about 8 percent at the beginning of the year.

     

    Investors should be worried: The surge in volatility triggered by the yuan’s sudden depreciation two years ago rippled across the world and set off a rout in equities and other risky assets.

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