- The Swiss Begin To Hoard Cash
While subtle, the general public loss of faith in central banking has been obvious to anyone who has simply kept their eyes open: it started in Japan where in February hardware stores were reported that consumers were hoarding cash, as confirmed by the spike in demand for safes, “a place where the interest rate on cash is always zero, no matter what the central bank does.” Then, as we reported just over a week ago, Burg-Waechter KG, Germany’s biggest safe manufacturer, posted a 25% jump in sales of home safes as a result of “significantly higher demand for safes by private individuals, mainly in Germany.”
Rivals Format Tresorbau GmbH and Hartmann Tresore AG also reported double-digit-percentage German sales increases. “Safe manufacturers are operating near their limits,” said Thies Hartmann, managing director of Hamburger Stahltresor GmbH, a family-owned safe retailer in Hamburg, which he says has grown 25% since 2014. He said deliveries take longer from safe makers, some of which are running three production shifts.
And now, at long last, the revulsion to banking and the fractional reserve model has finally reached the country that according to many created modern banking as we know it: Switzerland.
Only unlike Japan and Germany, the Swiss are much more subtle about their cash hoarding than telling the neighborhood they have a stash of cash in their home by publicly buying a safe; instead, as Bloomberg reports, more and more companies are taking out insurance policies to protect their cash hoards from theft or damage.
“Because of the low interest rate level, we note increasing demand for insurance solutions for the storage of cash,” said Philipp Surholt at Zurich Insurance Group AG, among underwriters reporting a surge in such requests. “We’re seeing demand for coverage for sums ranging from 100 million to 500 million francs.“
Where the Swiss also differ from many other nations is that numerous local banks have already passed on negative rates to their wealthiest customers. The SNB imposed NIRP in early 2015, charging banks for excess deposits. Many lenders including UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse Group AG have passed on at least some of the burden, they don’t disclose how much, to cash-rich clients like asset managers and big companies.
Meanwhile, a fascinating arbitrage has emerged between NIRP and insurance costs: Helvetia Holding said it charges about 1,000 francs ($1,020) a year to insure 1 million francs, a fraction of the 7,500 francs a company would pay to park the same amount in a bank for a year, assuming the lender passes on the full charge. While that amount doesn’t include the cost of logistics such as transport or security features like reinforced walls, guards and alarm systems, those may not be an issue for the wealthiest clients who already own their own safes and have their own means of transportation of the physical cash.
Regardless of the tangential costs, the use of such policies has jumped in the recent past.
Companies need to save a lot on bank fees for cash storage to be economical because, in addition to insurance, they have to assume the costs of managing the money, said Roberto Brunazzi, a spokesman for Baloise Holding AG. He said the company has long offered such coverage “but there has been a noticeable increase and now it’s becoming more commonplace.”
But the best news for Swiss residents is that unlike in Europe where the ECB recently banned the €500 banknote, in Switzerland it is relatively easy to store substantial amounts of cash in relatively modest spaces courtesy of the CHF1000 bill, the highest denomination banknote in circulation in Europe. As Bloomberg points out, 1 million francs worth of 1,000-franc bills can fit in a small box.
Furthermore, unless Switzerland bans the 1000 swiss frank note, it may soon trade at a premium to its book value as demand for the “paper” rises. The reason is that more banks have warned that they may one day have to charge ordinary savers – not just big customers – for liquidity. In June, UBS and Credit Suisse exceeded their combined minimum required deposits by about 26 times, putting them about 25.8 billion francs over their exemption. Swiss cantonal banks were about 24 times over the amount they are required to hold at the SNB, or about 12.5 billion francs over their threshold, according to SNB data, which doesn’t break down the figures by bank.
“Negative rates are the dominant topic,” said Markus Gygax, chief executive officer of the Swiss retail bank Valiant Holding AG. “As long as the interest rate on credit keeps falling, it’s a big problem for us.”
For now, there is no need to panic: “Consumers are shielded from the negative interest rates so far,” Oliver Adler, an economist at Credit Suisse, told Bloomberg Television’s Anna Edwards and Rishaad Salamat on Tuesday. “Large institutional investors have had to pay, but in the overall context it’s not dramatic.” However, sensing what is coming, some lenders that are below the SNB’s threshold are taking on other banks’ cash for a fee. As a result, a “market for liquidity” has developed between the banks as a result of negative rates, the Swiss Banking Association said last week in its annual report on the industry.
“Cash hoarding is a problem for monetary policy,” Koch said. “It’s a question of efficiency: the more corporates hoard cash, the smaller the impact of negative rates.”
For now, the SNB says it hasn’t seen evidence of widespread cash hoarding in Switzerland, Bloomberg concludes, to which all we can add is that this is precisely what the very sensible locals would want it to see. Meanwhile, the stealth hoarding continues.
- 40,000 Students In Limbo, 8,000 Employees Fired As ITT Suddenly Shuts Down
The long-running tragic saga of ITT Education Services, which was established nearly 50 ago and operates the ITT Technical Institutes for-profit college chain, finally came to a end this morning with both a bang and a whimper, when it announced that it is shutting down effective immediately, leaving the fate of 40,000 students currently enrolled in limbo, and some 8,000 workers without a job.
The company said the closure is due to an investigation and sanctions by the U.S. Department of Education.
“It is with profound regret that we must report that ITT Educational Services, Inc. will discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service,” the company stated Tuesday. “Effective today, the company has eliminated the positions of the overwhelming majority of our more than 8,000 employees.”
As previously reported, ITT Tech stopped enrolling new students on August 29, just a few days after it was cut off from a significant amount of federal funding by the government. ITT’s collapse was catalyzed when the Department of Education effectively killed the company two weeks ago, when it told the company on August 25 that it couldn’t enroll new students who use federal financial aid. The school accused federal officials of forcing the closure and denying it due process. The company has been the subject of state and federal probes for various reasons, including its recruitment tactics, lending practices and job placement figures.
Among the measures imposed, ITT was been ordered to pay $152 million to the department within 30 days to cover student refunds and other liabilities in case the company closes. The chain, based in Indiana, is still paying another $44 million demanded by the department in June for the same reason.
In order to have access to federal student loans, schools need to be accredited by a government-recognized accrediting agency. ITT Educational Services was found to be out of compliance with its accreditor’s standards twice this year, according to the Department of Education. Needless to say, for-profit schools tend to rely heavily on federal student aid.
The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools recently asked the company for proof of why its accreditation should not be withdrawn or suspended.
ITT’s death, while sudden, should not come as a surprise: enrollment has been slipping for a while. In July, the company reported its new student enrollment dropped almost 22% from the same period the year before.
Meanwhile, the roughly 40,000 students currently enrolled now find themselves in limbo: when a school closes its doors, it can leave its students stuck without a degree and massive student loans. ITT”s collapse is reminiscent of Corinthian Colleges, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May of 2015 in the wake of alleged predatory lending practices and accusations of inflated job placement numbers, leaving about 16,000 students stuck without a degree, and thousands more with huge debts. Some students were eventually able to receive debt relief.
Cited by PIX11, the Department of Education has said that ITT Educational Services’ students could be eligible for a closed school loan discharge, however that process may take years to complete, meanwhile the prospect of earning a college diploma, even if from a novelty school, has evaporated.
Enrollment in for-profit schools increased in the years following the recession when job growth was weak and people were looking to hone their skills or switch to more in-demand careers.
* * *
The full statement released by ITT is below:
ITT Educational Services, Inc. to Cease Operations at all ITT Technical Institutes Following Federal Actions
“It is with profound regret that we must report that ITT Educational Services, Inc. will discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service. With what we believe is a complete disregard by the U.S. Department of Education for due process to the company, hundreds of thousands of current students and alumni and more than 8,000 employees will be negatively affected.
The actions of and sanctions from the U.S. Department of Education have forced us to cease operations of the ITT Technical Institutes, and we will not be offering our September quarter. We reached this decision only after having exhausted the exploration of alternatives, including transfer of the schools to a non-profit or public institution.
Effective today, the company has eliminated the positions of the overwhelming majority of our more than 8,000 employees. Our focus and priority with our remaining staff is on helping the tens of thousands of unexpectedly displaced students with their records and future educational options.
This action of our federal regulator to increase our surety requirement to 40 percent of our Title IV federal funding and place our schools under “Heightened Cash Monitoring Level 2,” forced us to conclude that we can no longer continue to operate our ITT Tech campuses and provide our students with the quality education they expect and deserve.
For more than half a century, ITT Tech has helped hundreds of thousands of non-traditional and underserved students improve their lives through career-focused technical education. Thousands of employers have relied on our institutions for skilled workers in high-demand fields. We have been a mainstay in more than 130 communities that we served nationwide, as well as an engine of economic activity and a positive innovator in the higher-education sector.
This federal action will also disrupt the lives of thousands of hardworking ITT Tech employees and their families. More than 8,000 ITT Tech employees are now without a job – employees who exhibited the utmost dedication in serving our students.
We have always carefully managed expenses to align with our enrollments. We had no intention prior to the receipt of the most recent sanctions of closing down despite the challenging regulatory environment that now threatens all proprietary higher education. We have also always worked tirelessly to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, and to uphold our ethic of continuous improvement. When we have received inquiries from regulators, we have always been responsive and cooperative. Despite our ongoing service to this nation’s employers, local communities and underserved students, these federal actions will result in the closure of the ITT Technical Institutes without any opportunity to pursue our right to due process.
These unwarranted actions, taken without proving a single allegation, are a “lawless execution,” as noted by a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal. We were not provided with a hearing or an appeal. Alternatives that we strongly believe would have better served students, employees, and taxpayers were rejected. The damage done to our students and employees, as well as to our shareholders and the American taxpayers, is irrevocable.
We believe the government’s action was inappropriate and unconstitutional, however, with the ITT Technical Institutes ceasing operations, it will now likely rest on other parties to understand these reprehensible actions and to take action to attempt to prevent this from happening again.”
- Hillary Clinton And The 'C' Word
Authored by James Taranto, originally posted op-ed via The Wall Street Journal,
'C' Is For Concussion – How not to suppress a political rumor
Hillary Clinton is in excellent health, so shut up: That’s a summary of the media narrative that emerged last month after Donald Trump questioned whether Mrs. Clinton has “mental and physical stamina.” A Puffington Host headline proposed: “Let’s Call The Conspiracy Theories About Hillary’s Health What They Are.” What are they? You guessed it: “The subtext of the rumors spouted by Trump and his crew of armchair doctors is clear: [Mrs.] Clinton is biologically unfit to lead,” asserted senior reporter Melissa Jeltsen. “She’s a woman, after all.”
As evidence, Jeltsen cites a comment from “forty-six years ago” by Edgar Berman, a retired physician and “close confidant” of Hubert H. Humphrey, to the effect “that women were temperamentally unsuited to hold high office because of their ‘raging hormonal imbalance.’ ” Forty-six years ago, Trump was 24 and Mrs. Clinton was 22. His conspiracy against her has been a long time in the making, hasn’t it?
Two days later, the site published a post by contributor David Seaman, who was more open to theories about Mrs. Clinton’s health. It included a link to a video by Paul Joseph Watson of the conspiracy site Infowars, titled “The Truth About Hillary’s Bizarre Behavior.”
The video strikes this columnist as not credible. It opens, for instance, with a clip of Mrs. Clinton smiling at reporters while wildly bobbing her head up and down. That’s certainly weird behavior, but there is a plausible nonmedical explanation: According to the Washington Post’s David Weigel, the reporters who witnessed the scene “interpreted her exaggerated head-bobbing as a joke at how she’d been suddenly surrounded—and as a successful attempt at ending the scrum.”
But if the Puffington Host was trying to tamp down conspiracy theories, its next move was probably ill-advised. Real Clear Politics reports that Seaman posted a video to YouTube “saying that he was terminated from his job without warning“ and that the post in question (along with another one) was deleted. Sure enough, if you go to Seaman’s archive page, you’ll see the two headlines in question (the first and third ones in the list), but if you click on either, you get a blank page with an “editor’s note”: “This post is no longer available on the Huffington Post [sic].”
The topic must really be taboo if it results in such action from a site that will publish just about anything. And plenty of more-mainstream sites have been denying there is anything wrong with Mrs. Clinton’s health. Weigel’s Post piece was titled “Armed With Junk Science and Old Photos, Critics Question #HillarysHealth.” Similar headlines come from the New Yorker (“The Far Right’s Obsession With Hillary’s Health”) and the Atlantic (“Questions About Hillary’s Health: The Birtherism of 2016”).
Our favorite is a mocking column from the Boston Globe’s Scot Lehigh:
In Hillary Clinton’s inner circle, it’s common knowledge that there are times she’s so low-energy that she blanks out for hours. When that happens, she is given to strange mental spells during which she has little or no control over what she says and does. She sometimes mutters things no one can understand.
My colleagues in the mainstream media are covering all this up, but the time has come to speak out. We simply can’t elect a president subject to such mysterious health issues.
What’s that you say?
It’s nothing?
It’s just that she . . . sleeps at night, like the rest of us.
Trump has said as much too, as Politico notes:
Donald Trump seemingly will not rest until the world thinks Hillary Clinton needs a nap.
The Republican nominee took to Twitter yet again Friday night to question his Democratic challenger’s physical well-being, repeating his claim that she’s always asleep.
“#WheresHillary? Sleeping!!!!!” Trump tweeted. The Republican nominee has repeatedly alleged recently that [Mrs.] Clinton’s health is failing (Clinton’s doctor pronounced her health “excellent” last year in a letter released by the campaign).
It is the nature of conspiracy theories that they are unfalsifiable: Believers frame efforts at debunking as evidence that the debunkers are in on the conspiracy.
But one needn’t be a conspiracy theorist to recognize groupthink—in this case, to expect that liberal journalists will try to comfort Mrs. Clinton, whether or not she is afflicted. Discounting Infowars need not preclude reading the Post, New Yorker, Atlantic, et al., with a skeptical eye.
And some evidence has surfaced to belie the insistence that Mrs. Clinton is in excellent health so shut up. On Friday afternoon, the FBI released a heavily redacted report on its criminal investigation into the mishandling of classified information while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of State. CNBC reports:
Hillary Clinton told the FBI she did not recall all the briefings she received on handling sensitive information as she made the transition from her post as U.S. secretary of state, due to a concussion suffered in 2012, according to a report released Friday. . . .
Said the report, “Clinton said she received no instructions or direction regarding the preservation or production of records from (the) State (Department) during the transition out of her role as Secretary of State in 2013.
“However, in December of 2012, [Mrs.] Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot (in her head). Based on her doctor’s advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received,” the report said.
Journalists spend weeks trying to discredit questions about Mrs. Clinton’s health, and then it turns out Mrs. Clinton raised questions about her own health as an excuse for the FBI. That doesn’t exactly enhance the debunkers’ credibility.
Then, as the New York Post reports (with video), Mrs. Clinton opened a Labor Day speech in Cleveland with a four-minute coughing fit. She joked that the cause was a psychological disorder: “Every time I think about Trump, I get allergic.” There’s also video in which her uncontrolled expectoration halts a campaign-plane press gaggle (during a question about hacking, as Scott Adams notes).
Of course a bad cough isn’t necessarily a grave symptom; one can have a frog in one’s throat without being in immediate danger of croaking. But it’s not a good image for someone trying to convince voters she’s in perfect health—or for media trying to convince readers and viewers.
Besides, imagine if Bob Dole or John McCain—both just a few years older than Mrs. Clinton when they were running for president—had hacked for four minutes at the start of a speech. Wouldn’t there be a lot of talk about whether they were too old and frail to serve?
In fact, there was plenty of such talk even absent such an episode…
In 1995 a cover of Time, then an influential weekly magazine, asked: “Is Dole Too Old for the Job?” and answered: “The G.O.P. front runner says he’s 72 years young, but the age issue won’t fade away.”
In 2008 the NBC News website ran an Associated Press dispatch under the headline “1 in 4 Chance McCain May Not Survive 2nd Term.” McCain, who turned 80 last month, is on track to beat those odds and is seeking a sixth Senate term.
Generally it has been Republicans, including also Ronald Reagan, who’ve received the is-he-too-old treatment from the media. Until this year, one couldn’t put that down to partisan bias, for GOP nominees have tended to be older than Democratic ones. Since 1968 the Democratic nominee has been older than the Republican one only once, in 2004. Mrs. Clinton, who turns 69 next month, is the first Democratic presidential nominee over 61 since 1948—and the oldest one in the party’s 188-year history.
Of the 17 Republicans who sought their party’s presidential nomination this year, 15 are younger than Mrs. Clinton. But Trump, 70, is one of the superannuated two (George Pataki, 71, is the other). Our sense is that compared with the treatment of earlier septuagenarian candidates, the press has made less fuss about Trump’s age—maybe because he so often fails to act it, maybe because with Mrs. Clinton as his opponent, the double standard would be too glaring.
Though not too glaring for the Puffington Host, which last week ran a piece by Jennifer Gunter – whose bio reads “OB/GYN, writer, sexpert, defender of evidence-based medicine, Canadian Spice”—titled “Science Says Trump Is More Likely Than [Mrs.] Clinton to Have a Heart Attack in the Next 10 Years.”
Similarly in 2008 Michael Maslansky—whose bio is in no way entertaining—wrote a piece for the site titled “Someone Had to Ask: Who Is More Likely to Die in Office?”:
The answer appears to be that McCain’s age is going to be the bigger issue. He is already at a disadvantage as the candidate of experience in a “change” election. And he is further disadvantaged by the fact that he will have to get up on stage with a candidate young enough to be his son. Now it seems that, despite the fact that there is a reasonably long list of world leaders older than him, many Americans will see John McCain debating Obama with one foot already in the grave.
Maslansky’s piece ran in April 2008, when the Democratic nomination was not yet final. He concluded with a nod to the third candidate, then 8½ years younger than she is today:
Over at the Hillary campaign, a question of this nature should be a cause for celebration. While her various lapses in memory may have set her back politically this week, at least she can sleep well at night knowing half the country doesn’t think she’s going to be carried out of the White House in a body bag if she becomes president. Or do they? Perhaps it’s time someone should ask.
Last month someone did, and he was banished from the Puffington Host.
'C' is for Concussion, Conspiracy, Coughing, and Clinton.
- Vancouver Housing Bubble Burst Sends Local Consumer Sentiment Crashing Most In Three Years
As was largely expected, the first official data since the bursting of the Vancouver housing bubble following the 15% luxury real estate tax, was ugly: on one hand, the number of Vancouver home sales fell 26% from a year earlier, and tumbled by 23% comparted to July, to
2,489 transactions. Detached properties were hit hardest as sales
dropped 45% from a year earlier. Transactions of attached homes such as town-houses dipped 25% and apartment sales were down 10%. On the other, prices likewise slumped, with the average price of detached Vancouver properties crashing 17% in just one month, and already down 0.6% on the year, to C$1.47 million ($1.13 million) in August, the lowest price since September 2015.
What is worse, is that what was until now a mostly regional housing bubble, is starting to spread in the form of a hit to Canadian consumer confidence. As Bloomberg reports, “a shifting real estate market in Vancouver led Canada’s consumer confidence index lower for a second week.” According to the BBG Nanos telephone poll shows, the share of respondents who see local real estate prices falling has almost doubled in the last two weeks, rising to 22.5% in the latest survey, up from previous readings of 20.5% and 12%. Conversely, the share of those who see higher prices fell to below 40 percent for the first time since April.
Housing jitters dragged the broader Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index down to 58.4, from 59.3 previously, the second straight drop from the 2016 high of 59.9. Readings on the economy also deteriorated, while perceptions of job security and personal finances showed slight improvements.
The drop may not appear too dramatic on the chart below, however once the inlfection point in public mood hits, the acceleration phase kicks in shortly after, especially if the Vancouver housing woes accelerate or, worse, spread to cities such as Toronto.
However, while the broader national index has only just started inflecting, the British Columbia expectations sub-index, which measures the outlook for housing and the economy, plunged by the most since July 2013 to 60.9.
“Negative pressure on the perceptions of real estate value continues, particularly in the province of British Columbia,” said Nanos Research Group Chairman Nik Nanos.
Unless another wave of price-indescriminate Chinese buyers emerges over the next few months, what is for now just a trickle to national Canadian consumer sentiment, will promptly become a flood.
- The Tyranny Of 9/11: The Building Blocks Of The American Police State From A-Z
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” ? Edward R. Murrow
We’ve walked a strange and harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties.
Over the past 15 years, we have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade the citizenry to march in lockstep with a police state.
What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.
This is not freedom. This is a jail cell.
Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, roving VIPR raids and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.
Our losses are mounting with every passing day.
Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since 9/11.
Since the towers fell on 9/11, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.
In allowing ourselves to be distracted by terror drills, foreign wars, color-coded warnings, underwear bombers and other carefully constructed exercises in propaganda, sleight of hand, and obfuscation, we failed to recognize that the true enemy to freedom was lurking among us all the while.
Indeed, the U.S. government now poses a greater threat to our freedoms than any terrorist, extremist or foreign entity ever could. Here’s an A-to-Z primer to spell out exactly what government tyranny means post 9/11.
A is for the AMERICAN POLICE STATE.
B is for our battered BILL OF RIGHTS.
C is for CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE, a diabolical governmental scheme to deprive Americans of their liberties, namely, the right to property.
D is for DRONES, weaponized, equipped with lasers, tasers and scanning devices, and aimed at “we the people.”
E is for ELECTRONIC CONCENTRATION CAMP in which all citizens are suspects, their activities monitored and regulated, their movements tracked, their communications spied upon, and their lives, liberties and pursuit of happiness dependent on the government’s say-so.
F is for FUSION CENTERS, which serve as a clearinghouse for information shared between state, local and federal agencies. These fusion centers constantly monitor our communications, everything from our internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails.
G is for GRENADE LAUNCHERS and GLOBAL POLICE. Take small-town police forces, equip them with enough firepower to render any citizen resistance futile, and then enlist them to be part of the United Nations’ Strong Cities Network program, and you not only have a standing army that operates beyond the reach of the Constitution but one that is part of a global police force.
H is for HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS. The government’s efforts to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees is reaching epic proportions, with federal agencies as varied as the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration stockpiling millions of lethal hollow-point bullets.
I is for the INTERNET OF THINGS. This “connected” industry propels us closer to a future where police agencies apprehend virtually anyone if the government “thinks” they may commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance.
J is for JAILING FOR PROFIT. Having outsourced their inmate population to private prisons run by private corporations, this profit-driven form of mass punishment has given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep their privately run prisons full by jailing large numbers of Americans for inane crimes.
K is for KENTUCKY V. KING, a ruling that opens the door to warrantless police raids, leaving Americans with little real protection in the face of all manner of abuses by law enforcement officials.
L is for LICENSE PLATE READERS, which enable law enforcement to track the whereabouts of vehicles, and their occupants, all across the country.
M is for MAIN CORE, the U.S. government’s database of 8 million or more names and information on Americans considered “threats” to the nation who should be rounded up in times of national emergency or under martial law.
N is for NO-KNOCK RAIDS. More than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year—more than 200 SWAT team raids every day—and all in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually possession of some small amount of drugs.
O is for OVERCRIMINALIZATION, which has resulted in an uptick in Americans being arrested and jailed for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room.
P is for PATHOCRACY and PRECRIME, tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government. Couple that with the government’s burgeoning precrime programs, and anyone seen as opposing the government—whether they’re Left, Right or somewhere in between—becomes a potential extremist.
Q is for QUALIFIED IMMUNITY, which allows officers to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing.
R is for ROADSIDE STRIP SEARCHES and BLOOD DRAWS. The courts have increasingly erred on the side of giving government officials—especially the police—vast discretion in carrying out strip searches, blood draws and even anal probes for a broad range of violations, no matter how minor the offense.
S is for the SURVEILLANCE STATE. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears.
T is for TASERS and other nonlethal weapons, which enable police to aggress with the push of a button, making the potential for overblown confrontations over minor incidents that much more likely.
U is for UNARMED CITIZENS SHOT BY POLICE. No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, often attributed to a fear for their safety.
V is for VIPR SQUADS, which are tasked with carrying out so-called “soft target” security inspections whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat.
W is for WHOLE-BODY SCANNERS. Using either x-ray radiation or radio waves, scanning devices and government mobile units are being used not only to “see” through your clothes but to spy on you within the privacy of your home.
X is for X-KEYSCORE. One of the many spying programs carried out by the NSA that targets every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone.
Y is for YOU-NESS. Facial recognition software promises to create a society in which you can be tracked based on your face, mannerisms, social media and “you-ness.”
Z is for ZERO TOLERANCE, in which young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike, often for engaging in little more than childish behavior. The lesson being taught to our youngest—and most impressionable—citizens is this: in the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (politician, police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the post-9/11 America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.
The choices before us are straight-forward.
We can live in the past, dwell on what freedoms we used to enjoy and shrug helplessly at the destruction of our liberties.
We can immerse ourselves in the present, allowing ourselves to be utterly distracted by the glut of entertainment news and ever-changing headlines so that we fail to pay attention to or do anything about the government’s ongoing power-grabs.
We can hang our hopes on the future, believing against all odds that someone or something—whether it be a politician, a movement, or a religious savior—will save us from inevitable ruin.
Or we can start right away by instituting changes at the local level, holding our government officials accountable to the rule of law, and resurrecting the Constitution, recognizing that if we fail to do so and instead follow our current trajectory, the picture of the future will be closer to what George Orwell likened to “a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
- "Too Many Whites" – MSNBC 'Tweaks' CNN Poll To Show Hillary Back In The Lead
Just over a month ago, Donald Trump shocked the establishment and took the lead in national polls.
Reuters jumped into action and 'tweaked' its polling methodology.
In a presidential campaign notable for its negativity, the option of “Neither” candidate appears to be an appealing alternative, at least to participants in the Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.
Many voters on both sides have been ambivalent in their support for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, complicating the task of the pollsters trying to track the race.
That sentiment may help explain an apparent skew that recently emerged in the Reuters/Ipsos poll results. Given the choice, a relatively large group of voters opted for “Neither/Other” candidate compared with other major polls, leading to an underreporting of several percentage points for one or other of the two major contenders at times in the race.
As a result, Reuters/Ipsos is amending the wording of the choice and eliminating the word “Neither,” bringing the option in line with other polls.
And order was restored with Hillary surging into the lead:
Today, however, a CNN national poll showed Trump regaining the lead (by 2 pts):
Donald Trump has a two-point edge over Hillary Clinton in the latest CNN/ORC national survey of likely voters out Tuesday, as the Democratic nominee's post-convention lead has largely evaporated.
Among those likely to vote in two months, Trump took 45 percent to Clinton's 43 percent, while Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson earned 7 percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein had 2 percent. But among all registered voters surveyed, Clinton leads by 3 points, 44 percent to 41 percent, while Johnson took 9 percent and Stein 3 percent.
The Republican nominee has a slightly higher favorability rating than Clinton among likely voters, although both are still underwater. Trump is seen favorably by 45 percent and unfavorably by 55 percent, while Clinton is at 42 percent to 56 percent. The disparity between the two candidates is lessened among registered voters.
And so, as Politico reports, MSNBC decided another tweak was required:
MSNBC 'unskewed' a CNN national poll on Tuesday that showed Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by two points, re-weighting the results to match the 2012 electorate and showing a four-point lead for the former secretary of state.
The poll of likely voters, released Tuesday by CNN/ORC, showed Trump ahead of Clinton nationwide in a four-way contest, 45 percent to 43 percent. But MSNBC host Chuck Todd explained that the poll, in his network’s estimation, may have oversampled white voters without a college degree, one of Trump’s strongest groups.
“Whites without a college degree appear to make up nearly half of their sample. In 2012, by the way, whites without a college degree was slightly more than a third of all voters,” Todd said.
“The point is, your numbers may not be wrong but your weighting may be, your assumptions. So the CNN folks assumed an electorate that is not an impossible scenario for Trump, but it would be an historic shift if it occurred.”
With the numbers adjusted to reflect how the electorate shook out four years ago, Clinton’s two-point deficit shifted to a four-point lead, 46 percent to 42 percent.
Mission accomplished.
To this latest, and most entertaining, "non-GAAP" poll adjustment, we have one question: just how stupid do 'they' think the American people really are?
- "What A Mess!" – Pentagon At War With CIA In Syria
Submitted by Eric Margolis via Strategic-Culture.org,
What a mess! In the crazy Syrian war, US-backed and armed groups are fighting other US-backed rebel groups. How can this be?
It is so because the Obama White House had stirred up war in Syria but then lost control of the process. When the US has a strong president, he can usually keep the military and intelligence agencies on a tight leash.
But the Obama administration has had a weak secretary of defense and a bunch of lady strategists who are the worst military commanders since Louis XV, who put his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, in charge of French military forces during the Seven Year’s War. The French were routed by the Prussians. France’s foe, Frederick the Great of Prussia, named one of his dogs, ‘la Pompadour.’
As a result, the two arms of offensive US strategic power, the Pentagon and CIA, went separate ways in Syria. Growing competition between the US military and militarized CIA broke into the open in Syria.
Fed up with the astounding incompetence of the White House, the US military launched and supported its own rebel groups in Syria, while CIA did the same.
Fighting soon after erupted in Syria and Iraq between the US-backed groups. US Special Forces joined the fighting in Syria, Iraq and most lately, Libya.
The well-publicized atrocities, like mass murders and decapitations, greatly embarrassed Washington, making it harder to portray their jihadi wildmen as liberators. The only thing exceptional about US policy in Syria was its astounding incompetence.
Few can keep track of the 1,000 groups of jihadis that keep changing their names and shifting alliances. Throw in Turkomans, Yzidis, Armenians, Nestorians, Druze, Circassians, Alawis, Assyrians and Palestinians. Oh yes, and the Alevis.
Meanwhile, ISIS was inflicting mayhem on Syria and Iraq. But who really is ISIS? A few thousand twenty-something hooligans with little knowledge of Islam but a burning desire to dynamite the existing order and a sharp media sense. The leadership of these turbaned anarchists appears to have formed in US prison camps in Afghanistan.
The US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey armed and financed ISIS as a weapon to unleash on Syria, which was an ally of Iran that refused to take orders from the Western powers. The west bears heavy responsibility for the deaths of 450,000 Syrians, at least half the nation of 23 million becoming refugees, and destruction of this once lovely country.
At some point, ISIS shook off its western tutors and literally ran amok. But the US has not yet made a concerted attempt to crush ISIS because of its continuing usefulness in Syria and in the US, where ISIS has become the favorite whipping boy of politicians.
Next come the Kurds, an ancient Indo-European stateless people spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. They have been denied a national state by the western powers since WWI. Kurdish rebels in Iraq have been armed and financed by Israel since the 1970’s.
When America’s Arab jihadists proved militarily feeble, the US turned to the Kurds, who are renowned fighters, arming and financing the Kurdish Syrian YPG which is part of the well-known PKK rebel group that fights Turkey.
I covered the Turkish-Kurdish conflict in eastern Anatolia in the 1980’s in which some 40,000 died.
Turkey is now again battling a rising wave of Kurdish attacks that caused the Turks to probe into northern Syria to prevent a link-up of advancing Kurdish rebel forces.
So, Turkey, a key American ally, is now battling CIA-backed Kurdish groups in Syria. Eighty percent of Turks believe the recent failed coup in Turkey was mounted by the US – not the White House, but by the Pentagon which has always been joined at the hip to Turkey’s military.
This major Turkish-Kurdish crisis was perfectly predictable, but the obtuse junior warriors of the Obama administration failed to grasp this point.
Now the Russians have entered the fray in an effort to prevent their ally, Bashar Assad, from being overthrow by western powers. Also perfectly predictable. Russia claimed to be bombing ISIS but in fact is targeting US-backed groups. Washington is outraged that the wicked Russians are doing in the Mideast what the US has done for decades.
The US and Russia now both claim to have killed a senior ISIS commander in an air strike. Their warplanes are dodging one another, creating a perfect scenario for a head-on clash at a time when neocons in the US are agitating for war with Russia.
Does anyone think poor, demolished Syria is worth the price? Hatred for the US is now seething in Turkey and across the Mideast. Hundreds of millions of US tax dollars have been wasted in this cruel, pointless war.
Time for the US to stop stirring this witch’s brew.
* * *
And if that didn't 1) drive you crazy, and/or 2) confuse you, here is UK's Channel 4 to explain in pictures…
Who is fighting who in #Syria? The question’s simple – the answer’s not. pic.twitter.com/3LD6p6oSPO
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) September 5, 2016
- As Class 8 Truck Orders Continue Collapse, VW Has A "Fix" For Navistar's Diesel Emission Issues
Truck-related stocks have massively outperformed the broader markets this year up over 30% while the S&P 500 is up only around 7%. This outperformance has come despite abysmal Class 8 net orders which seem to just get worse each month with August 2016 net orders down over 25% compared to last year. In fact, the level of trailing 12-month net orders is the lowest since January 2011 with YoY changes now in negative territory for 18 consecutive months.
This news comes as Volkwagen just announced a $256mm investment in Navistar International and agreed to collaborate on "strategic technology" and to establish a procurement joint venture. The news pushed Navistar stock up over 40% on the day alleviating near-term investor concerns over an aggressively levered balance sheet and massive pension under-funding.
The investment in Navistar comes after its market share in heavy-duty trucks has been cut in half over the past five years on the back of a diesel emissions scandal. The scandal ultimately resulted in Navistar paying the SEC $7.5mm to settle allegations it misled investors over its ability to comply with new diesel emission standards that went into effect in 2010. Navistar had attempted to develop a proprietary solution to comply with the new 2010 regulations, rather than using the same technology as the rest of the truck and engine industry…a bet that obviously didn't work out as planned. Per Bloomberg:
Navistar sought to comply with federal engine emission rules that took effect in 2010 by using an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) technology that funnels emissions back into the engine’s cylinders as a way of lowering the nitrogen oxide that is released. The trouble for Navistar is that the technique did not reduce the emissions sufficiently to meet the U.S. rules, which led to the company paying a penalty of nearly $2,000 per engine. Rival engine makers, such as Cummins, Paccar, and Daimler, use a system called selective catalytic reduction that applies a urea-water fluid to the exhaust gases to convert the harmful nitrogen oxide to water and nitrogen.
In July 2012, the Lisle (Ill.) company reversed its decade-long course and said it would abandon the technology in its engines. The board soon ousted CEO Dan Ustian, and two months later the company reached a deal with Cummins to supply its widely used ISX15 diesel engines for Navistar’s largest truck models. That engine also meets emissions requirements that take effect in 2014.
Luckily for Navistar, if they ever want to revive that EGR technology we hear that VW has an excellent "fix" to help meet diesel emission standards.
- USDJPY Tumbles On Sankei Article BOJ Is Struggling To Reach Policy Consensus
After having dropped all day following the latest set of poor US data making a September rate hike virtually impossible, moments ago the USDJPY snapped lower by nearly 80 pips, tumbling as much as 101.25, as stops were hit, reaching the pari’s lowest level since August 26.
Among the reasons cited for the steep drop on trading desks, is that according to an article in Japan’s Sankei published just over an hour ago, the BOJ is struggling to form a unified opinion on policy review. The Sankei explains, without saying who provided the information, that policy board members are struggling to reach a consensus position on comprehensive policy review to be released at Sept. 20-21 meeting.
It goes on to say that members are divided between those who support negative interest rates, prioritizing government bond purchase, and others who oppose additional easing measures:
- Governor Haruhiko Kuroda seen to be a negative interest rate supporter
- Deputy Governor Kikuo Iwata seen to support expanding monetary base
- Takahide Kiuchi, Takehiro Sato seen to oppose additional easing
In other words, chaos, with the Sankei concluding that the BOJ likely to debate until final moments on whether to present unified view or list individual positions.
This fits with what Abe advisor Koichi Hamada said in an interview earlier today when according to Bloomberg he suggested that the BOJ should wait until after the Fed decides on interest rates before acting itself, said Koichi Hamada, an economic adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Hamada correctly pointed out that the BOJ risks having its efforts overshadowed if it expands monetary stimulus at its policy meeting on Sept. 21 and the Fed then just hours later decides to keep U.S. interest rates unchanged.
“The BOJ should wait for the Fed,” said Hamada, in an interview in Tokyo on Monday. “The present focus of attention is on the U.S. exit policy.”
As Bloomberg adds, a Fed decision to raise borrowing costs would do more to weaken the yen than anything the BOJ would do, according to Hamada, a retired Yale University professor. The BOJ would still have the opportunity to increase stimulus at meetings in November and December. BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will want to avoid a repeat of what happened in January, when he introduced a negative interest rate only to see the yen strengthen as part of a global flight to safety.
Previously, in a speech delivered by Kuroda on Monday, BOJ governor Kuroda called for a comprehensive review of the BOJ’s monetary policy for the board to consider at its September meeting. Specifically, he signaled a willingness to bolster already record levels of stimulus and undertake new measures. Hamada said the BOJ should refrain from cutting the negative rate further for now because it has already had some negative effects on the banking industry and hurt household sentiment.
The market’s reaction to the speech was negative, sending the Yen higher as Kuroda failed to indicate a firm commitment to any specific policy, something the Sankei story has validated.
Further weakening the dovish case, was another report according to which PM Shinzo Abe told reporters at the close of a Group of 20 meeting in Hangzhou, China, late on Monday that foreign bond purchases are illegal under the Bank of Japan Law if they are meant as a form of currency intervention, which means that the plan floated by Hamada to buy foreign bonds will likely not be implemented in the near-term, if at all.
What is more curious, based on the latest Hamada’s comments, is that not only is the BOJ no longer data – or even market – dependent, but is entirely reactionary, and its policy will be driven almost entirely by what the Fed will do prior to the Bank of Japan’s own decision has to be made.
In short, the BOJ has lost control of its own monetary policy, and is forced to respond to any and every announcement and action by the Fed.
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