Today’s News November 12, 2015

• Why Preppers have it all wrong

  Prepping has not only gone mainstream, it’s infected even the billionaire culture as referenced recently on a ZH article:

  When it comes to “prepping”, many among the elite take things to an entirely different level.  As you will see below, the elite are willing to pay big money for cutting edge home security measures, luxury bomb shelters and superyacht getaway submarines. Some of the things that the elite are demanding for their own protection go beyond even what we would see in a James Bond film, and serving the prepping needs of the elite has become a multi-billion dollar business.  Meanwhile, the media outlets that the elite own continue to mock the rest of us for getting prepared.  All the time we see headlines like this one that appeared in a major American news source: “Preppers: Meet the paranoid Americans awaiting the apocalypse“.  Well, if we are paranoid for setting aside some extra food and supplies for the future, what does that make the people that you will read about in this article?

  Financial prepping has been the mantra of the ‘hedge’ fund community since it started to exist.  Instead of just blindly buying stocks and hoping the market always goes up, ‘hedge funds’ provided a ‘hedge’ in case the market actually didn’t go straight up.  Of course, this is now just for lazy investors, now it’s possible to buy options for almost any situation, and insurance companies will sell insurance for anything – even being abducted by aliens (over 30,000 policies sold in Europe according to Geico).

  Description of the prepper & background

  So let’s take the average prepper, metaphorically speaking.  You have your safe house, stockpile of supplies, food, ammo, tools, toilet paper, shortwave radios and other electronics powered by cranks, etc. etc. etc. (depending on how deep your infection).

  Financially speaking, you keep your savings in a combination of cash (US Dollars, Euros, and Swiss Francs), gold, silver, bitcoin, and bearer bonds.  If you are really savvy, you’re holding the paper on several nearby farms in a fair deal whereby they pay down their principle in cash and interest & fees in milk, beef, and in the summer vegetables.

  You own several properties in the names of charities you’ve setup just for this purpose… ok you get the idea.  Take it to the extreme.  The estute prepper has done all this and more – he’s ready for anything!

  The problem

  Now the calamity comes – whether it be a global pandemic, alien invasion, terrorists, the United Nations with foreign troop invasion – take your pick.  It’s really bad, but you survive – because you are ready for anything!  So now you’ve survived – NOW WHAT?  

  Do you come out of your bunker after the smoke has cleared?  What will you do all day?  What will other survivors do?  Will you try to communicate with other preppers?  What if in the process of that communication – you discover that you are a little more prepared than they, and they trick you into a meet whereby they kidnap you and force you at gunpoint to give up your safe location and supplies?  

  What if there is a secret group of ‘anti-preppers’ who are right now preparing for ways to steal from preppers, based on their security flaws and lack of planning?  

  What if there is a group right now setup by the government, who is monitoring preppers, that within 24 hours of said ‘calamity’ will be taken into custody (or otherwise dealt with).

  What is to stop the military from seizing your supplies, and forcing you to join their chain gang?  

  The problem is that in order to really be ‘prepared’ – one must strive to be a stronger fighting force than the strongest army in the world (be it whatever you think in your opinion) because in a real crisis, the only currencies are 1) intelligence and 2) accelerated lead.  Accelerated lead is a quickly depleting resource whereas intelligence can grow and be self-replicating.  

  Prepping generally speaking is a good thing, to use example of global pandemic – if everyone in the world is prepared and follows WHO guidelines, the pandemic will not exist!  Probably the same could be true with financial markets.

  The point here is to realize that like with anything – the popularization of ‘prepping’ has warped the purity of the concept.  

  The idea itself – very noble.  But in practicality, in reality, if there is an apocalypse, where are you going to go shopping with your gold and silver coins?  

  Especially in America where we like to do things to extremes (like eating for example) – we’ve taken prepping to a new fangled art form.  But it’s this ‘new level’ that is the snake oil – not the concept of prepping.

  Just in case

  Mossberg sells a package “Just in Case” that includes survival kit, shotgun, all neatly packaged in a waterproof tube (that also can double as a flotation device).  It’s a great analogy for the prepping movement.  It’s a great thing to have – JUST IN CASE.  99% of buyers of this will never use it.  

  But – IT’S BETTER TO HAVE IT AND NOT NEED IT, THAN TO NEED IT AND NOT HAVE IT!  -The Avid Prepper

  Financial Prepping

  What can one do to financial prepare themselves?  This completely depends on the situation, and depends on the extent you want to prepare for.  As a general rule, you just want to be more prepared than your neighbor, but only a little.  That means – forget about the kevlar suit that can withstand 1,000F burns, or the bitcoin wallet that can only be opened with one time pad; each hidden in 2 secure locations in Europe.

  Also, forget this naive idea about hoarding physical gold or cash – as if it will help you.  You’re just painting a target on your back!  Where will you spend this cash?

  Some reasonable prepping steps to be a ‘pure prepper’ 

  • Have a healthy options portfolio
  • Take the other side (even if you don’t agree with it)
  • Invest in some really crazy ideas – if everyone you know says ‘don’t do it – it’s crazy’ – DO IT!
  • Invest and trade LOCALLY, at least a little.
  • Keep multiple accounts open with different TYPES of brokerage firms/banks – not only the same institution where your 401k is.  Not all of them will die.
  • Participate in some class action lawsuits for securities or similar cases – even if you won’t get a big payout.  When the dollar bubble really pops, you’ll have a friend who can help you get 20 cents on the dollar from Bank of America.
  • Make some foreign connections, who may not be in the same predicament as most in America
  • As much as possible, try to do things for yourself.  Having your deck resurfaced?  Do it yourself!  Do your own research – don’t rely on a service (and certainly not your broker!)  
  • Educate yourself!  Learn a foreign language, or study that course in wreath making you’ve been putting off for so long.  Remember, although the world is a large place – the majority of nuclear fuel rods are made by hand by Samurais in Japan:

  Although Japan Steel Works is a major corporation with 5,000 employees, it also maintains a samurai sword blacksmith, in a small shack on a hill above the factory in Muroran, where a single craftsman still hammers steel into broadswords, as the company has done since 1917.

  Just remember.  For those who think the apocalypse is coming – there are just as many who believe it’s already here.  Just ask some Detroit residents.  

  

  Looks like the Zombies have already invaded and destroyed our cities.  

   

  

  

  

  

• Methods For Fighting Back Against Collectivist Tyranny

  Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

  In any examination of historical precedence, it is easy to see that the sheer number of collectivist and tyrannical systems have far outweighed any experiments in individual liberty. I have explored the reasons for this in numerous articles, including recent pieces such as “How To Stamp Out Cultural Marxism In A Single Generation” and “The Tools Collectivists Use To Gain Power.” To summarize, there is a driving desire among weaker-minded people to seek control over other people in the name of arbitrary standards of safety as well as arbitrary standards of “civil” conformity. While such people proclaim publicly that they do what they do for the “greater good,” in reality they seek only to satiate a private lust for power.

  In the darkest corners of their souls, many people have personal aspirations to attain godhood in their own little worlds. And if they cannot achieve such godhood outright on their own, then they will join a mob with similar aspirations so that they can at least feel omnipotent through vicarious tyranny.

  This is why collectivism and individualism are mutually exclusive. A collectivist uses force or manipulation to compel the masses to accept a society that follows his personal ideology. An individualist adheres only to the tenets of natural law and the non-aggression principle. He believes force is justified only when the personal liberties of an individual are threatened by others. And he demands that if he participates in any society, it be voluntary. Collectivism is society through coercion. Individualism promotes society through voluntary cooperation. The two philosophies cannot coexist.

  I'll say it again because there are some people out there with severe reading comprehension issues; the definition of collectivism requires the prioritization of the group over the rights of the individual.  Collectivism by its very nature denies or destroys individualism and individual choice in this prioritization.  Collectivism therefore requires the engineered organization of individuals predicated by COERCION, or force.  Period.  If a group organizes voluntarily, then it is NOT collectivist.  If a group is organized through force and manipulation, then it IS collectivist. Period.  Bananas are yellow.  Oranges are orange.  The sky is blue.  Two plus two equals four.  And, collectivism compels participation by force, while voluntary community does not.

  There is no rational debate to be made against this clear dichotomy.  It is truly amazing how some folks cannot seem to grasp the very obvious difference between collectivism and voluntary community; the same people that will likely still attempt to argue that collectivism and individualism are "not mutually exclusive" after reading this very article.

  I certainly would never make the claim that most collectivists are intelligent…

  The collectivist threat is not merely due to environmental factors alone. As the psychologist Carl Jung outlined in his collected papers titled “The Undiscovered Self,” at any given point in history at least 10% of the human population has inherent (but often latent) psychopathic tendencies. Less than 1% of these people will actually act out their full psychopathy under stable social conditions. However, in times of great distress or political and economic upheaval, the psychopathic 10% are given a kind of playground in which to let the devil out; Jung called this the “collective shadow.”

  As I have explained in the past, these are the “useful idiots” within any society. They are the reason why there will never be a time now or in the future in which collectivist oppression will not be a potential threat, and why individualists will have to remain forever on guard. That said, they are only a part of the bigger problem. In almost every instance of mass tragedy or despotic government, an elitist minority pulls the strings of the useful idiots, aiming them like a shotgun at individualists in order to clear a path for total centralization. The elites are another horror altogether.

  These are the men and women who EMBRACE their psychopathy. It is not latent or subconscious; it is a fully integrated and accepted part of their psychological life. They have found that psychopathy can be an effective tool for gaining power and influence when average people around them are less vigilant or less confrontational due to fear or apathy. And contrary to popular belief, psychopaths CONSTANTLY organize into effective working groups, some of them vast and global in scope, as long as there is the promise of mutual benefit involved.

  This is not to say that they organize around “gain” alone. Elitists have their own pervasive ideology and their own rationalizations for seeking control of others.

  They see themselves as “philosopher kings” as described in Plato’s 'Republic,' exemplary and “special” people who are born with the inherent genetic capacity to rule over the masses with the utmost clarity. They believe they know what is best not only for you, but for the human experiment in total. Their goal is to construct a sociopolitical apparatus that will allow them to have complete overreaching influence over every aspect of every individual life, up to and including the erasure of that life if they think it serves their ends.

  "…You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner…” — George Bernard Shaw, Fabian socialist, from 'The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism'

   

  "My conclusion is that a scientific society can be stable given certain conditions. The first of these is a single government of the whole world, possessing a monopoly of armed force and therefore able to enforce peace. The second condition is a general diffusion of prosperity, so that there is no occasion for envy of one part of the world by another. The third condition (which supposes the second fulfilled) is a low birth rate everywhere, so that the population of the world becomes stationary, or nearly so. The fourth condition is the provision for individual initiative both in work and in play, and the greatest diffusion of power compatible with maintaining the necessary political and economic framework.” — Bertrand Russell, member of the Fabian Society, from 'The Impact Of Science On Society'(Note: Russell believed that individuals should be given at least the illusion of choice within minor aspects of society in order to maintain their willing participation.)

   

  "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. … [I]t remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons… It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.” — Edward Bernays, father of modern propaganda, from 'Propaganda'

  Elitists are rarely as open about their true intentions as the men quoted above. They often entice the public with fantastical promises if collectivist systems are supported, including: equality of wealth and prosperity; reduction of labor and increases in leisure time; incredible technological advances; universal education; universal healthcare; the end of nationalism, resulting in the end of war, resulting in infinite global peace; etc.

  When they are not able to sell the public on a particular aspect of collectivism, they will create artificial divisions and artificial crises in order to engineer chaos. As per the Hegelian dialectic, when we are thoroughly tenderized by fear and disaster, the elites return to the scene with a “solution” to their original crime, a solution that usually involves more collectivism.

  So how do individualists fight back against collectivism, elitists and the useful idiots they exploit? Here are some practical strategies that anyone can employ in his daily life.

  Stop Participating In False Paradigms

  Yes, in the everyday world there are leftists and right wingers, liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats. People subscribe to particular ideologies and philosophies backed by fundamental differences in belief. These divisions between regular people are indeed real. However, it is important to realize that at the gatekeeper level in these systems, the leadership in both parties subscribe to the same goals. They are not divided. They are part of the elitist structure. And while their rhetoric differs cosmetically, in policy and in action they will always work to destroy individual liberty and promote collectivism, whether they claim to be on the right or the left.

  This reality also applies to supposed conflicts between nations. If two nations appear to be at odds with each other, yet the leadership of each nation remains in league with the same international elitists (bankers, Fabians, globalists, etc.), then their conflict is a sham designed as theater for the masses.

  Refuse to participate in false paradigms. Point out the inconsistencies of BOTH parties or sides and identify how each works against individualism and toward collectivism. Do not affiliate with any group or institution that has a demonstrated history of antagonism towards individual freedom or that partners with known collectivist (globalist) organizations and frontmen. If you are going to fight for any side, make sure it truly represents liberty through its actions and associations.  Rhetoric is meaningless.

  Decouple From Dependency On Corrupt Systems

  As our economic situation becomes more and more dire, people are much more apt to become dependent on the system for survival, and this is an intentional result. I would not expect, for example, that the 94 million people in the U.S. who have been unemployed for so long they are no longer counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics should refrain from government aid or cut themselves off from welfare measures and become immediately self-reliant. They should, however, consider working toward that goal over time; and so should everyone else.

  This is not quite as impossible as it seems. Can you produce or repair items that act as survival necessities? Can you teach a necessary skill? If so, then you are already well on your way to independence. Once you have a necessary skill, trade is possible outside the controlled economic framework. The more individuals involved in an alternative economy, the more diversity of skill sets will be available and the more prosperous that voluntary community will become.

  The ultimate achievement in my view would be similar in aspects to the American agrarian models of the past with the integration of helpful technology: completely voluntary communities in which free trade is the foundation; the existence of grid water and grid power is unnecessary; food production is local and ample rather than reliant on national or international freight systems and the artificial scarcity of corporate farming models; and security is provided by each individual for himself, as well as for the community, through voluntary neighborhood watches or militias.

  All of this starts with each individual taking action to become a producer, rather than a wage slave or welfare slave.

  Organize Locally With People Of Like Mind

  Again, organizing voluntarily is counter to collectivism.  Collectivist systems cannot be defeated unless you are willing to establish a competing model that works better while maintaining freedom. This is not hard to do, considering collectivist models are failure-driven machines that devour people and use them as fuel to move society as a whole towards a “greater good” which is neither great nor good.

  As outlined above, independent localism is the answer. It is a voluntary structure that encourages self-reliance and preparedness, while making production and innovation the mainstays of a healthy society. It rewards personal success and achievement, rather than punishing it. And, it helps a larger percentage of wealth to keep cycling locally, rather than being siphoned out of communities by governments or government-chartered and protected corporations.

  Localism always starts small, with families, friends and neighbors. But as your organization continues to make life better for those involved, it will inevitably attract more participants.  The redundancy of localized economies would also protect people from economic collapse.  In fact, without the forced interdependency of centralized collectivist economic models, large scale financial crises would probably become a thing of the past.

  Educate Children Privately

  I’ve been saying it a lot lately, and I’ll say it again: Public schooling as it stands today is an apparatus for brainwashing, nothing more. With the dismal world ranking of U.S. students in math, science and reading, I hardly see what service public education is actually performing in America. The only service public schools do seem to excel at is indoctrination, with children now being immersed in collectivist lessons through Common Core and being conditioned into pacifism and fear through insane zero-tolerance policies.

  The only working solutions available for parents today are to decouple from the federally dominated public school system and place their children in a well-vetted private school or to home-school. Any sacrifice, financial or otherwise, is worth it to save American children from a vicious system of propaganda and conditioning that could conceivably suppress their individualism and warp them into collectivist monsters.

  Arm And Train For Self-Defense

  I think it should be pretty obvious that there is a simple reason behind the collectivist habit of attempting to disarm common people: Armed people are harder to manage or control.  If an armed population was not a threat to collectivists then they would not keep trying to disarm everyone. Therefore, if you are not armed and trained in self-defense, then you are not a threat to collectivists.

  You can be the most brilliant of thinkers with pristine logic and truth on your side; but without the means and ability to destroy an attacker or tyrant, you are nothing in the grand scheme. Intellectual warriors are not really warriors. And as a writer, I will say in all honesty that the threat of the pen is not mightier than the threat of the sword.

  Keep in mind, though, that it is not enough to merely purchase a firearm or shoot at the range. Team tactics and training are essential for free people, which is why they are so admonished by collectivist elements in our society. Train with friends and family or with your Community Preparedness Team, as I do through Oath Keepers; but learn tactical methodologies and how to fight with others. Present a viable danger to collectivists, or be subsumed by them.

  Remove The Elitist Hierarchy

  Eventually, the fight between individualism and collectivism will become physical rather than informational. There is no way around it. The more individuals begin to decouple from the corrupt system and construct their own alternative framework, the more violent collectivists will turn in response. The virtue of self-defense requires that tyrants be cut off from their means to project violence onto others.

  While it is impossible to stop the inherent nature of psychopathy other than to participate in communities where psychopaths are not welcome or encouraged, there is the matter of organized elitism to deal with.

  Any fight for freedom from collectivists will require the removal of command and control. This is the only way that humanity can be given breathing room to rebuild without remaining under constant preplanned threat. There are, in fact, many organizations that openly work toward collectivist oligarchy, from central banks (this means central bankers in ALL nations, not just in the West), to the Council On Foreign Relations, to Tavistock, to the Rand Corporation, to the International Monetary Fund or the Bank for International Settlements, to Bilderberg, to the Fabian Society, etc. These institutions need to be dismantled by any means necessary and the participants removed from positions of control. Make no mistake; it will take a war before such people give up the reins of power. This is the inevitable cost of individualism and the inevitable cost of freedom.

  

  

  

  

  

• Visualizing The Worst US/NATO Collateral Damage Disasters In History

  Early last month, the US did something tragically stupid. The Green Berets, operating in Kunduz in an attempt to beat back Taliban insurgents who have racked up a series of gains prompting Obama to cancel a planned troop drawdown, called in an AC-130 gunship strike and laid waste to a hospital. 

  Why they did that is the subject of some debate but Doctors Without Borders claims the US and its spec ops knew it was a hospital and while Washington doesn’t necessary dispute that contention, the military claims the Taliban were using the facility as an operating base and firing on the soldiers. Whatever the case, dozens were killed and then just weeks later, the Saudis hit an MSF facility in Yemen. 

  With that in mind we present the following infographic which details the worst instances of “collateral damage” from US/NATO military operations throughout history.

  
  

  

  

  

  

  

• Is It Time To Renounce U.S. Citizenship While You Still Can?

  Submitted by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

  The number of people abandoning the “greatest country in the world” just hit a record high…

  The U.S. government recently reported that 1,426 people renounced their U.S. citizenship in the third quarter. That’s a record quarterly high. Like all government statistics, I view this one skeptically. Many observers think the actual number is much higher.

  Still, with another quarter left in 2015, the number of Americans who renounce U.S. citizenship this year could easily top the previous annual record set last year.

  I recently spoke with a consultant who gave up his U.S. citizenship. He’s now a citizen of Dominica, a small Caribbean country, and splits his time between Asia and South America.

  He said he was leaving a sinking ship for a better life elsewhere. On top of that, the U.S. government is placing an increasing number of hurdles on Americans who want to renounce their citizenship. So he thought it was time to do just that.

  This isn’t how the average person sees things. Unthinking Americans are puzzled when they read about the increasing number of people renouncing their citizenship.

  As you can see in the chart below, this trend is exploding. And it has important implications for your personal freedom and financial prosperity.

  

  This trend really shouldn’t surprise anyone. The U.S. tax system is the most rapacious in the world. It’s also the most aggressively enforced. For many, the benefits of U.S. citizenship no longer outweigh the costs.

  The U.S. is the only country in the world that successfully taxes its citizens no matter where they are in the world…even if they leave and never step foot in the country again. It’s called citizenship-based taxation.

  If you’re a U.S. citizen, you should think of citizenship-based taxation as a ball and chain attached to your leg.

  Nearly every other country in the world taxes people based on residency, not citizenship. For example, if you’re a Canadian citizen and leave Canada to live in Dubai, the Canadian government won’t force you to pay taxes on the income you earn in Dubai. However, if you’re a U.S. citizen, you have to pay taxes to the U.S. government no matter where you live and work.

  Only one other country in the entire world, Eritrea, has citizenship-based taxation.

  Eritrea is a tiny, mostly unknown, country in East Africa. It levies a 2% flat tax on the income of Eritrean citizens who live abroad. Unlike the U.S., Eritrea is an impoverished country. Its government has a hard time enforcing its tax system within its own borders, let alone the rest of the world. Many Eritreans who live abroad have never even heard of this tax, and those who have don’t worry too much about paying it.

  The U.S., on the other hand, does have the ability to enforce its Byzantine tax system literally anywhere in the world. When you consider the reach of the U.S. government and the penalties for not paying (which can only be described as cruel and unusual), it’s no surprise Americans are terrified. And they should be… or they aren’t paying attention.

  The U.S. government threatens Americans with years in prison and outrageous fines if they don’t file a litany of complex forms correctly… even if they don’t owe taxes in the first place. U.S. citizens are in the uniquely unfavorable position of having the world’s worst tax policies and a government that relentlessly enforces them everywhere on the planet.

  For many, it’s a tight and suffocating tax leash. Renouncing your U.S. citizenship is the only way to free yourself from U.S. taxation while you’re still breathing. It’s only logical that an increasing number of people are taking this step.

  UN Resolution 2023

  The media routinely condemns Eritrea for its attempts to tax nonresident citizens. Even the United Nations has weighed in. In Resolution 2023, the UN Security Council condemned Eritrea for “using extortion, threats of violence, fraud and other illicit means to collect taxes outside of Eritrea from its nationals.”

  The U.S. government supported Resolution 2023, even though it does the very same thing on an industrial scale.

  When you think about, it’s actually not fair to compare an impotent country like Eritrea and its relatively modest 2% expat tax to the monstrous U.S. tax system.

  Of course, I’m not endorsing the UN. I dislike bureaucracies of any sort…especially ones with a global reach. But it’s noteworthy that they would even bother to weigh in on the repressive practice of citizenship-based taxation.

  Unfortunately, the UN is being opportunistic. They don’t care about the tax burdens of Eritreans. If they did, they’d condemn citizenship-based taxation consistently.

  But the UN hasn’t made so much as a peep about the U.S.’s racket. If you listen for it, you’ll only hear the crickets chirping.

  This isn’t surprising. Even though it’s clearly a double standard, it’s easy to understand why it exists. As the world’s sole superpower and issuer of the premier reserve currency, the U.S. isn’t accountable to anyone.

  No other country has the courage or incentive to call the U.S. out. It’s a heck of a lot easier to push around some small, impoverished African country than it is to stand up to the U.S. juggernaut.

  The Exit Tax – A Form of People Controls

  Desperate governments always try to control money with capital controls and individuals with people controls.

  Take Cuba, for example. After Castro came to power, his government made Cuban citizens apply for exit visas before they left the island. They were not easy to get. The Soviet Union, North Korea, and others have also used similar restrictions.

  Preventing people from leaving has always been a hallmark of authoritarianism.

  It’s hardly shocking that productive people are fleeing the U.S. tax system. The U.S. government doesn’t like this one bit. Naturally, it would prefer to squeeze every last drop out of its best milk cows.

  To keep them from leaving, the U.S. government has imposed a so-called Exit Tax on Americans who renounce their citizenship.

  Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire cofounder of Facebook, is a notable example. By renouncing his U.S. citizenship, Saverin escaped paying an estimated $700 million plus in future income and estate taxes. He could not, however, escape the Exit Tax.

  For the Exit Tax, the U.S. government deems you to have sold everything you own on the day before you renounce citizenship at a price equal to its “fair market value.” Any appreciation in your investments or home and any deferred income becomes taxable.

  The Exit Tax is a big impediment to leaving. But, as the growing number of Americans renouncing their citizenship shows, it’s not always an effective one. I expect the U.S. government to impose much harsher restrictions – more people controls – in the future.

  The Canary in the Coal Mine

  I think the growing number of Americans renouncing their citizenship is an important sign of what’s to come. It’s never a good thing when a society’s most productive members flee for greener pastures.

  Many of these former Americans grew tired of the government treating them as piggy banks for the social program du jour.

  Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the entire U.S. government are broken and bleeding money. Like most governments that get into financial trouble, I think American politicians will keep choosing the easy option…money printing on a massive scale. This has tremendous implications for your financial security.

  Politicians are playing with fire and inviting a currency catastrophe. Most people have no idea what really happens when a currency collapses, let alone how to prepare…

  How will you protect your savings in the event of a currency crisis? This just-released video will show you exactly how. Click here to watch it now.

  

  

  

  

  

• The 60-Second Summary Of Europe's Latest Crisis

  Since the creation of the European Union, and its mutant cousin, the common currency Eurozone, it seems that Europe has been in a state of constant crisis… which, as a very prophetic AIG presentation foresaw has been precisely the point from day one.  But while Greece is no longer a source of stress, now that the insolvent Mediterranean country gave up and conceded its sovereignty to its European overlords, Europe now finds itself in what many say is a far more serious crisis – one in which the cultural sovereignty of Europe itself is at risk from an unprecedented wave of mideast migrants which are entering the continent by the thousands every single day.

  For those who have not been keeping up, and also for those who have, here courtesy of ohboywhatashot, is a “60 second summary” snapshot of how this latest crisis is affecting at least 23 countries across the old continent, and how while the European Union is gradually becoming a “Disunion”, one thing as usual reigns: chaos.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• So You Want To Be A Modern "Trader": Here Are The Requirements

  Igor Oystracher’s 3Red trading firm may not exist much longer after the recent vicious crackdown against the company’s spoofing practices profiled a month ago in “Russian College Dropout Busted For 1,316 Spoofs Of Everything From E-Minis, To Copper, To VIX“, an assault orchestrated by none other than king of HFT market-manipulation, Citadel itself, but for now he is busy looking for new trader meat…. ideally with pimples.

  Back in 2010 we predicted that as a result of the advent of HFTs as the most profitable form of market manipulation on Wall Street, old school rolodex-and-phone, carbon-based traders were a dying breed and on their way out. Little did we know just how accurate we would be.

  Below is a “help wanted” ad for a “trader” by none other than the abovementioned 3Red spoofers.  We put trader in quotation marks because… well, just read the ad and you will see.

  Here are the required skills you must have to be a successful “trader” in the new normal. For all those who satisfy the requirements, best of luck and may the best man (or vacuum tube) win, preferably in less time than it takes to frontrun a Bank of Japan E-mini “buy” order.

  

  h/t @sellputs

  

  

  

  

  

• "Currency War By 1000 Cuts" Continues – PBOC Weakens Yuan For Longest Streak Since Lehman

  Amid warnings from Daiwa Capital Markets that policy-makers "will sacrifice Yuan stability" in order to manage the deterioration in the economy (trade and industrial production data confirming the weakness), The PBOC weakened the Yuan fix for the 8th straight day. This is the longest streak of weakness since August 2008.

   

  As Bloomberg notes,

  Chinese policy makers will sacrifice yuan stability as it is clear that growth is being impeded by currency being stronger than it needs to be, according to Daiwa Capital Markets.

   

  PBOC will allow currency to weaken to 7.5000 per dollar by end of next year, representing a 15% drop from yesterday’s closing level of 6.3665

   

  “The authorities need to stop intervening in the currency market for the purpose of making the currency stable, as a strong currency is offsetting the policy easing so far,” Kevin Lai, HK-based Chief Asia ex-Japan economist, says in interview

   

  Still, any currency weakness wouldn’t be without challenges: it would increase debt burden of companies that have borrowed in foreign currency.

  And sure enough…

  

   

  • *CHINA WEAKENS YUAN FIXING FOR 8TH DAY, LONGEST RUN SINCE 2008

  

   

  Charts: bloomberg

  

  

  

  

  

• 21 Signs That Americans May Be The Unhappiest People In The World

  Submitted by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

  How can we possibly be so miserably unhappy?  For a nation that supposedly “has it all”, we sure are depressed.

  In America today, suicide rates are soaring, antidepressant use is skyrocketing and virtually every new survey that comes out shows that we are deeply dissatisfied about something.  But we live at a time when there are more things to enjoy than ever before. 

  When I was growing up there was only a handful of television channels to choose from, but now there are hundreds.  We have more movies than we could ever possibly watch, more books than we could ever possibly read, and the greatest video games ever made are at our fingertips.  With all of the entertainment that surrounds us, you would think that Americans would be happier than ever before, and yet we continue to become even more depressed.  Everywhere I go, I see people that look like they have had the life completely sucked out of them.

  So why is this happening?  The following are 21 signs that Americans are the unhappiest people in the entire world…

  #1 A scientific study that was just released found that U.S. adults are becoming less happy over the years…

  “Adults over 30 are less happy than their predecessors,” concludes a study published online Thursday in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science, which examined happiness data from more than 50,000 adults, gleaned from the General Social Survey, carried out by NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan, independent research organization, which has collected information about American adults since 1972.

   

  From 2010 to 2014, adults over 30 had an average happiness score of just 2.18, compared with 2.24 a decade ago. That’s significant considering happiness scores were measured on a tiny scale from just 1 to 3, with 1 being “not too happy” and 3 being “very happy.”

  #2 Young people are also becoming increasingly depressed.  Just check out what one study conducted at San Diego State University discovered…

  Americans are more depressed now than they have been in decades, a recent study has found. San Diego State University (SDSU) psychology professor Jean M. Twenge analyzed data from nearly 7 million adolescents and adults from across the country and found that more people reported symptoms of depression — including sleeplessness and trouble concentrating — compared to the 1980s.

   

  Twenge’s findings show that teenagers in the 2010s experience memory trouble 38 percent more often than their 1980s counterparts. Teens are also 74 percent more likely to have trouble sleeping and twice as likely to see a professional for mental health issues. College students in the study reported feeling overwhelmed by academic and personal demands 50 percent more often than their 1980s counterparts.

  #3 Back in 1987, 61.1 percent of all Americans reported being happy at work.  Today, 52.3 percent of all Americans say that they are unhappy at work.

  #4 A different survey found that 70 percent of all Americans do not “feel engaged or inspired at their jobs”.

  #5 One survey of 50-year-old men in the U.S. found that only 12 percent of them said that they were “very happy”.

  #6 The number of Americans diagnosed with depression increases by about 20 percent each year.

  #7 According to the New York Times, more than 30 million Americans take antidepressants.

  #8 Doctors in the United States write more than 250 million prescriptions for antidepressants each year.

  #9 The rate of antidepressant use among middle aged women is far higher than for the population as a whole.  It is hard to believe, but right now one out of every four women in their 40s and 50s is taking an antidepressant medication.

  #10 Compared to children in Europe, children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants.

  #11 In America today, there are 60 million people that abuse alcohol and there are 22 million people that use illegal drugs.

  #12 America has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.

  #13 One recent poll found that 71 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction that things are going in this country.

  #14 America has the highest divorce rate in the world by a wide margin.

  #15 America has the highest percentage of one person households on the entire planet.

  #16 100 years ago, 4.52 people were living in the average U.S. household, but now the average U.S. household only consists of 2.59 people.

  #17 According to the Pew Research Center, only 51 percent of all American adults are married.  Back in 1960, 72 percent of all adults in the United States were married.

  #18 The suicide rate in the United States is now the highest that it has been in 25 years.

  #19 According to one absolutely shocking study, 22 military veterans kill themselves in the United States every single day.

  #20 The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 rose by close to 30 percent between 1999 and 2010.  The number of Americans that are killed by suicide now exceeds the number of Americans that die as a result of automobile accidents every year.

  #21 The rate of suicide is highest during the holidays that come at the end of the year, and 45 percent of all Americans say that they dread the Christmas season.  The following comes from a Psychology Today article…

  We are told that Christmas, for Christians, should be the happiest time of year, an opportunity to be joyful and grateful with family, friends and colleagues. Yet, according to the National Institute of Health, Christmas is the time of year that people experience the highest incidence of depression. Hospitals and police forces report the highest incidences of suicide and attempted suicide. Psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals report a significant increase in patients complaining about depression. One North American survey reported that 45% of respondents dreaded the festive season.

  So why in the world is this happening?

  We have one of the highest standards of living in the world and we are surrounded by massive amounts of entertainment.

  Yet we are severely depressed.

  And during the “happiest time of the year” we get even more depressed.

  Clearly something has gone very wrong.

  Even more entertainment is not going to fix us, and neither will more drugging.

  

  

  

  

  

• Record Number Of Women Now Live In Parents' Basement, Lack Of Weddings Blamed

  It was less than two months ago that we brought you “The Mystery Of The ‘Missing Inflation’ Solved, And Why The US Housing Crisis Is About To Get Much Worse.” In it, we documented the inexorable rise of rents in America which, thanks to the housing crisis, has gone from being  a society of homeowners to a society of renters, wiping out two decades of “progress” on the homeownership rate in the short span of seven years. 

  

  Of course to a certain extent (scratch that, to a “great” extent), the market sowed the seeds of its own destruction by creating ever more “creative” was to allow everyone, even those who couldn’t document their income, to realize the American dream. 

  Now, the surge in demand for rentals coupled with the fact that because the cost of capital on Wall Street is zero allowing PE to compete with everyday homebuyers has left millennials effectively stuck between rents the can’t afford and homes they don’t qualify for. Throw in a post-crisis economy that churns out waiters and bartenders thanks in part to the fact the very same $1.2 trillion in student loans that are weighing heavily on recent graduates’ finances and you have the perfect setup for a return to mom and dad’s basement. 

  On Wednesday, Bloomberg is out noting that at an astounding 36.4 percent, the number of women age 18 to 34 living with their parents is now the highest since record keeping began more than seven decades ago:

  Some 36.4 percent of women age 18 to 34 lived with their parents or relatives in 2014, the highest since records began in 1940, according to a report released Wednesday by Pew Research Center in Washington. While the share of young men was even greater at 42.8 percent, it wasn’t quite as high as it was some 75 years ago.

   

  

  But the punchline here is that the Pew Center blames this rather alarming statistic on school and weddings: 

  College enrollment rates for both full- and part-time students have generally increased over the past couple decades, and some students may be trying to offset stiff tuition costs by bunking with their parents. 

   

  Eternal happiness can wait. Millennials are much less likely to be married than their parents were at their age, and marriage often serves as an impetus to move out. 

  We’ll close with Pew’s take on the economy and Harvard’s. Note the vastly divergent “opinions.” We’ll let you decide who’s right:

  Pew: 

  The increase is puzzling considering the improved state of the economy and an improving job market that has helped more young people earn enough to venture out on their own. Here are some of the longer term forces that could be at play.

  Harvard: 

  Millennials are also expected to continue experiencing rent burdens as they age. Having entered the labor market during and following the Great Recession, those in the millennial generation have received lower wages and experienced higher rates of unemployment and underemployment than their older counterparts at this point in their lives. As a result, millennials have less wealth accumulated, have delayed forming new households, and are less likely to become owners at the age that older generations had previously. In combination, we are likely to see additional household formation by millennials over the next decade and expect a relatively higher share to remain renters during that period.

  

  

  

  

  

• Aussie Bonds Crushed After "Everything Is Awesome" Best October Job Gains Since 2007

  China must be fixed because 'seasonally-adjusted' Aussie full-time employment just surged 58,600 MoM (almost quadruple expectations of a 15k rise). This is the best monthly gain in jobs since September 2012 and best October since 2007 – which all makes perfect sense. The resultant bloodbath in Aussie bonds (3Y +13bps to 6 month highs is worst day since Jan 2014) is all too real however. The question is – will this "good news" be jawboned down by RBA in order to give them some easing room?

   

  Aussie job gains explode…

  

   

  The best October since 2007…

  

   

  Crushing Aussie bonds…

  

   

   

  Charts: bloomberg

  

  

  

  

  

• Social Security: The Long Slow Default

  Submitted by Kirby Cundiff via The Mises Institute,

  When an investor buys an annuity or another retirement product from an insurance or mutual fund company, the contract is constant and enforceable through the United States court system.

   

  When a United States taxpayer is forced to pay for a government backed retirement system such as the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program (OASDI) – also known as Social Security – the “contract” can be, and is, changed on a regular basis by the United States government, and those changes are generally not to the benefit of the taxpayer.

  Participation in the Social Security system became compulsory in 1935 and the first monthly retirement checks were issued in 1940. The first monthly check was issued to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont. She had paid approximately $25 into the Social Security system and received over $22,000 in benefits from the system due to living to 100 years of age. The other early retirees of the Social Security system on average also did very well. Retirees in 1977 are estimated to have received seven times what they paid into the Social Security system. Retirees entering the program as recipients today will probably receive a negative return on their “investment.”

  The “Primary Insurance Amount”

  The way that Social Security benefits are calculated is complicated, and can, of course, be modified at any time.

  The amount of monthly income a Social Security enrollee receives is called the Primary Insurance Amount. The current Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) benefit formula was created in 1979 and is based on two “bend points.”

  For an individual who first becomes eligible for old-age insurance benefits or disability insurance benefits in 2015, his PIA will be the sum of:

  (a) 90 percent of the first $826 of his average indexed monthly earnings (AIME), plus,
  (b) 32 percent of his average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) over $826 and through $4,980, plus,
  (c) 15 percent of his average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) over $4,980,

  where the Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME) is currently the average of the Social Security recipients top thirty-five years of income during his lifetime divided by 12.  

  Significantly, each year’s monthly income is expressed in 2015 dollars using the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

  Benefit Cuts Since the 1970s

  By the late 1970s, it became obvious that the Social Security system was going to have significant solvency problems since the ratio of workers to retirees decreased from around 40-to-1 in 1945 to around 3-to-1 in 1980, and most of the money paid into the system had been spent on other government programs.

  Payroll taxes were therefore increased, and a series of changes were made to the Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) payment formula to cut the benefits that Social Security enrollees would receive. 

  The PIA formula before 1979 was even more complicated than the one used in 2015. It had ten bend points, but gave more credit to high income workers. According to Robert J. Myers in his book Social Security, the changes in the benefit formula in 1979 resulted in, on average, a 7 percent reduction in monthly Social Security payments for new retirees. Under that current benefit formula, if a Social Security enrollee has a life-time income over $2 million, he will very likely have a negative return on his investment. For lifetime incomes between $0.5 million and $2 million, the enrollee has a chance to break even. Enrollees with a lifetime income less than $0.5 million have a good chance of still benefiting from the Social Security system. The number of years included in the earnings base (the number of years of income averaged to determine the monthly benefit payment) was gradually increased from twenty-three years, for people born in 1917, to twenty-nine years for people born in 1923 to thirty-five years, for people retiring in 2015. 

  For mothers who took time off from their career, people who spent a long time in graduate school, and people whose income was much larger during later parts of their life, this resulted in a significant decrease in benefits. (See The Social Security Book by Jack and Erwin Gaumnitz.)

  Using the CPI to Keep Payments Down

  Since the 1970s, the AIME used to determine the PIA has been indexed using the Consumer Price Index (CPI). So the higher the CPI, the larger a recipient’s monthly Social Security benefits will be. Social Security benefits for current retirees are also increased annually by the CPI. This means that one way the government can lower benefit payments is by under-estimating the inflation rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has redefined how the CPI is calculated several times since the 1980s, lowering the CPI in each case. According to economists at Shadow Government Statistics, the CPI currently underestimates the inflation rate by at least 4 percent per year. If this is the case, Social Security recipients receive a 4 percent reduction in their buying power each year.

  “Mini-Defaults” in the Social Security System

  The US government knows it cannot keep up its end of the original Social Security bargain. So, to address its insolvency issue, the federal government simply responds by reducing benefits while increasing taxes. Increasing the retirement age, for example, is an easy way to reduce benefits.

  The retirement age was increased from sixty-five for those born in 1937 or before to sixty-seven for those born in 1960 or after. Since enrollees do not get maximum benefits until age seventy, it could be argued that seventy is really the current full retirement age.

  The taxable earnings base (the maximum income that is subject to Social Security taxes) and Social Security tax rates have increased drastically since the system was first created. The taxable earnings base was $3,000 in 1937, $25,900 in 1980, and $118,500 in 2015. The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) tax was 2 percent in 1937, 9.04 percent in 1980, and 10.98 percent in 2015. This number includes both the employer and employee portion. When the 1.42 percent Disability Insurance tax and the 2.9 percent Medicare tax is added, the total payroll tax is currently 15.3 percent.  

  In 1983, legislation was passed to tax Social Security benefits for the first time. Currently, if a taxpayer’s provisional income is more than $25,000 on a single return or $32,000 on a joint return, their Social Security benefits will be taxed at between 50 percent and 85 percent of their normal tax rate.

  Further Tax Increases and Benefits Cuts are Likely in the Near Future

  According to the Social Security Administration, by 2033 future payroll taxes will only cover around 77 percent of estimated benefits. It is therefore likely that even further benefit cuts and tax increases will occur in the near future. Increasing Social Security tax rates from 12.4 percent to 15.5 percent and eliminating the taxable maximum (i.e., making all income subject to Social Security taxes) is currently being considered. Other tax increases being proposed include taxing contributions to flexible spending accounts and creating a national Value Added Tax (VAT).

  Further cuts to Social Security benefits are also on the table. Proposals to cut benefits include increasing the retirement age from sixty-seven to seventy years, increasing the number of years included in the earnings base from thirty-give to thirty-eight or forty, and increasing the percentage of Social Security benefits that are subject to income taxes. Redefining the CPI index to further underestimate the inflation rate is also on the table.  

  Social Security has long been sold to the public on the notion that what a worker will receive back is what he or she pays into the system. For decades, however, the government has been changing the terms of this “agreement” as part of an effort to avoid outright default. This long, slow method of piecemeal default, however, is likely to continue.

   

  

  

  

  

  

• The Forced Collective Suicide Of European Nations

  You are witnessing what will be shown to future generations as the reason for the fall of an Empire. At current immigration levels and disappearing birth rates native Europeans are destined to become a minority in their own countries within decades. This is already the case for many of Europe's largest cities.

  Because of this injustice, far-right parties everywhere in Europe are gaining astonishing amounts of support, becoming the biggest parties in some countries.

  The following brief documentary lays out the rising fear across Europe of the so-called "refugee" crisis, as the narrator concludes,  "patriotism, the most basic and fundamental trait of any nation that wants to survive, has become something to be ashamed of."

   

  

  

  

  

  

• The ECB Should Stop QE Before Draghi Causes A "Financial Crisis", German "Wise Men" Warn

  Back in July, Germany’s economic “wise men” took a look at bailout “success” and “failures” and came to a rather disconcerting conclusion. Here’s what the Council of Economic Experts said in their report:

  A permanently uncooperative member state should not be able to threaten the existence of the euro. In view of this, the Council of Economic Experts recommends that the withdrawal of a member state from the currency union must be possible as an utterly last resort.

  Yes, “a permanently uncooperative member”, and by “uncooperative” they of course meant states which do not subscribe to the German brand of fiscal rectitude and who may seeking to rollback previously agreed upon austerity measures. To be sure, there’s a whole to be said for honoring one’s commitments, especially when those commitments came with billions in loans attached to them, but the report served to underscore the extent to which Berlin effectively controls the eurozone by wielding the purse string. 

  Anyway, one thing we know about Germany is that officials have a low tolerance for anything that even looks like irresponsible fiscal policy or other types of shenanigans that could, in the end, create crises which is why no one was surprised to see Wolfgang Schaeuble give a number speeches over the past several months in which in incorrigible finance minister derided money printing and ZIRP. 

  Well don’t look now, but the same Council of Economic Experts is out with their latest annual report and they are not happy with ECB QE and contend that the further expansion of the central bank’s balance sheet could risk sparking a new financial crisis. Here’s more:

  Another important debate centres on the current low interest rate environment in the euro area. In January 2015, the European Central Bank (ECB) further eased its already very accommodating monetary policy by introducing a new sovereign bond-buying programme. Recently, it put forth the possibility of further easing. Core inflation has, however, stood near 1 % for months, and has recently risen slightly. Simple interest rate rules, such as the Taylor Rule or a rule that explains past ECB interest rate decisions quite well, suggest that monetary policy should be tightened given the current economic outlook. 

   

  While the risk of deflation is currently low, there are risks for the development of the economy in the longer term. The ECB’s bond buying programme has created favourable financing conditions and provides member states with an incentive to defer much-needed budget consolidation and structural reforms. However, further structural reforms to strengthen markets and competitiveness are crucial for a self-sustaining economic recovery.

   

  In addition, monetary policy is leading to a build-up of risks to financial stability which could pave the way for a new financial crisis.

   

  Persistently low interest rates erode the earnings of banks and life insurance companies, and raise the appetite for taking risks. Although there are so far no signs of excessive credit expansion, some sectors, like real estate, are showing some signs of exaggerated prices.

   

  Macroprudential policy alone cannot guarantee the stability of the financial system. It is important to avoid delaying an exit from the low interest rate environment for too long. A timely end to monetary policy accommodation could effectively prevent the further build-up of risks in the financial system. 

   

  Considering current economic developments and balancing deflation risks against the risks to longer-term economic developments and financial stability suggest that the ECB should slow down the expansion of its balance sheet, or even end it earlier than announced.

  Apparently nobody asked Peter Bofinger for whom “cash in an anachronism.”

  So, contrary to what the ECB said in minutes from its April policy meeting, intentionally driving down borrowing costs for fiscally irresponsible member states isn’t at all compatible with budget reform and indeed, suggest that was outright absurd in the first place. Recall what we said: 

  This of course highlights something rather absurd about the ECB’s asset purchase program specifically, and about Brussels’ stance on fiscal discipline more generally. Namely, there’s something quite contradictory about telling governments to tighten their belts while promising to buy any and every piece of paper their treasury departments care to issue. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that a €1.1 trillion QE program simply cannot peacefully coexist with a strict, currency bloc-wide austerity policy.

  And of course now, Draghi is set to double down in December with either an expansion of PSPP, another depo cut, or both.

  Also, it’s worth noting that if the wisemen think the current program is embedding an enormous amount of risk, just wait until the ECB starts monetizing muni bonds, corporate bonds, and stocks. 

  Finally, while we agree with the Council’s take on PSPP, we’d be remiss given recent political events in the periphery if we didn’t remind you of the following quote from their July “special report”: 

  “Firstly, the crisis response averted a systemic crisis and thus maintained the cohesion of Monetary Union. Secondly, the time was used to implement reforms to make Monetary Union more resilient against economic crises. Thirdly, the economic situation in Ireland, Portugal, and Spain has improved markedly.”

  Tell that to Portugal’s Costa and the new government in Lisbon.

  

  

  

  

  

• If You Run A Hedge Fund, This Is The One Chart You Never Want To Show To Your Investors

  2015 has been tough for Bill Ackman, as we noted previously, having extended his year-to-date losses to 21.2%.

  But Q3 was particularly noteworthy in its unhedged magnificence. As the following table shows, of all his positions, his only positive contributors to returns added a whopping 0.1%, not so much his other 13 positions…

  Pershing Square's Q3 Contributors to Returns…

  

  It appears Bill Ackman is taking the "Zero Hedge" mantra to heart.

   

  And for many of the names, things have got considerably worse since the end of Q3…

  

   

  And now – with the Valeant-Allergan transactions under question – one wonders what related liquidations may do to Q4's returns.

  Charts: Bloomberg

  

  

  

  

• Female Senator Says Men Should "Just Shut The Hell Up"

  In an age of "safe spaces", media oppression, and the resurgence of the right not to be offended, leave it to an American Senator to move the free speech repression amplifier knob to 11. As The Hill reports, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) says men should "just shut the hell up" on a number of issues…

   "It's not that women don't value your thoughts, it's just that we don't value all of them," McCaskill tells male viewers. "The world doesn't need your opinion on everything."

   

   

  McCaskill lists a number of issues where "women no longer need to hear men's opinions on," including Star Wars, pantsuits, selfies, "Scandal" creator Shonda Rhimes, curtains and carbs.

  Finally – after getting significant pushback from social media on her hypocritical comments – McCaskill went full 'teenage girl' excuse: "I was just kidding."

  It's a joke silly. Love your bro pic. https://t.co/QTtskdotrX

  — Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) November 10, 2015

    Joking, or not, we can only imagine the fallout if a male senator said the same of women? And just one more thought – what would happen if this 'joke' was said aloud on the Mizzou campus? 

  

  

  

  

  

• "The Populist Upsurge is Real" When A Liberal College Professor Finds Common Ground With The Tea Party

  Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

  People are going to be pissed off no matter who wins this election and that is a very important social dynamic I believe is vastly under appreciated by the majority of mainstream pundits and analysts out there.  This is also very distinct from the environment that prevailed in 2008.  Four years ago, the financial markets were crashing and the economic future of America was circling the toilet bowl, yet a majority of Americans embraced the potential of a young, inexperienced biracial politician from Illinois who was saying all of the right things.  Despite the gigantic disappointment he has proven to be as President, there is no denying that he had all of the Democrats and most Independents under his spell on this day four years ago.

   

  Fast forward to 2012 and the county isn’t “divided” as mainstream media talking heads like to say.  The country is pissed off.  Genuine and legitimate frustration permeates the land from sea to shining sea and rightly so.

   

  – From my 2012 pre-election article: The Seventy Percent

  Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. I know of the man mainly from his frequent appearances on CNBC when I used to watch the channel (I’m proud to say I haven’t tuned in, even for five minutes, for several years now). He was always held up as the token “liberal,” always more than eager to spar with CNBC’s endless parade of crony capitalist heroes and “socialism for the rich” supporting statists. During my post Wall Street years, I have from time to time come across his musings, but none have struck me like the insightful post he published three days ago.

  The post is titled, What I Learned on My Red State Book Tour, and it’s an extremely important that all Americans read it. Here are a few excepts:

  I’ve just returned from three weeks in “red” America.

   

  It was ostensibly a book tour but I wanted to talk with conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers.

   

  I intended to put into practice what I tell my students – that the best way to learn is to talk with people who disagree you. I wanted to learn from red America, and hoped they’d also learn a bit from me (and perhaps also buy my book).

   

  But something odd happened. It turned out that many of the conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers I met agreed with much of what I had to say, and I agreed with them.

   

  For example, most condemned what they called “crony capitalism,” by which they mean big corporations getting sweetheart deals from the government because of lobbying and campaign contributions.

   

  I met with group of small farmers in Missouri who were livid about growth of “factory farms” owned and run by big corporations, that abused land and cattle, damaged the environment, and ultimately harmed consumers.

   

  They claimed giant food processors were using their monopoly power to squeeze the farmers dry, and the government was doing squat about it because of Big Agriculture’s money.

   

  I met in Cincinnati with Republican small-business owners who are still hurting from the bursting of the housing bubble and the bailout of Wall Street.

   

  “Why didn’t underwater homeowners get any help?” one of them asked rhetorically. “Because Wall Street has all the power.” Others nodded in agreement. 

   

  Whenever I suggested that big Wall Street banks be busted up – “any bank that’s too big to fail is too big, period” – I got loud applause.

   

  In Raleigh, I heard from local bankers who thought Bill Clinton should never have repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. “Clinton was in the pockets of Wall Street just like George W. Bush was,” said one.

   

  Most of the people I met in America’s heartland want big money out of politics, and think the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision was shameful.

   

  Most are also dead-set against the Trans Pacific Partnership. In fact, they’re opposed to trade agreements, including NAFTA, that they believe have made it easier for corporations to outsource American jobs abroad.

   

  Heartland Republicans and progressive Democrats remain wide apart on social and cultural issues.

   

  But there’s a growing overlap on economics. The populist upsurge is real.

   

  I sincerely hope Donald Trump doesn’t become president. He’s a divider and a buffoon.

   

  But I do hope the economic populists in both parties come together.

   

  That’s the only way we’re going to reform a system that’s now rigged against most of us.  

  The above is both depressing and encouraging, but mostly encouraging. It’s depressing because Robert Reich is a man who clearly means well. He isn’t trying to grab as much money and power as possible, rather, he genuinely seems to want the best thing for this country. Despite all of that, it wasn’t until he actually visited “red states” and talked to people who he assumed he had very little in common with from a public policy perspective that he discovered their common ground. In other words, an intelligent, thoughtful and well meaning professor had been so successfully siloed into partisan group think, he wasn’t able to see the bigger political picture. If that was the case for Mr. Reich, imagine how divided and conquered the general population is?

  Writing the above isn’t meant as a critique of Mr. Reich, we are all constantly learning. That said, the obvious overlap between “progressives” and “tea partiers,” has been obvious for years. This is why I’ve always posted the following venn diagram whenever possible:

  

  Of course, it’s not just me saying it. Ralph Nader actually wrote a book titled, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. While I agree with Ralph’s prediction in the long run, what is “stopping” this alliance from flexing its muscle in the present day? The longer we wait to confront the major issues of the day, the more pain and suffering the population will have to deal with. So what’s taking so long?

  I believe there are two primary drivers behind our current predicament.

  The first is human nature. People are tribal. Generally speaking, most individuals will ultimately gravitate toward an ideology that helps them understand the world around them, and will then cling to that ideology and defend it to the bitter end against those who disagree (those people become their “enemies” and are easily vilified). This can manifest in many different forms, from religion, to political party partisanship, to nationalism. Such unbending adherence to one ideology or another leads to most of the conflict and irrationality we see around us. This is because once someone has “committed” to an ideology, they close themselves off to even hearing other points of view. At that point, learning and critical thinking ends, and dogmatism takes over. To help those in finance understand what I’m trying to say, it’s very much like when you are in a losing stock position, but can’t get yourself to close out the trade and cut your losses. It’s the exact same seemingly insurmountable emotional commitment at play.

  One of the ways I’ve tried to prevent this mindset from infecting my own psyche, is by shunning political labels entirely. In my early days of writing many people characterized me as “libertarian,” although I never personally embraced such a label. As discussed earlier, once you embrace a label you end up defending a side more so than thinking critically. You have committed the sin of identity politics, and from that point forward you feel it is your duty to defend other “libertarians” and wage war against those who you perceive to be “on the other side.” Although discarding political labels confers obvious advantages, many people simply can’t do it. Why?

  Again, back to human nature. Most people feel a need to identify with, and become part of, a larger group. Unfortunately that larger group is almost never “the human race” as it should be. Why? Because if people tried to identify with everyone then they couldn’t feel special. People like to feel special, and that they’re a small part of a bigger struggle against other groups of humans who are in the wrong. Not in the wrong about specific policies mind you, but in the wrong merely because those other humans have not chosen to identify with the particular group you have aligned yourself with. You can usually tell identify who these brainwashed people are, because they constantly critique other people as “libtards” or “tea party wackos.” There’s no need for these loaded labels, but many people love to use them anyway. Why? Because with a single word they can be dismissive and degrading without ever having to talk to the other side and discuss real issues.

  Which brings me to the second reason American citizens have yet to unite on the greatest issues of national importance, despite the fact that a vast majority of the population agrees on them: Status quo propaganda.

  The status quo are deeply unethical and corrupt, but they aren’t stupid. They know how to divide and conquer people, and through the media, they are doing a great job of keeping citizens of these United States angry at each other, as opposed to angry at them.

  Robert Reich’s experience presents the perfect example. He admits he didn’t realize how much he has in common with “red state” tea partiers until he went out and talked to them. The problem here is that it’s not exactly feasible all for coastal people to travel to the heartland and vice versa in order to come to a mutual understanding. Most people depend on the media for information about the world around them and “those other people out there.”

  Unfortunately, the media intentionally misinforms people and makes them distrustful of “the others.” Fox News will make it seem like liberals are child-sacrificing heathens who simply want to get everyone to have an abortion while taking away their Christmas tress. Likewise, MSNBC makes it seem like it’s an indisputable fact tea partiers are ignorant, racist schmucks who want to shoot everything that moves and turn American into a Taliban-like Christian theocracy. Of course, neither of these things are true.

  The truth is, the American public is tricked into thinking they disagree with each other on the big issues, when in reality there’s enormous overlap. Until we stop being tricked, the status quo will continue to suck the economy dry through their religious-like embrace of corruption and crony capitalism. Unfortunately, the people who could benefit the most from reading this post, will never see it.

  

  

  

  

  

• Obama's Word Or Damocles' Sword

  Forget Damocles’ Sword, it is Obama’s Word that hovers catastrophically over the US economy’s ‘head’…

   

  

   

  Source: Investors.com

  

  

  

  

  

• Why It Absolutely, Positively Does Not Matter

  Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

  I’ll admit that when I was a kid, I used to spend hours watching wrestling on television.

  Hulk Hogan, the Macho Man Randy Savage… I loved all the old-school guys from the WWF, as they used to call it back in the 1980s.

  It was mesmerizing, a bit like I’d imagined gladiator combat would be.

  But I’ll never forget when the dream completely collapsed.

  My father took me to a live match when they came to our town and we had great seats near the front row.

  For the first time it was obvious to me, even from a young age, that it was all fake.

  I was devastated. I had actually believed that there were good guys versus bad guys beating each other up in the ring.

  It turned out to be a complete hoax, something that’s known today as “sports entertainment”.

  In fact, it’s essentially the same with elections today, which I see as “political entertainment”.

  Watching Hilary Clinton debate Bernie Sanders—or like yesterday evening, Jeb Bush against Donald Trump—doesn’t strike me as too different from when Hulk Hogan faced off against Andre the Giant in Wrestlemania.

  It’s all fake. It’s sound bites, jabs and jibes, and pointless banter completely devoid of any real substance.

  Having lunch yesterday with a good friend from the UK, he asked if I thought that any political candidate was worth it.

  I told him that I’m sure they’re all very nice people. Many of them might even mean very well and have very good intentions.

  I’ll also admit that occasionally they have decent ideas and that there are small steps in a positive direction.

  But the truth is, none of it really matters.

  As I explained to my friend, the United States objectively speaking is far past the point of no return.

  The government’s own financial statements prove beyond all doubt that they are flat broke to the tune of more than $60 trillion, and that they lose hundreds of billions of dollars more every year.

  In 2013, for example, the government lost $805 billion according to the Government Accountability Office.

  Every major pension program is either already insolvent or desperately unfunded.

  This isn’t Simon Black’s analysis; the Treasury Secretary of the United States of America himself tells us that the Social Security’s Trust Funds are nearly out of money.

  The Federal Reserve is nearly insolvent, and on a mark to market basis is likely already insolvent.

  The FDIC, which is supposed to support the entire US banking system, admits that it fails to meet the minimum capital requirements as required by law.

  US banks are precariously illiquid and exposed to trillions of dollars worth of very high-risk assets. Something that even the Fed and the FDIC do not consider to be “sound”.

  So to presume that a single individual is going to ride in on a white horse, wave a magic wand and fix all this is just a childish fantasy.

  The hope is that “the right person” can at least start to steer the ship in the right direction.

  This is the delusion every election cycle; people end up believing the entertainment is real, and that the right person can start to fix everything.

  Then a few years later, they realize that the ‘right person’ is almost exactly like the last person.

  Not to mention, ‘righting the ship’, mathematically speaking, is an impossibility.

  The government now spends almost all of its tax revenue just to pay interest on the debt, and the mandatory programs, like Social Security and Medicare.

  Both of which, by the way, are expenses that grow every year.

  There is no way out. It’s like trying to change directions for a ship that’s already half-sunk.

  At that point, it really doesn’t matter who’s the captain of the ship. All that matters is if you have a seat on a lifeboat.

  This is not intended to be a downer.

  It’s a little dose of reality, but in it there’s actually good news. Because all the tools and resources exist for you to build your own lifeboat.

  You don’t need to rely on a government to fix the problems that they themselves created.

  Rational people have a plan B.

  And with a little bit of planning, backed up by small, common sense action, you can ensure that you’re an amused spectator to this bizarre entertainment, rather than a victim of it.

  

  

  

  

  

• Ackman's Terrible Year Just Got Even Worse With News He Will Be Sued For Collusive Insider Trading

  It was in April 2014 when Valeant first revealed the collusive scheme it had hatched with financier Bill Ackman: upon consultation with Ackman, Valeant’s soon to be embattled CEO Michael Pearson would announce a hostile takeover bid of Allergan (this is before the company was acquired by white knight Actavis), but not before Ackman would load up on $4 billion in AGN shares (mostly in the form of calls) to generate massive profits when the news of the hostile offer not by Ackman but by a technically unrelated party was either leaked or announced.

  At the time we said this smacks of criminal, and collusive, insider trading. From our April 22, 2014 post:

  In yet another page of the activist investor’s sleaze book, last night Bill Ackman showed that when it comes to unethical way to generate “alpha” he truly may have no equal, when we learned that together with serial-acquirer and emplyee terminator Valeant, Ackman’s Pershing Square would join in on a debt-funded (thank you ZIRP) acquisition of botox maker Allergan.

   

  Nothing about that is odd. Where the story, however, would becomes a near-criminal farce if the US actually had a regulator which itself was not an agency designed to promote and reward criminality (in hopes of getting a job there as a kickback), is that as Valeant was preparing to announce its bid, Pershing Square – well aware of what was coming – was buying, and buying, and buying Valeant stock. Actually, scratch that – Ackman bought almost no stock: in fact he only bought some $76 million in AGN stock in late February. The balance: all call options, accumulated on an almost daily basis through March all the way until April 21, the day the news was leaked.

   

  As Bloomberg explained, Ackman began buying Allergan stock Feb. 25 and then in March switched to over-the-counter call options to accumulate his stake, regulatory filings show. A buying pause April 9 and 10 helped lower the price, before Ackman resumed in earnest April 11, according to two people familiar with the matter.

   

  Valeant was interested in the unusual arrangement with Ackman because the hedge fund could amass more of Allergan’s shares before making a public disclosure, said a person familiar with the matter. The shares rallied the most since 2009 in the six days before the stake and bid were disclosed yesterday, soaring 22 percent, and trading volume last week approached the highest level in a year.

   

  Why? Because Ackman had accumulated so many calls, it was in his interest at this point to leak the “news” about not his but Valeant’s involvement, which is always happy to trade off its balance sheet and future growth prospects in exchange for a pop in the stock price here and now, even if that means firing thousands of workers, and actually cutting back even more on the company’s own internal organic R&D spending.

   

  Or said otherwise, if you know your “partner” is about to submit a takeover bid for a company, wouldn’t you buy every call option you can find ahead of the announcement? That is precisely what Ackman did.

   

  Here is what Ackman’s furious call buying spree, which in turn pushed the stock price ever higher based on delta-hedging desks.

   

  

   

  And this is the total amount of calls Ackman bought. Remember: he only bought $76 million in AGN stock on February 25 and 26.

  

   

  Needless to say, Ackman made off like a bandit with a profit on his $4 billion initial stake in the hundreds of millions if not billions, once AGN stock soared.

  Naturally, we screamed bloody murder but we assumed that because this is such a glaring example of insider trading we must have missed something – some massive loophole because not even Ackman would be so dumb as to engage in such a blatant frontrunning of material news in which not he but someone else was the acquiror of a company.

  Sure enough, the very next day NYT‘s William Cohan scrambled to Ackman’s defense:

  Mr. Ackman is no fool. Rather, he is brazenly intelligent — he once volunteered to me, unsolicited, his breathtaking SAT scores – and before leaping into this particular abyss he consulted, deliberately, with Robert Khuzami, the former head of enforcement at the S.E.C., who is now a $5 million-a-year-man at Kirkland & Ellis, the Wall Street law firm. Mr. Khuzami assured Mr. Ackman that buying nearly $4 billion of Allergan’s shares knowing that Valeant intended to start a hostile takeover at a premium to market did not violate the S.E.C.’s rule 10b5-1 about insider trading.

  Robert Khuzami, who served as General Councel of the criminal disaster that is Deutsche Bank until 2009 and whom we profiled years ago, is shown below in this photo from his SEC days:

  

   

  Alas, as recent events involving Ackman’s investment in Valeant have demonstrated, not only is Ackman’s intelligence suddenly very much in question, but so is his entire research methodology: how many other managers would allocate billions into a company they never fully diligences and which has cost Ackman over $2 billion in losses if it wasn’t for two things: hubris and laziness.

  And now we get a second confirmation that Ackman may not only not have been “brazenly intelligent” but was downright stupid when moments ago we learned that a District Judge in Santa Ana, California, David Carter, has said Valeant and Ackman must both face a lawsuit accusing them of insider trading in Allergan before making an unsuccessful takeover bid for the maker of Botox.

  In other words, the judge has tacitly admitted that precisely what we said Ackman (and Valeant) criminally did with Allergan, is what may have happened.

  As Reuters reports the Judge rejected arguments by Valeant, Ackman and Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital that the lawsuit should be dismissed because their activity was not fraudulent.

  The lawsuit was filed on behalf of investors who sold Allergan shares in the two months before the defendants on April 22, 2014 announced an unsolicited $51 billion bid for Allergan.

   

  Pershing had by then quietly amassed a 9.7 percent stake in Allergan, which soared in value after the bid was announced. Investors said Pershing bought those shares knowing that Valeant was preparing a bid that could, and later did, become hostile.

  Again, exactly as we said happened on April 22, 2014.

  Naturally, Valeant and Ackman said there was no intent to defraud, and that they breached no duties by sharing information before the takeover bid became public.  

  But the judge, without ruling on the merits, found “serious questions” as to whether “substantial steps” had been taken toward a possible hostile bid, which would have required Valeant to disclose more or Ackman to stop his buying.

  “Plaintiffs must plead defendants knew they were in possession of material nonpublic information at the time of the trade and that they acted with the intent to deceive, manipulate, or defraud,” Carter wrote. “Plaintiffs have alleged both elements.”

  And now it’s off to court. Valeant spokeswoman Laurie Little said the Laval, Quebec-company was disappointed with the decision, and believes it complied with securities laws. “We look forward to presenting evidence to establish that we did nothing improper,” she added. 

  Valeant’s adversary in court, and the lead plaintiffs on the insider trading suit, are the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System, and Allergan employee Patrick Johnson.

  * * *

  But the biggest irony in all this is that the only reason Ackman proceeded with an action that clearly is collusive insider trading, is that he got a greenlight by a former SEC head of enforcement that this was legal!

  Let that sink in: the person whose job it was to be the first line of defense against blatantly criminal activity greenlight precisely the action that a district judge now says stinks of insider trading.

  No wonder said SEC enforcer Robert Khuzami, formerly of Deutsche Bank (wink wink), is currently paid a $5 million salary at Kirkland and Ellis to defend Wall Street criminals.

  * * *

  We look forward to the lawsuit and will be amused to find if, as we expected all along, Ackman is forced to repay the billion or so in illegally obtained proceeds. Considering the state his hedge fund finds itself in, he too may soon need a loan from Valeant.

  And speaking of Valeant, today’s news was hardly welcome – the stock closed down another 6% at the lows.

  

   

  While Ackman is not a publicly traded corporation, we are confident his value followed the same intraday trajectory. But a bigger question is what happens to Pershing Square: since Ackman made over $1BN on his AGN long; if found guilty of insider trading he will have to sell more of Pershing Square’s already distressed holdings, largest among them, ironically, being Valeant stock.

  Will LPs wait around until the end of the lawsuit or will they frontrun (or frontbike) Ackman’s own selling of his own stake from his own fund?

  

  * * *

  Full District Court Judge ruling below:

  

  

  

  

  

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