Today’s News November 21, 2015

• Belgium Warns Of "Imminent" Terror Threat In Brussels: "Avoid Crowded Areas"

  Following the massacre that unfolded last Friday in Paris, Belgium has become a focal point for European authorities’ anti-terror efforts. 

  As we detailed in “Meet The 27-Year Old “Mastermind” Behind The Paris Attacks“, Abdelhamid Abaaoud began to figure prominently in discussions among Western intelligence officials after two of his operatives were killed in a January raid in Verviers.

  Abaaoud was born in Belgium, and partly due to the “fame” he achieved by orchestrating the ISIS operation in Paris, the entire world is now suddenly awake to the role Brussels plays in serving as a kind of terrorist incubator.

  Specifically, all eyes are on Molenbeek, a working class, immigrant neighborhood which Foreign Policy notes is separated from the historical district by a “breezy canal” and is but a 20 minute subway “hop” from Brussels’ European Quarter. 

  

  As The New York Times recounted earlier this week, “the assassination of the Afghan anti-Taliban commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, immediately before the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001; the train bombings in Madrid in 2004; and the killing of four people at the Brussels Jewish Museum in 2014; the foiled shooting on a high-speed train, the anti-terrorist raid in the eastern Belgian town of Verviers, the attack on a Paris kosher supermarket and, finally, the Nov. 13 attacks on the French capital — all had some connection to Molenbeek.“

  In short, Molenbeek is to European terrorists what Charlestown is to bank robbers, although residents are understandably distressed about that rather unflattering characterization. 

  In any event, Belgium is now on high alert – literally. As AFP reports, Belgium has raised its terror alert level to the highest level for Brussels on Saturday. An attack, officials say, could be “imminent”:

  “Following our latest evaluation… the centre has raised its terror alert to level 4, signifying a very serious threat, for the Brussels region,” said a statement from OCAM, which comes a week after the Paris attacks left 130 dead.

   

  “The analysis shows a serious and imminent threat requiring specific security measures as well as detailed recommendations to the population,” OCAM, which is part of the Belgian Interior Ministry, said in the statement.

  Here’s the whole statement (Google translated):

  Following a new assessment of the OCAM performed this Friday, 20/11 at night, the terror alert level rose to a level 4, very serious, for the Brussels Region. Level 3 continue to apply to the rest of the country.

   

  The analysis shows indeed a serious and imminent threat that requires taking specific security measures as well as specific recommendations for the population.

   

  Advice to the population:

   

  Avoid places with high concentrations of people in the Brussels region (concerts, major events, train stations and airports, public transport, places of high commercial concentration).

   

  Facilitate follow the safety controls

  
  

  Do not post rumors: follow the official information from the authorities and police services

  
  

  In order to enable judicial inquiries to track their progress, no further details will be given. A communication from the Government will follow tomorrow morning.

  

  Yes, “no further details will be given.” Until a raid turns up a couple of Syrian passports that is.

  

  

  

  

  

• Congress Wants To Seize Your Passport For Unpaid Taxes

  Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

  Sometimes you just have to stand in awe at the level of corruption and incompetence in government.

  Case in point, the new highway bill in the Land of the Free. And, trust me, you’ll love this.

  The latest version of the highway bill is called the “Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy Act.”

  And yes, they abbreviate it as the DRIVE Act.

  I cannot even begin to imagine how large the team of monkeys is that works on these silly acronyms. And as is typical for legislation, the more high sounding the name of the law, the more destructive its consequences.

  On the surface, the DRIVE Act aims to fund the federal transportation network and investments in highway infrastructure for the next several years, as well as recapitalize the Highway Trust Fund.

  Federal trust funds are supposed to responsibly and conservatively manage money that has been set aside for a specific purpose to benefit taxpayers.

  There are so many of these trust funds. There are the big ones like Social Security’s “Old Age Survivor’s Insurance” and “Disability Insurance” (which is literally days away from running out of money).

  And there are many more you’ve probably never heard about, like the “Black Lung” trust fund and the “Leaking Underground Storage Tank” trust fund.

  Most of these funds are insolvent, or at least pitifully undercapitalized, clearly proving the government to be one of the worst asset managers in history.

  The Highway Trust Fund is no exception: it has completely run out of money, and at this point literally has a ZERO account balance. The DRIVE Act intends to fix that.

  And even though it has nothing to do with funding highways, the bill also aims to re-authorize the Export-Import Bank.

  The Ex-Im Bank was created during the Great Depression and is designed to facilitate trade. That’s code for ‘boost the profits of Boeing and General Electric.’

  Even the government’s own Congressional Research Service found that “more than 60% of Ex-Im Bank’s loan guarantees, by dollar value, supported the sale of Boeing airplanes in foreign countries”.

  Ex-Im is essentially a gift on a golden platter from the taxpayers of the United States to a handful of mega-companies.

  The Bank’s charter lapsed earlier this year. But rather than let it die, they’re jumpstarting Ex-Im with even more taxpayer money.

  Clearly the government needs cash. They need to fund Ex-Im, the Highway Trust Fund, and all the improvements for America’s dilapidated infrastructure.

  And their solutions to address this cash crunch are nothing short of remarkable.

  For example, they plan to steal $300 million from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank trust fund (LUST… yes, that’s really what they call it), and transfer that money to the Highway Fund.

  The only problem is that LUST is insolvent. So they’re stealing from one insolvent trust to fund another insolvent trust. It’s genius!

  One of my favorite sections in the bill is a directive to sell off 100+ million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

  Only a politician could think to sell off oil supplies at a time when oil price is at multi-year lows.

  (It also really gives you a sense of how broke the government really is that they’re driven raise cash by selling off strategic assets.)

  Another gem buried in the 864 pages of the bill is a provision that allows the government to revoke your passport if they believe that you owe more than $50,000 in federal tax.

  There will be no judicial review, and no due process. You don’t get to go in front of a judge first to have a fair and impartial hearing over whether or not the government’s tax allegations are accurate.

  The language in the law is very clear: they can simply revoke your passport if you owe them money in their sole discretion.

  Once the law is passed, this would go into effect on January 1, 2016, and they claim it will generate $40 million per year in tax revenue.

  There was one more provision that proposed raising revenue from the biggest banks in America by reducing the dividend they receive from the Federal Reserve.

  Curiously, though, this specific provision was defeated yesterday after a heated committee meeting in Congress.

  So while the banks’ profits are off-limits, and the government will spend billions of taxpayer dollars to boost profits at Boeing, American citizens are threatened with having their passports revoked in order to raise money.

  It couldn’t be any more obvious how much the system is stacked against the little guy.

  They treat you like a dairy cow that exists only to be milked dry… like a medieval serf tied to the land and forced to serve his overlords.

  It’s revolting. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

  You can take sensible, rational steps to divorce yourself from this madness, or at least have a Plan B to protect yourself from it.

  If the government is threatening to take away your passport, for example, there are countless ways you can obtain another one from a country that will roll out the red carpet for you.

  If you’re sick and tired of having your income confiscated so that you can bail out big companies, there are completely legal steps you can take to reduce what you owe.

  It’s hard to imagine you’ll be worse off being more free and having more control over your life and finances.

  

  

  

  

  

• For Sale: Apocalypse Bunker, Can Withstand 20 Kiloton Nuclear Blast; Furnished: Asking $17,500,000

  Earlier this week we presented the Oppidium: a concept doomsday shelter which would be located in the Czech Republic, catering exclusively to billionaires who could watch mushroom clouds wrap the earth in a radioactive glow just the way they like it: in posh opulence, as the following proposed images suggested:

  

  Interior bedroom of bunker

  

  Bunker swimming pool and garden using artificial lighting

  

  Underground bunker wine cellar

  And the bottom line:

  

   

  Upon some further recollection three things emerged: the Oppidium bunker is completely useless because i) it was all style over substance; ii) it was a marketing gimmick for its designer/seller, and iii) it doesn’t even exist yet and furthermore its completion cost further billions.

  But perhaps most importantly, the bunker was located in Europe, somewhere in the Czech heartland, and as such would be largely useless to the targeted customer base: uber-wealthy Americans with a penchant for if not immortality then outliving everyone else, and who would hardly have the time to reach it as the “Apocalypse-level” event unfolded.

  Addressing all of these concerns is an underground facility and bunker dubbed “The Facility” in Southeast Georgia, located two hours from Savannah, which just hit the market for a far more modest $17.5 million, and which most importantly, is in “move-in ready” shape.

  As BizJournals reports, the property (which is exclusively listed by Sister Hood of Harry Norman, Realtors Buckhead Office), was built in 1969 and fully renovated to government standards in 2012. Its address is undisclosed.

  According to Harry Norman, it is the only hardened and privately owned underground bunker of its kind in the United States. The property features a commercial 3-Phase power plant, in addition to its own 8Kw new solar backup system. The facility is also equipped with a $100,000 CCTV security system.

  “Above ground, The Facility offers 2,000 square feet of commercial space, a renovated 1,000-square-foot caretaker’s home and below ground the facility offers 14,000-square-feet of living and working space,” the company reported. “The Facility is 45 feet underground and certified to withstand a 20K ton nuclear blast.”

  The Facility stands on 32 acres and has two levels of underground living space.

  Level two has four luxury apartments that are about 600-square-feet. The apartments are totally self-contained and have two full bedrooms, a kitchen and dining area, a living room with TV and internet and a large bathroom in addition to its own security, a HVAC system and environmental monitoring sensors. Level one of the underground facility has common areas similar to a luxury hotel, the company said.

  “Guests can enjoy the large home theater with seating for 15, a commercial grade kitchen, a recreation area, library and TV room,” Harry Norman reported. “The Facility is equipped with a full workshop, a separate business and conference center and fully equipped medical room.”

  In other words, unlike the Czech pipe dream, the Atlanta bunker can not only withstand a direct nuclear blast, but is move in ready right now – a key selling point which no other “concept” apocalypse shelters have as of this moment.

  Here is the full listing:

  

   

  And here is what $17,500,000 (price is negotiable) gets you.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  More images available here

  

  

  

  

• Fed To Hold An "Expedited, Closed" Meeting On Monday

  Given how awesome everything appears to be, judging by stocks and the tidal wave of FedSpeak of the last week confirming that rates are rising in December, we found it at least marginally ‘odd’ that out of the blue,  The Fed would announce an ‘expedited, closed’ meeting on Monday…

   

  

   

  As we are sure to be told: “it’s probably nothing!”

  

  

  

  

  

• No Joke! The Onion Predicted All Of This Back In 2003

  Submitted by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

  “George W. Bush may think that a war against Iraq is the solution to our problems, but the reality is, it will only serve to create far more,” read a 2003 article on The Onion a week after then-President George Bush launched the Iraq War. While a wide variety of organizations and individuals also rebuked that invasion, the satirical newspaper offered one of the most accurate assessments to date. So accurate, in fact, it all but predicted the rise of the Islamic State.

  In the mock-debate piece, entitled, “This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t,” The Onion highlighted the very real risks of war.

  As fictional debater Nathan Eckert warned:

  “This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher. It will not end the threat of weapons of mass destruction; it will make possible their further proliferation. And it will not lay the groundwork for the flourishing of democracy throughout the Mideast; it will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence.”

  He continued:

  “If you thought Osama bin Laden was bad, just wait until the countless children who become orphaned by U.S. bombs in the coming weeks are all grown up. Do you think they will forget what country dropped the bombs that killed their parents? In 10 or 15 years, we will look back fondly on the days when there were only a few thousand Middle Easterners dedicated to destroying the U.S. and willing to die for the fundamentalist cause. From this war, a million bin Ladens will bloom.”

  More than a decade into the chronic conflict, the Onion’s projects are eerily—albeit predictably—accurate. By 2006, national security experts were warning the war was inspiring further radicalism. One of the Boston Marathon bombers was radicalized by the Iraq War. The Charlie Hebdo shooters were also radicalized by Western intervention in the Middle East.

  As the Guardian pointed out earlier this year, “there was no al-Qaida in Iraq until the US and Britain invaded. And the US has certainly exploited the existence of Isis against other forces in the region as part of a wider drive to maintain Western control.”

  The Onion article poked fun at empty rebuttals many proponents of war offered at the time.

  “Why do you keep saying these things? I can tell when there’s trouble looming, and I really don’t sense that right now. We’re in control of this situation, and we know what we’re doing. So stop being so pessimistic,” wrote the fictional opposing debater, Bob Sheffer.

  But the United States was not in control—and the pessimism (read: realism) was warranted. The Islamic State has thrived not only because of radical Islam, but because of resentment sparked by American intervention. A recent report by The Nation details interviews the author conducted with imprisoned Islamic State fighters. Journalist Lydia Wilson explained that while most people in the West believe the Islamic State is rooted solely in religion, it has attracted fighters for other reasons:

  “They are children of the occupation, many with missing fathers at crucial periods (through jail, death from execution, or fighting in the insurgency), filled with rage against America and their own government. They are not fueled by the idea of an Islamic caliphate without borders; rather, ISIS is the first group since the crushed Al Qaeda to offer these humiliated and enraged young men a way to defend their dignity, family, and tribe,” she wrote.

  As Eckert  opined in The Onion over 12 years ago:

  “Is our arrogance and hubris so great that we actually believe that a U.S. provisional military regime will be welcomed with open arms by the Iraqi people? Democracy cannot possibly thrive under coercion. To take over a country and impose one’s own system of government without regard for the people of that country is the very antithesis of democracy. And it is doomed to fail.”

  Just as proponents of war today dismiss long-term risks of continued intervention, the fictional Sheffer downplayed any negative consequences:

  “No it won’t. It just won’t. None of that will happen,” he replied to Eckert.

   

  “You’re getting worked up over nothing. Everything is going to be fine. So just relax okay? You’re really overreacting.”

  This is not the first Onion piece to foreshadow real world events. Earlier this year, a satirical article published on the site predicted the United States would offer weapons to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to placate him following Obama’s progress on the United States’ nuclear deal with Iran.

  

  

  

  

  

• Why Only Free Speech Gives Safe Space To The Oppressed

  Submitted by Dan Sanchez via TheAntiMedia.org,

  Social justice protests have been roiling American universities, even causing administrative heads to roll. To a significant degree, these campus uprisings have been characterized by an impulse to restrict speech and expression for the sake of creating “safe spaces” for marginalized groups. However, speech restriction is a double-edged sword that can just as easily injure the very people campus activists seek to help.

  The turmoil at the University of Missouri (Mizzou) in particular was sparked by racial incidents. And the protesters are closely aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement, which combats police brutality against black Americans.

  However, cops themselves have recently sought to restrict speech and expression in order to insulate that very brutality from criticism.

  As William N. Grigg wrote last year:

  “The NYPD has now added its name to the roster of Officially Protected Victims by filing ‘hate crimes’ charges against 36-year-old Rosella Best, who had tagged police vehicles and a public school with anti-NYPD graffiti. Among the entirely defensible sentiments inscribed by Best are ‘NYPD pick on the harmless,’ ‘NYPD pick on the innocent,’ and?—?in a display of familiar but increasingly justified hyperbole?—?‘NAZIS=NYPD.’ (Assuming that Ms. Best used only ‘public’ property as her canvas, it’s difficult to identify an actual victim in this case.)”

  And earlier this year, the Fraternal Order of Police demanded that Congress extend such special protection to the federal level.

  Many critics of the police have been arrested and charged over Facebook posts. Matthew Townsend of Meridien, Idaho was prosecuted as a felon for a Facebook post warning of a “non-violent and legal shame campaign,” which was treated by the authorities as a “terroristic threat.” Thomas Smith of Arena, Wisconsin was arrested and charged with “unlawful use of a computerized communication system” for throwing nothing more than F-bombs and accusations of racism at local cops on Facebook. And there was a whole wave of arrests last year over fierce anti-cop online rhetoric following the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and subsequent murders of police officers.

  In addition to arrests and prosecutions, cops have been orchestrating campaigns to have their social media critics shunned and fired. See the cases of restaurant workers Ashley Warden and Shawn Peterson.

  High profile cops from Wisconsin to Georgia have characterized Black Lives Matter as a “hate group,” and called for a crackdown on its “incitement.”

  Police (including the U.S. top cop, FBI Director James Comey) are also blaming the increase in violent crime in some cities on “the YouTube effect,” claiming officers are holding back from “proactive” (aggressive) policing for fear of having recordings of their violence go viral.

  Thus, ostensibly for the sake of “officer safety” (the blue brotherhood’s version of “safe space”), legislation has been proposed to make it a crime for ordinary people to point cameras at cops.

  Given these assaults by cops on the rights of individuals to combat police brutality through speech and the use of media, it is deeply troubling that allies of Black Lives Matter at Mizzou should have reacted to journalists trying to photograph their rally with threats of violence, and even police violence.

  While a crowd of protesters was physically forcing student photographer Tim Tai out of a public space on campus, one of the activists warned him, “They can call the police on you.”

  After Tai was driven away, the journalist who video recorded the incident remained. Faculty member Melissa Click demanded that he leave, too. When the journalist refused, Click tried to enlist fellow activists to physically remove him, saying:

  “Who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here!”

  This was a “progressive” assistant professor of mass media calling for “muscle” to be deployed against a journalist in a public space!

  In addition to Black Lives Matter, the Palestine solidarity movement is yet another just cause championed by the campus left that is imperiled by threats to speech. Moreover, these threats are emerging on university campuses and are being justified on “social justice” grounds. Like the cops, defenders of the Israeli occupation of Palestine are seeking to restrict speech on an “anti-hate” basis in order to insulate the occupation’s brutality and atrocities from criticism. As Nora Barrows-Friedman recently reported:

  “A member of the University of California’s governing body has called for the expulsion or suspension of students for expressing their views about Israel, under the guise of combating anti-Jewish bigotry.

   

  “This comes as Israel lobby groups, flush with huge new injections of cash, are stepping up their efforts to silence the Palestine solidarity movement on campuses nationwide.

   

  “During a 17 September meeting of the University of California (UC) Regents to discuss a ‘statement of principles against intolerance,’ Richard Blum also threatened to have his wife, US Senator Dianne Feinstein, publicly criticize the university if it did not enforce penalties against perceived bigotry.

   

  “Feinstein’s criticism could put the university system under federal scrutiny.

   

  “Another regent, Hadi Makarechian, agreed, according to The San Francisco Chronicle, saying that without punishment, ‘we’re just stating a lot of stuff on paper.’

   

  “Blum and other regents, backed by Israel lobby groups, are pushing the university to adopt policies that free speech advocates warn could violate the First Amendment.

   

  “The Board of Regents had been due to vote on whether to adopt the US State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism as university policy at its meeting in July.

   

  “That definition is based on a ‘working definition’ of anti-Semitism once considered by a European Union body but later dropped.

   

  “Palestine solidarity and free speech advocates point out that the government definition conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish bigotry. A key strategy of Israel advocates, they say, has been to urge university administrators to treat criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism as one and the same.”

  Just as the cops are blaming Black Lives Matter and viral videos for “inciting” violence against police, the hard-right Israeli government and its champions throughout the world have similarly been accusing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and the online dissemination of documented Israeli brutality, of being “incitement” for terrorism against Israel. They are pushing to have such “incitement” restricted.

  And they are succeeding. In October, France’s highest court ruled that advocacy of BDS is illegal “incitement” and “hate speech.” And as Glenn Greenwald wrote in The Intercept:

  “In May, CBC reported that Canadian officials threatened to prosecute BDS activists there under ‘hate speech’ laws, and after those officials denied doing so, we obtained and published the emails proving they did just that. The February Haaretz article described this troubling event in the U.K.: ‘In 2007, the British University and College Union said it would drop plans to boycott Israeli institutions after legal advisers said doing so would violate anti-discrimination laws.’ In 2013, New York City officials joined an (ultimately failed) Alan Dershowitz-led campaign to threaten the funding of Brooklyn College for the crime of hosting pro-BDS speakers.”

  Again, restricting speech is a double-edged sword. As the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned:

  “Free speech rights are indivisible.

   

  “Restricting the speech of one group or individual jeopardizes everyone’s rights because the same laws or regulations used to silence bigots can be used to silence you. Conversely, laws that defend free speech for bigots can be used to defend the rights of civil rights workers, anti-war protesters, lesbian and gay activists and others fighting for justice.”

  Many campus activists have lashed out in frustration at “free speech purism,” which they regard as misplaced in the context of institutionalized oppression. But it is extremely short-sighted to sacrifice universal principle on the altar of identity politics for the sake of marginalized groups.

  Once you accept the infringement of universal rights as an acceptable political weapon, it will be wielded more effectively by oppressors against the oppressed (cops against blacks, Israeli occupiers against Palestinians, etc.), and not the other way around. Authoritarian restriction is a game much better suited for the mighty than for the marginalized.

  If you replace the power of principle with the principle of power, it is the relatively powerless who will get the worst of it.

  

  

  

  

  

• Friday Humor: Meet Phuc Dat Bich – The Aussie Man Who Is "Irritated" At Facebook Ban

  A 23-year-old from Melbourne had to upload a picture of his passport and vented his frustration on Facebook after they banned his account three times on the grounds his name was “false and misleading.”

  We can perhaps understand why…

  

  “I find it highly irritating the fact that nobody seems to believe me when I say that my full legal name is how you see it,” the post reads.

   

  “I’ve been accused of using a false and misleading name of which I find very offensive. Is it because I’m Asian? Is it?”

   

  “Having my Facebook shut down multiple times and forced to change my name to my ‘real’ name, so just to put it out there. My name.”

  The name, which is pronounced ‘Phoop Dook Bic’, is reportedly a common in Vietnam, despite the spectacular response it has received in Australia.

  * * *

  Of course, the more important question for Facebook is – is he a terrorist?

  

  

  

  

• Even The 1% Is Hurting: Swiss Watch Exports Plunge Most Since Financial Crisis

  As the poor get poorer, so the saying goes, the rich get richer; and until recently that was not just true, but apparently mandated so by The Fed. However, the last few months have seen the so-called "1%" appearing to struggle a little in their largesse. As we noted previously, not only are luxury jet values dropping for the first time since 2009, London mansion prices plunging, San Francisco home sales collapsing, and Sotheby's laying people off, but now, as Bloomberg reports, Swiss watches – the ultimate in luxury extravagance – have seen exports crash by the most since the financial crisis.

   

  Swiss watch exports collapsed 12.3% YoY in October… the worst since the financial crisis and not seen outside of a US recession…

  

   

  “2015 has been one to forget for the watchmakers,” said Jon Cox, an analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux in Zurich. As Bloomberg reports,

  Swiss watch exports had their biggest decline in six years in October, led by a 39 percent slump in shipments to Hong Kong, the industry’s largest market.

   

  Shipments declined 12 percent to 2 billion Swiss francs ($2 billion), the Swiss customs office said in a statement Thursday.

   

  Exports to the U.S. dropped 12 percent.

  But aside from that, it appears only one thing has really benefited from The Fed's largesse (as demand for Diamonds and Fine Wine has crashed)…

  

   

  The rich appear to be cinching up the purse strings, and as we concluded previously, that is not a good sign…

  So the rich are becoming less rich? To an extent, yes. Recent declines in commodity prices and emerging market debt have no doubt taken a bite out of some big portfolios. Meanwhile hedge funds, the preferred investment management vehicle of the uber-wealthy, have done badly for the past couple of years, with some high-profile implosions generating headlines.

   

  These disappointments have lowered the net worth of some big players and made others more cautious. Hence the lessened demand for the most pretentious assets.

   

  The impact on the global economy? Almost certainly bad, since the 1% are the marginal buyers of so many reference assets like blue-chip stocks and government bonds. To the extent that they grow cautious, the bid for a lot of things will be lower, cutting corporate profits, equity valuations and high-end asset prices.

  Put another way, when the only healthy part of an already-impaired system turns negative, everyone will feel the resulting pain.

  Charts: Bloomberg

  

  

  

  

  

• Paris Attacks: Another False Flag? Sifting Through The Evidence

  Submitted by Joachim Hagopian via Global Research,

  What do the globalists do when they want to create, reignite and keep their war on terror fought indefinitely? They simply carry out a series of false flag attacks using Muslim terrorist stooges as their hired guns to do their damage. That’s what 9/11 was all about in the US, 7/7 in UK, the 3/11 train attack in Spain, the Hebdo Paris attack last January, and now this latest Paris encore reenactment part two.

   

  In any unsolved crime the first question asked is who benefits by motive with an actual means to execute the crime?

   

  In all of these tragic false flag events the global elite benefits in multiple ways. And it most definitely has the means by issuing marching orders to its owned and operated national governments, its favorite being the militaristic, brutal American Empire.

   

  The elite’s agenda to polarize and destabilize the world politically and militarily manifests through the US foreign policy of regime change, nonstop war through divide and conquer methodology (i.e., Shiites vs. Sunnis, Euro-nationals vs. foreign migrants, Christians vs. Muslims, light skins vs. dark skins) and economic austerity through unpayable high interest from predatory IMF bank loans to debtor nations from both the developing and developed world.  Through global theft and destruction, the ruling elite reigns supreme in absolute power.

  For decades after World War II US-NATO-Western European allies conspired and perpetrated state sponsored terrorism murdering their own citizens through a protracted series of Gladio operations originally designed to falsely accuse Communist groups in Italy. Spanning over thirty years with violent incidents throughout Europe and Turkey, Gladio-like false flag operations never stopped. Gladio at home took the form of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Operation Northwoods that JFK abruptly halted, partially resulting in his own self-undoing, killing the diabolical military plot of murdering innocent US citizens in Miami and Washington DC in order to blame and start a war against Cuba. The US especially but numerous governments have regularly engaged in false flag operations killing their own to trigger wars, shape public opinion, conceal and divert attention away from citizens ever catching on to the dirty lowdown truth.

  The Friday the 13^th Paris massacres were highly organized, committed by heavily armed, closely monitored terrorist professionals unleashed onto an unsuspecting, culturally diverse group of young Paris victims. The coordinated attacks seem to carry all the earmarks as state of the art false flag terrorism having had lots of previous practice, most notably the Paris Charlie Hebdo edition. But the growing anomalies stacking up once again turn out to be no different from its predecessors.

  All have promoted the same globalist agenda toward unlimited invasive authoritarian surveillance used to bring about increasing draconian measures in order to gain absolute tyrannical control over the populace. At the same time it exploits xenophobia and islamophobia amongst its citizenry that in turn increase hatred and tensions laying the groundwork for potential civil war. Today the elite is skillfully working its proven divide and conquer formula perfectly. In one fell swoop it creates the unstable conditions fomenting civil unrest and violent backlash that then increasingly justify oppressive, over-the-top counterterrorism and police state tactics that obliterate human rights.

  Finally, false flag terrorism launches a militarized backed by a globally legislative crackdown targeting all dissidence and activism exposing the governments’ false narrative of lies and propaganda, labeling and criminalizing the dissenting truth as homegrown terrorism.

  The surreptitiously obtained Syrian passport found so quickly after the fact in Paris has become a false flag trademark used in both Charlie Hebdo and 9/11. Because this pattern proved a serious liability for establishing any credibility, it was later disclosed that the passport actually came off the body of “a Syrian refugee,” as if that made MSM any more believable.

  Even before the passport fiasco, the alleged terrorist’s quote from a supposed witness “this is for Syria” was obviously disclosed by mainstream media to shape and manipulate public opinion into quickly blaming Syria, ISIS and Syria’s targeted leader Assad. And then long before any of this alleged (dis)info began surfacing, barely an hour into the attacks while still actively underway, President Hollande kept repeating three times in the next several hours what appeared to be his scripted lines already declaring that France was at war against already identified terrorist attackers from Syria before any investigation had even begun. This rapid sequence of events smacked of false flag.

  Furthermore, like the Hebdo attack earlier this year, reports immediately commenced disclosing that French intelligence had long been tracking the perpetrators prior to the attacks. Former antiterrorist judge Marc Trevidic in a Sunday interview claimed that French authorities knew of an impending terrorist attack being planned by Islamic State jihadists “at a French rock concert” as early as August.

  The judge had cross-examined militants three months earlier who revealed this rather critically important piece of information. This strongly suggests French intelligence had prior knowledge of the Friday night massacres. Turkey also warned the authorities in France twice about one of the three alleged suicide bombers but The Guardian reported that France only contacted Turkey for information after the Paris attacks. Again, it seems more than plausible that French security forces knew about the planned attacks but purposely failed to stop them or may have even played a sinister role in allowing them to occur.

  A couple of other striking parallels with 9/11, when the BBC reporter announced that Building 7 went down 20 minutes prior to the event, the Paris attack was described on twitter dated a full two days in advance of the November 13^th killings. Also Wikipedia within two hours from the very onset of the attacks already had posted a fully detailed account complete with footnotes specifying “Syria” being mentioned by a witness, “5 or 6 terrorists”, and “3 suicide bombers” all from the get-go pointing to the big bad Muslim villains yet again. The clinching evidence was Wikipedia running an early story version at 23:06 specifying:

       In a televised statement at approximately 23:58 (local time), French President François Hollande declared

       a state of emergency and closing of borders for the whole of France.

  For that announcement on Wikipedia to be made nearly an hour prior to Hollande’s actual statement could suggest that Wikipedia was in fact being used by the French authorities as an information disseminator of a preplanned event, right away establishing an official narrative from the outset that Arab terrorists from Syria were the guilty murderers behind the attacks far in advance of the start of even a preliminary investigation.

  It’s also been recently learned like in several previous false flags that security forces in Paris were simultaneously undergoing another live action emergency drill earlier that same day (as in Charleston, Baltimore, Boston, 9/11). Patrick Pelloux, an emergency medical services specialist and one of the first responders to the attacks, confirmed in a radio interview that a live drill had been conducted that morning of the 13^th. These co-occurring government events timed perfectly to overlap so called acts of terrorism cannot be considered purely co-incidental.

  Adding more weight to the false flag suspicion is the fact that just two weeks prior to Friday’s attack on October 29^th CIA Director John Brennan met with his French counterpart along with UK’s MI6 former chief and former Israeli national security advisor. Additionally on Monday Brennan admitted that the international intelligence community expected a terrorist attack in Europe. Just as the Islamic terrorist mercenaries always “accidentally on purpose” leave their calling cards behind, so are the dirty CIA-Mossad fingerprints left indelibly written all over virtually every state sponsored terrorism on this planet. For years it’s been repeatedly demonstrated that US and Israeli intelligence forces have been covertly working directly with the Islamic State jihadists. NSA documents show that ISIS leader El Baghdadi was trained by Mossad. A recently captured IDF colonel was caught leading Islamic State forces. Overwhelming evidence has proven the US-Israeli-Saudi-Turkish-Gulf State connection to ISIS terrorists, documenting this intimate partnership in the manufactured war on terror.

  In late September after Putin outed Obama’s fake war against ISIS at the UN, then throughout October actually destroying ISIS where Obama only pretended, the lost face of a humiliated Emperor’s new clothes turned US war policy in the Middle East completely topsy-turvy. Obama’s dubious leadership sank to an international all-time low when Putin exposed America’s deliberately failed MENA policy. Allied nations were cutting their losses and announcing plans to pull out of Syria. US Empire of Chaos and Destruction was fast losing its global control, its coercive power to subjugate its Euro-puppets into blind submission seriously and overtly eroding.  On top of that, while Europe is still reeling from the refugee mass migration crisis directly caused by the US imperial aggression, they were marveling over grandmaster Putin’s bold stroke of finally kicking some Islamic State ass. Stalwart US Euro-ally Germany was already shifting gears warming its relations with Russia, unwilling to follow Washington’s disastrous lead down doomsday road.

  So what do the neocon goons in full damage control mode come up with?

  While US-Israel are holding joint military exercises in the Sinai desert, did they coordinate with ISIS to make sure it shoots down the Russian airliner as immediate Putin payback?  Then came Defense Secretary Carter’s Russia bashing threats from the Ronald Reagan Library followed just hours later a few miles away with the Trident missile’s Saturday night LA bright light show seen around the world as an exclamation threat to Russia and China to back off from challenging US Empire’s global hegemony.

  The DC warmongers are growing increasingly desperate, afraid of losing both their full spectrum dominance in the world as well as their precious proxy terrorist ally while Putin’s aid to Assad is putting the final kibosh on their fanatical OCD regime change operation.

  So Brennan meets up with French and Israeli intelligence to conjure up the next Paris false flag. And since Hollande’s been Washington’s loyal go-to lackey with Hebdo already under his belt, heading up France’s active role in the imperialistic assault on both Libya and Syria, with Paris terrorism #2 France now becomes US Empire’s key catalyst to pull off another massive 9/11-like attack, in fact the biggest in France since WWII and be the justified driving force behind this newest “coalition of the willing” stepping up its next phase of war in Syria against both Assad and Putin. US bombs being dropped over Syria are now being joined by bombs from French jets as well as Israeli and Saudi warplanes. Timed purposely on the heels of the Paris tragedy, the ongoing G-20 meeting with the world’s most powerful nations in Turkey has turned into a war council to drum up intensified world war effort against nemesis Assad and Putin.

  But the Western bombs are making sure that they do not destroy ISIS nor ISIS-controlled oil refineries selling black market oil to NATO member Turkey. Nor are they attacking the critical ISIS supply line in northern Syria that extends back into Turkey. It’s all too obvious that a renewed, heavily fortified allied offensive aggressively going head-to-head with Syrian and Russian forces clearly risks igniting a broader War.

  

  

  

  

  

• Most Americans Hit "Peak Income" More Than 15 Years Ago

  After adjusting for inflation, the majority of Americans are worse off today than they were decades ago. The map below shows that median household income actually peaked at least 15 years ago in 81% of U.S. counties.

   

  

  Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

   

  This visualization of household incomes is from an interactive map created by the Washington Post that allows users to zoom in on individual counties to see how income has changed over the years.

  Some of the more interesting revelations include:

  • Income peaked one year ago for many of the counties that are a part of the shale boom. This includes much of North and South Dakota, as well as parts of Texas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Income in Washington, D.C. and neighboring Arlington County also peaked then.
  • In 1999, a total of 1,623 counties had their households reach peak income. The majority of these counties are in the Midwest and Southeast.
  • The most southern part of California and parts of New England both peaked around 25 years ago.
  • Many states along the Rocky Mountains such as Wyoming and Montana had counties that peaked roughly 35 years ago.
  • Household income peaked in upstate New York, the northern tip of California, and southern Nevada at the same time that humans were first landing on the moon in 1969.

  But we have one simple question…After reading all of the above, what is it exactly The Fed does?

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

• Saudi Arabia Is An ISIS That "Made It": "The West Wages War On One, And Shakes Hands With The Other"

  One interesting thing about Washington’s strategy in the Middle East is the extent to which the US persists in its support of Saudi Arabia and steadfastly refuses to make meaningful strides towards reconciliation with Iran. 

  It’s not so much that anyone realistically expects Tehran to turn a corner on things like expanding press freedom or implementing judicial reform and everyone knows that regardless of how friendly Rouhani tries to be, the Ayatollah casts a long shadow. But at the risk of coming across as crass and/or short on nuance, Saudi Arabia still executes people in the streets with swords and promotes the same hardline ideology as that espoused by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other Sunni extremists. Tehran and its Shiite crescent are the regional counterbalance to this and yet The House of Saud is welcomed with open arms at The White House, while Iran is forever branded a pariah state even as Riyadh and Doha funnel money to the very same militants who carry out attacks on Western targets. 

  With that in mind, we present the following Op-Ed by Kamel Daoud, a columnist for Quotidien d’Oran, and the author of “The Meursault Investigation.” 

  Originally published in The New York Times

  Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

  Black Daesh, white Daesh. The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things. The Islamic State; Saudi Arabia. In its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other. This is a mechanism of denial, and denial has a price: preserving the famous strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia at the risk of forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance with a religious clergy that produces, legitimizes, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh feeds on.

  Wahhabism, a messianic radicalism that arose in the 18th century, hopes to restore a fantasized caliphate centered on a desert, a sacred book, and two holy sites, Mecca and Medina. Born in massacre and blood, it manifests itself in a surreal relationship with women, a prohibition against non-Muslims treading on sacred territory, and ferocious religious laws. That translates into an obsessive hatred of imagery and representation and therefore art, but also of the body, nakedness and freedom. Saudi Arabia is a Daesh that has made it.

  The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture. The younger generations of radicals in the so-called Arab world were not born jihadists. They were suckled in the bosom of Fatwa Valley, a kind of Islamist Vatican with a vast industry that produces theologians, religious laws, books, and aggressive editorial policies and media campaigns.

  One might counter: Isn’t Saudi Arabia itself a possible target of Daesh? Yes, but to focus on that would be to overlook the strength of the ties between the reigning family and the clergy that accounts for its stability — and also, increasingly, for its precariousness. The Saudi royals are caught in a perfect trap: Weakened by succession laws that encourage turnover, they cling to ancestral ties between king and preacher. The Saudi clergy produces Islamism, which both threatens the country and gives legitimacy to the regime.

  One has to live in the Muslim world to understand the immense transformative influence of religious television channels on society by accessing its weak links: households, women, rural areas. Islamist culture is widespread in many countries — Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mali, Mauritania. There are thousands of Islamist newspapers and clergies that impose a unitary vision of the world, tradition and clothing on the public space, on the wording of the government’s laws and on the rituals of a society they deem to be contaminated.

  It is worth reading certain Islamist newspapers to see their reactions to the attacks in Paris. The West is cast as a land of “infidels.” The attacks were the result of the onslaught against Islam. Muslims and Arabs have become the enemies of the secular and the Jews. The Palestinian question is invoked along with the rape of Iraq and the memory of colonial trauma, and packaged into a messianic discourse meant to seduce the masses. Such talk spreads in the social spaces below, while up above, political leaders send their condolences to France and denounce a crime against humanity. This totally schizophrenic situation parallels the West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia.

  All of which leaves one skeptical of Western democracies’ thunderous declarations regarding the necessity of fighting terrorism. Their war can only be myopic, for it targets the effect rather than the cause. Since ISIS is first and foremost a culture, not a militia, how do you prevent future generations from turning to jihadism when the influence of Fatwa Valley and its clerics and its culture and its immense editorial industry remains intact?

  Is curing the disease therefore a simple matter? Hardly. Saudi Arabia remains an ally of the West in the many chess games playing out in the Middle East. It is preferred to Iran, that gray Daesh. And there’s the trap. Denial creates the illusion of equilibrium. Jihadism is denounced as the scourge of the century but no consideration is given to what created it or supports it. This may allow saving face, but not saving lives.

  Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.

  The attacks in Paris have exposed this contradiction again, but as happened after 9/11, it risks being erased from our analyses and our consciences.

  

  

  

  

  

• Japan To Unleash Inflation… By Fabricating Data

  The great thing about statistics is that you can make them say pretty much whatever you want them to say. 

  Although good statisticians generally try to build in all kinds of safeguards to ensure that when they’re trying to draw conclusions based on data analysis, those conclusions are free of biases, that’s no good if you’re a government agency hell bent on conveying a very specific message to the general public (or to the market). 

  You see, goalseeked data is a key tool in the fight to “prove” that seven years of unconventional monetary policy hasn’t been for naught. After all, both Europe and Japan recently slipped back into deflation despite printing trillions in fiat money…

  

  

  …and earlier this week, Tokyo was forced to admit that despite all of the “Abenomics is working” rhetoric, the country has just entered its fifth recession in five years. 

  

  Clearly, some statistical “massaging” is in order. 

  China has long been the undisputed king of manipulated economic data and earlier this year, the BEA decided it was time to take a page out of the NBS playbook. With the help of Janet Yellen’s old friends at the San Francisco Fed and after an on air assist from Steve Liesman, the US government introduced the market to “residual seasonality” or, double adjusted GDP data.

  In simpler terms, after seeing it work so well for years in China, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Statistics simply replaced all of its Excel models with just one function. The following:

  

  And visually:

  

  The moral of the story is that sometimes, when it’s a choice between everyone realizing that the emperor has no clothes and just making up the numbers, you should just make up the numbers because if you don’t, well, people may start to wonder what the point of printing trillions in fiat currency was other than to inflate the assets of the rich and exacerbate the gap between the haves and the have nots. 

  Sure enough, it now looks like Japan is set to follow in the footsteps of the BEA because as Reuters reports, when you’re stuck in deflation, sometimes the best thing to do is simply omit all the things for which prices are falling from your calculations. Here’s more:

  The Bank of Japan will release a new set of price indicators this month that reconfigures the way price trends are measured as the central bank seeks to show the country’s below-target inflation rate is due to volatile items such as energy.

  
  

  Importantly, a new consumer price index (CPI) will exclude energy costs, which have been falling, but include the costs of items such as processed and imported foods, which have been rising.

  See there? Eliminating Japan’s dreaded “deflationary mindset” is as simple as only including those items in the CPI that are getting more expensive. Back to Reuters: 

  The BOJ currently uses the government’s core CPI, which excludes fresh food but includes energy costs, as its key price measurement in guiding monetary policy.

  
  

  With core CPI now slipping due largely to slumping oil prices, the central bank began internally calculating a new index that conveniently shows inflation exceeding 1 percent in the past few months. That index strips away volatile fresh food and energy costs, but includes processed and imported food prices, which are rising.

   

  The BOJ said on Friday it will start publishing this month the new CPI, as well as other indicators such as one showing the ratio of goods seeing prices rise versus those that are falling, on a regular basis each month.

  Obviously, this is completely ridiculous and speaks to just how desperate Japan truly is now that the time clock on failed state status is about to tick under two years. 

  Of course you can manipulate the numbers all you like, but you can’t manipulate the underlying reality and eventually, papering over the problem with artifically inflated data will cease to be a viable option once things get bad enough and Excel simply crashes under the sheer ridiculousness of what it’s being asked to do.

  

  

  

  

  

• Over-Reaching Government "Enables" Culture Warriors

  Submitted by Roger Barris via Acting-Man.com,

  Dispensing More “Free Stuff”

  I  have just finished reading an opinion entitled “A Birth-Control Morality Play Comes to Supreme Court” by Megan McArdle, the lonely voice of libertarianism over at Bloomberg View.

  The thrust of the article is to use philosophical hypotheticals to explain the violent reaction of some religious groups to the seemingly minor certifications required to escape the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act.  But the article makes another point, albeit in an oblique manner, which is more important.   In the “culture wars,” an overreaching government often fires the first shot.

   

  

  Cradle-to-grave nannying by the State has certain small drawbacks, but you’ll get used to them, serf.

   

  As McArdle says “My own intuition is that the Obama administration chose this fight….For one thing, contraception is an inexpensive routine purchase that is exactly the sort of thing that insurance shouldn’t cover (for the same reason your car insurance doesn’t cover routine service: you’d just end up pre-paying the service in the form of higher insurance premiums.)”  Here, McArdle is making the same point and in fact using the same example – great minds thinking alike, and all that – I used in my 2012 blog entitled “Contraceptive ‘Coverage.’”

  As I pointed out earlier, contraception fails any reasonable definition of an insurable risk, being a “random undesirable event, usually of significant consequences.”  Since having sex is neither random nor (typically) undesirable, nor are the costs of contraception that significant, it cannot be “insured.”

  Frankly, using the language of insurance in this context is a transparent attempt to hide the political belief that the government should be dispensing, or forcing others to dispense, more “free stuff” behind a smokescreen of science and health care.  But as the old saying goes, in war, cultural or otherwise, truth is the first casualty.

   

  

  But there is! Gimme!

   

  The Road to Serfdom

  In addition to being economic and linguistic nonsense, contraceptive “coverage” also perfectly illustrates why libertarians like McArdle and me do not want the government engaging in these kinds of activities.  It is a reason advanced at length by Friedrich von Hayek, the Nobel Prize winning economist and social thinker, in his book The Road to Serfdom.  This was written a long time ago, but in today’s environment of heated partisanship, the argument is well worth repeating.

   

  

  In the early 1940s, Hayek became disenchanted with the direction economics had taken after Keynes. As a result, he never penned the definitive book on capital theory he had planned as a follow-up to his initial effort, the “Pure Theory of Capital”. This is a pity, but on the other hand, Hayek then focused on political theory and questions of knowledge, bequeathing us a great many influential and interesting works, inter alia “The Road to Serfdom”, an eloquent attack on the tyranny of the socialist welfare state, social engineering and central planning.

   

  Hayek argues that it is relatively easy to reach societal consensus on the basic functions of government.  A legal system and the police to enforce it.  A national defense.  Roads and other services that can be provided most efficiently by a monopoly.  Even, more controversially (at least among libertarians), support for basic education and some form of social “safety net” for the small portion of society that is truly unable to help itself.  And a relatively modest level of taxation to support all of this.

  However, there is no reason to believe that this consensus can be maintained when government pushes well beyond these bounds.  And this is precisely what we are observing with the contraception mandate, the funding of Planned Parenthood, and many other facets of the “culture wars.”

  Now I personally have no problem with contraception and abortion, but I have to recognize that there are other people who do.  In a libertarian world, people with these differing opinions and values can live side by side in reasonable harmony, each side following the famous Voltairian advice to disapprove of what someone says (or does), but defend to the death his right to say (or do) it.

  But this harmony breaks down when one group or the other seeks to put the heavy finger of government on their side of the scales.  In addition to all the utilitarian arguments for why the government should avoid this type of micro-managed social engineering, we libertarians believe that this is an independent reason for setting a high bar for these practices.

  Those who advocate for policies such as contraception mandates and the funding of Planned Parenthood, which almost certainly don’t belong in the government sphere on purely economic grounds, should also be required to justify the “culture wars” they will inevitably unleash.

   

  

  Home from the war …

   

  This is particularly true when, as in all wars, “tit for tat” quickly becomes the standard.  The left shoves Planned Parenthood and a contraception mandate down the throat of the right.  Then the right feels doubly justified in trying to impose their views on abortion and “intelligent design.”  The end result is a reduced sphere of freedom for everyone, including us innocent bystanders caught in the crossfires of their battles.

  For Hayek, the attempt to expand the sphere of government action, with the inevitable discord it produced, was a major factor behind the rise of anti-democratic politics in Weimar Germany.

   

  

  July 1931: Thousands are queuing at the branch offices of the Post Office Bank in Berlin to withdraw their savings. The Weimar Republic had long ceased to be fun, and both communist and nationalist groups were actively working to bring about its downfall and replace it with a dictatorship. Hitler’s party won this particular contest two years after this photograph was made.

   

  It was a major factor in The Road to Serfdom that led, in the case of Germany, to fascism.  However, we don’t have to go this far.  We only have to look at the gridlock in Washington and the rise of anti-Washington political candidates to realize that the same dynamic is at work in modern-day America.  Although thankfully for now in a less virulent form.

  

  

  

  

  

• Average Annual Cost Of Specialty Drugs Now Exceeds US Median Household Income

  Earlier this month, we reported that Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who together lead the Senate Special Committee on Aging, have opened a bipartisan investigation into pharmaceutical drug pricing. 

  In the crosshairs are Valeant, Turing, Retrophin, and Rodelis. 

  News of the investigation came after Turing CEO Martin Shkreli (who also founded Retrophin) decided to boost the price of a toxoplasmosis drug he bought by some 5000%. Valeant – also known for jacking up prices on acquired drugs – was thrust into the spotlight after a series of reports prompted scrutiny of the company’s apparently less-than-“limited” relationship with pharmacy Philidor.

  Whether Shkreli – who, you might have noticed, made a few moves this week in KaloBios that cost the E-trading Joe Campbells of the world a small fortune – realized it or not, his decision to raise the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750/pill may have been the tipping point for a market that has until now borne the rising cost of prescription drugs.

  “THEY SEE ME ROLLING…” pic.twitter.com/D1mDBEeZMq

  — Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) September 16, 2015

  Of course patients with insurance don’t foot the whole bill, but insurance companies aren’t running charity operations so ultimately, higher costs are passed on to consumers in the form of steeper premiums. 

  It’s against this backdrop that AARP has released a new study which shows that incredibly, the average annual cost of specialty drugs now exceeds the median US household income. As The Washington Post notes, “the study of 115 specialty drugs found that a year’s worth of prescriptions for a single drug retailed at $53,384 per year, on average, in 2013 — more than the median U.S. household income, double the median income of Medicare beneficiaries, and more than three times as much as the average Social Security benefit in the same year.”

  From the report:

  • The average cost of therapy was more than $53,000 per drug per year for specialty prescription drugs at the end-payer (retail) level in 2013. — This average annual cost ($53,384) is more than double the average annual cost ($25,857) for a specialty drug in 2006, the year Medicare implemented Part D
  • The average annual cost of therapy for one specialty drug in 2013 ($53,384) was greater than the median US household income ($52,250), more than twice the median income for a Medicare beneficiary ($23,500), and over 40 times higher than the average Social Security retirement benefit ($1,294) over the same time period.

  

  The report also notes that “retail prices for widely used specialty prescription drugs increased substantially faster than general inflation in every year from 2006 to 2013.” For instance, AARP points out that “in 2013, retail prices for 115 specialty prescription drugs widely used by older Americans, including Medicare beneficiaries, increased by an average of 10.6 percent. In contrast, the general inflation rate was 1.5 percent over the same period.”

  

  Holly Campbell, a spokeswoman for PhRMA, the trade group that represents the pharmaceutical industry, isn’t buying it. Campbell “called the report misleading and inaccurate because it fails to take into account the discounts and rebates that are applied to drugs through the negotiations between drug manufacturers, insurers and pharmacy benefit companies,” WaPo notes, adding that “she also critiqued the study’s methodology and pointed out that specialty medicines are used by a small number of people and account for a small share of total healthcare spending.”

  But that’s about to change, and Campbell probably knows it. Here’s AARP again: 

  Until recently, relatively few patients used specialty drugs. However, the US population is steadily aging and older adults typically use more specialty medications than younger populations. In addition, specialty drugs are increasingly being used to treat common chronic conditions that affect millions of Americans. Drug manufacturers are also developing more specialty drugs, which now represent 42 percent of the late stage research and development pipeline. Overall, these trends indicate that a much larger share of the population will use specialty prescription drugs in the future

   

   Experts have projected that specialty drug spending will increase by more than 16 percent annually between 2015 and 2018, and will comprise more than 50 percent ($235 billion) of total drug spending by 2018.

  And here’s a look at price increases in 2013 for widely used specialty drugs by company:

   

  Of course the industry will continue to insist that prices are generally indicative of how much has been invested during development, but what seems clear from the above and from stepped up lawmaker scrutiny, is that in many cases patients are simply being gouged which leads directly to, as AARP puts it, “increased health care premiums, deductibles, and other forms of cost sharing.” On top of that, “prescription drug price growth also increases spending for taxpayer-funded health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which will eventually affect all Americans in the form of higher taxes.”

  Yes, “increased health care premiums, deductibles, and higher taxes,” but that’s fine because we’re all happy to subsidize the luxurious lifestyles of the world’s Martin Shkrelis, right?

  

  Meanwhile, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office announced a $390 million civil fraud settlement with Novartis on Friday and just to drive home how underhanded this industry has truly become, we’ll leave you with a few passages from the press release announcing the settlement: 

  Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York,announced a $390 million settlement against NOVARTIS Pharmaceuticals Corp. (“NOVARTIS”) in a civil fraud lawsuit based on claims that NOVARTIS gave kickbacks to specialty pharmacies in return for recommending two of its drugs, Exjade and Myfortic. 

   

  Starting in early 2007, NOVARTIS saw Exjade sales were far below internal targets because of low refill rates due, in significant part, to side effects that were more frequent and more severe than initially expected.  To increase Exjade refills and hit its sales targets, NOVARTIS leveraged its control over patient referrals to pressure BioScrip, Accredo, and US Bioservices to hire or assign nurses to call Exjade patients and, under the guise of education or clinical counseling, encourage patients to order more refills. 

   

  More specifically, as the Government contended, NOVARTIS knew that, when the pharmacies called patients, they emphasized the benefits of taking Exjade – for example, by telling patients that not taking Exjade would cause damage to their organs or lead to infertility – while understating the serious, potentially life-threatening risks of taking Exjade – for example, by not mentioning potential side effects like kidney and liver failure.  Indeed, NOVARTIS encouraged the pharmacies to promote Exjade refills in these ways even though FDA had characterized claims about Exjade preventing organ damage as “unsubstantiated.”

   

  In addition, the Government contended that, to incentivize the pharmacies to intensify their efforts to promote Exjade refills, NOVARTIS devised a scheme under which it allocated more patient referrals and gave higher rebates to pharmacies that obtained higher refill rates.  Indeed, NOVARTIS went forward with this scheme – which operated from 2008 to 2012 – even though it knew that the scheme presented risks of violating the Anti-Kickback Statute.

  Incidentally, WSJ reported this evening that Turing is now set to generously cut the price of Daraprim in half for hospitals, which we suppose means it will “only” cost $325 now as opposed to $13.50 before.

  *  *  *

  Full AARP report

  Price Watch Trends in Retail Prices of Specialty Prescription Drugs 2006 to 2013 Nov

  

  

  

  

• Guest Post: The End Of Obamaworld

  Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

  In denouncing Republicans as “scared of widows and orphans,” and castigating those who prefer Christian refugees to Muslims coming to America, Barack Obama has come off as petulant and unpresidential.

  Clearly, he is upset. And with good reason.

  He grossly, transparently underestimated the ability of ISIS, the “JV” team, to strike outside the caliphate into the heart of the West, and has egg all over his face. More critically, the liberal world order he has been preaching and predicting is receding before our eyes.

  Suddenly, his rhetoric is discordantly out of touch with reality. And, for his time on the global stage, the phrase “failed president” comes to mind.

  What happened in Paris, said President Obama, “was an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share.”

  And just what might those “universal values” be?

  At a soccer game between Turkey and Greece in Istanbul, Turks booed during the moment of silence for the Paris dead and chanted “Allahu Akbar.” Among 1.6 billion Muslims, hundreds of millions do not share our values regarding women’s rights, abortion, homosexuality, free speech, or the equality of all religious faiths.

  Set aside the fanatics of ISIS. Does Saudi Arabia share Obama’s views and values regarding sexual freedom and the equality of Christianity, Judaism and Islam? Is anything like the First Amendment operative across the Sunni or Shiite world, or in China?

  In their belief in the innate superiority of their Islamic faith and the culture and civilization it created, Muslims have more in common with our confident Christian ancestors who conquered them than with gauzy global egalitarians like Barack Obama.

  “Liberté, egalité, fraternité” the values of secular France, are no more shared by the Islamic world than is France’s affection for Charlie Hebdo.

  Across both Europe and the United States, the lurch away from liberalism, on immigration, borders and security, fairly astonishes.

  But again, understandably so.

  Many of the Muslim immigrants in Britain, France and Germany have never assimilated. Within these countries are huge enclaves of the alienated and their militant offspring.

  Consider the Belgium capital of Brussels. Belgium’s home affairs minister Jan Jambon said his government does not “have control of the situation in Molenbeek.”

  Brice De Ruyver, a security adviser to a former Belgian prime minister says, “We don’t officially have no-go zones in Brussels, but in reality, there are, and they are in Molenbeek.”

  According to The Wall Street Journal, after the Paris attacks, “French security forces … conducted hundreds of antiterror raids and placed more than 100 suspects under arrest. … France has some 11,500 names on government watch lists.”

  How many of those 11,500 are of Arab descent or the Muslim faith?

  The nations of the EU are beginning to look again at their borders, and who is crossing them, who is coming in, and who is already there.

  And the world is reawakening to truths long suppressed. Race and religion matter. To some they are life-and-death matters. Not all creeds, cultures and tribes are equally or easily assimilated into a Western nation. And First World nations have a right to preserve their own unique identity and character.

  When Obama says that to prefer Christian to Muslim refugees is “un-American,” he is saying that all the U.S. immigration laws enacted before 1965 were un-American. And, so, too, were presidents like Calvin Coolidge who signed laws that virtually restricted immigration to Europeans.

  Barack Obama may be our president, but who is this man of the left to dictate to us what is “un-American”?

  Were presidents Harry Truman and Woodrow Wilson, who called ours a “Christian nation,” un-American? Did the Supreme Court uphold our “universal values” with Roe v. Wade in 1973 and the Obergefell decision on same-sex marriage last June?

  The race issue, too, has returned to divide us.

  Half a century after Selma bridge, we have “Black Lives Matter!” on college campuses claiming that universities like Missouri, Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth are riddled with institutional racism.

  Attention must be paid, and reparations made, by white America. And a new generation of academic appeasers advances to grovel and ask how the university might make amends.

  In Europe, tribalism and nationalism are on the march. Peoples and nations wish to preserve who they are. Some have begun to establish checkpoints and ignore the Schengen Agreement mandating open borders. Eastern Europeans have had all the diversity they can stand.

  With Syrian passports missing, with ISIS besieged in its Syria-Iraq laager and urging suicide attacks in New York and Washington, we may be witness to more terrorist massacres and murders in the States.

  The time may be at hand for a moratorium on all immigration, and a rewriting of the immigration laws to reflect the views and values of Middle Americans, rather than those of a morally arrogant multicultural elite.

  Obamaworld is gone. We live again in an us-versus-them country in an us-versus-them world. And we shall likely never know another.

  

  

  

  

  

• Stocks Soar Most In 13 Months After Worst European Terrorist Attack In Over A Decade

  Quite a week eh? "I don't care… I want to trade size and be a big swinging dick… I'm gonna make it rain!!"

   

  A quick summary of the week…

  • Paris Population Down 130 people  – worst European terrorist attack since Madrid (190 people) in 2004
  • S&P Up 3.3% – best week since Bullard Bounce Oct 2014
  • EM Stocks Up 4.5% – best week in 2 months
  • Gold Down 0.4% – 5th weekly drop in a row, lowest since Oct 09
  • Silver Down 0.7% – 5th weekly drop in a row, lowest since July 09
  • Crude Down 0.5% – 5th drop in last 6 weeks, lowest since August
  • Copper Down 5.3% – worst week sicne Dec 2014, down 6 weeks in a row to lowest since April 2009

  *  *  *

  Let's start with stocks… From worst week of the year last week to best week since October 2014's Bullard Bounce…

  

   

  Futures show the real exuberance though… Sunday night's open marked the low after 100-plus people had been killed, and Paris was under martial law…Nasdaq +5% off Sunday night lows!!

  

   

  Which roundtripped stocks perfectly to the October Payrolls print…

  

   

  *  *  *

  The Devil's in the Divergences…

  Bonds and stocks…

  

   

  Credit and stocks…

  

  Trannies and oil…

  

   

  Credit and equity risk… (note the roll)

  

   

  Credit (cash) and equity risk…

  

   

  Stocks and the yield curve…

  

   

  And finally FX carry and stocks…

  

   

  A few individual stocks mattered today…

  Chipotle poisoned some folks…

  

   

  Hope is high that Valeant is fixed (thanks to a Citi debt upgrade)

  

   

  And then there's Netflix!!! Up almost 20% this week!!!! An $8.6bn rise in market cap in one week… the most ever.

  

   

  Tresury yields were extremely mixed – following FOMC Minutes – with 2Y up 8bps and 30Y -3bps on the week… 2Y highest weekly close since April 2010, 30Y yields lower for 2 straight weeks first time since August…

  

   

  For the biggest flattening in 4 months – 2s30s fell 12bps this week – almost to 7 month flats…

  

   

  Credit markets have now fallen 14 days in a row…

  

   

  The USDollar gained on the week – Draghi's whatever it takes today trumping odd post-FOMC weakness yesterday in the USD – AUD shot up this week…

  

   

  Commodities were all lower this week – as The USD gained – but copper was really ugly…

  

   

  Copper Carnage…

  

   

   

  Charts: Bloomberg

  Bonus Chart: Retail Deja Vu…

  

   

  Bonus Bonus Chart: Ponzinormous…

  

  

  

  

  

• Weekend Reading: Differing Diatribes

  Submitted by Lance Roberts via STA Wealth Management,

  As expected, the market rallied from short-term support levels as the year-end rush to chase returns has started in full swing. To wit:

  "With the markets NOW oversold, it will be critically important that support at 2020 is not broken. The next critical level of support is the short-term moving average (dashed blue line) at 2010, and then 1990 at previous support levels from early this year. It will be important for the market to hold these current levels of support without violating it over the next few trading days to set up a more tradeable short-term rally.

   

  As shown in the chart below, the markets did not disappoint. Even with Japan slipping into its fifth recession in the last 5-years, despite massive infusions of capital, and the devastating attacks in Paris over the weekend, the market rallied strongly off of support as expected."

  

  "As we progress through the last two months of the year, historical tendencies suggest a bias to the upside. This is particularly the case given the weakness this past summer which has left many mutual and hedge funds trailing their benchmarks. The need to play "catch-up" will likely create a push into larger capitalization stocks as portfolios are "window dressed" for year-end reporting.

   

  This traditional "Santa Claus" rally, however, does not guarantee the resumption of the ongoing "bull market" into 2016."

  Importantly, while the "bias" of the market is to the upside, primarily due to the psychological momentum that "stocks are the only game in town," the mounting risks are clearly evident. From economic to earnings-related weakness, the "bullish underpinnings" are slowly being chipped away.

  While the Federal Reserve (Fed)'s most recent statement acknowledged continuing concerns around international developments, it left the door open to a December rate hike. With a renewed prospect for monetary policy divergence between the Fed and other central banks is once again pushing the dollar higher.

  Should the trend continue, a stronger dollar would represent a headwind for U.S. inflation, precious metals, and U.S. earnings growth, as discussed yesterday. Furthermore, a stronger dollar combined with a tightening of monetary policy will further impede earnings growth. The problem is that investors are overlooking this fact to their own peril

  But, that is just my opinion. This weekend's reading list is a compilation of interesting diatribes, both bullish and bearish, on the markets, Fed and the economy. 

  ---

  ON THE FED

  Don't Fear Rate Hikes Or Rising Dollar by Anatole Kaletsky via Project Syndicate

  “The US Federal Reserve is almost certain to start raising interest rates when the policy-setting Federal Open Markets Committee next meets, on December 16.

   

  Under these conditions, the direct economic effects of the Fed's move should be minimal. It is hard to imagine many businesses, consumers, or homeowners changing their behavior because of a quarter-point change in short-term interest rates, especially if long-term rates hardly move."

  Easy In, Hard Out  David Merkel via Aleph Blog 

  "Ugh. The conclusions of my last two pieces were nuanced. This one is not. My main point is this: even with the great powers that a central bank has, the next tightening cycle has ample reason for large negative surprises, leading to a premature end of the tightening cycle, and more muddling thereafter, or possibly, some scenario that the Treasury and Fed can't control. Be ready, and take some risk off the table."

  Did Goldman Sachs Find The Smoking Gun by Tyler Durden via ZeroHedge

  "The staff attributed the lower long-run equilibrium rate to a slower rate of potential growth, a consequence of slower population growth and weak productivity growth. These comments might foreshadow another reduction in the median "longer-run" funds rate projection in the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) in December.

   

  Participants also noted that the lower long-run equilibrium rate implies that the near-zero effective lower bound could become binding more frequently. As a result, "several" participants indicated that it would be "prudent" to consider "options for providing additional monetary policy accommodation" should the economic recovery falter."

  Gundlach – The Psychology Of A Rate Hike by Robert Huebscher via Advisor Perspectives

  Gundlach – Fed Hike "No Go" A Real Possibility by Jennifer Ablan via Reuters

  "'Certainly No-Go more likely than most people think. These markets are falling apart.' Los Angeles-based DoubleLine oversees $80 billion in assets under management.

   

  Gundlach cited a number of asset classes that are signaling deteriorating conditions: The S&P Leveraged Loan Index, which is at a four-year low, the SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond Exchange-Traded Fund "very near a four-year low" and the CRB Commodity Index at a 13-year low. 'You also have the Eurozone doubling down on stimulus. Fed raising rates? Really?'"

   

  

  (Chart courtesy of ZeroHedge)

   

  ON THE MARKETS

  Something Strange Is Happening With Rates by Daniel Kruger, Liz McCormick via Bloomberg

   

  Market Timing Is Back In The Hunt by Cliff Asness via Institutional Investor

  "Market timing, considered by many an investing sin, can be a virtue if employed modestly, using a combination of contrarian and trend-following strategies."

  A Pair Of Popular Stock Market Analogs? by Jesse Felder via The Felder Report

  An Earnings Inflection Point by Sam Ro via Business Insider

  "In a new note to clients, Morgan Stanley's Andrew Sheets writes that the trend in earnings growth is a 'key inflection' that he is watching.

   

  'Are earnings rolling over? We don't think so. Earnings growth has been weak in the US, EM and Europe. Yet on our forecasts, 3Q15 should be the nadir in EPS trends, as the drag from the commodity sector subsides.'"

  

  Without Buy Backs There Has Been NO EPS Growth by Bob Bryan via Business Insider

  The Stock Market Enters Its Final Bull-Market Stage by Simon Maierhofer via MarketWatch

   

  ON THE ECONOMY

  Models, Hemlines & Hamburgers As Economic Indicators by Sue Chang via MarketWatch

  “Since ancient times when Babylonians monitored monthly commodities prices as an economic barometer, mankind has sought to divine the health of the economy from an array of sources. Today, swimsuit models, hemlines, and even Twitter all have something to say about the economy — if we know what to look for.

   

  Some, like the coupon redemption rate, are intuitive. Others are more entertainment than economics: During recessions, for instance, Playboy centerfolds tend to be heavier, taller and older. And something as mundane as a new pair of underwear — particularly if you are a man — could indicate that good times are here."

  If The Economy Is Fine, Why Are So Many Imploding by Michael Snyder via Economic Collapse Blog

  Is The 1% Rolling Over? by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com

   

  VIDEOS

  The Total Cluelessness Of Student Protesters via Neil Cavuto via Fox News

  EY: Global Economy Uncertain, Fragile & Fragmented via CNBC

   

  ---

  OTHER READING

  • 2016 Outlook & Forecast by Fortune Editors via Fortune
  • Crowdfunding Or Crowdphishing by Robert Shiller via Project Syndicate
  • The Decline Of The West Revisited by Robert Skidelsky via Project Syndicate
  • 15 Books That Will Make Great Xmas Gifts by Fortune Editors via Fortune
  • Impressive Markets Aren't More Unglued by Joe Calhoun via Alhambra Partners
  • MollyCoddled by Tim Knight via Slope of Hope
  • 2015 Tax Year Tax Dodges by William Baldwin via Forbes
  • Expecting A 40-55% Correction by John Hussman via Hussman Funds

  ---

  “If you have large cap, mid cap, and small cap, and the market declines – you are going to have less cap.” – Martin Traux 

  Have a great weekend.

  

  

  

  

  

• Artist's Impression Of Obama's Syrian Resettlement Plan

  “Refugee Roulette…”

   

  

   

  Source: Investors.com
  

  

  

  

  

  

• Is This How The Next Global Financial Meltdown Will Unfold?

  Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

  In effect, a currency crisis is simply the abrupt revaluation of the currency to reflect new realities.

  I have long maintained that the structural imbalances of debt and risk that triggered the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-2009 have effectively been transferred to the foreign exchange (FX) markets.

  This creates a problem for the central banks that have orchestrated the "recovery" by goosing asset bubbles in stocks, real estate and bonds: unlike these markets, the currency-FX market is too big for even the Federal Reserve to manipulate for long.

  The FX market trades roughly the entire Fed balance sheet of $4.5 trillion every day or two.

  Currencies are in the midst of multi-year revaluations that will destabilize the tottering towers of debt, leverage and risk that have propped up global growth since 2009.

  Though the relative value of currencies is discovered in the global FX market, there are four fundamental factors that influence the value of any currency:

  1. Capital flows into and out of the currency (and the nation that issues the currency).

  2. Perceived risk, specifically, will this currency preserve my global purchasing power (i.e. capital) or erode it?

  3. The yield or interest rate paid on bonds denominated in this currency.

  4. The scarcity or over-abundance of the currency.

  If we dig even deeper, we find that currencies reflect the income streams and assets of the issuing nation. Consider the currency of an oil exporting nation that has seen both its income from selling oil and the underlying value of its oil in the ground fall by more than 50%.

  Why shouldn't that nation's currency decline in parallel with the erosion of income and asset valuation? As a nation's income and asset base decline, there is less national income to pay interest on sovereign bonds, less private income to tax, and a reduced asset base for additional borrowing.

  This is especially true if the nation issued debt and/or currency profligately in good times. Recall that debt and currency are one in the same: if someone trades euros for a U.S. Treasury bond, they don't just own a bit of sovereign debt–they own the currency of the nation that issued the bond (in this case, the U.S. dollar).

  This is equally true of corporate bonds–all the debt is denominated in a specific currency, and owners of the bonds are not just betting that the interest will be paid and the bond redeemed at maturity, but that the underlying currency will not lose much of its global purchasing power.

  One proxy for the absolute destruction of commodity-based income streams and assets is the CRB Index. No wonder emerging economies that depend heavily on the export of commodities are cratering, along with the currencies they issue.

  

  Once participants become aware of the rising risk of holding a depreciating currency, the trickle out of a currency quickly becomes a torrent of fleeing capital.

  Once the perceived risk switches from risk-on to risk-off, the only way to prop up the currency is to raise the interest rates that bonds denominated in that currency yield.

  But raising interest rates has a brutally negative effect on the domestic economy, as higher rates choke off domestic lending, which then pushes the economy into recession.

  It's a no-win double bind, though, for doing nothing and letting one's currency implode drains the nation of capital and makes imports unaffordable. That matters when the imports are energy and/or food.

  When those become scarce and unaffordable, social disorder soon follows.

  The currency that has benefited from this reversal of capital flows is the U.S. dollar (USD):

  

  Debt/currency crises tend to trigger defaults and weakness in other currencies. We have a recent example of such a crisis: the Asian Contagion of 1997-98:

  

  Though that crisis was linked to Thailand's failed bid to support its currency's peg to the U.S. dollar, the current situation is actually far more fragile as the destruction of commodity income and valuation raises the risk of sovereign defaults, corporate bond defaults, and capital flight that deepens already severe emerging-market recessions.

  The bone-dry half-dead forest awaiting an igniting lightning strike is the global mountain of debt–debt which is no longer supported by current valuations of commodities and risk.

  In effect, a currency crisis is simply the abrupt revaluation of the currency to reflect new realities. That revaluation then raises the risk premium on debt denominated in that currency or owed in other currencies.

  As emerging market currencies decline, the income streams needed to service all the debt denominated in U.S. dollars declines, a self-reinforcing dynamic: as income and valuations fall, capital flees, pushing the relative value of the currency down even more, which further raises the risk premium that then triggers even more capital flight.

  The sums in play are so staggering (an estimated $11 trillion in emerging market debts denominated in other currencies) that even the Fed won't be able to stop the meltdown.

  

  

  

  

  

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