+7
blue roller
mudra
orthodoxymoron
NANUXII
enemyofNWO
Jenetta
Carol
11 posters
INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL PROGRESS REPORT - part 1
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-03/unexpected-australian-rate-cut-record-low-unleashes-fx-havoc-global-risk
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-02/two-sigma-co-founder-very-worried-machines-to-take-human-jobs
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/hedge-funds-under-attack-as-cohen-says-skilled-people-are-scarce
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-02/two-sigma-co-founder-very-worried-machines-to-take-human-jobs
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/hedge-funds-under-attack-as-cohen-says-skilled-people-are-scarce
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
US Futures Tumble After China Devalues Yuan By Most Since August Collapse
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2016 - 22:30
The 'odd' regime shift in the relationship between USDJPY and US equities continues overnight. Following some visible-handedness and follow-through momentum, Yen is weakening against the USD - normally a big flashing green sign for risk-on pajama traders but China's biggest Yuan devaluation in 9 months (since the August turmoil) seems to have stolen the jam out of the bull's donut as US equity futures extend losses, AsiaPac credit risk jumps, and USD strength is weighing on crude prices.
China sent another strong message tonight...
Despite Yen weakness...
As the Correlation regime has shifted in Yen Carry...
It seems the message is loud and clear - Stop with the hawkish tone or else August happens again!!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-03/us-futures-tumble-after-china-devalues-yuan-most-august-collapse
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
bobhardee- Posts : 3458
Join date : 2012-09-08
Age : 74
Location : The Sandhills of SC
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCps3-w6Gx8
WOW! TTIP Leaked Pages Show Complete NWO Corporate Takeover of Europe!
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESKKjLR-Lgk
HEADS UP A New Digital Cash System Was Just Unveiled at a Secret Meeting for Bankers in New York
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
Vietnam among fastest-growing economies in Asia, driven by electronic exports: IMF
http://www.thanhniennews.com/business/vietnam-among-fastestgrowing-economies-in-asia-driven-by-electronic-exports-imf-61814.html
The impact of the transportation recession on railroads is now very visible. Here’s how Union Pacific is dealing with this issue, via Google Earth, on May 3: 292 engines idled on a siding west of Benson, Arizona, along I-10, for a stretch of nearly 4 miles. Note how the line of locomotives curves and fades into the left edge of the photo – an once majestic and haunting sight, all these powerful machines idled on a track in the Arizona desert...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/haunting-pictures-transportation-recession-freight-rail-traffic-plunges
Who could have seen this coming?Remember a week ago when TV entertainers crowed about the surge in The Baltic Dry Freight Index was a "clear signal" that 'China is back' baby and that escape velocity growth was just around the corner as global growth was destined to pick up... Well, just as we warned very explicitly, the ramp in the index merely reflected the frenzied speculation in industrial metals by the Chineseand as authorities have cracked down on that idiocy, so the Baltic Dry has plunged by the most since November... as real demand punches back.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/surprise-baltic-dry-index-plunges-most-november-commodity-bubble-bursts
Despite an unprecedented amount of monetary easing taking place at the Bank of Japan, the yen has - since the middle of 2015 - been on a consistently strengthening trend versus the USD. As paradoxical as it may seem in a period when the Fed talked about, and then did raise interest rates coincident to the BOJ firing off ever more arrows, the strengthening yen has been the reality. That reality may be about to take a breather, though, as too many investors have moved to the same side of the boat in betting on yen appreciation while the “smart money” is net short the yen.
n the chart below we show the net commercial trader positioning on yen options and futures contracts. Commercial traders are the “smart money” in that times of their extreme positioning often coincide with inflection points in the markets. They are the opposite of small speculators, who often have extreme positioning at inflection points as well, except that it’s the wrong positioning.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/has-long-yen-trade-run-its-course
http://www.thanhniennews.com/business/vietnam-among-fastestgrowing-economies-in-asia-driven-by-electronic-exports-imf-61814.html
Haunting Pictures Of A Transportation Recession As Freight Rail Traffic Plunges
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 07:42The impact of the transportation recession on railroads is now very visible. Here’s how Union Pacific is dealing with this issue, via Google Earth, on May 3: 292 engines idled on a siding west of Benson, Arizona, along I-10, for a stretch of nearly 4 miles. Note how the line of locomotives curves and fades into the left edge of the photo – an once majestic and haunting sight, all these powerful machines idled on a track in the Arizona desert...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/haunting-pictures-transportation-recession-freight-rail-traffic-plunges
Surprise! Baltic Dry Index Plunges Most Since November As Commodity Bubble Bursts
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 11:40Who could have seen this coming?Remember a week ago when TV entertainers crowed about the surge in The Baltic Dry Freight Index was a "clear signal" that 'China is back' baby and that escape velocity growth was just around the corner as global growth was destined to pick up... Well, just as we warned very explicitly, the ramp in the index merely reflected the frenzied speculation in industrial metals by the Chineseand as authorities have cracked down on that idiocy, so the Baltic Dry has plunged by the most since November... as real demand punches back.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/surprise-baltic-dry-index-plunges-most-november-commodity-bubble-bursts
Has The Long Yen Trade Run Its Course?
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 11:00Despite an unprecedented amount of monetary easing taking place at the Bank of Japan, the yen has - since the middle of 2015 - been on a consistently strengthening trend versus the USD. As paradoxical as it may seem in a period when the Fed talked about, and then did raise interest rates coincident to the BOJ firing off ever more arrows, the strengthening yen has been the reality. That reality may be about to take a breather, though, as too many investors have moved to the same side of the boat in betting on yen appreciation while the “smart money” is net short the yen.
n the chart below we show the net commercial trader positioning on yen options and futures contracts. Commercial traders are the “smart money” in that times of their extreme positioning often coincide with inflection points in the markets. They are the opposite of small speculators, who often have extreme positioning at inflection points as well, except that it’s the wrong positioning.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/has-long-yen-trade-run-its-course
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
Zimbabwe to print own version of US dollar
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36210680
Trumped! Why It Happened And What Comes Next, Part 1
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
First there were seventeen. At length, there was one.
Donald Trump’s wildly improbable capture of the GOP nomination, therefore, is the most significant upheaval in American politics since Ronald Reagan. And the proximate cause is essentially the same. Like back then, an era of drastic bipartisan mis-governance has finally generated an electoral impulse to sweep out the stables.
Accordingly, the Donald’s patented phrase that “we aren’t winning anymore” is striking a deep nerve on main street. But that is not on account of giant trade deficits or a faltering foreign policy and failed military adventures per se.
Indeed, it has very little to do with any patriotic impulse with respect to America’s collective polity, and everything to do with voter perceptions that they personally are not winning economically anymore, either.
What is winning is Washington, Wall Street and the bicoastal elites. The latter prosper off finance, the LA branch of entertainment (movies and TV), the SF/technology branch of entertainment (social media) and the great rackets of the Imperial City—including the military/industrial/surveillance complex, the health and education cartels, the plaintiffs and patent bar, the tax loophole farmers and the endless lesser K-Street racketeers.
Consequently, most of America’s vast flyover zone has been left behind. Thus, the bottom 90% of families have no more real net worth than they had 30 years ago. By contrast, the real net worth of the top 9% stands at 150% its 1985 level, and the very top 1% is at 300% of its level three decades ago.
Moreover, the wealth round trip of the bottom 90% depicted in the chart below was hardly real in the first place. Main Street net worth temporarily soared owing to Greenspan’s 15-year housing bubble which culminated in the great financial crisis. What is left is mainly the mortgage debt.
The same pattern is evident in real household incomes and average real earnings of full time workers. In this case, the metric displayed in the chart encompasses men over 16 to control for changes in the work force mix, but the result is unmistakable. To wit, real median household incomes in 2014 were no higher than the level first reached in 1989,and real weekly full-time wages were actually 4% lower.
In a similar vein, Indiana was supposed to be Senator Cruz’ last stand, but according to the pundits he ended up getting blown away by the “Carrier” vote. United Technology’s plan to move its air conditioner factory to Mexico became Donald Trumps whipping boy, but the metaphor had deep resonance.
Since the year 2000, the US has lost 20% of its highest paying full-time jobs in the goods producing economy—–that is, energy and mining, construction and manufacturing.
Even when you allow for the supposed shift to white collar jobs in finance, technology, entertainment and other domestic services, the story is pretty much the same. There are still nearly 2 million fewer full-time, full pay “breadwinner jobs” in the US today than when Bill Clinton was packing his bags to leave the White House in January 2001.
These jobs currently pay an equivalent annual wage of $50,000 on average, which isn’t affluence by any means. But the point is, these jobs are the best of what we have and the total has been going nowhere for the last decade and one-half, even as the adult population (over 16 years) has risen from 212 million to 250 million.
Stated differently, the Trump voters don’t watch CNBC. Or if they do, they are savvy enough to dismiss it’s specious celebration of America’s phony bicoastal prosperity, and especially the monotonously stupid and profoundly misleading ritual of Jobs Friday. The voters know from experience that those millions of “new jobs” are mainly part-time gigs that come and go between the financial crashes that arise every seven years or so out of Wall Street and Washington.
Indeed, these bread and circuses jobs may all be part of the “print” according to Keynesian windbags like Mark Zandi, but the flyover zone voters know the real truth. They pay cash wages of less than $20,000 per year on a full-time equivalent basis, offer virtually no benefits and are scheduled by the day and hour.
In fact, nearly 40% of all the net payroll jobs created since the year 2000 are in what we have called the Part Time Economy. Trump voters have gotten stuck in them, fear they will end up there or have friends and family who have no other opportunities.
Needless to day, they know they are not winning.
Meanwhile, the bicoastal elites tend to their increasingly fanciful projects and provocations. That is to say, Imperial Washington’s completely trumped up campaign against Russia and Putin is cut from the same cloth as Silicon Valley’s pretension that there are ( or were until February) 147 “unicorn” start-ups that are each worth a billion dollars or more—notwithstanding that few of them have meaningful revenues, cognizable business models or any prospect of earning a profit.
Everywhere the governing institutions are whistling past the graveyard, yet have become so insular and removed from accountability that they are clueless about their own impending doom. The Federal Reserve, for example, has now fueled the mother of all financial bubbles after seven years of non-stop money printing and radical interest rate repression, but nevertheless believes that the nirvana of full employment prosperity is just around the corner.
Likewise, US military intervention has failed in every Muslim land it has bombed, droned or occupied. Yet the White House is still sending more bootless boots to these decimated lands, thereby insuring even more blowback and gifting jihadist recruiters with endless fodder for outrage and revenge.
So too, a seven year “recovery” cycle has been squandered on the fiscal front. While Obama was taking bows for cutting the deficit in half and Republicans were joining in to gut the discretionary spending sequester, the fiscal time bomb of entitlements continued to tick unattended.
The fact is, nominal GDP is now growing at only 3% per year, and in a world of relentless deflation owing to the end of the great central bank credit bubble, there is no prospect that it will accelerate. Accordingly, by 2026 GDP will be $24 trillion under the best of circumstances, while the national debt will rise by $9 trillion per CBO’s Keynesian reckoning or upwards of $15 trillion if you believe the Fed has not abolished the business cycle.
That’s right. The virtually guaranteed national debt of $30-$35 trillion will reach an Italian style 140% of GDP just as the baby boom retirement wave hits full stride.
So when Trump says that Uncle Sucker is broke, the public believes him. It happens to be true.
Finally, the greatest bicoastal scam is the rampant Bubble Finance prosperity of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Let’s face it. Facebook——along with Instagram, Whatsapp, Oculus VR and the 45 other testaments to social media drivel that Mark Zuckerberg has acquired with insanely inflated Wall Street play money during the last few years——-is not simply a sinkhole of lost productivity and low-grade self-indulgent entertainment. Faceplant is also a colossal valuation hoax.
Why? Because at bottom, FB (face book) is just an Internet billboard. It’s a place where mostly millennials idle their time in or out of their parents’ basement. Whether they grow tired of Facebook or not remains to be seen, but one thing is certain.
To wit, Facebook has invented nothing, has no significant patents, delivers no products and generates no customer subscriptions or service contracts. Its purported 1.8 billion “MAUs” (monthly average users) are fiercely devoted to “free stuff” in their use of social media.
Therefore, virtually all of its revenue comes from advertising. But ads are nothing like a revolutionary new product such as Apple’s iPhone, which can generate tens of billions of sales out of nowhere.
The pool of advertising dollars, by contrast, is relatively fixed at about $175 billion in the U.S. and $575 billion worldwide. And it is subject to severe cyclical fluctuations. For instance, during the Great Recession, the U.S. advertising spend declined by 15% and the worldwide spend dropped by 11%.
And therein lies the skunk in the woodpile. Due to its sharp cyclicality, the trend growth in U.S. ad spending has been about 0.5% per annum. Likewise, the global ad spend increased from about $490 billion in 2008 to $575 billion in 2015, reflecting a growth rate of 2.3% annually.
Yes, there has been a rapid migration of dollars from TV, newspapers and other traditional media to the digital space in recent years. But the big shift there is already over.
Besides that, you can’t capitalize a one-time gain in salesof this sort with even an average market multiple. And that’s to saying nothing of FB’s of the fact that FB’s current $340 billion market cap represents a preposterous multiple of211 times its $1.6 billion of LTM free cash flow.
In any event, the digital share of the U.S. ad pool rose from 13.5% in 2008 to an estimated 32.5% last year. But even industry optimists do not expect the digital share to gain more than a point or so per year going forward. After all, television, newspapers, magazines and radio and highway billboards are not going to disappear entirely.
Consequently, there are not remotely enough advertising dollars in the world to permit the endless gaggle of social media space entrants to earn revenue and profits commensurate with their towering valuations and the sell side’s hockey stick growth projections. In social media alone, therefore, there is more than $1 trillion of bottled air.
But the social media billionaire brats are not the half of it. The central bank money printers have transformed Wall Street into a nonstop casino that has showered a tiny slice of hedge funds and speculators with unspeakable windfalls from the likes of monstrosities like Valeant and hundreds of similar momentum bubbles.
Just consider the shameless mountebank who has conjured the insane valuation of Tesla from the gambling pits of Wall Street. The company has never made a profit, never hit a production or sales target and has no chance whatsoever of becoming a volume auto producer.
Yet after posting another wider than expected $283 million loss in the first quarter, which was nearly twice last year’s red ink, Elon Musk doubled-down on his snake oil offering. His promise that Tesla would become cash flow positive in 2016, after burning through $4 billion in cash since 2008, was abruptly declared inoperative. Instead, Tesla will do another giant dilutive capital raise in order to fund an acceleration of the Model 3 so that it can deliver 500,000 vehicles in 2018.
That’s a con job worthy of the seediest use car lot in America. In auto production land, today is already 2018 in the case of a mass production vehicle that has barely been designed, and which has not yet been production engineered, tooled, tested or sourced for components and materials.
Indeed, the idea that a company which produced just 50,000 vehicles in the last 12 months can scale up to 10X that volume virtually over night on a production line and supply system that does not even exist is a laughable fiction. But what isn’t laughable is that the Wall Street casino is so blinded by speculation, greed and Fed puts and liquidity pumping that it is enabling dozens of circus barkers like Elon Musk to inflate spectacular bubbles which will end up destroying the main street homegamers who fall for them, and dissipating loads of scarce capital in the process.
The fact is, the bicoastal elites have been showered with stupendous windfalls since the March 2009 bottom because the Fed has engineered through ZIRP, QEs, puts and open mouth cheerleading a systematic falsification of financial prices and the diversion of massive amounts of new debt and other capital into rank financial speculation.
On a net basis, for example, virtually the entirety of the $2 trillion in incremental business debt raised since 2007 (from $11 trillion to $13 trillion) has been cycled into stock buybacks, wildly over-priced M&A deals and other forms of financial engineering which result in the bidding up of existing equities, not the investment of new funds into productive assets. Indeed, the C-Suites of corporate America have been transformed into stock trading rooms.
~~~~~~~
Great article, as usual from Stockman. However, one point:
PS: MDB, that's a really good one. You're better when you're that sort of over-the-top. Funny stuff. (MDB is SATIRE, for you clueless folks.)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36210680
Trumped! Why It Happened And What Comes Next, Part 1
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
First there were seventeen. At length, there was one.
Donald Trump’s wildly improbable capture of the GOP nomination, therefore, is the most significant upheaval in American politics since Ronald Reagan. And the proximate cause is essentially the same. Like back then, an era of drastic bipartisan mis-governance has finally generated an electoral impulse to sweep out the stables.
Accordingly, the Donald’s patented phrase that “we aren’t winning anymore” is striking a deep nerve on main street. But that is not on account of giant trade deficits or a faltering foreign policy and failed military adventures per se.
Indeed, it has very little to do with any patriotic impulse with respect to America’s collective polity, and everything to do with voter perceptions that they personally are not winning economically anymore, either.
What is winning is Washington, Wall Street and the bicoastal elites. The latter prosper off finance, the LA branch of entertainment (movies and TV), the SF/technology branch of entertainment (social media) and the great rackets of the Imperial City—including the military/industrial/surveillance complex, the health and education cartels, the plaintiffs and patent bar, the tax loophole farmers and the endless lesser K-Street racketeers.
Consequently, most of America’s vast flyover zone has been left behind. Thus, the bottom 90% of families have no more real net worth than they had 30 years ago. By contrast, the real net worth of the top 9% stands at 150% its 1985 level, and the very top 1% is at 300% of its level three decades ago.
Moreover, the wealth round trip of the bottom 90% depicted in the chart below was hardly real in the first place. Main Street net worth temporarily soared owing to Greenspan’s 15-year housing bubble which culminated in the great financial crisis. What is left is mainly the mortgage debt.
The same pattern is evident in real household incomes and average real earnings of full time workers. In this case, the metric displayed in the chart encompasses men over 16 to control for changes in the work force mix, but the result is unmistakable. To wit, real median household incomes in 2014 were no higher than the level first reached in 1989,and real weekly full-time wages were actually 4% lower.
In a similar vein, Indiana was supposed to be Senator Cruz’ last stand, but according to the pundits he ended up getting blown away by the “Carrier” vote. United Technology’s plan to move its air conditioner factory to Mexico became Donald Trumps whipping boy, but the metaphor had deep resonance.
Since the year 2000, the US has lost 20% of its highest paying full-time jobs in the goods producing economy—–that is, energy and mining, construction and manufacturing.
Even when you allow for the supposed shift to white collar jobs in finance, technology, entertainment and other domestic services, the story is pretty much the same. There are still nearly 2 million fewer full-time, full pay “breadwinner jobs” in the US today than when Bill Clinton was packing his bags to leave the White House in January 2001.
These jobs currently pay an equivalent annual wage of $50,000 on average, which isn’t affluence by any means. But the point is, these jobs are the best of what we have and the total has been going nowhere for the last decade and one-half, even as the adult population (over 16 years) has risen from 212 million to 250 million.
Stated differently, the Trump voters don’t watch CNBC. Or if they do, they are savvy enough to dismiss it’s specious celebration of America’s phony bicoastal prosperity, and especially the monotonously stupid and profoundly misleading ritual of Jobs Friday. The voters know from experience that those millions of “new jobs” are mainly part-time gigs that come and go between the financial crashes that arise every seven years or so out of Wall Street and Washington.
Indeed, these bread and circuses jobs may all be part of the “print” according to Keynesian windbags like Mark Zandi, but the flyover zone voters know the real truth. They pay cash wages of less than $20,000 per year on a full-time equivalent basis, offer virtually no benefits and are scheduled by the day and hour.
In fact, nearly 40% of all the net payroll jobs created since the year 2000 are in what we have called the Part Time Economy. Trump voters have gotten stuck in them, fear they will end up there or have friends and family who have no other opportunities.
Needless to day, they know they are not winning.
Meanwhile, the bicoastal elites tend to their increasingly fanciful projects and provocations. That is to say, Imperial Washington’s completely trumped up campaign against Russia and Putin is cut from the same cloth as Silicon Valley’s pretension that there are ( or were until February) 147 “unicorn” start-ups that are each worth a billion dollars or more—notwithstanding that few of them have meaningful revenues, cognizable business models or any prospect of earning a profit.
Everywhere the governing institutions are whistling past the graveyard, yet have become so insular and removed from accountability that they are clueless about their own impending doom. The Federal Reserve, for example, has now fueled the mother of all financial bubbles after seven years of non-stop money printing and radical interest rate repression, but nevertheless believes that the nirvana of full employment prosperity is just around the corner.
Likewise, US military intervention has failed in every Muslim land it has bombed, droned or occupied. Yet the White House is still sending more bootless boots to these decimated lands, thereby insuring even more blowback and gifting jihadist recruiters with endless fodder for outrage and revenge.
So too, a seven year “recovery” cycle has been squandered on the fiscal front. While Obama was taking bows for cutting the deficit in half and Republicans were joining in to gut the discretionary spending sequester, the fiscal time bomb of entitlements continued to tick unattended.
The fact is, nominal GDP is now growing at only 3% per year, and in a world of relentless deflation owing to the end of the great central bank credit bubble, there is no prospect that it will accelerate. Accordingly, by 2026 GDP will be $24 trillion under the best of circumstances, while the national debt will rise by $9 trillion per CBO’s Keynesian reckoning or upwards of $15 trillion if you believe the Fed has not abolished the business cycle.
That’s right. The virtually guaranteed national debt of $30-$35 trillion will reach an Italian style 140% of GDP just as the baby boom retirement wave hits full stride.
So when Trump says that Uncle Sucker is broke, the public believes him. It happens to be true.
Finally, the greatest bicoastal scam is the rampant Bubble Finance prosperity of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Let’s face it. Facebook——along with Instagram, Whatsapp, Oculus VR and the 45 other testaments to social media drivel that Mark Zuckerberg has acquired with insanely inflated Wall Street play money during the last few years——-is not simply a sinkhole of lost productivity and low-grade self-indulgent entertainment. Faceplant is also a colossal valuation hoax.
Why? Because at bottom, FB (face book) is just an Internet billboard. It’s a place where mostly millennials idle their time in or out of their parents’ basement. Whether they grow tired of Facebook or not remains to be seen, but one thing is certain.
To wit, Facebook has invented nothing, has no significant patents, delivers no products and generates no customer subscriptions or service contracts. Its purported 1.8 billion “MAUs” (monthly average users) are fiercely devoted to “free stuff” in their use of social media.
Therefore, virtually all of its revenue comes from advertising. But ads are nothing like a revolutionary new product such as Apple’s iPhone, which can generate tens of billions of sales out of nowhere.
The pool of advertising dollars, by contrast, is relatively fixed at about $175 billion in the U.S. and $575 billion worldwide. And it is subject to severe cyclical fluctuations. For instance, during the Great Recession, the U.S. advertising spend declined by 15% and the worldwide spend dropped by 11%.
And therein lies the skunk in the woodpile. Due to its sharp cyclicality, the trend growth in U.S. ad spending has been about 0.5% per annum. Likewise, the global ad spend increased from about $490 billion in 2008 to $575 billion in 2015, reflecting a growth rate of 2.3% annually.
Yes, there has been a rapid migration of dollars from TV, newspapers and other traditional media to the digital space in recent years. But the big shift there is already over.
Besides that, you can’t capitalize a one-time gain in salesof this sort with even an average market multiple. And that’s to saying nothing of FB’s of the fact that FB’s current $340 billion market cap represents a preposterous multiple of211 times its $1.6 billion of LTM free cash flow.
In any event, the digital share of the U.S. ad pool rose from 13.5% in 2008 to an estimated 32.5% last year. But even industry optimists do not expect the digital share to gain more than a point or so per year going forward. After all, television, newspapers, magazines and radio and highway billboards are not going to disappear entirely.
Consequently, there are not remotely enough advertising dollars in the world to permit the endless gaggle of social media space entrants to earn revenue and profits commensurate with their towering valuations and the sell side’s hockey stick growth projections. In social media alone, therefore, there is more than $1 trillion of bottled air.
But the social media billionaire brats are not the half of it. The central bank money printers have transformed Wall Street into a nonstop casino that has showered a tiny slice of hedge funds and speculators with unspeakable windfalls from the likes of monstrosities like Valeant and hundreds of similar momentum bubbles.
Just consider the shameless mountebank who has conjured the insane valuation of Tesla from the gambling pits of Wall Street. The company has never made a profit, never hit a production or sales target and has no chance whatsoever of becoming a volume auto producer.
Yet after posting another wider than expected $283 million loss in the first quarter, which was nearly twice last year’s red ink, Elon Musk doubled-down on his snake oil offering. His promise that Tesla would become cash flow positive in 2016, after burning through $4 billion in cash since 2008, was abruptly declared inoperative. Instead, Tesla will do another giant dilutive capital raise in order to fund an acceleration of the Model 3 so that it can deliver 500,000 vehicles in 2018.
That’s a con job worthy of the seediest use car lot in America. In auto production land, today is already 2018 in the case of a mass production vehicle that has barely been designed, and which has not yet been production engineered, tooled, tested or sourced for components and materials.
Indeed, the idea that a company which produced just 50,000 vehicles in the last 12 months can scale up to 10X that volume virtually over night on a production line and supply system that does not even exist is a laughable fiction. But what isn’t laughable is that the Wall Street casino is so blinded by speculation, greed and Fed puts and liquidity pumping that it is enabling dozens of circus barkers like Elon Musk to inflate spectacular bubbles which will end up destroying the main street homegamers who fall for them, and dissipating loads of scarce capital in the process.
The fact is, the bicoastal elites have been showered with stupendous windfalls since the March 2009 bottom because the Fed has engineered through ZIRP, QEs, puts and open mouth cheerleading a systematic falsification of financial prices and the diversion of massive amounts of new debt and other capital into rank financial speculation.
On a net basis, for example, virtually the entirety of the $2 trillion in incremental business debt raised since 2007 (from $11 trillion to $13 trillion) has been cycled into stock buybacks, wildly over-priced M&A deals and other forms of financial engineering which result in the bidding up of existing equities, not the investment of new funds into productive assets. Indeed, the C-Suites of corporate America have been transformed into stock trading rooms.
~~~~~~~
Great article, as usual from Stockman. However, one point:
The Fed believes NO SUCH THING. They know goddamn well what they're doing - and WE know on whose behalf they're doing it.The Federal Reserve, for example, has now fueled the mother of all financial bubbles after seven years of non-stop money printing and radical interest rate repression, but nevertheless believes that the nirvana of full employment prosperity is just around the corner.
PS: MDB, that's a really good one. You're better when you're that sort of over-the-top. Funny stuff. (MDB is SATIRE, for you clueless folks.)
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
"Don't Forget, I'm The King Of Debt, I Love Debt" - Trump Chimes In On Puerto Rico
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 10:40 -0400
In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Donald Trump said that although he is the "king of debt", and that he "loves debt", he wouldn't bail out Puerto Rico.
Responding to whether or not Trump would bail out Puerto Rico as president of the United States...
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 10:40 -0400
In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Donald Trump said that although he is the "king of debt", and that he "loves debt", he wouldn't bail out Puerto Rico.
Responding to whether or not Trump would bail out Puerto Rico as president of the United States...
As far as how he would suggest Puerto Rico solve its debt issue, The Donald, of course, has a solution for that.
"No I don't believe they should, and I think frankly Puerto Rico is better if they don'tbecause they'll cut the bonds, they'll cut them way down there's far too much debt. The problem with Puerto Rico is they are far, far too much in debt. Don't forget, I'm the king of debt, I love debt"
"As a very successful person, I would buy companies, throw them into a chapter, bankrupt it, negotiate, I would do great deals. I didn't use them for myself, I used them as a business person like others do. I know more about debt than practically anybody, I love debt. I also love reducing debt, and I know how to do it better than anybody. Puerto Rico has too much debt, so you can't just restructure it. You have to use the laws, you have to cut the debt way down, and get back to business."
Last edited by Carol on Thu May 05, 2016 11:29 am; edited 1 time in total
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
In Latest Blow To Hedge Funds, Largest US Life Insurer Is Redeeming Most Of Its Investments
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016
Moments ago we the latest confirmation that the hedge fund business model is indeed suffering through an existential battle when MetLife Inc., the largest U.S. life insurer, said was seeking to exit most of its hedge-fund portfolio after a slump in the investments. According to Bloomberg, the insurer is seeking to redeem $1.2 billion of the $1.8 billion in holdings, a process that may take a couple of years to complete.
t has been a terrible year for hedge funds, not only in terms of performance but more importantly when it comes to keeping LPs and investors happy and invested, and it is only getting worse.
Recall that in recent weeks some very prominent alternative money managers have been slammed with major substantial requests such as Brevan Howard which was served with an cash call for $1.4 billion, and Tudor which has seen $1 billion in redemptions, while New York City’s pension for civil employees voted this month to pull $1.5 billion from hedge funds.
Then, just three days ago, AIG joined the anti-hedge fund fray when it announced it would redeem $4 billion from its hedge fund investments, while Chris Ailman, who runs investments at the $187 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or CALSTRS, said that the hedge fund industry’s two-and-twenty fee model is “broken” and “off the table” for large institutional investors.
Moments ago we the latest confirmation that the hedge fund business model is indeed suffering through an existential battle when MetLife Inc., the largest U.S. life insurer, said was seeking to exit most of its hedge-fund portfolio after a slump in the investments. According to Bloomberg, the insurer is seeking to redeem $1.2 billion of the $1.8 billion in holdings, a process that may take a couple of years to complete, Chief Investment OfficerSteven Goulart said Thursday in a conference call discussing first-quarter results at the New York-based company. The portfolio, which posted negative returns in the quarter, was cut by about $600 million in 2015, he said.
"It’s had up-and-down years and really it’s just too inconsistent, we think, in actual performance," Goulart said. “What we’ll be left with is a small portfolio of really our most consistently performing managers in hedge funds."
Oh, so past performance is indicative of future performance after all?
As Bloomberg adds, MetLife, which has an investment portfolio of more than $520 billion, has been looking in recent years for alternatives to bonds because interest rates are so low. While results from private equity have been satisfactory, hedge funds have been more volatile, Goulart said.
Chief Executive Officer Steve Kandarian added that he is seeking to increase the portion of earnings that can be returned to shareholders. That focus on free cash flow factored into the decision to cut the hedge-fund investments, Goulart said.
In other news, MetLife reported profit Wednesday that missed analysts’ estimates. Investment income fell 17% to $4.56 billion, hurt by both hedge funds and low bond yields. Kandarian said Thursday that the insurer will continue to hold some investments beyond bonds.
“Some earnings variability is an acceptable risk, as these asset classes have provided strong returns to MetLife shareholders over time,” Kandarian said. Variable investment income, which includes hedge funds and private equity, “was better than planned in 7 of the past 10 years.”
In other words, the surprising redemption is as much as an attempt to scapegoat hedge funds as it is a statement on the alternative asset management industry. But whatever the reason, the reality is that now that the process is in motion, we expect billions more in redemptions as the great "wash out" predicted by Dan Loeb takes place. It also means more forced sales and liquidations, which in the current illiquid market will only result in even more volatility and even more underperformance by those other hedge funds who have matched positions to those being unwound.
Finally, for those seeking the ultimate culprit why the hedge fund industry has been on such a poor roll in recent years, look no further than the Fed, which continues to intervene any and every time there is even a modest correction in the process crushing the short books and leading to unprecedented short squeezes such as the ones experienced in February and March of this year.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/latest-blow-hedge-funds-largest-us-life-insurer-redeeming-most-its-investments
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
Frontrunning: May 5
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016
Overnight Media Digest
WSJ
- The U.S. Justice Department warned North Carolina officials that it considers the state's new bathroom law a violation of the Civil Rights Act. (http://on.wsj.com/1To3Taf)
- Tesla Motors plans to ramp up annual production to a half-million vehicles, two years earlier than planned, but will do so without its two top manufacturing executives. (http://on.wsj.com/1To3wfG)
- Tribune Publishing Co's board of directors rejected an unsolicited acquisition offer from Gannett Co , calling the bid "opportunistic". (http://on.wsj.com/1To3vIO)
- Former Republican senator, 82-year-old Bob Bennett of Utah, one of the first incumbents ousted in a national wave of anti-incumbent sentiment in 2010, has died, his assistant said. (http://on.wsj.com/1To3p3V)
FT
* Trinity Mirror is set to shut down its new national newspaper called The New Day, just two months after launching it as it seeks to cut its losses.
* Liberty Global, which also owns Virgin Media, is evaluating a potential contribution of up to 500,000 pounds ($724,550) to a campaign to keep Britain in Europe.
* Airbus is developing humanoid robots in partnership with French and Japanese researchers with a purpose of being able to use them alongside humans on its assembly lines and inside aircraft.
NYT
- Tesla Motors said it was confident it could accelerate production to meet high demand for its forthcoming Model 3 electric vehicle, despite the departure of two top manufacturing executives. (http://nyti.ms/1T2C7Gs)
- U.S. Federal safety regulators said long-term exposure to environmental moisture and wide temperature fluctuations caused airbags made by Takata to rupture violently. (http://nyti.ms/24z88I7)
- Tribune Publishing sent a letter to Gannett saying its board had unanimously rejected the $815 million takeover offer, which included debt and other liabilities and represented a significant premium above Tribune's share price. (http://nyti.ms/1rWgFam)
- Chinese company Xintong Tiandi has won the right to sell its leather goods under the iPhone trademark after years of legal back-and-forth with Apple, according to an article in Chinese state news media. (http://nyti.ms/1VKKPtk)
- The European Central Bank on Wednesday announced an end to the 500-euro bank note, worth roughly $575, in a move aimed at hampering cash transactions by drug dealers and money launderers. (http://nyti.ms/1W9dSXo)
Britain
The Times
- Executives at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc faced accusations of taking home "obscene" pay packets and being "glorified civil servants" at a stormy annual meeting. (http://bit.ly/1W8QBVt)
- EDF's former finance chief tried to persuade the French energy giant to postpone plans to build an 18-billion-pound nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, Somerset, for at least three years, he told French MPs yesterday. (http://bit.ly/1W8QJ7q)
The Guardian
- The mining group BHP Billiton Plc and its partner Vale SA are facing a 30-billion-pound claim from Brazilian prosecutors over an iron ore mine dam collapse last year that released a torrent of toxic mud, killing 19 people and leaving 700 homeless. (http://bit.ly/1W8QQjl)
The Telegraph
- BT group Plc is to unveil a multibillion-pound network upgrade programme, including laying ultrafast fibre-optic broadband lines to around two million homes and businesses. (http://bit.ly/1W8Qvgt)
- Intercontinental Exchange Inc has walked away from its attempt to break up the London Stock Exchange's 21-billion-pound merger with Deutsche Boerse AG, removing one of the major hurdles to the deal. (http://bit.ly/1W8QAB1)
Sky News
- The New Day newspaper is to close after just nine weeks of circulation. The daily newspaper, published by Trinity Mirror Plc, is to be publishing its final edition on Friday. (http://bit.ly/1W8OUHt)
- Royal Dutch Shell Plc has reduced its key investment forecast by a further 10 percent or $3 billion after announcing a sharp drop in first quarter profits amid the depressed oil price environment. (http://bit.ly/1W8QpFK)
The Independent
- Housing analysts have slammed a 100-percent mortgage launched by Barclays Plc as "crackers", saying the first mortgage since the crisis not to require a deposit will help people buy property they can't afford. (http://ind.pn/1W8QLw6)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/frontrunning-may-5
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016
- Europe shares, oil snap four-day losing streaks (Reuters)
- Oil rallies as Canada fire and Libya violence threaten supply (Reuters)
- How Trump Won—and How the GOP Let Him (WSJ)
- Hedge Fudge Managers Lose Their Swagger (BBG)
- Turkey Premier Said to Give Up as Erdogan Tightens Grip (BBG)
- Health Insurers Struggle to Offset New Costs (WSJ)
- Judge says Clinton may have to testify in email lawsuit (Reuters)
- Trump's deportation plan could slice 2 percent off U.S. GDP (Reuters)
- A Cartel and a Briefcase: How Drug Cash Moves on a River of Gold (BBG)
- Big-Spending Fracking Family Behind Cruz Won't Back Trump (BBG)
- China's Great Commodity Bubble Loses Air Before It Can Burst (BBG)
- Abortion provider Planned Parenthood sues Kansas over plan to cut funding (Reuters)
- Look Out, Loonie, Canada May Have Just Peaked (BBG)
- Bass Says Investors Would Avoid China If They Knew Bank Risk (BBG)
- Tribune Publishing Rejects Gannett Bid (WSJ)
- Truce takes hold in Aleppo but fighting goes on elsewhere in Syria (Reuters)
- The Unloved Business That's Saved Big Oil From Low Energy Prices (BBG)
Overnight Media Digest
WSJ
- The U.S. Justice Department warned North Carolina officials that it considers the state's new bathroom law a violation of the Civil Rights Act. (http://on.wsj.com/1To3Taf)
- Tesla Motors plans to ramp up annual production to a half-million vehicles, two years earlier than planned, but will do so without its two top manufacturing executives. (http://on.wsj.com/1To3wfG)
- Tribune Publishing Co's board of directors rejected an unsolicited acquisition offer from Gannett Co , calling the bid "opportunistic". (http://on.wsj.com/1To3vIO)
- Former Republican senator, 82-year-old Bob Bennett of Utah, one of the first incumbents ousted in a national wave of anti-incumbent sentiment in 2010, has died, his assistant said. (http://on.wsj.com/1To3p3V)
FT
* Trinity Mirror is set to shut down its new national newspaper called The New Day, just two months after launching it as it seeks to cut its losses.
* Liberty Global, which also owns Virgin Media, is evaluating a potential contribution of up to 500,000 pounds ($724,550) to a campaign to keep Britain in Europe.
* Airbus is developing humanoid robots in partnership with French and Japanese researchers with a purpose of being able to use them alongside humans on its assembly lines and inside aircraft.
NYT
- Tesla Motors said it was confident it could accelerate production to meet high demand for its forthcoming Model 3 electric vehicle, despite the departure of two top manufacturing executives. (http://nyti.ms/1T2C7Gs)
- U.S. Federal safety regulators said long-term exposure to environmental moisture and wide temperature fluctuations caused airbags made by Takata to rupture violently. (http://nyti.ms/24z88I7)
- Tribune Publishing sent a letter to Gannett saying its board had unanimously rejected the $815 million takeover offer, which included debt and other liabilities and represented a significant premium above Tribune's share price. (http://nyti.ms/1rWgFam)
- Chinese company Xintong Tiandi has won the right to sell its leather goods under the iPhone trademark after years of legal back-and-forth with Apple, according to an article in Chinese state news media. (http://nyti.ms/1VKKPtk)
- The European Central Bank on Wednesday announced an end to the 500-euro bank note, worth roughly $575, in a move aimed at hampering cash transactions by drug dealers and money launderers. (http://nyti.ms/1W9dSXo)
Britain
The Times
- Executives at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc faced accusations of taking home "obscene" pay packets and being "glorified civil servants" at a stormy annual meeting. (http://bit.ly/1W8QBVt)
- EDF's former finance chief tried to persuade the French energy giant to postpone plans to build an 18-billion-pound nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, Somerset, for at least three years, he told French MPs yesterday. (http://bit.ly/1W8QJ7q)
The Guardian
- The mining group BHP Billiton Plc and its partner Vale SA are facing a 30-billion-pound claim from Brazilian prosecutors over an iron ore mine dam collapse last year that released a torrent of toxic mud, killing 19 people and leaving 700 homeless. (http://bit.ly/1W8QQjl)
The Telegraph
- BT group Plc is to unveil a multibillion-pound network upgrade programme, including laying ultrafast fibre-optic broadband lines to around two million homes and businesses. (http://bit.ly/1W8Qvgt)
- Intercontinental Exchange Inc has walked away from its attempt to break up the London Stock Exchange's 21-billion-pound merger with Deutsche Boerse AG, removing one of the major hurdles to the deal. (http://bit.ly/1W8QAB1)
Sky News
- The New Day newspaper is to close after just nine weeks of circulation. The daily newspaper, published by Trinity Mirror Plc, is to be publishing its final edition on Friday. (http://bit.ly/1W8OUHt)
- Royal Dutch Shell Plc has reduced its key investment forecast by a further 10 percent or $3 billion after announcing a sharp drop in first quarter profits amid the depressed oil price environment. (http://bit.ly/1W8QpFK)
The Independent
- Housing analysts have slammed a 100-percent mortgage launched by Barclays Plc as "crackers", saying the first mortgage since the crisis not to require a deposit will help people buy property they can't afford. (http://ind.pn/1W8QLw6)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-05/frontrunning-may-5
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
FULL ARTICLE Benjamin Fulford 5-2-16… “Is it time for Pope Francis to confess to involvement in Argentine dirty war and resign”
Posted on 2016/05/05by kauilapele
Here’s the full weekly report from Ben.“The gnostic illuminati and the US military have both told the White Dragon Society that Pope Francis must resign because of his friendship with former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla and his involvement in Argentina’s dirty war. The resignation will be the trigger for a series of dramatic changes in how this planet is run, the sources agree.
“Romanov also said that Khazarian top Mafiosi Heinz (Henry) Kissinger had died and that there was nobody to replace him in the Khazarian power structure.
“In any case, if you look at the following links you can see very clearly that, as far as the real world is concerned, Khazarian mafia control of the economy is finished.
“The WDS will propose issuing an ultimatum to the dollar controllers to either accept the future planning agency and gold deal or else be hit with financial Armageddon. Of course, in order to prevent world war 3, the US armed forces and agencies will continue to be financed in such an event. However, they will be asked to clean out the criminal filth infesting Washington DC and New York.
“…there are signs financial Armageddon is coming anyway. On May 2nd (today) the US de facto state of Puerto Rico is about to default on a bond payment, which will trigger a systemic breakdown if it is allowed to happen. No doubt there will be some last minute kick the can down the road maneuvers on this. However, Atlantic City is lined up to be the next to default. After that will come others until the Lesbian can no longer be plugged.
“The Federal Reserve Board owners are still also trying to organize a bail-in which is a polite way to say steal depositor’s money. That is what three former Fed chiefs… discussed with current chief Janet Yellen, Vice President Joe Biden and President Obama at a recent meeting at the Rockefeller center, according to several sources. This is not going to be allowed to happen. The gnostic illuminati’s Romanov says that “if we have to kill 6000 people to stop it, then that is what we will do.”
“…another group seeking Russian protection are the Japanese. That is because the regime put in place here after World War 2 is entirely reliant on the US. If the US goes bankrupt, that regime, mostly run by North Korean proxies, will be quickly overthrown by the native Japanese, sources at the Three Legged Crow secret society say. They point out that the current Emperor is not the real son of the Emperor Hirohito because Hirohito did not want to have his real son fall into the hands of the Americans. The real son is now head of the Japanese underground opposition, the sources noted.”
—————————————————————————
Is it time for Pope Francis to confess to involvement in Argentine dirty war and resignPosted by benjamin, May 2, 2016
The gnostic illuminati and the US military have both told the White Dragon Society that Pope Francis must resign because of his friendship with former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla and his involvement in Argentina’s dirty war. The resignation will be the trigger for a series of dramatic changes in how this planet is run, the sources agree. “They will be writing about this thousands of years from now,” predicts gnostic illuminati grandmaster “Alexander Romanov.”
Romanov also said that Khazarian top Mafiosi Heinz (Henry) Kissinger had died and that there was nobody to replace him in the Khazarian power structure. We been told many times in the past that “Kisssinger is dead” only to have him appear in public shortly after we published the information. So, Mr. Kissinger, if you are still alive, please appear somewhere in public to be photographed and filmed. If he really is dead though, this would be a huge breakthrough because Kissinger has been the man behind the 60-year Khazarian mafia hijack of funds meant to be used for the benefit of this planet.
This could also be why veteran career CIA and State Department officials are now handling the gold negotiations with the Dragon family in Asia, WDS sources say. The gold is already available so, the delay comes from the people controlling the dollar printing (or inputting) facility. There are multiple meetings going on about this issue, especially in Washington DC, and these in turn are connected with the talk about having the Pope resign and Kissinger removed from the scene. More meetings on this issue continue this week.
In any case, if you look at the following links you can see very clearly that, as far as the real world is concerned, Khazarian mafia control of the economy is finished. The first is a map showing in red the countries enrolled in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank or AIIB. You can see that apart from African nations and the Americas minus Brazil, most of the world is already on board.
http://thediplomat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/thediplomat_2015-04-16_21-13-09.jpg
The next link shows these countries in terms of purchasing power parity (real) GDP. Again you can see the AIIB countries are overwhelmingly large in the map. The US looks huge too but, people who know the real world know that US GDP is exaggerated by about 50% through financial fluff (numbers in bank computers not connected to reality) and fake statistics so, you need to imagine it half that size.
http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/gdpppp2010.jpg
The final link shows countries that have China as their number one trading partner versus those that have the US as their number one trading partner. Again you can see China has more than double the US in influence on the real world of trade.
http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/china-top-trade-partner-2x-america.png
What this means is that if the AIIB countries decide to stop accepting the US dollar, then it is game over for the Khazarian cabal in the US.
There will be an Asian Secret Society and WDS meeting this week where…
…this will be a major topic of discussion. The WDS will propose issuing an ultimatum to the dollar controllers to either accept the future planning agency and gold deal or else be hit with financial Armageddon. Of course, in order to prevent world war 3, the US armed forces and agencies will continue to be financed in such an event. However, they will be asked to clean out the criminal filth infesting Washington DC and New York.
In fact, Pentagon sources tell us that the White House was under lock-down April 26 and 27th “as special forces led by [General Joseph] Dunford entered via tunnel to demand resignations.” We can confirm there was a lockdown of the White House those days, officially because of a “fence jumper,” but President Barack Obama has been in public since that time so we are not quite [sure] what resignations were demanded. Since Obama is just a house slave, this possibly this ties into the Kissinger information above. Time will tell.
In any case, there are signs financial Armageddon is coming anyway. On May 2nd (today) the US de facto state of Puerto Rico is about to default on a bond payment, which will trigger a systemic breakdown if it is allowed to happen. No doubt there will be some last minute kick the can down the road maneuvers on this. However, Atlantic City is lined up to be the next to default. After that will come others until the Lesbian can no longer be plugged.
As detailed in previous newsletters, most of the big US and European banks are already zombies, supported by nothing other than cooked books or illusions called “derivatives” that exist only inside bank supercomputers The fact that Goldman Sachs has started up a retail bank with minimum deposits of one dollar shows how desperate they are to get real money, Pentagon officials say. The Federal Reserve Board owners are still also trying to organize a bail-in which is a polite way to say steal depositor’s money. That is what three former Fed chiefs, Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke discussed with current chief Janet Yellen, Vice President Joe Biden and President Obama at a recent meeting at the Rockefeller center, according to several sources.
This is not going to be allowed to happen. The gnostic illuminati’s Romanov says that “if we have to kill 6000 people to stop it, then that is what we will do.”
It also appears the Khazarians have already stolen whatever they could from Saudi Arabia. That is why workers from the Saudi Binladen construction company torched buses last week in frustration over not being paid wages for over 6 months.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/05/01/saudi-binladin-workers-burn-company-buses-in-makkah/
There has also been a 90% drop in the number of foreign mercenaries working for ISIS for the same reason, lack of pay.
With little left to loot from Saudi Arabia, the Khazarians are now desperately trying to take over Brazil “not just to control oil and minerals, but also the vast freshwaters of the Amazon and the Guarani aquifer,” Pentagon sources say. The Bush family and their Fascist Korean Moonie friends (UN Chief Ban Ki Moon is one) bought their big ranches in Paraguay because they lie on top of this aquifer. This is one of the best places in the world to develop new agricultural land.
US Vice President Biden last week tried and failed to convince Pope Francis to stop backing beleaguered Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. Instead, the Pope helped organize massive May day protests in support of her. Perhaps that is why suddenly two separate sources contacted this writer last week with information about Pope Francis’ alleged involvement in Argentina’s dirty war.
It looks very much like the Nazi faction of the Khazarian mafia wants flee back to their old South American haunts before too many Americans wake up to the crimes they have committed against the United States. It is already too late for ring leaders like the Bush/Clinton crime family to flee. They will have to face justice.
Another sign things are not going well for the Nazi faction is that Gerhard Schindler, the head of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency, was fired last week “because he lost control of the Panama Papers,” CIA sources say. The law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers, Mossack Fonseca, was a BND asset, the sources say.
If this is true then the next big Panama Papers data dump may expose many senior Germans as well as the Bush clan. Perhaps even the general public will finally be told that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is Hitler’s daughter. This exposure by the Americans may be one reason why the Germans are looking East to Russia and away from the US.
The other people looking to the Russians now are the ASEAN countries who have begun military cooperation with Russia as a hedge against China and insurance in case the impending US bankruptcy creates a power vacuum in the region that would be filled only by China, CIA sources in Asia say.
The upcoming United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling on a territorial dispute between China and the Philippines is expected to rule against China because China does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction, several sources agree. In that case, the US military will use International Law as a pretext to seek cooperation with ASEAN and Russia to contain China. The only problem with this US stance, Chinese government sources point out, is that the US itself also does not recognize the tribunal. Nonetheless, a court ruling would give the US military a face saving and honorable pretext to justify its pivot to Asia.
Yet another group seeking Russian protection are the Japanese. That is because the regime put in place here after World War 2 is entirely reliant on the US. If the US goes bankrupt, that regime, mostly run by North Korean proxies, will be quickly overthrown by the native Japanese, sources at the Three Legged Crow secret society say. They point out that the current Emperor is not the real son of the Emperor Hirohito because Hirohito did not want to have his real son fall into the hands of the Americans. The real son is now head of the Japanese underground opposition, the sources noted.
This is why the current Japanese government is trying to include Russia in the G7 meeting in Mie Prefecture later this month (not in April as previously reported in this newsletter). However, the Russians correctly view Abe and his regime to be Rockefeller and Rothschild slaves and are unlikely to support them, Russian sources say. “The G7 people about to gather in Mie are terrified,” illuminati “grandmaster Romanov” says. Romanov noted the illuminati still have one stolen Kursk nuclear weapon and will soon decide how to use it.
https://kauilapele.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/full-article-benjamin-fulford-5-2-16-is-it-time-for-pope-francis-to-confess-to-involvement-in-argentine-dirty-war-and-resign/
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
Silent Coup Beginning to Overtake America Now – Larry Nichols with Greg Hunter
Friday, May 6, 2016 9:27
[color:cd61=000077]Larry Nichols – FEMA Government Could Make Obama King
by Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog
Former Clinton insider Larry Nichols has worked with, and now against, the Clintons. Nichols has some of the top political and financial connections on the planet. Nichols hopes the public is finally realizing the enormous power struggle going on. Nichols explains, “There is no two-party system in the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. There is no two-party system, there is one. Part of it is a red team and part of it is a blue team. You think you have a choice, but as you know you only have a choice between the two they give you to vote for, but here comes Trump. Trump doesn’t need their money . . . he will bust up the system, and he will not only bust up the system for the Republican Party, but he will bust up the system (for both parties).
So, there are many establishment Republicans that have said they would rather vote for Hillary than Trump. . . . They must maintain status quo of the system for these power elite people to stay where they want to be.”
Nichols goes on to say, “We are at the beginning of a velvet or silent coup. It’s been going on for years. There’s been a slow subtle takeover of our form of government, starting years and years ago, but it is coming to an end. That’s why there is this power play now. It’s more aggressive than you have seen before. If we don’t stop Hillary, it’s over. Is Trump the answer to all of our problems? I don’t know. Here’s what I do know about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is not in the system. How do I know that? As hard as they are working to keep him out is a pretty good recommendation for me. He’s not one of them. He might be a good president. When you mention Hillary or the establishment, there is no ‘might.’ With them, we would get what we have been getting but only worse. There is not a ‘might’ there.”
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
7 May 2016
Terrorism
May 6, 2016 Ariyana Love -
BREAKING: FBI SET TO INTERVIEW HILLARY OVER EMAIL SCANDAL – IT’S HAPPENING!
The news just keeps getting worse and worse for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In early March, Brian Pagliano, the IT specialist who set up a private email server in her bathroom, was granted immunity and began singing like a bird on his higher-ups. He has allegedly become a “devastating witness,” one that Judge Andrew Napolitano said Clinton “should be terrified of.”
Then, just days ago, a report indicated that the FBI had roughly 147 agents working to determine if Hillary engaged in any criminal misconduct which put America’s national security at risk.
Now, it looks like her day of reckoning may arrive within weeks as a new report indicates that Clinton will be interviewed any day now by FBI Director James Comey.
Getcha popcorn ready!
David Shuster of AJAM reports (H/T Mediaite):
While Hillary Clinton fights for the Democratic presidential nomination, law enforcement officials tell Al Jazeera America the Federal Investigation into her personal email system while she was Secretary of State has reached a critical stage.
The FBI, led by Director James Comey, has now finished examining Clinton’s private emails and home server. And the sources add that Comey’s FBI team has been joined by the Justice Department prosecutors. Together, they are now examining the evidence, analyzing relevant laws, and attempting to arrange interviews with key figures in the investigation.
Those interviews, according to attorneys, will include former State Department aides Philippe Reines, Former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and Clinton herself.
Soon after those interviews — in the next few days and weeks — officials expect Director Comey to make his recommendation to Attorney General Loretta Lynch about potential criminal charges.
Shuster also reports that the Clinton interview “could come in days,” something he defines as a crucial turning point in determining whether or not she is indicted.
From there, “Sources expect the conclusion to come in weeks, not months,” Shuster reported.
While we await these new developments, check out this report on the FBI Director dodging questions about the bureau’s investigation into Clinton …
Source: The Political Insider
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
John Williams-Dollar will Blow Up and Collapse
Economist John Williams says it is not a matter of if, but when, there is panic dollar selling. Williams says the Fed would try to slow it down. Williams explains, “The Federal Reserve would step in and slow the pace to make it not appear like a panic. If you start to see a panic selloff (in the dollar), that’s a real bad sign. It means they are losing control of the system, and I think that is coming. The initial effect on the system for people living in the United States, as the dollar crashes, you will see inflation beginning to surge, particularly from oil and gasoline prices. Those effects will begin to spread in the system. It will change the way people look at things and will start the process that will eventually be a hyperinflation. The Fed does not have a way out of this circumstance. They have backed themselves into a corner. They have been keeping things reasonably stable, but they can’t get things going in the economy. . . . The economy is in terrible shape.”
Williams also says, “The dollar will blow up, and when I say blow up, it will collapse. There will be panic selling of the dollar, and that will intensify the inflation. The problem is they don’t have a way of avoiding it. If they could somehow get the economy back on track, they would have some room to work, I think, but the economy has never recovered.
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with John Williams, the founder of ShadowStats.com.
All links can be found on USAWatchdog.com:
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
The Hidden Secrets Of Money (cash)
#1 - https://youtu.be/DyV0OfU3-FU
#2 - https://youtu.be/EdSq5H7awi8
#3 - https://youtu.be/y-IemeM-Ado
#4 - https://youtu.be/e-IfKXHWw70
#5 - https://youtu.be/J0tBgixC6Uw
#6 - https://youtu.be/UMOPnBYGj_U
#7 - https://youtu.be/tj2s6vzErqY
#1 - https://youtu.be/DyV0OfU3-FU
#2 - https://youtu.be/EdSq5H7awi8
#3 - https://youtu.be/y-IemeM-Ado
#4 - https://youtu.be/e-IfKXHWw70
#5 - https://youtu.be/J0tBgixC6Uw
#6 - https://youtu.be/UMOPnBYGj_U
#7 - https://youtu.be/tj2s6vzErqY
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
Again take with a grain of salt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8YBRqszYXY
Mini Update from Ben Fulford…
http://benjaminfulford.net/Major movement on multiple fronts including US regime change and serious political turmoil in China
Posted by benjamin
May 9, 2016
There are serious and undeniable changes now taking place at the highest levels of the world’s power structure. First, as already noted by Neil Keenan and others, US President Barack Obama told the Washington Press corps at the Whitehouse correspondents dinner on April 30th that “the end of the republic has never looked better,” and that “It is an honor to be here at my last—and perhaps the last—White House Correspondent’s Dinner.” Here is a link to the White House Press release containing these comments.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/01/remarks-president-white-house-correspondents-dinner
Furthermore the White House put out a detailed plan on May 6th for a “peaceful transition of power.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/06/executive-order-facilitation-presidential-transition
CIA sources the plan is still to keep Obama as the face of the regime and use him to transition to a Donald Trump presidency but that Obama was no longer living in the White House and that the powers behind the throne had changed.
One very visible sign of the US regime change is the fact that “1500 Yale Skull and Bones documents will be released to expose [US Secretary of State John] Kerry, the Bushes, and other cabal members,” Pentagon sources note. This disclosure is a clear sign the Satanists have lost at the highest level of the US power structure.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/05/george-w-bush-white-houses-skull-and-bones-files-due-out-222858
There will be more about the US situation below but there is another major development we wish to discuss first. Last week this writer attended a meeting in Yokohama, Japan of the senior lodge members of a 55 million member Benevolent Asian Secret Society (Hongmen). The meeting discussed future peaceful plans for the lodge in Japan. There were also detailed discussions about a new international financial system that will replace the current system over the next few years. Specialists from many different fields attended the meeting. Finally, the society expressed a desire to work, based on the principles of peace, in a “mutually beneficial manner with the International White Dragon Society.” That is all we are allowed to disclose for now.
The White Dragon Society was also contacted last week by two representatives from the government of mainland China. One, representing the Chinese Communist Government’s security apparatus, said that 12,000 tons of gold were now being offered at a 13% discount on the same conditions as the 8000 tons previously discussed in this newsletter. The gold is in 12.5 kilogram ingots and is available for immediate pick up in Hong Kong. Furthermore, if the offer is not accepted by May 16th, the Chinese will take unilateral action on this issue, he says. The WDS has recommended that they make a move against the US dollar if the current controllers of the dollar system refuse to accept this gold.
Since Henry Kissinger’s fraudulent hijacking of the dollar system has ended, as far as we can tell there are two current claimants for the position of M1, or controller of the US dollar system. One is Neil Keenan and the other is believed to be the eldest surviving son of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos who now lives in Canada and is represented by a David P. Crayford. If either of them can pull it off, we suggest they conjure up some dollars and take delivery of the gold. It is a good deal: solid gold in exchange for paper and numbers in computers. If neither of them can pull it off, we suggest that General Joseph Dunford step in and arrange this deal.
There is also a faction in the US that has been buying up historical Asian bonds at cents for the dollar, according to the Chinese sources. The money they receive for handing over the bonds will be frozen, Pentagon sources say.
Those who still think the US dollar does not need to be backed by gold or other real world assets need to take a look at the chart in this link showing how the end of the dollar gold peg resulted in a debt disaster for the US.
http://www.veteranstodaymoney.com/2016/05/how-unsound-money-fuels-unsound-government-spending/
The end of the gold peg triggered a more than 40 year looting spree of the American people and US trade partners by the Khazarian mafia, WDS members agree. The Chinese offer of gold will put a permanent end to this looting, a WDS official says.
Meanwhile, another Chinese official to contact the WDS represents a faction inside the Chinese politburo that is opposed to Chinese President Xi Jinping. The source says there is a major power struggle taking place in China. President Xi Jinping’s mandate is not ...
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
A New Digital Cash System Was Just Unveiled At A Secret Meeting For Bankers In New York May 3, 2016 http://www.dcclothesline.com/2016/05/03/a-new-digital-cash-system-was-just-unveiled-at-a-secret-meeting-for-bankers-in-new-york-2/
Last month, a “secret meeting” that involved more than 100 executives from some of the biggest financial institutions in the United States was held in New York City. During this “secret meeting“, a company known as “Chain” unveiled a technology that transforms U.S. dollars into “pure digital assets”. Reportedly, there were representatives from Nasdaq, Citigroup, Visa, Fidelity, Fiserv and Pfizer in the room, and Chain also claims to be partnering with Capital One, State Street, and First Data. This “revolutionary” technology is intended to completely change the way that we use money, and it would represent a major step toward a cashless society. But if this new digital cash system is going to be so good for society, why was it unveiled during a secret meeting for Wall Street bankers? Is there something more going on here than we are being told?
None of us probably would have ever heard about this secret meeting if it was not for a report in Bloomberg. The following comes from their article entitled “Inside the Secret Meeting Where Wall Street Tested Digital Cash“…
Other nations in Europe have already banned cash transactions over a certain amount. Here are just a couple of examples…
Banks really like the concept of a cashless society because it would force everyone to be their customers. There would be no more hiding cash in a mattress at home or trying to pay all of your bills with paper money. Under a cashless system, we would all be dependent on the banks, and they would make lots of money whenever we swiped our cards or our “chips” were scanned.
Governments see a lot of advantages in a cashless society as well. They tell us that they would be able to crack down on drug dealers, tax evaders, terrorists and money launderers, but the truth is that it would enable them to watch, track, monitor and control virtually all of our financial transactions. Our lives would become open books to the government, and financial privacy would be a thing of the past.
In addition, the potential for tyranny would be absolutely off the charts.
Just imagine a world where the government could serve as the gatekeeper for who is allowed to use the cashless system and who is not. They could require that we all submit to some sort of government-issued form of identification before being permitted to operate within the system, or it is even conceivable that a loyalty oath would be required.
Of course if you did not submit to their demands, you could not buy, sell, open a bank account or get a job without access to the cashless system.
Hopefully people can understand where this is going. Paper money is a very important component of our freedom, and if it is taken away from us that will open the door for all sorts of abuse.
Even now, cash is slowly being “criminalized” in America. For example, if cash is used to pay for a hotel room that is considered by federal authorities to be “suspicious activity” that should be reported to the government. Of course it isn’t against the law to pay your hotel bill in cash just yet, but according to the government it is something that “terrorists” do, so it needs to be closely watched.
It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to see where all of this is going. And for those of us that understand what time it is, this is a clear indication that it is getting late in the game.
Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.
Last month, a “secret meeting” that involved more than 100 executives from some of the biggest financial institutions in the United States was held in New York City. During this “secret meeting“, a company known as “Chain” unveiled a technology that transforms U.S. dollars into “pure digital assets”. Reportedly, there were representatives from Nasdaq, Citigroup, Visa, Fidelity, Fiserv and Pfizer in the room, and Chain also claims to be partnering with Capital One, State Street, and First Data. This “revolutionary” technology is intended to completely change the way that we use money, and it would represent a major step toward a cashless society. But if this new digital cash system is going to be so good for society, why was it unveiled during a secret meeting for Wall Street bankers? Is there something more going on here than we are being told?
None of us probably would have ever heard about this secret meeting if it was not for a report in Bloomberg. The following comes from their article entitled “Inside the Secret Meeting Where Wall Street Tested Digital Cash“…
So it is not just Michael Snyder from The Economic Collapse Blog that is referring to this gathering as a “secret meeting”. This is actually how it was described by Bloomberg. And I think that there is a very good reason why this meeting was held in secret, because many in the general public would definitely be alarmed by this giant step toward a cashless society. Here is more on this new system from Bloomberg…On a recent Monday in April, more than 100 executives from some of the world’s largest financial institutions gathered for a private meeting at the Times Square office of Nasdaq Inc. They weren’t there to just talk about blockchain, the new technology some predict will transform finance, but to build and experiment with the software.
By the end of the day, they had seen something revolutionary: U.S. dollars transformed into pure digital assets, able to be used to execute and settle a trade instantly. That’s the promise of a blockchain, where the cumbersome and error-prone system that takes days to move money across town or around the world is replaced with almost instant certainty.
Why this is so alarming is because we are seeing other major moves toward a cashless system all over the planet. In Sweden, 95 percent of all retail transactions are already cashless, and ATM machines are being removed by the hundreds. In Denmark, government officials actually have a stated goal of “eradicating cash” by the year 2030. And in Norway, the biggest bank in the country has publicly called for the complete elimination of all cash.While cash in a bank account moves electronically all the time today, there’s a distinction between that system and what it means to say money is digital. Electronic payments are really just messages that cash needs to move from one account to another, and this reconciliation is what adds time to the payments process. For customers, moving money between accounts can take days as banks wait for confirmations. Digital dollars, however, are pre-loaded into a system like a blockchain. From there, they can be swapped immediately for an asset.
“Instead of a record or message being moved, it’s the actual asset,” Ludwin said. “The payment and the settlement become the same thing.”
Other nations in Europe have already banned cash transactions over a certain amount. Here are just a couple of examples…
The global push toward a cashless society is only going to intensify, because banks and governments both tend to really like the idea of such a system.As I have written about previously, cash transactions of more than 2,500 euros have already been banned in Spain, and France and Italy have both banned all cash transactions of more than 1,000 euros.
Little by little, cash is being eradicated, and what we have seen so far is just the beginning. 417 billion cashless transactions were conducted in 2014, and the final number for 2015 is projected to be much higher.
Banks really like the concept of a cashless society because it would force everyone to be their customers. There would be no more hiding cash in a mattress at home or trying to pay all of your bills with paper money. Under a cashless system, we would all be dependent on the banks, and they would make lots of money whenever we swiped our cards or our “chips” were scanned.
Governments see a lot of advantages in a cashless society as well. They tell us that they would be able to crack down on drug dealers, tax evaders, terrorists and money launderers, but the truth is that it would enable them to watch, track, monitor and control virtually all of our financial transactions. Our lives would become open books to the government, and financial privacy would be a thing of the past.
In addition, the potential for tyranny would be absolutely off the charts.
Just imagine a world where the government could serve as the gatekeeper for who is allowed to use the cashless system and who is not. They could require that we all submit to some sort of government-issued form of identification before being permitted to operate within the system, or it is even conceivable that a loyalty oath would be required.
Of course if you did not submit to their demands, you could not buy, sell, open a bank account or get a job without access to the cashless system.
Hopefully people can understand where this is going. Paper money is a very important component of our freedom, and if it is taken away from us that will open the door for all sorts of abuse.
Even now, cash is slowly being “criminalized” in America. For example, if cash is used to pay for a hotel room that is considered by federal authorities to be “suspicious activity” that should be reported to the government. Of course it isn’t against the law to pay your hotel bill in cash just yet, but according to the government it is something that “terrorists” do, so it needs to be closely watched.
It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to see where all of this is going. And for those of us that understand what time it is, this is a clear indication that it is getting late in the game.
Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
Published on May 10, 2016
It’s official. Total fraud is propping up every corner of the global economy. Former Bush Administration (41) Assistant Secretary of Housing, Catherine Austin Fitts says, “Here’s the problem with this situation, and it’s mind boggling. When you have an economy on a managed basis, and get this far away from a market economy, the problem is the primary trend in the dollar, bonds, stocks, and gold is . . . totally in question and can go either way. A lot of it is because you have a politically managed system and not a market economy. The more you politically manage it, the lower the productivity goes. So, it is really a house of cards. The money managers are looking at this, and they are very nervous and for good reason. A politically managed system is not as robust and healthy as one managed by market economics. . . . You have a failure of the political system to face and manage and deal with what is going on. . . . We have managed this system by being more and more and more secret.
George H. W. Bush said the other day that the American people can’t handle the truth. I think they can handle the truth, and one of the reasons I am encouraged by Trump is he is going to start bringing more of it out. That’s what we need. It’s the only way we can get out of this. We are being killed by a politically managed system that is being driven by more and more privilege and more and more secrecy. We’ve got to go to transparency, and it’s going to be a very painful process for the American people. It’s not going to be pretty. The game of musical chairs is upon us. It’s not coming, it’s here.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uItBw_2iOog
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
Peter Boockvar Warns "If Central Bankers Get Their Way, The Global Bond Market Will Blow Up"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/11/2016 - 16:30
"My fear is that central banks are now taking this too far through negative interest rates in particular and that they’re going to literally destroy their own banking systems. If they’re actually successful in generating higher inflation, then they’re going to destroy their own bond markets... our government officials, and I will include the Federal Reserve in that, have failed the American people."
Matterhorn Interview. We recommend a good listen below.
Transcript
Lars Schall: Howdy, ladies and gentlemen! On behalf of Matterhorn Asset Management I am now connected with Peter Boockvar, who is the Chief Market Analyst with The Lindsey Group, a macro economic and market research firm in Washington DC. – Mr. Boockvar, recently President Obama and Vice President Biden met with Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen. It was said that in the history of the United States, it has never before taken place that both the President and Vice President met “unexpectedly” with the Federal Reserve Chair. Now, what do you believe what this was all about?
Peter Boockvar: Well, I wish I was a fly on the wall listening to the conversations between them, but I have to say that I don’t think anything was too political in that. I couldn’t imagine, however I could be wrong, that Obama would say to Yellen, “Don’t mess this up for Hilary and don’t raise rates”, and I can’t imagine that Janet would say, “Okay, Barack, you got it”.
I want to believe that it was an update on the economy. I think that the White House is probably getting a little concerned that growth in the fourth quarter which printed only 1.4% is going to be followed by possibly growth in the first quarter of less than 0.5%. If you take those two quarters together, then you’re looking at something that’s close to flat line. The second quarter may not be looking much better and I don’t think those are the circumstances that Barack Obama wants to go out on. He doesn’t want to go out as a President that left his successor with a recession, and I have to believe that the White House is actually getting a bit worried about the state of the economy and the optics of it. That’s why he probably met with Yellen. Again, I don’t think there’s any quid pro quo on the direction of interest rates. I think that if the economy continues to muddle along at a slower and slower pace, Janet Yellen doesn’t need Barack Obama to tell her that she’s not going to be raising rates again any time soon.
LS: Yes, but last year, the Federal Reserve was optimistic that it could raise interest rates in a substantial way. This is now gone, this sentiment. Why so?
PB: Well, the Federal Reserve has been optimistic every year since the recession began, and every year their optimism has proven to be wrong because they’re using models that no longer work. They’re believing that altering the price of money lower in an already over-leveraged economy is somehow going to accelerate growth, and unfortunately haven’t learned that lesson. We can be sure that the Federal Reserve will persistently be overly optimistic in the benefits of their policy.
LS: Now, if the Federal Reserve proves as unable to raise the interest rates, this is also a problem for its credibility?
PB: I believe that credibility was somewhat shot a while ago but, yes, I think that any comparison that they will then get to Japan and their policy of the past 25 years would be terrible for their credibility. I think their credibility, like I said earlier, is shot and that keeping rates at zero for seven years is… I’m trying to think of the best word to say it, ridiculous way of running policy. So, yes, and if they can’t get out of the traps they put themselves in, that would definitely damage their credibility.
LS: What are your thoughts on the fact that more and more people at the Federal Reserve System are open to negative interest rates, at least they are talking about this?
PB: Yes, they see what’s gone on in Europe, they see what’s happened in Japan but, to me, any economist that thinks that negative interest rates is a good thing, I think needs to go back to school. Negative interest rates are essentially a tax on capital that somebody has to eat and I don’t think you expand the economic pie by taxing capital. So, any Federal Reserve Member in particular who believes that negative interest rates are somehow going to be effective, to me, that’s just anti-capitalist, it’s anti-free market, and I actually think that they’re not going to go there, to be honest.
LS: Okay, but talking about the Federal Reserve: Dartmouth College economics professor Andrew Levin—special adviser to Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen between 2010 and 2012 when they were Fed chairman and vice chairwoman—said not so long ago, inter alia: “A lot of people would be stunned to know” the extent to which the Federal Reserve is privately owned. The Fed “should be a fully public institution” and the 12 regional banks should become fully public entities, meaning they have to somehow eliminate or repurchase the stock they have issued to private member banks. He also proposed banning anyone affiliated with financial institutions overseen by the Fed from serving as a regional Fed director. (1) Does this sound reasonable to you?
PB: I think he’s overreacting. I mean, I think the problems with the Federal Reserve are much deeper than whether regional Fed institutions are more private based. The problem with the Fed is their manipulation and price fixing of interest rates. It’s not the internal logistical structure of these central banks. I think he’s missing the main problem of the Fed and whether these regional districts are under the Federal Reserve umbrella in being a “public institution” as opposed to having private influences. I think it is just a red herring.
LS: Does the United States and its people need the Federal Reserve actually, or do you think it is rather the case of the private banking system in and outside the United States needs this institution?
PB: Well, the institution in 1913 was created to really be the lender of last resort, and while I’m not for a government entity creating money, that’s for sure, if they would have just stuck to being a lender of last resort, I think that would’ve been, to me, a great limit on their authority. Of course, that has not happened. They’ve gone well above that authority that congress particularly gave them, particularly in the late 70’s when they wanted the Fed to be focused on maximum point and then price stability. To me, a most limited Federal Reserve would’ve been much more productive than turning them into above the law institution that they became.
LS: The next question that I have is the involvement of governments or central banks in the commodity markets because, as you know, the CME Group operates the major future markets in the United States. Its January 2014 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed that central banks and governments are being given volume trading discounts for trading all future contracts on the major exchanges in the United States, not just financial futures contracts – so this means they also can trade with commodities future contracts. (2) Moreover, the CME Group masters 10K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for 2013 disclosed that the CME Group’s customers include governments and central banks. (3) Now, let us put this in perspective to a certain statement given by former Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Kevin M. Warsh that he wrote for The Wall Street Journal in December 2011. In that essay Warsh said: “Policy makers are finding it tempting to pursue ‘financial repression’ — suppressing market prices that they don’t like.” (4) And so the question is, are central banks and/or governments players in the commodity markets?
PB: Well, I think the Fed plays in the markets that they’ve told us they play in, and that’s treasuries, mortgage backed securities, and I don’t believe that they’re somehow buying S&P futures, for example, or shorting the gold market because secrets like that don’t stay secrets. I happen to work for an ex-Federal Reserve Governor, and I don’t think that that was something that they’ve done or something that they currently do.
Now, with respect to other central banks, I would not be surprised if they did but I can’t say for sure. We can talk about conspiracy theories, no question, but I don’t even think the Federal Reserve would call another foreign central bank and says, “We need to support a market, please get involved”. I mean, we have to look at the fact that markets go up and they go down. Oil prices went to 100 then went back to 30. We had, in 2002, the stock market fell 50%. It fell another 50% in 2007 and 2008, and the central bank of the US, the Fed, they fought it tooth and nail.
So, while we want to think that they can certainly manipulate certain markets, well, we know the ones they’re directly manipulating and that works for a period of time, but I don’t necessarily think that they’re getting involved in these other markets because I think it would’ve been known and, again, I don’t think they can keep a secret. I don’t think anybody else in the institution would be able to keep a secret. So if it were to happen, I think it would’ve been known and if it did get out then their reputation would be completely in tatters. I don’t think that’s something they necessarily want to risk. With respect to what Kevin Warsh said, I think he was really more talking about the securities that the Fed is blatantly buying and a sense of what they’ve told us they’re buying rather than anything else.
LS: But talking about the stock that Western central banks have in gold, they can for sure conceal the leasing that they do with this gold bullion because they are not required to say, “This is what we have and this is what we leased out”.
PB: I guess it’s possible, particularly with the Fed owning 8,000 tons of gold that I guess it is possible but, again, keeping that a secret, I think, would be very difficult to do and until we see proof of it, it’s just pure speculation.
LS: Okay. But in the past, I’ve asked the US Treasury, respectively the Exchange Stabilization Fund, the Federal Reserve Board in Washington DC and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York if the Deutsche Bundesbank has gold swap arrangements with these entities, respectively if those entities have gold swap arrangements with the Bundesbank. All those entities that I’ve mentioned refused to answer time and again. (5) Moreover, at the end of March this year, the New York Fed President, William Dudley, refused to answer in public a question about whether the Federal Reserve is engaged in gold swaps with other central banks. (6) Why do you think they all don’t like this kind of question?
PB: Maybe because they haven’t yet fully disclosed it. It’s possible. And we know central banks have gone above and beyond what their chartered mandates are and maybe they believe that this is just another example that they would have to explain to everybody.
LS: But couldn’t they just simply lie and say, “We have nothing like this”, even if they would have?
PB: I guess it’s always possible but, again, I think that if they were caught lying, the damage done to the institution would be far and above any benefit that they would get from leasing out gold. To be honest, you listen to comments from Bernanke and other central banks, I honestly think that they’re clueless about what gold really is. If they’re clueless about what gold really is then how can I say that they’re out there trying to manipulate its price?
LS: Mr. Bernanke said something in the past that gold is something like a tradition.
PB: “We own it for tradition”, right. That was a response to a question from Ron Paul at a semi-annual testimony and I think that said it all about Bernanke’s knowledge and history of what gold is and always has been. In that case, listening to that, I don’t think he’s necessarily smart enough and up to speed enough on gold to then start manipulating its price.
LS: Now, talking a little bit about the nature and value of gold. We are in the middle of a debt crisis and interestingly enough the IMF said the gold bullion, the monetary component of gold that a central bank holds, is the only financial asset without counterparty risk. Does this make gold very attractive these days?
PB: Well, there’s no question because we know that there’s no counterparty risk with the physical metal if you own it and you store it, I think that is an important characteristic and positive case for owning gold, but at the end of the day, the most positive thing for owning gold is that it actually yields something relative to the $7 trillion of sovereign bonds that yield below zero. To me, that is the most important characteristic within the price of gold and will continue to be so.
LS: What are your thoughts on the German gold repatriation from New York and from London? What does this mean to you?
PB: I guess we can all speculate on the symbolism of it. Maybe it was just the Germans are more comfortable owning it on their soil rather than in the US. I don’t know if that’s for security purposes or just having it in their own back yard. Do I think that Germans are worried about not getting it back? If they wanted it, I don’t want to necessarily go that far, but I would think that if the Germans own a lot of gold, why aren’t they storing it themselves?
LS: Yes, and if you have it on your own soil, in your own possession, then it can actually have this quality as a financial asset without counterparty risk.
PB: Agreed. Now, it would be nice if the Bundesbank came out and said that instead of trying to hide why they wanted it back, but we can all assume that that’s probably the case.
LS: And then we see in Eurasia, the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation buying gold big time, for example, China and Russia. What do you think is the purpose to boost their gold holdings?
PB: Well, I think everyone is looking around and seeing what countries are doing to fiat currencies. Putin, for example, in Russia, I mean he knows owning a lot of gold is probably good for the Ruble, and the Chinese certainly see what their central bank is dealing with printing money, and they understand that there is a possibility they’ll want to weaken the Yuan and I think the Japanese now are buying more gold and the Europeans are buying more gold. I think people are not blind to the fact that central bankers are debasing and devaluing the worth of fiat currencies. They know that gold has been around for 5,000 years. It is a language that everyone speaks, and it is a currency that everyone accepts.
LS: What are your overall expectations for gold this year?
PB: Well, I’m of the belief that the bear market, at least in US dollar terms, that started in September 2011, and silvers bear market in dollar terms began in April 2011, that bear market is over. It was only in the context of a secular bull market that began in the early 2000’s. If I’m correct then these new highs which we will see in the next coming years will surpass the previous highs, and that’s around 50 bucks in silver, that’s 1,900-ish in gold, and I do expect those all to be taken out within the next couple of years.
What happens from now until the end of the year, I don’t know. I do think that prices continue to move higher, particularly if I’m right that the Fed is not going to raising interest rates any time soon, or likely at all through year-end and possibly not at all until the expansion after the next recession. There’ll be a bid under the precious metals and where the price goes by year, and I don’t know, but again in the coming years, they will most likely see their previous highs.
LS: Would you say that gold is underpriced compared to the bond markets and the equity markets?
PB: I think it’s underpriced relative to the traumatic expansion and the size of central bank balance sheets.
LS: The final topic that I would like to discuss with you are the so-called Panama Papers. At CNBC, the banking whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld said recently that the CIA is behind these Panama Papers. (7) At least this is his assumption. But there’s also another interesting conspiracy theory because at the Brookings Institute, which is one of the most influential think tanks in the world, they entertained the idea that the Panama Papers represent a Putin plot. (
What is your take?PB: Like I said earlier with central banks, it’s very hard to keep a secret. Just as Snowden did with the NSA and the Panama Papers release, in the days of digital documentation, social media and so forth, it’s very hard to keep a secret. Who wanted it to come out and who had a motive to get this knowledge out there? I don’t know, but it’s hard to keep a secret. So whether you’re the President of a major country or you’re a high net worth individual that wants to hide money, just understand that a lot of people are watching and it’s likely at some point they’re going to find out.
LS: Do you think that there would be some kind of incentive for the CIA to do such a thing?
PB: I think every intelligence agency probably around the world is sniffing around and trying to find every trail of money. If that’s what they happen to come across then I guess. The people that spend every day trying to follow the trails of money and it will take them wherever it’s going to take them, whether it’s the CIA or it’s intelligence agencies throughout Europe or Asia, they’re on the hunt.
LS: Yes, but I think the United States has the best infrastructure for that kind of thing, like for example…
PB: I don’t doubt that but I think… everyone’s spying on everyone. The governments.
LS: What are your biggest concerns these days when you take a look into the world and see its problems?
PB: My concerns are the response of central banks to what’s going on. Recession follows an expansion like night follows day, a bear market follows a bull market like night follows day, but the desire to suppress any cyclicality in economic growth and the desire for 2% inflation has literally wreaked havoc on global markets and global economies.
My fear is that central banks are now taking this too far through negative interest rates in particular and that they’re going to literally destroy their own banking systems. If they’re actually successful in generating higher inflation, then they’re going to destroy their own bond markets. So, Draghi, who publically comes out and says, “I want inflation as quickly as possible”. That’s what he says, “as quickly as possible”, but what does he think is going to happen to the German 10-year bond which is yielding 16 basis points? What does he think is going to happen to that bond if he gets inflation as quickly as possible? There is an epic global bond market that central bankers, if they get what they want, will then blow up. That’s what I am most worried about.
LS: Yes. There’s one more thing that I would like to ask you about. The world watches thoroughly the US these days because you have an election year. Do you think that this election will become the most interesting since decades?
PB: Yes, I think there’s no question just because it’s so non-conventional in the sense of it reflecting a lot of the anger that people have that Bernie Sanders has done as well as he has on the Democratic side, and how Trump has done so well on the Republican side. It’s a reflection of a lot of anger in the American populous. On the Republican side they have a contested convention which we seem to be moving towards. That’s a rare thing and I think that this is somewhat unprecedented in that it’s not something that the country is used to.
LS: Yes. Do you think the anger is justified?
PB: I do. I think our government officials, and I will include the Federal Reserve in that, have failed the American people.
LS: Okay, thank you very much for this interview.
PB: Okay, thank you.
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Pris- Posts : 1887
Join date : 2015-04-24
Carol wrote:"The global push toward a cashless society is only going to intensify, because banks and governments both tend to really like the idea of such a system.
Banks really like the concept of a cashless society because it would force everyone to be their customers. There would be no more hiding cash in a mattress at home or trying to pay all of your bills with paper money. Under a cashless system, we would all be dependent on the banks, and they would make lots of money whenever we swiped our cards or our “chips” were scanned.
Governments see a lot of advantages in a cashless society as well. They tell us that they would be able to crack down on drug dealers, tax evaders, terrorists and money launderers, but the truth is that it would enable them to watch, track, monitor and control virtually all of our financial transactions. Our lives would become open books to the government, and financial privacy would be a thing of the past.
In addition, the potential for tyranny would be absolutely off the charts.
Just imagine a world where the government could serve as the gatekeeper for who is allowed to use the cashless system and who is not. They could require that we all submit to some sort of government-issued form of identification before being permitted to operate within the system, or it is even conceivable that a loyalty oath would be required.
Of course if you did not submit to their demands, you could not buy, sell, open a bank account or get a job without access to the cashless system.
Hopefully people can understand where this is going. Paper money is a very important component of our freedom, and if it is taken away from us that will open the door for all sorts of abuse.
Even now, cash is slowly being “criminalized” in America. For example, if cash is used to pay for a hotel room that is considered by federal authorities to be “suspicious activity” that should be reported to the government. Of course it isn’t against the law to pay your hotel bill in cash just yet, but according to the government it is something that “terrorists” do, so it needs to be closely watched.
It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to see where all of this is going. And for those of us that understand what time it is, this is a clear indication that it is getting late in the game."
Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.
.
.
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
Central Banks And The Rise Of Extremism
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/11/2016 - 19:30
Perhaps the world will have to wait it out to finally be graced with leaders who are willing to stand by their convictions and make hard, maybe even unpopular, choices. Such leaders might have to risk sacrificing everything political to be crowned the next true champions of conviction, giving us all a shot at a once again storied fate. Where does that leave us? Apparently angry. Very, very angry.
Ahamed’s book also recalls a time when the world suffered from a leadership vacuum. It is this parallel in particular that, combined with today’s equally myopic monetary philosophy, makes one shudder to contemplate what the future holds. If there was one takeaway from traveling abroad, it was that the anger emanating from the U.S. populace is matched and then some overseas.
It is no longer as simple as squabbling about Greek debt or fretting over the possibility of a Brexit. The very fate of the euro hangs in the balance as the migrant crisis bleeds into economies and feeds nationalistic leanings. Look no further than Germany itself and its announcement that it would begin to rebuild its armed forces for the first time since the Cold War. The acknowledgement that conflicts will rise, not fall, is in and of itself a validation of the growing menace of extremism.
It is increasingly a simpler task to tally the countries within the Eurozone that are not expressing their outrage at the deteriorating landscape. The ouster of Turkey’s prime minister greatly decreases the probability that a controversial deal the EU struck with the Turks will reduce terrorism in that country. Hungary’s parliament has voted to hold a referendum challenging the EU’s migrant redistribution quotas. Meanwhile, voters in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and even France are backing anti-immigration efforts in one shape or another.
Of course, the migrant crisis is a relatively new phenomenon to these countries, but one country, Italy, has struggled and been entrenched in this crisis for the better part of a generation. And, while all eyes may now be on Great Britain and its upcoming vote, some suggest that Italy’s September constitutional referendum poses the greater near term threat. The hypothetical dominoes could line up as such: Prime Minister Matteo Renzi quits in protest to the referendum failing and Mario Draghi comes to the rescue of his embattled country, leaving his post at the ECB before his term ends in 2019. Germany easily gathers the necessary consensus to replace Draghi with a hawk from its own country who then reestablishes monetary order.
If this scenario seems far-fetched, consider the tie that binds the yesteryear of the 1920s to today; that is, debt. According to figures compiled by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), public debt as a percentage of global gross domestic product (GDP) reached its nadir in 1914, at 23 percent. The onset of World War I would alter that landscape for generations to come. Global debt peaked at nearly 150 percent in 1946 following the Great Depression and World War II.
By all appearances, the global economy has come full circle, without the World War part, that is. In a March 2011 report, the IMF made the following observation as the world crawled its way out of the darkest moments of the financial crisis:
How sweet it would be to report that since 2007 the tide of debt has turned. But, instead, an early 2015 McKinsey report documented that global debt had ballooned with none of the world’s major economies taking positive steps towards reducing their debt levels. Such is the disastrous bent of modern day central banking thinking, and its belief that the only way to alleviate the problem of over-indebtedness is with ever increasing debt.
“While the impact on growth of the recent crisis is less dramatic than that of the Great Depression, the implications for public debt appear to be graver. That’s because the advanced economies were weaker at the outset of the current episode – with debt ratios 20 percentage points of GDP higher in G-20 economies in 2007 than in 1928. In addition, the sharp drop in revenues (due to the collapse in economic activity, asset prices and financial sector profits) and the cost of providing stimulus and financial sector support hit debt ratios harder during the recent crisis than during the Depression.”
In all, according to McKinsey’s math, global debt increased by $57 trillion in the seven years ending 2014. The gold medal winners among creditors were the sovereigns: at 9.3-percent growth, government debt swelled to $58 trillion from a starting point of $33 trillion. Corporations came in second place with their debt levels rising by 5.9 percent to $56 trillion from $38 trillion. The onus was clearly on these two competitors to offset the relatively weaker growth of financial and household debt which was no doubt dragged down by the collapse in U.S. mortgage availability and the recapitalization of (some) lenders.
Where does that leave us? Apparently angry. Very, very angry.
Refer back to the IMF’s warning about the critical importance of the starting point for indebted countries’ economies. Then flash forward to the reality that the world economy today is that much more indebted. As for its economies, they are on ever weaker footing.
Maybe the anger stems from the injustice of it all, and the knowledge that future growth has been sacrificed for little more than yet another run for a place in the history books of rampant speculative fervors. Though the average man on the street might not be able to put their finger on it, they do know it’s impossible to put food on the table with the ethereal proceeds from a share buyback that does nothing more than prop up a stock price.
As The Credit Strategist’s Michael Lewitt recently noted, “Debt drains away vital resources from economic growth. Fighting a debt crisis with more debt is doomed to failure, yet that is not only what global central banks did during the crisis but long after markets stabilized (though the crisis never truly ended, just slowed). This was an epic policy failure that continues today.”
Read more: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-11/central-banks-and-rise-extremism
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
US Senator Shocked - "Are Americans OK With White House Propaganda?"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/11/2016
"Washington is in the process of replacing self-evident truths with self-serving spin. This is dangerous...For no one is entitled to his or her own facts - yet this New York Times story makes clear that the executive branch feels empowered to proclaim its own narratives."
Authored by Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, originally posted at DailySignal.com,
The New York Times Magazine recently profiled President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, in an article titled “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru.”
In it Rhodes openly brags about how the administration manipulated the media in the run-up to Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. I want to explain very briefly why I believe this piece is so important.
We live in a time of precipitous change - both in American government and in communications. We don’t admit it enough in the Senate, but the Congress in the last decade-plus is extraordinarily weak by historical standards. At the same time, media is rapidly fragmenting.
Vacuums are being filled by the executive branch in ways that are badly damaging both the separation of powers and the idea of a meaningfully engaged citizenry. There can be little doubt that our founders would be troubled by what is occurring.
Washington is in the process of replacing self-evident truths with self-serving spin. This is dangerous.
For no one is entitled to his or her own facts - yet this New York Times story makes clear that the executive branch feels empowered to proclaim its own narratives.
This is bigger than Republicans and Democrats. This is about the legislature’s check on the executive.
To my Democratic colleagues who supported this deal, I would ask: Does it at all trouble you that the White House displayed this contempt for you? And for your voters, and for my voters? Will you stand for this kind of fundamentally dishonest spin from a future Republican administration? Because I won’t—from any administration of either party.
Some will say this is just the story of one staffer who wanted to brag, who boasted about how the world could be his canvas. But we should be clear that it is elected officials that ultimately bear the responsibility for the ongoing evaporation of public trust in our time.
I want to underscore: This isn’t about whether you share Obama’s view that the Iranian nuclear deal was a prudent move, or my view that it is a disaster. Instead, this story is about whether or not we take truth seriously—whether or not we care about the public trust.
There is a widespread view around here that Congress’ chief job is “to pass legislation.” That is incorrect. Our main job—indeed the oath that we took—is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution—which is about limited government and about the separation of powers. Our job is to ensure that the nation is well-governed, and that the public can have confidence that it is well-governed.
This necessarily means that oversight is at least as important as passing or repealing legislation.
This story of the White House’s media manipulation is horrific and should be should be a screaming siren to us.
Read more: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-11/us-senator-shocked-are-americans-ok-white-house-propaganda
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
Deustche Bank Brokers Jailed After "Prolonged, Persistent Bad Behavior" In Biggest Insider Trading Bust Ever
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/12/2016
Two former Deutsche Bank corporate brokers have been sentenced to one of the longest prison terms possible for the crime of insider trading in the UK. As US financial market participants walk free in the streets managing their own "home office" money, Martyn Dodgson and Andrew Hind will be rotting in a Wandsworth prison cell (among the worst reputed of England's prisons) for up to four and half years for what the judge called "persistent, prolonged and deliberately dishonest behavior." As Bloomberg reports, the group, including three other defendants, formed part of the FCA’s biggest insider-trading investigation dubbed Operation Tabernula.
The FCA accused Dodgson and Harrison of passing inside information on possible deals from their jobs between 2006 and 2010 to Hind who the agency claimed gave them to Parvizi and Anderson to trade on. All of the men denied the charge. But as Bloomberg reports, the sentences are among the longest handed down in an FCA insider-dealing case...
The City regulator heralded the case as proof it can hold rule-breakers to account...
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/12/2016
Two former Deutsche Bank corporate brokers have been sentenced to one of the longest prison terms possible for the crime of insider trading in the UK. As US financial market participants walk free in the streets managing their own "home office" money, Martyn Dodgson and Andrew Hind will be rotting in a Wandsworth prison cell (among the worst reputed of England's prisons) for up to four and half years for what the judge called "persistent, prolonged and deliberately dishonest behavior." As Bloomberg reports, the group, including three other defendants, formed part of the FCA’s biggest insider-trading investigation dubbed Operation Tabernula.
The FCA accused Dodgson and Harrison of passing inside information on possible deals from their jobs between 2006 and 2010 to Hind who the agency claimed gave them to Parvizi and Anderson to trade on. All of the men denied the charge. But as Bloomberg reports, the sentences are among the longest handed down in an FCA insider-dealing case...
Finally, we note that, Dodgson and Hind will probably start their sentences in HM Prison Wandsworth, a Victorian jail south of the Thames known for its poor conditions and violent residents.
Martyn Dodgson, 44, was sentenced Thursday in London (to 4 1/2 years in jail) alongside friend and accountant Andrew Hind, who was given a 3 1/2 year prison term for the same offense. The men were found guilty of insider dealing on Monday after a four-month trial.
“This was persistent, prolonged and deliberately dishonest behavior,” Judge Jeffrey Pegden said when handing down the sentence. Dodgson showed a “gross breach of trust.”
The sentences were another victory for the Financial Conduct Authority, which has won 30 convictions for insider trading since it started prosecuting the crime less than a decade ago. The success comes as U.S. prosecutors are struggling with a court ruling that limits their ability to tackle the offense.
Three other defendants in the case, former Panmure Gordon & Co. corporate broker Andrew "Grant" Harrison and day traders Benjamin Anderson and Iraj Parvizi, were acquitted. They also used nicknames including Fatty, Nobu and Fruit in an effort to disguise their identities.
The group formed part of the FCA’s biggest insider-trading investigation dubbed Operation Tabernula. The FCA already secured three other convictions in relation to the probe.
The sentences are among the longest handed down in an FCA insider-dealing case. Former Moore Capital Management LLC trader Julian Rifat, another target in Tabernula, received a 19-month prison sentence last year after pleading guilty.
The City regulator heralded the case as proof it can hold rule-breakers to account...
“This was an extraordinary and complex case of a type not prosecuted in this country before,” said enforcement boss Mark Steward. “The message is loud and clear, that the FCA will not tolerate sophisticated predatory criminals abusing our markets. This case demonstrates our capability and determination to root out this kind of abuse and ensure our market and the investing public are properly protected.
“Dodgson was an experienced and well-paid banker, well aware that what he was doing constituted a criminal offence and who conspired with Hind to abuse our market and to profit at the expense of the investing public.
“The FCA is committed to detecting this kind of abuse and make the perpetrators fully accountable in accordance with the law.”
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol
Carol- Admin
- Posts : 32911
Join date : 2010-04-07
Location : Hawaii
_________________
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
With deepest respect ~ Aloha & Mahalo, Carol