Dec 172018
 
 December 17, 2018  Posted by at 10:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Arnold Böcklin The Isle of Life 1888

 

Market Meltdown Could Spark Conditions ‘Worse Than 1929’- Ron Paul (CNBC)
For The First Month Since 2008, Not A Single Junk Bond Prices (ZH)
Starvation, Homelessness And More REAL Problems Pushed Aside By Brexit (Mi.)
Average UK Home Asking Price Dips £10,000 From October (G.)
No 10 Denies Making Plans For Second Brexit Referendum (G.)
May To Urge MPs Not To ‘Break Faith’ By Demanding People’s Vote (G.)
Saudi Arabia Rejects US Senate ‘Interference’ In Kingdom’s Affairs (AFP)
Turkey FM Says Saudis ‘Didn’t Share Anything’ On Khashoggi Murder (CNBC)
Turkey FM: Washington Is ‘Working On’ Gulen Extradition (CNBC)
US Ready To Fight To Last Brit (Garrison)
Trump Will Sit Down With Mueller ‘Over My Dead Body’ – Giuliani (Ind.)
FBI, CIA Told WaPo They Doubted Key Allegation In Steele Dossier (ZH)
Guardian Most Trusted Newspaper In Britain – Report (G.)

 

 

We’re just waiting for leveraged loans to go Poof.

Market Meltdown Could Spark Conditions ‘Worse Than 1929’- Ron Paul (CNBC)

Ron Paul is warning this year’s corrections could be a precursor to an epic market collapse that may come sooner than investors think. According to the former Republican presidential candidate, Wall Street is becoming more vulnerable to near-depression conditions within the next 12 months. “Once this volatility shows that we’re not going to resume the bull market, then people are going to rush for the exits,” Paul said Thursday on CNBC’s “Futures Now.” The relentlessly bearish former congressman added that “It could be worse than 1929.” During that year, the stock market began hemorrhaging, falling almost 90 percent and sending the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

Paul, a well-known Libertarian, has been warning Wall Street a massive market plunge is inevitable for years. He’s currently projecting a 50 percent decline from current levels as his base case, citing the ongoing U.S.-China trade war as a growing risk factor. “I’m not optimistic that all of the sudden, you’re going to eliminate the tariff problem. I think that’s here to stay,” he said. “Tariffs are taxes.” The scenario is exacerbating Paul’s chief reason behind his bearish call: 2008 financial crisis easy money policies. He contended the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing has caused the “biggest bubble in the history of mankind.” “It’s so important to understand the original cause of the problem, and that is the Federal Reserve running up debt and letting politicians spend money,” he added.

Read more …

Damn vigilantes!

For The First Month Since 2008, Not A Single Junk Bond Prices (ZH)

Late last week, we reported that in the aftermath of a dramatic drop in loan prices, a record outflow from loan funds, and a general collapse in investor sentiment that was euphoric as recently as the start of October, the wheels had come off the loan market which was on the verge of freezing after we got the first hung bridge loan in years, after Wells Fargo and Barclays took the rare step of keeping a $415 million leveraged loan on their books after failing to sell it to investors. The two banks now “plan” to wait until January – i.e., hope that yield chasing desperation returns – to offload the loan they made to help finance Blackstone’s buyout of Ulterra Drilling Technologies, a company that makes bits for oil and gas drilling.

The reason the banks were stuck with hundreds of millions in unwanted paper is because they had agreed to finance the bridge loan whether or not there was enough demand from investors, as the acquisition needed to close by the end of the year. The delayed transaction means the banks will have to bear the risk of the price of the loans falling further, as well as costs associated with holding loans on their books. The pulled Ulterra deal wasn’t alone. As we reported previously, in Europe the market appears to have already locked up, as three loans were scrapped over the last two weeks. To wit, movie theater chain Vue International withdrew a 833 million pound-equivalent ($1.07 billion) loan sale.

While the deal was meant to mostly refinance existing debt, around 100 million pounds was underwritten to finance the company’s acquisition of German group CineStar. More deals were pulled the prior week when diversified manufacturer Jason Inc. became at least the fourth issuer to scrap a U.S. leveraged loan. Additionally, Perimeter Solutions also pulled its repricing attempt, Ta Chen International scrapped a $250MM term loan set to finance the company’s purchase of a rolling mill, and Algoma Steel withdrew its $300m exit financing. Global University System in November also dropped its dollar repricing.

[..] the FT picks up on the fact that the junk bond market – whether in loans or bonds – has frozen up, and reported that US credit markets have “ground to a halt” with fund managers refusing to fund buyouts and investors shunning high-yield bond sales as rising interest rates and market volatility weigh on sentiment (ironically it is the rising rates that assure lower rates as financial conditions tighten and the Fed is forced to resume easing in the coming year, that has been a major hurdle to floating-rate loan demand as the same higher rates that pushed demand for paper to all time highs are set to reverse). Meanwhile, things are even worse in the bond market, where not a single company has borrowed money through the $1.2tn US high-yield corporate bond market this month according to the FT. If that freeze continues until the end of the month, it would be the first month since November 2008 that not a single high-yield bond priced in the market

Read more …

“About a third of all kids are in “Dickensian” poverty.”

Starvation, Homelessness And More REAL Problems Pushed Aside By Brexit (Mi.)

I watched the ultimate damp squib -my friend’s mum says squid but I m pretty sure it’s squib- as it unfolded on Wednesday night. Theresa May had it confirmed that only 117 of her own MPs hate her. So, on she limps. She said she was going anyway but won’t say when -maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of our lives. In the process she revealed what this is really all about. Brexit must be delivered at all costs and it must be HER that does it. If not, she slinks off into the night with a legacy that adds up to nothing.

I watched it in one of the House of Commons bars with a friend of mine from Scotland. Good bloke. Hibs fan.And as we watched the ‘drama’ unfold we were talking about the real problems in the country. His mate helps direct people to foodbanks in Scotland. In one afternoon they saw five families, hungry and without food, seek help. Five different families. A mixture of out-of-work and in-work poverty. And across these five families there were 27 children. That is, in 2018, in Britain, 27 children going to bed hungry each night. It gets, as you can imagine, worse. One of the kids couldn’t go to school. Not through illness, mercifully, but because he didn’t have any shoes. One of the mums hadn’t eaten for three days. Three days without food. Starving so she could feed her kids.

There are lots more stories like this, about 4.1 million, in fact. About a third of all kids are in “Dickensian” poverty. In Britain, in the winter, in 2018. About 1.9 million pensioners live the same way. Last winter 94 people died on Scotland’s streets. Universal Credit has hit so hard some are turning to prostitution, others are eating out of bins. What happened this week is not going to make any of that better. Look at Scotland. Everything is viewed through the prism of independence and talk of a “second independence referendum”. That is the central aim of the Scottish National Party, so you can’t blame them for concentrating on it. But what it means is that, in the real world, people suffer. [..] here’s the thing about parliamentary sovereignty, and backstops, and Brexit, and independence, and the future of the Union: You can’t eat them.

Read more …

Only fools would buy homes in the UK right now. But yeah, there are lots of those over there.

Average UK Home Asking Price Dips £10,000 From October (G.)

Asking prices for homes coming on to the market in the UK are nearly £10,000 lower than they were in October, as the property market headed for its worst annual performance in almost a decade. The average asking price of a UK home dipped by 3.2%, or £9,719, between October and December to £297,527, according to the property website Rightmove, with prices dipping 1.7% and 1.5% in November and December respectively. A softening of prices at the end of 2018 meant that asking prices rose by just 0.7% over the year as a whole, the weakest rate of growth since 2010. The traditional hotspots of London and south-east England became the weakest spots this year, recording the biggest annual falls in asking prices.

This followed a 1% rise in UK asking prices in 2017. Rightmove is predicting zero growth in UK prices in 2019, against a backdrop of stretched affordability and Brexit uncertainty. The property market is a cornerstone of the British economy and drives a large proportion of consumer spending, from DIY to carpets and furniture. But with buyers and sellers reluctant to pay the current market prices, especially in the east and south of England where prices have rocketed in recent years, analysts expect the difficult conditions to radiate out from the property market to other areas of spending. And while a slowdown in prices will be welcomed by younger buyers and those on lower incomes, any falls in values are expected to add the pressure on MPs to agree a Brexit deal.

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That can’t NOT do it.

No 10 Denies Making Plans For Second Brexit Referendum (G.)

Theresa May will summon EU27 ambassadors to No 10 this week as she continues to seek reassurances over the Irish backstop, with Downing Street vehemently denying drawing up contingency plans for a second referendum. The education secretary, Damian Hinds, said on Sunday: “Government policy couldn’t be clearer. We are here to act on the will of the people clearly expressed in the referendum.” He added: “A second referendum would be divisive. We had the people’s vote, we had the referendum, and now we’ve got to get on with implementing it. Any idea that having a second referendum now would break through an impasse is wrong. It might postpone the impasse, but then it would extend it.”

May attacked the former Labour prime minister Tony Blair this weekend for advocating a second vote, saying: “There are too many people who want to subvert the process for their own political interests rather than acting in the national interest. “For Tony Blair to go to Brussels and seek to undermine our negotiations by advocating for a second referendum is an insult to the office he once held and the people he once served.” The prime minister appears determined to pursue her strategy of seeking legal guarantees on the backstop and then putting her deal to MPs after Christmas. She is sending the government’s most senior legal officer, Jonathan Jones, to Brussels this week.

Read more …

As millions of her people starve, May focuses on her legacy.

May To Urge MPs Not To ‘Break Faith’ By Demanding People’s Vote (G.)

Theresa May will urge MPs on Monday not to “break faith with the British people” by demanding a second referendum, as she faces intense pressure to give parliament a say on Brexit before Christmas. The prime minister will make a statement to MPs on last week’s European council summit in Brussels, from which she returned with little evidence of progress in securing legal reassurances on the Irish backstop. Jeremy Corbyn will take the opportunity to call on her to hold a vote on her Brexit deal this week, and senior Labour figures refuse to rule out an imminent no-confidence motion if she fails to do so. May, however, will use her appearance at the dispatch box to strongly reject the idea of a second referendum after Downing Street was forced to deny reports on Sunday that some of her key aides were secretly considering the idea.

“Let us not break faith with the British people by trying to stage another referendum,” the prime minister will tell MPs. “Another vote which would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics, because it would say to millions who trusted in democracy, that our democracy does not deliver. Another vote which would likely leave us no further forward than the last.” Her message is aimed partly at Conservative MPs, and some ministers, who have become increasingly convinced that a referendum is the only way out of the impasse at Westminster after the prime minister abruptly pulled plans for a vote on her deal last week. She also faces growing demands from within cabinet to present MPs with alternatives in non-binding indicative votes that might help to find options that could command a majority.

[..] May’s reluctance to hold a second referendum put her in rare agreement with her former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. In his column in Monday’s Telegraph, he said the public would be “utterly infuriated” if Britain were to be put through the “misery and expense” of another referendum. However, the former Labour foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said: “It is highly significant that Downing Street felt it had to issue these advance extracts of Theresa May’s statement to the House of Commons on Sunday night, because officials know the prospect of a people’s vote is being discussed, not just in Westminster, but in the corridors of Whitehall, too. “The case for the public being given the final say is becoming so overwhelming that people from all parties, and of none, now recognise that this is the best way forward for our country.”

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They’re only too happy when the interference benefits them., as it has for many decades.

Saudi Arabia Rejects US Senate ‘Interference’ In Kingdom’s Affairs (AFP)

Saudi Arabia has rejected as “interference” a US Senate resolution to end American military support for a Riyadh-led war in Yemen, and another holding its crown prince responsible for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rejects the position expressed recently by the United States Senate, which was based upon unsubstantiated claims and allegations, and contained blatant interferences in the Kingdom’s internal affairs, undermining the Kingdom’s regional and international role,” the statement carried by Saudi Press Agency on Sunday said.

“The Kingdom hopes that it is not drawn into domestic political debates in the United States of America, to avoid any ramifications on the ties between the two countries that could have significant negative impacts on this important strategic relationship.” On Thursday, the US Senate passed a resolution calling for an end to American military support to the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemen war, and asserted Congress’s right to decide on matters of war and peace. The measure, which passed by 56 votes to 41, marked the first time the Senate had invoked the 1973 War Powers Resolution to seek to curb the power of the president to take the US into an armed conflict. It marked a significant bipartisan rebuke to the Trump administration, which lobbied intensively against it.

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Maybe the US Senate can ask where the body is.

Turkey FM Says Saudis ‘Didn’t Share Anything’ On Khashoggi Murder (CNBC)

Turkey still hasn’t received actionable information on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, its foreign minster Mevlut Cavusoglu told CNBC Sunday. “So far we haven’t been provided any information from the ongoing investigation in Saudi Arabia. Their chief prosecutor got everything from us, he didn’t share anything with us. We want a transparent, credible, swift investigation on Saudi side as well,” Cavusoglu told the network’s Hadley Gamble at the annual Doha Forum in Qatar. The minister has previously vowed to get to the bottom of the case and hold those responsible to account. [..] Among the many questions remaining unanswered is that of the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains.

“We don’t know where the body is,” the minister said. “This is the main question – we need to find out. They said they had local collaborators; they haven’t provided the names of collaborators.” [..] Meanwhile, Cavusoglu said Saudi officials have listened to tapes of Khashoggi’s murder, contradicting earlier statements by Saudi foreign minister Adel al Jubeir that the Saudis had not heard them. [..] “You can hear very clearly that they planned in advance to kill him,” Cavusoglu said, reminding the audience that a forensic expert had been brought into the consulate to cut Khashoggi’s body apart. “From the beginning we’ve been willing to cooperate with Saudi Arabia as well, since all these perpetrators came from Saudi Arabia and now they are arrested there and we accepted immediately the proposal coming from them for cooperation with our prosecutors.”

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If true, that would be a really bad thing.

Turkey FM: Washington Is ‘Working On’ Gulen Extradition (CNBC)

Ankara and Washington have discussed the extradition of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen from the United States, Turkey’s foreign minister told CNBC Sunday. Turkey’s government has demanded Gulen’s return since the failed Turkish coup of 2016, which it accuses the cleric of orchestrating. “Last time when they met in Buenos Aires, Trump told Erdogan that they have been working on that, but we need to see concrete steps because it’s been already two years, almost three years,” Mevlut Cavusoglu told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the Doha Forum on Sunday. A former ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Gulen has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. for nearly 20 years.

He denies any involvement in the coup attempt, which saw rogue Turkish military personnel commandeer helicopters, jets and tanks, attack parliament and seize television stations. Political analysts suspected Trump might use Gulen as a bargaining chip in exchange for Turkish compliance in the scandal of Jamal Khashoggi. [..] But Trump told press last month that he was not considering extraditing the preacher to meet those ends.

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Ann Garrison interviews George Szamuely, a Hungarian-born scholar and Senior Research Fellow at London’s Global Policy Institute.

US Ready To Fight To Last Brit (Garrison)

GS: Well, of course Ukraine can ask for anything it likes. There’s no way in the world Turkey would try to stop Russian ships going through the Bosporus Strait. That would be a violation of the 1936 Montreux Convention and an act of war on the part of Turkey. It isn’t going to happen. As for the Kerch Strait, it is Russian territorial water. Ukraine is free to use it and has been doing so without incident since 2014. The only thing the Russians insist on is that any ship going through the strait use a Russian pilot. During the recent incident, the Ukrainian tug refused to use a Russian pilot. The Russians became suspicious, fearing that the Ukrainians were engaged in a sabotage mission to blow up the newly constructed bridge across the strait. You’ll remember that an American columnist not so long ago urged the Ukrainian authorities to blow up the bridge. That’s why the Russians accuse Kiev of staging a provocation.

AG: There’s a longstanding back channel between the White House and the Kremlin, as satirized in Dr. Strangelove. Anti-Trump fanatics keep claiming this is new and traitorous, but it’s long established. Obama and Putin used it to keep Russian and US soldiers from firing on one another instead of the jihadists both claimed to be fighting in Syria. Kennedy and Khrushchev used it to keep the Bay of Pigs crisis from escalating into a nuclear war. Shouldn’t Trump and Putin be talking on that back channel now, no matter how much it upsets CNN and MSNBC?

GS: Well, of course, they should. The danger is that in this atmosphere of anti-Russian hysteria such channels for dialogue may not be kept open. As a result, crises could escalate beyond the point at which either side could back down without losing face. What’s terrifying is that so many US politicians and press now describe any kind of negotiation, dialogue, or threat-management as treasonous collusion by Donald Trump.

Remember Trump’s first bombing in Syria in April 2017. Before he launched that attack, Trump administration officials gave advance warning to the Russians to enable them to get any Russian aircraft out of harm’s way. This perfectly sensible action on the part of the administration—leave aside the illegality and stupidity of the attack—was greeted by Hillary Clinton and the MSNBC crowd as evidence that the whole operation was cooked up by Trump and Putin to take attention off Russia-gate. It’s nuts.

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Why would there be a sit down with so much water under the bridge? What are the odds that Mueller would be impartial?

Trump Will Sit Down With Mueller ‘Over My Dead Body’ – Giuliani (Ind.)

Donald Trump will sit and talk to special counsel Robert Mueller “over my dead body”, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani has said, in the latest pushback against the investigation into possible collusion between the president’s election campaign and Moscow. As Mr Trump called his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen “a rat” for cooperating with the FBI, Mr Giuliani made clear Mr Mueller would not be offered an interview with the president. Mr Trump recently provided Mr Mueller’s team written answers to a series of questions, but on Friday CNN said the special prosecutor was still interested in an in-person interview. “Nothing has changed in that sense from the first day,” said a source.

Mr Giuliani, the former New York mayor who now serves as the president’s personal lawyer, on Sunday again firmly pushed back at such a notion. Asked on Fox News whether Mr Trump would take part in an interview, Mr Giuliani said: “Yeah, good luck, good luck – after what they did to [Michael] Flynn, the way they trapped him into perjury, and no sentence for him.” He added: “Over my dead body. But you know, I could be dead.” Mr Giuliani also attacked Mr Mueller’s investigation, saying the probe was a “joke”. “I am disgusted with the tactics they have used in this case,” he said. “What they did to Gen Flynn should result in discipline. They’re the ones who violated the law. They’re looking at a non-crime, collusion.”

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And WaPo declined to follow up on it. That’s American media for you.

FBI, CIA Told WaPo They Doubted Key Allegation In Steele Dossier (ZH)

FBI and CIA sources told a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter that they didn’t believe a key claim contained in the “Steele Dossier,” the document the Obama FBI relied on to obtain a surveillance warrant on a member of the Trump campaign. The Post’s Greg Miller told an audience at an October event that the FBI and CIA did not believe that former longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 election to pay off Russia-linked hackers who stole emails from key Democrats, reports the Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross. “We’ve talked to sources at the FBI and the CIA and elsewhere — they don’t believe that ever happened,” said Miller during the October event which aired Saturday on C-SPAN.

“We literally spent weeks and months trying to run down… there’s an assertion in there that Michael Cohen went to Prague to settle payments that were needed at the end of the campaign. We sent reporters to every hotel in Prague, to all over the place trying to – just to try to figure out if he was ever there, and came away empty.” -Greg Miller. Ross notes that WaPo somehow failed to report this information, nor did Miller include this tidbit of narrative-killing information in his recent book, “The Apprentice: Trump, Russia, and the Subversion of American Democracy.”

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Britian is as bad as the US.

Not the Onion, not April 1.

Guardian still hasn’t apologized for making up the Manafort-Assange story from scratch.

Guardian Most Trusted Newspaper In Britain – Report (G.)

The Guardian is the most trusted newspaper in Britain as well as being the most read quality news outlet, and the most popular quality news outlet among younger readers, according to industry figures released on Monday. The Guardian is now reaching more than 23 million British adults every month, with the organisation’s articles being read by 12 million Britons in a typical week and 4.1 million on the average day, aided by the decision to keep the website free for all readers. In addition, more than 97% of online readers think that reading the Guardian is time well spent, which is the highest score among all national publishers in the country. The figure rises to 99% among Guardian print readers.

Readers of the Guardian website were also substantially more likely to say that they felt a close connection to the outlet, that it offered them something they could not get elsewhere, and that they trusted its reporting. The Observer topped the equivalent rankings for Sunday newspapers. “This fantastic set of results demonstrates the Guardian’s unique position in the media,” said the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. “We see consistently high scores for trust and engagement from both our digital and print readers, and it is excellent news that the Guardian resonates so strongly with younger audiences, too.”

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Home Forums Debt Rattle December 17 2018

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  • #44394

    Arnold Böcklin The Isle of Life 1888   • Market Meltdown Could Spark Conditions ‘Worse Than 1929’- Ron Paul (CNBC) • For The First Month Since 20
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle December 17 2018]

    #44395
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Arnold Böcklin The Isle of Life 1888
    Pretty good, but I much prefer his Isle of the Dead; which also has an interesting back story.

    “About a third of all kids are in “Dickensian” poverty.”
    As millions of her people starve, May focuses on her legacy.

    And I thought the US was in bad shape. Sounds like the US and Britain are dancing their way into hell…
    Historically this has usually meant war, as a way out of problems at home…
    Let us entreat those so disposed, to work very hard on another solution…

    #44396
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Why is Turkey involved at all? Kashoggi, a Saudi citizen, was murdered in the embassy, i.e. on Saudi soil. That’s the whole point and reason for the existence of embassies, and always has been. We all know why, but they have as much jurisdiction to investigate the case as if Klingons had killed a Martian on the moon. I don’t like it, but that is the 500-year precedent of the case. We can watch this politically, as countries, as people, but not as investigators or prosecutors, unless you can find the body arrived on Turkish soil. Besides, I don’t care if Kashoggi, of the Muslim Brotherhood and sometime spy for Saudi intellegence gets killed when thousands are killed daily in Yemen, Syria, Hondoras, and also London and Bakersfield. More people were chopped up by Mexican drug cartels than MbS could dream of, and our good friends in Mexico are still covering it up today. Nope. A known liar, billionaire, and oligarch told me to be offended, and I always trust them to look out for my interests.

    P.S. since rumor had it he had just married a wife in Egypt, why was he filing papers to marry a second fiancé in Turkey? Busy boy.

    On the flip side, Saudi Arabia rejects U.S. “interference” in their Yemen war. One: the U.S. is signatory to the U.N., which means illegal wars are rejected. Granted, the U.S. hasn’t followed this in the 50 years since it was signed, but the legal grounds are there. Two: we’re NOT interfering in the illegal Saudi war against civilians in Yemen, much to my regret: we ARE talking about, but not actually acting on, NOT selling them regulated military arms and NOT actively supporting constant aerial refueling, which is not “interference” at all, but a withdraw of our active participation in the war. …Which would be the least possible LEGAL move, considering item #1. Sigh. Whatever.

    Since Gulen is a longstanding CIA government-in-exile to pop into place should we ever attempt an illegal coup (and P.S. election interference) JUST AS WE DID IN 2016, why would we be sad to see a guy, paid billions by the CIA, training militants with illegal arms for decades in a Pennsylvania compound – the same arms that are illegal for U.S. citizens — be extradited for doing exactly that, for running an open, transparent terrorist training camp and military force that means to topple a U.N.-approved government, NATO member, and ally? SHOULDN’T we be shutting down illegal terrorist training camps? In fact, our traditional use of the AUMF, 2001, says we must bomb most of PA, kill its civilians, overthrow the governor and install a military government. I mean, there are probably legal levels that need to be cleared, but the CIA will always lie, sell, and double cross you, Mr. Gulen. It’s what they do. So, whatever, but no love lost. Please distribute your U.S. taxpayer-paid arms to the non-terrorist, non-violent citizens of Pennsylvania on your way out.

    The FBI told WaPo that article was total b——t? It very definitively could not be confirmed, despite extensive effort and resources? (Article missed that it was a different man named M. Cohen, known in days that has been intentionally conflated for the two years since) That’s amazing, since for two years the FBI and “17 Intel agencies” have been telling everyone it’s true as well. Hey, didn’t they tell a FISA court judge it was totally all good? Huh. How weird. Well, probably the FBI will do something about their internal controls, maybe by 2035, maybe later — don’t want to rush these things. They probably didn’t mean to get a 24/7 wiretap on an opposition candidate in a bid to rig the election and overturn democracy itself like they extensively said they could, wanted to, and provably did.

    Hey, speaking of: anyone see those 16,000 missing Strzok-Page emails were found? Wasn’t in the news, funny thing. Yeah, well, turns out the problem was MUELLER destroyed them and the two phones. Ain’t that weird? But there was nothing on them, except the 16,000 emails they said they couldn’t find. Kind of like the 302’s he somehow lost, and lost the backups, and lost the BACKUPS of the BACKUPS offsite in Iron Mountain, and refused to give to Judge Sullivan for the Flynn sentencing. Ain’t it WEIRD how every time somebody wants a document under FOIA, for a lawsuit, in an investigation, in an OIG report, or a Congressman, a reporter, a budget auditor, they can’t seem to find that document? But I know they’re doing their best, because otherwise, I’m quite sure someone, somewhere, some IT manager, lowly tech, outside storage holder, Director or janitor would face federal charges. You know, since every single loss of every record, every 302, every email, and its failure to be provided to the FOIA, is an individual felony, which would count in the hundred thousands.

    That’s how I know it can’t be happening. Because it’s impossible for any crime to involve more than two people, much less become completely part of the bureaucratic structure defending itself against transparency. Because that has never happened in history, and certainly not under outsized governments at the end of their empire.

    Anyway, don’t bother looking for the articles on how Mueller refused to give the only existing evidence in the entire Flynn case to the Federal Judge, and in fact claims he lost the evidence altogether, because open contempt of court by a top-level Director that erases the only viable Russian allegation by the celebrated boy scout won’t be in the news. #RussiaRussiaRussia.

    #44397
    zerosum
    Participant

    We have all hear the following saying many times ….

    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it…”

    Examples

    Gartman:
    “Further, given conversations we’ve had with investors both very large and very small we sense that the public shareholders have not even begun to sell any of the stocks that they’ve accumulated over the course of the past several years.”

    Ron Paul: “…. currently projecting a 50 percent decline from current levels ….”
    ——-
    In the real world, people suffer.

    Who caused the suffering?

    I know …. the elites ….

    Why?
    I don’t know. I’m not an elite. My salary does not depends on knowing why people make other people suffer.

    #44398
    zerosum
    Participant

    Here is another example.
    Ron Paul: ” ….the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing has caused the “biggest bubble in the history of mankind.” “It’s so important to understand the original cause of the problem, and that is the Federal Reserve running up debt and letting politicians spend money,” he added. “
    (I could debate on “original cause of problem”)

    Trump wants the opposite of Ron Paul.
    Keep printing money.
    (I wonder if he has access to new printe money)
    Don’t raise interest rates.
    ( I wonder if he has low interest loans coming up for renewals)

    Would Trump or poor people benefit the most from printed money and low interest loans?

    #44399
    zerosum
    Participant

    Am I the only one who sees the trend?

    If you make negative comment about ???? you will be in hot water.
    Next …. if you read negative anything you are being manipulated.
    Next …. your democracy will be removed.

    If its free(you didn’t pay the right man) …. YOU CANNOT HAVE IT.

    #44400
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    ZS
    If it’s free; you’re the product…

    #44401
    chettt
    Participant

    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it…”
    Think this might apply to the 90+% of climate scientists employed by tax hungry governments?

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