Debt Rattle August 5 2019

[Raúl Ilargi Meijer]

Piet Mondriaan Study for Blue Apple Tree Series 1908   • Currency War Begins: China Crashes Yuan Past 7, Halts US Agri Imports (ZH) • China Lets
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 5 2019]

[V. Arnold]

America’s Other Original Sin (Bacevich)

That piece by Bacevich is spot on; and marks the beginning of our colonial march.
We’re heading into another clown show; the 2020 election cycle.
Like the Roman Circus Maximas; it will be bloody and mark another notch on the staff of our degeneracy…
If Gabbard can’t be defeated; she’ll be killed…

[Dr. D]

““The fact that they have now stopped defending 7.00 against the dollar suggests that they have all but abandoned hopes for a trade deal with the U.S.,” he said.”

Yay? We’re getting billions of revenue in tariffs and almost none of that cost is passing through?

Unfortunately we’re almost certainly precipitating riots in Hong Kong, and as they need a war to escape with their $50 Trillion heist, they’ve pivoted and decided it’s going to be with China.

“Job Growth in Trump Land Is Dead in the Water (MW)”

Yeah, they know. The difference is, one part says, “I hope you all die,” and the other says, “It’s going to be tough, but how about plugging the leak and getting a job?”

“25 cities that are home to about 30% of Americans will capture about 60% of the job growth”

Yeah, we know. 100 years of tax, compliance, and incentive laws have arranged that only oligopolies merged with banking and government have any financing or customers. That’s why people are mad at them. But don’t worry, that’s the fault of Flyoverland, who voted against all this since Perot, and a lot of it since Carter or Truman.

“The New York metro area, Wall Street added more jobs over the past year than all the small towns and rural areas — with 46 million people — did combined.” Fixed it.

Same story in London and worldwide. Since Gordon Gecko: if you produce anything, you get screwed, get nothing. If you do and make and create nothing — or even sit around, say you’re a victim and complain — you get all the money of all the guys who DO created something. And how can that happen? Only with the help and force of government. Otherwise, it would right itself.

“We’re going to have a lot more immigrants. A lot. They’re expecting a net 22.5 million more immigrants to come to the U.S. over the next 20 years.”

Yeah, we know. 2 Million a year, since we’re so ungenerous, and the U.S. is such a hateful, racist country that 2M people will sneak in locked in a shipping container with the good chance of being trafficked/raped while their child dies of dehydration dirign your $10,000 trip. Obviously any nation you’d risk that to live in has to be terrible. And with probably 17% real unemployment, and deep government incentives for robots and mass-punishments for employers, naturally there are jobs for all the poor people we have now.

For the rest, or maybe even that, it’s all un-perceptive straight-line projections of cyclical patterns and unsustainable trends. Surely if we can get to $100 Trillion we can get to $1,000 Trillion debt, right? $100,000 Trillion? A million billion trillion? Why not? Marketwatch says so.

“But it seemed like every few years, another great massacre would unfold”

Yes, because only insiders and friends of banks can get financing for golfing pals when you crash fire-sale real assets to 10c on the dollar. ….And then the great mystery in yesterday’s billionaire-financed economic schools about how all this income disparity happens, the rich getting richer and all. It’s called “Disaster Capitalism” and besides Mises for 100 years there’s been a best-seller on it, but nobody knows nothin’. What we need is MORE control, MORE market-rigging, and MORE pals from Harvard Business School and Goldman Sachs alumni at the feeding trough.

Only in the past? “one of the most epic communication f–k ups by a central banker.”

Really? And his golfing buddies he signaled ahead of time? Did they think it was a f–k up? How did their trades go? By the way, although Morgan and Sachs are openly rigging (see fines paid), AND the Fed by definition rigs or “controls” interest rates, AND the PPT rigs markets by definition, AND Congress rigs markets via new legislation or even discussion of such (see Google/media last week), AND the President rigs markets via twitter and trade talks, you might be forgiven for forgetting that there is ALSO a “Exchange Stabilization Fund” far larger than all these, far quieter, who is ALSO rigging every market. …And then there’s the illegal-but-ordained HFT’s who ALSO rig, and do so because their trading covers all the other rigging going on, by every insider, every where, at every time.

…But we’re a free-market system, and the problem here is Capitalism.

“the world is one step closer to collapse as a clueless PhD hack is in charge”

Author not up to speed here. There have been 100 years of “experts” matched with 100 years of failures, and NOW he’s worried about an amateur? Clearly with 100% failure rate, you could pull a golden ticket from a national cracker jack box and have better luck than Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. Even a blind squirrel – or average high-school dropout, doing part-time welding in Akron, Ohio – would manage to succeed in high finance at least once on sheer accident. Not these guys. And every time they fail, their pals at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale get richer. Wot a coincidence! Now why is everyone but the top 25 cities failing? I dunno, it’s a mystery to dummies like me!

“All of this is known to be true by every Blairite, every Clintonite, by the BBC, by CNN, by the Guardian, the New York Times and the Washington Post… is the article of faith for the political elite who cannot understand why the electorate rejected the triangulated “consensus” the elite constructed and sold to us, where the filthy rich get ever richer and the rest of us have falling incomes, low employment rights and scanty welfare benefits…. Except virtually none of this is true.”

Wrote it myself.

“Poverty Murder as a means of getting rid of the unwanted.” Supported by every Blairite, every Clintonite, by the BBC, by CNN, by the Guardian, the New York Times and the Washington Post… an article of faith for the political elite who cannot understand why the electorate rejected the triangulated “consensus” the elite constructed and sold to us, where the filthy rich get ever richer and the rest of us have falling incomes, low employment rights and scanty welfare benefits. But I repeat myself.

“Bellingcat Unloads 4,000-Word Hit Piece on Tulsi Gabbard (RT)”

They just don’t like her because she’s the only present Democrat who could win. Nein! Achtung! Verboten: must relive ’16, over and over, forever. Besides, Bellingcat is hilarious, and like Dennis Gartman, a perfect indicator: it is always the precise opposite of what they say. You can make a million dollars with this advice. You’re welcome.

They’re working overtime to start a race/civil war this week. Don’t fall for this garbage, just swiftly and fairly execute the rule of law. Also don’t fall for the outrageous lies of attribution. The NZ was from a supremicist, yes, but a Trump-hating environmental extremist. CA was a Supremicist who somehow hated all the “white tw-ts from San Francisco” in his town, then as a racist, obviously went and shot exclusively white people — terrible aim. Now OH is a supremicist that is a communist, antifa, border-protesting Warren voter, and of course not-related-to-anything, let’s-not-jump-to-conclusions, a satanist. Then the CO guy, core Antifa, who tried to blow up ICE with all the Mexicans inside. So caring! Before that, the right-wing radical that shot up Congress was a Bernie voter. Not that both sides don’t get one off — or that France doesn’t either — but you can’t believe what you read without looking for yourself, because if an adult American said it, if it was reported in the news, it’s a lie.

So “Remember the Maine!” Perfect example of that OTHER false flag, fake premise, or whatever excuse you wish for whatever you wanted to do anyway, like invade oil-rich Iraq for something Afghanistan (maybe) and Saudi Arabia (definitely) did. Hey, I’ve got an idea: how about we INVESTIGATE, gather evidence, follow procedure, and the rule of Law, and hold the ACTUAL party responsible? Nah, that’s much less exciting. Besides, it might actually support #Logos, not #AntiLogos, and who wants that? I want the guys I already don’t like to be guilty, because it’s much easier that way.

[Dr. D]

Whoops, forgot FHA and $2 Trillion College loan rigging. …But if I named all the rigging that’s openly and illegally going on, I wouldn’t have time for anything else, and I have lot of work to do for all those Harvard guys, inside-trading the market and not paying taxes, and all the guys complaining while eating doritos and watching cable in sweet, paid-for A/C.

[John Day]

http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/08/trending-world-war.html
Alastair Crooke looks at the sudden transition of America’s ruling elite class into new-cold-war mentality and action i​n​ the last 18 months.
​ America’s élite is being fractured into balkanised enclaves that are not communicating with one another – nor wanting to communicate with each other. Rather, it is another conflict between deadly rivals.
​ ​One such orientation insists on a renewal of the Cold War to sustain and renew that supersized military-security complex, which accounts for more than half of America’s GDP. Another élite demands that US dollar global hegemony be preserved. Another orientation of the Deep State is disgusted at the contagion of sexual decadence and corruption that has wormed its way into American governance – and truly hopes that Trump will ‘drain the swamp’. And yet another, which sees DC’s now explicit amorality as risking the loss of America’s global standing and leadership – wants to see a return of traditional American mores – a ‘moral rearmament’, as it were…
​ ​But all these divided Deep State factions believe that belligerence can work…
​Like any cosseted élite, they have an exaggerated sense of their entitlement – and their impunity.

The Citadels of America’s Elites: Fractured and At Odds with Each Other

​Trump is Commander-in-Chief of the Trade War.
He’s sneak-attacking, pressing China to financial failure as hard as he can, without polite warning.
On Friday, when we learned courtesy of Bloomberg, that Trump imposed the latest, and very unexpected, round of Chinese tariffs less than 24 hours after Powell’s “insufficient” rate cut, he did so by overruling Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in at least giving Beijing the courtesy of an advance notice, and instead China – like the rest of the world – learned what was coming by reading Trump’s twitter feed in real-time, resulting in a violent market selloff. Commenting on this development, we said on Friday that Trump’s refusal “suggested that the trade hawks are now fully in charge of the situation in the White House.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-04/trump-overruled-all-advisors-except-navarro-launching-new-china-tariffs

The $US, the global reserve currency, bastion of fly-by-wire financial stability, may have a flank exposed to attack, with the firing of 2 key players.
“The most important trading desk in the world”, staffed by over 400 financial warriors, is the Plunge-Protection-Team desk in New York. This desk has nursed the US stock markets back to the appearance-of-health since 2009. “Don’t fight the Fed” and “Buy the F….ing Dips” became the passwords to easy money for over a decade. 2 particular financial warriors ran this show: Simon Potter and Richard Dzina.
“levitating market wizard, Simon Potter, who promptly realized that to crush the bears one simply had to crush the VIX specs, and the rest would promptly follow.” …
As Bloomberg writes “the story involves Simon Potter, who ran the all-important markets desk, and Richard Dzina, head of the financial services group. Both were abruptly relieved of their roles in late May by Williams. Little explanation was given, but according to current and former New York Fed employees, as well as those close to the bank, the nature of the exits, by fault or design, seemed to be a warning: fall in line.”
​ ​It is not clear exactly what the two titans of US capital markets had to “fall in line” for, but two things are certain – i) Potter did not “resign”, he was fired by Williams, and ii) now that an economist with zero capital markets experience is in charge, and following his termination of Potter and Dzina, the world is one step closer to collapse as a clueless PhD hack is in charge of the most important market in the world.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-04/meanwhile-inside-plunge-protection-team-chaos

Trump attack on Chinese imports drops value of Yuan/Renmenbi and China counters with halt on state purchase of US farm products.
This is war, pressing the assault when the enemy is close to a critical weakness, as China is with massive internal debt instability.
China has vast gold reserves, and a lot of $US reserves. The $US reserves are already assigned to critical tasks of maintaining trade and stability of the currency.
Trump is forcing China to expend it’s ammunition in defense, at this time of his choosing, rather than on offense, later, at China’s choosing.
Trump adds insult to injury, accusing China of currency devaluation.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-04/currency-war-begins-chinese-yuan-crashes-past-7usd-record-low

Hong Kong has long been a critical global financial center. When the UK handed it back to China at the end of the colonial “lease” it was agreed that Hong Kong would retain almost all political and financial-center autonomy. That goose needed to keep laying golden eggs.
This year, Hong Kong has been racked with protests, by citizens who get no gold at all for their labors, mainly austerity and beds that rent for $1200/month. It is broadly rumored that this is being fed the color-revolution-diet by CIA and friends. I don’t know.
Hong Kong is increasingly paralyzed, just when China needs that battle group most, and to break the paralysis, China will have to militarily intervene, killing the goose.
Chinese military intervention will lead to invalidation of Hong Kong’s “special statue” and cut the legs out from under the Chinese financial system.
The situation in Hong Kong is rapidly deteriorating, with violence breaking out in seven locations Monday afternoon as the citywide strike crippled transportation.
What were supposed to be peaceful sit-ins in different districts turned into riots, “with Wong Tai Sin and Harcourt Road seeing the most intense confrontations as protesters kneel instead of flee, to shield themselves while tear gas rounds and sponge grenades rain on them,” according to SCMP.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-05/hong-kong-unravels-flights-canceled-police-stations-set-fire-and-triads-are-back
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-04/hong-kongs-lam-wont-resign-condemns-protesters-creating-very-dangerous-situation

​Professor Michael Hudson on the Petrobuck Empire and it’s global strategy.
​ ​Control of oil has long been a key aim of U.S. foreign policy. The Paris climate agreements and any other Green programs to reduce the pace of global warming are viewed as threatening the aim of dominating world energy markets by keeping economies dependent on oil under U.S. control. Also blocking U.S. willingness to help stem global warming is the oil industry’s economic and hence political power. Its product is not only energy but also global warming, along with plastic pollution.
​ ​This fatal combination of the national security state’s mentality and oil industry lobbying threatens to destroy the planet’s climate. The prospect of raising temperatures and sea levels along the coasts while inland regions suffer drought is viewed simply as collateral damage to the geopolitics of oil. The State Department is reported to have driven out individuals warning about global warming’s negative impact.1
​ ​The only attempts to restrict oil imports are the new Cold War trade sanctions to isolate Russia, Iran and Venezuela. The aim is to increase foreign dependence on U.S., British and French oil, giving American strategists the power to make other countries “freeze in the dark” if they follow a path diverging from U.S. diplomatic aims.
​ ​It was the drive to control the world’s oil trade – and to keep it dollarized – that led the United States to overthrow the Iranian government in 1953, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to invade Iraq in 2013, and most recently for Donald Trump to isolate Iran while backing Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi foreign legion in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Sixty years earlier, in 1953, the CIA and Britain joined to overthrow Iran’s elected President Mohammad Mosaddegh to prevent him from nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. A similar strategy explains U.S. attempts at regime change in Venezuela and Russia.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/08/michael-hudson-global-warming-and-u-s-national-security-diplomacy.html

​ ​Political commentary is flooded with the word “terrorism” today. People are demanding that the El Paso shooter in particular and white supremacists in general be labeled terrorists by the narrative-making commentariat, and you know what? I totally get it. The push since 9/11 to tar Muslims as “terrorists” has been extremely obnoxious and fueled by hate and bigotry, so it makes sense for progressive-minded people to push for the egalitarian usage of that term. But before doing so, please reflect on what lessons we learned from the post-9/11 “Islamic terrorism” scare.
​ ​“Years of misguided alarmism over ‘Islamic terrorism’ resulted in the erosion of civil liberties, militarization of police, and a host of other bad outcomes. Applying the same alarmist logic to ‘white nationalist terrorism’ is likely to produce a host of similarly bad outcomes,” tweeted independent journalist Michael Tracey in response to the chatter.

Americans Should Be Very Skeptical Of Calls For New “Terrorism” Laws

[Author]

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