APEC Archives - The Automatic Earth

As a UN conference convenes to work out a new deal for protecting the planet’s biodiversity, the focus falls on the nations that are not attending. Amid the worst loss of life on Earth since the demise of the dinosaurs, the agenda at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh could hardly be more important, but the spirit of international collaboration appears to be as much at risk of extinction as the world’s endangered wildlife. The United States has never signed up and Brazil is among a growing group of countries where new nationalist leaders are shifting away from global cooperation.

The two-week meeting of the CBD is its first in two years. It has always been the neglected sibling of its twin, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The two organisations were conceived amid great hope at the Rio Earth summit in 1992 but while the energy transition has attracted heads of state interested in billion-dollar renewable projects, the effort to save the natural world has been left to weak environment ministries, conservation NGOs and underfunded scientists. Media research suggests there is only one news story about UN biodiversity talks for every 20 about UN climate negotiations. Coverage tends to focus on a few totemic species, such as lions, chimpanzees and pandas, rather than the collapsing ecosystems on which we depend.

[..] Since 1970 humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles, according to the latest Living Planet report by WWF, which warned that the loss of wildlife was now an emergency that is threatening our civilisation. This followed a report earlier this year that one in eight bird species is threatened with global extinction. Recent studies have also tracked calamitous declines of pollinating insects in the US, Costa Rica and Germany, promoting warnings of ecological Armageddon. Cristiana Pasca Palmer, the head of the CBD, says we must stem the loss of biodiversity or face the prospect of our own extinction. But the global mechanics to do that are missing.

Part of the reason for the low level of interest is that the last two major biodiversity agreements – in 2002 and 2010 – have been ineffectual. At Nagoya in Japan eight years ago, the 196 signatory nations to the CBD signed up to the Aichi biodiversity targets: to at least halve the loss of natural habitats, ensure sustainable fishing in all waters, and expand nature reserves from 10% to 17% of the world’s land by 2020. With two years left in the Aichi plan, the conference this year will show that many of the 20 targets have been missed. And even apparent progress in the creation of new protected areas is misleading because governments from Brazil to China have done little to police these “paper reserves”.

The level of sociopathy here is blinding. Just count the dead on Kerry’s watch. But again, he’s talking about climate change. Because that’s where the money is. Makes you wonder what the real issue is: rising temperatures or people looking to get rich off of them. Remember the braindead Michael Bloomberg/Mark Carney paper I wrote about when it came out, on getting rich while saving the planet. Who’s your enemy, really?

• John Kerry: ‘People Are Going To Die Because Of The Decision Trump Made’ (G.)

“Here’s my feeling. And I’m certain of this.” He slows down. “I. Do. Not. Take. It. Personally. I’m sorry for the world. I’m sorry for my country, which looks ridiculous. Look, I’ve known all my life that this is a tough business, that politics is hard – that there are ups and down and if you personalise them you’re never going to survive.” Also, he points out, “I feel better than a lot of people think”, because Trump cannot affect the 194 countries still “doing Paris”, or even the 38 US states (plus Washington DC) committed to renewable energy portfolios regardless of the president’s edicts. The Iran deal is wounded, but still exists, he says. “In fact France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China all met few weeks ago in New York with the foreign minister of Iran, to talk about how to keep the deal moving forward.”

Surely he is angry, though? “You know what I’m angry about? People are going to die because of the decision Donald Trump made. My kids and my grandkids are going to face a difficult world because of what Donald Trump has done. But if you sound angry all the time, people aren’t going to listen to you.” Anger boiled over into a tweet last week, when he could not bear the farrago unfolding on Remembrance Day. “It was just a sad moment, for our country and for the presidency. The president of the United States did not go to an event because of rain, when those guys died in the rain, died in the snow, died in the gas, died in the mud, and not to honour them I thought was brutal.”

I’d say you don’t need to know much more than this. It’s just that the game of guessing which straw breaks the camel’s back doesn’t strike me as particularly useful.

• Bear Market Growls (Roberts)

Fortunately, up to this point, there has not been a triggering of margin debt, as of yet, which remains the “gasoline” to fuel a rapid market decline. As we have discussed previously, margin debt (i.e. leverage) is a double-edged sword. It fuels the bull market higher as investors “leverage up” to buy more equities, but it also burns “white hot” on the way down as investors are forced to liquidate to cover margin calls. Despite the two sell-offs this year, leverage has only marginally been reduced.

If you overlay that the S&P 500 index you can see more clearly the magnitude of the reversions caused by a “leverage unwind.”

The reason I bring this up is that, so far, the market has not declined enough to “trigger” margin calls. At least not yet. But exactly where is that level? There is no set rule, but there is a point at which the broker-dealers become worried about being able to collect on the “margin lines” they have extended. My best guess is that point lies somewhere around a 20% decline from the peak. The correction from intraday peak to trough in 2015-2016 was nearly 20%, but on a closing basis, the draft was about 13.5%. The corrections earlier this year, and currently, have both run close to 10% on a closing basis.

Does China think Trump will give in?

• APEC Leaders Divided After US, China Spat (AFP)

Leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific nations failed Sunday to bridge gaping divisions at a summit overshadowed by a war of words over the US and China as they vie for influence in the region. For the first time in the history of the APEC grouping, leaders were unable to agree on a formal written declaration amid sharp differences over trade policy. “The leaders agreed that instead of a traditional leaders’ declaration, they would leave it to the hands of PNG as the chair to issue a chair statement on behalf of all the members,” said Zhang Xiaolong, a spokesman from the Chinese foreign ministry. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau admitted there were “different visions on particular elements with regard to trade that prevented full consensus on a communique document.”

The annual gathering, held for the first time in Papua New Guinea, was overshadowed by speeches from Chinese President Xi Jinping and US Vice President Mike Pence, which appeared to represent competing bids for regional leadership. Pence warned smaller countries not to be seduced by China’s massive Belt-and-Road infrastructure programme, which sees Beijing offer money to poorer countries for construction and development projects. The “opaque” loans come with strings attached and build up “staggering debt”, Pence charged, mocking the initiative as a “constricting belt” and a “one-way road”. He urged nations instead to stick with the United States, which doesn’t “drown our partners in a sea of debt” or “coerce, corrupt or compromise your independence”.

In a speech to business leaders just minutes before Pence, Xi insisted the initiative was not a “trap” and there was no “hidden agenda” – amid criticism that it amounts to “chequebook diplomacy” in the region. Xi also lashed out at “America First” trade protectionism, saying it was a “short-sighted approach” that was “doomed to failure”. [..] Trump — and Russian President Vladimir Putin – both decided to skip the gathering, leaving the spotlight on Xi who arrived two days early to open a Chinese-funded school and road in Papua New Guinea’s dirt-poor capital Port Moresby.

Putin and Trump were both absent. Why have the summit then? So Xi can shoot himself in the foot?

• Pence Vows No End To Tariffs Until China Bows (R.)

The United States will not back down from its trade dispute with China, and might even double its tariffs, unless Beijing bows to U.S. demands, Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday. In a bluntly worded speech at an Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in Papua New Guinea, Pence threw down the gauntlet to China on trade and security in the region. “We have taken decisive action to address our imbalance with China,” Pence declared. “We put tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods, and we could more than double that number.” “The United States, though, will not change course until China changes its ways.”

The stark warning will likely be unwelcome news to financial markets which had hoped for a thaw in the Sino-U.S. dispute and perhaps even some sort of deal at a G20 meeting later this month in Argentina. U.S. President Donald Trump, who is not attending the APEC meeting, is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina. Pence’s warning on Saturday contrasted with remarks made by Trump on Friday, when he said he may not impose more tariffs after China sent the United States a list of measures it was willing to take to resolve trade tensions. [..] There was no hint of compromise from Pence.“China has taken advantage of the United States for many years. Those days are over,” he told delegates gathered on a cruise liner docked in Port Moresby’s Fairfax Harbour.

Killing the petrodollar is a big responsibility. But the CIA wouldn’t have issued the assessment without strong evidence.

• Trump Calls CIA Assessment Of Khashoggi Murder Premature But Possible (R.)

President Donald Trump on Saturday called a CIA assessment blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi “very premature” and said he will receive a complete report on the case on Tuesday. Trump, on a trip to California, said the killing “should never have happened.” The report on Tuesday will explain who the U.S. government believes killed Khashoggi and what the overall impact of his murder is, Trump said. It was unclear who is producing the report. Trump also said the CIA finding that bin Salman was responsible for the killing was “possible.” Trump made the remarks hours after the State Department said the government was still working on determining responsibility for the death of Khashoggi.

“Recent reports indicating that the U.S. government has made a final conclusion are inaccurate,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. “There remain numerous unanswered questions with respect to the murder of Mr. Khashoggi.” Nauert said the State Department will continue to seek facts and work with other countries to hold those involved in the journalist’s killing accountable “while maintaining the important strategic relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.” Trump discussed the CIA assessment by phone with the agency’s director, Gina Haspel, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo while flying to California on Saturday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.

The CIA had briefed other parts of the U.S. government, including Congress, on its assessment, sources told Reuters on Friday, a development that complicates Trump’s efforts to preserve ties with the key U.S. ally. A source familiar with the CIA’s assessment said it was based largely on circumstantial evidence relating to the prince’s central role in running the Saudi government. The CIA’s finding is the most definitive U.S. assessment to date tying Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler directly to the killing and contradicts Saudi government assertions that Prince Mohammed was not involved.

NBC egg on face. ‘T is the season?

• Trump ‘Not Considering’ Extraditing Gülen to Turkey (Ind.)

President Donald Trump said on Saturday he is “not considering” extraditing an Islamic cleric self-exiled in the United States to Turkey. The extradition of Fethullah Gulen, accused of plotting a failed coup in 2016 to overthrow Turkish President Tayipp Erdogan, would be a strategic effort to persuade Turkey to lessen scrutiny on Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In recent months, the Trump administration has been vigorous in its defence and flattery of its close ally Saudi Arabia – and the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – in hopes Riyadh will serve its role in carrying out the president’s Middle East foreign policy.

“No, it’s not under consideration,” Mr Trump said when pressed on whether or not he would extradite the Turkish cleric, a political opponent of Erdogan, to his home country. “We are looking, always looking at whatever we can do for Turkey.” Mr Trump’s statement comes three days after NBC News reported that his administration is looking into whether or not extraditing Mr Gulen could convince the Turkish president to soften pressure on Saudi Arabia for reportedly killing Mr Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist critical of Riyadh, in its Istanbul consulate earlier last month.

The Jim Acosta show continues. CNN should cancel it.

• White House Press Pass Has Nothing To Do With The First Amendment (McMaken)

It’s difficult to see how something so limited and so unavailable to nearly everyone could be called a right. After all, not even all reporters can hope to secure a White House press pass. And non-reporters have even less chance of ever getting access. Access to White House media facilities and forums are a privilege reserved for a select few —and most of those few are wealthy operatives of extremely powerful media corporations. A press pass is clearly not a right in the same sense as a trial by jury, a right to be secure in one’s personal property, or a right to peaceably assemble. In theory at least, those rights apply to everyone unless voluntarily waived, or unless revoked through some sort of public due process.

Nor is it the case that just anyone who is recognized as a journalist gets access to the White House press room. The room, of course, is of a finite size — there are 49 seats — and access is limited. Only a select group of people is allowed in, and the credentialing process is controlled in part by the White House Correspondents’ Association which hardly hands out credentials as if they were a human right. [..] even if everyone who wanted it were somehow magically given space in the White House press room, it’s hard to see how hobnobbing with the White House communications staff forms a pillar of a free press or free inquiry. In other words, the very premise that a White House press pass is a critical component of a free press is questionable at best. After all, the press room, the communications staff, and the entire White House media apparatus exists to make the president look good.

It’s not there to offer a frank exchange of information, or to divulge any information the White House doesn’t want released. To find that sort of information, one would have to engage in real investigative journalism in which journalists uncover facts that powerful government officials would rather not be uncovered. That, of course, is what Julian Assange has done. But you won’t find many establishment American journalists defending him. No, in the minds of the Jim Acostas of the world, “journalism” consists of repeating the official talking points released at official press conferences. And this is a lucky thing for presidents, many of whom have long understood that the purpose of White House communications is to manipulate the press.

Delay will be at least a year if it happens.

• Brussels Tells Theresa May Delaying Brexit Will Cost UK £10 Billion (O.)

The latest Opinium poll for the Observer on Sunday delivers more bad news for May, with Labour opening up a three-point lead. It shows Tory Leave supporters appear to be deserting May’s party in droves. Compared with a month ago, the Conservatives have dropped five points to 36% while Labour has gained three to stand on 39%. The proportion of Leavers backing the Tories has dropped by 10 points in one month. As May’s allies sprang to her defence and said she was “winning over the country”, Brussels threw a new spanner in the works by saying any extension of the 21-month transition period designed to smooth the UK’s exit must last at least a year beyond the end of December 2020.

May told an EU leaders summit last month that she might ask for a “few months” extra time if that was what was needed to complete an EU-UK trade deal and prevent the Irish backstop from coming into force. But on Saturday night Brussels was making clear that if the UK wants an extension of the transition – during which it is tied to the EU economic system but with no say over its rules – it must last at least a further year. A year-long extension would cost about £10bn on top of the £39bn divorce bill already agreed. Such a prospect will appal hardline Brexiters who already complain that the UK will have to spend almost two more years tied to the EU after Brexit on 29 March next year.

No Brexit at all is also still an option. The problem may well be that Brexit means something different to every single person.

• Tory MPs Warn Hardliners They May Abandon Brexit (Ind.)

Moderate Conservatives have warned they will push Britain towards tighter relations with the EU or even turn against Brexit altogether if “purists” in their party tear down Theresa May’s draft withdrawal deal. A string of Tory MPs told The Independent that Eurosceptic colleagues who have begun a sustained push to bring down both Ms May and her Brexit plans, should not be mistaken that a no-deal exit risking the livelihoods of British people is obtainable. The moderates say the only remaining option if Brexiteers block Ms May’s approach will mean being more closely bound to the single market or even revisiting the 2016 referendum result. Their warning comes as the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservatives launched a coordinated campaign against the draft deal to be signed off at an EU summit next weekend, and pushed for a vote of no confidence in the prime minister.

Ms May is set to continue her media offensive defending the deal on Sunday with a live interview in the morning, but Eurosceptics have also been in force attacking it. The pushback from Tory moderates began with pointed words from serving frontbencher Alistair Burt, who indicated that if Ms May’s plans fell, Brexiteers could not expect Remain-voting MPs to continue to go along with the result of the 2016 referendum regardless of the consequences. He wrote on Twitter: “Be very clear. If an agreed deal on leaving between the Govt and the EU is voted down by purist Brexiteers, do not be surprised if consensus on accepting the result of the referendum by Remain-voting MPs breaks down. “Parliament will not support no deal.”

Picking people up just to fill seats on a plane. Morals we have none.

• Activists Who Blocked Migrant Deportations Face Life in Prison In UK (IC)

Smoke is a founding member of Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, a group created in 2015 to stand in solidarity with migrant communities in the U.K., and also part of End Deportations, a group campaigning to end deportations that originally formed around the Stansted action. They chose to focus on one particular aspect of the U.K.’s deportation system: charter flights. While some migrants and asylum-seekers are deported on commercial flights alongside passengers traveling for business or pleasure, others are deported via private flights chartered by the Home Office, the government department responsible for immigration, security, and law and order. The Titan plane around which the Stansted 15 locked themselves in March 2017 was one of the latter.

[..] Freedom of Information requests have revealed that the Home Office chartered 93 deportation flights from January 2016 through May 2018, including the flight grounded by the Stansted 15. Most of these flights went to Pakistan, Albania, Nigeria, and Ghana, although a few also flew to Germany, France, and Bulgaria. Some carried over 50 deportees; most had less than 20 passengers being deported because of a criminal conviction. These destinations have shifted over time as the population of asylum-seekers has changed: Charter deportation flights in 2014 also frequented Afghanistan and Kosovo. The Stansted 15, along with many others who research or campaign around deportation, take issue with numerous aspects of deportation charter flights, starting with the way in which migrants and asylum-seekers are notified of them.

“It’s a weird numbers game where the government needs to fill seats on this plane to make it economically viable,” says Morten Thaysen, one of the co-founders of Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants. There will often be “raids in the weeks leading up to the flight,” according to Thaysen. “People [are] being taken from marketplaces, workplaces, their home, and put in detention centers – these kind of immigration prisons – and then taken in the middle of the night on these secret flights where there are no witnesses. So it’s the brutality of how they function.” Some people, activists also argue, are not notified of their impending deportation with enough time to appeal the decision. “We see so many people on these flights whose cases haven’t been properly finished, haven’t had their cases heard properly,” says Thaysen.

“Silica makes up around 60 percent of the Earth’s crust..”

• Glass Was Forged Inside The Heart Of An Exploding Ancient Star (AFP)

The next time you’re gazing out of the window in search of inspiration, keep in mind the material you’re looking through was forged inside the heart of an exploding ancient star. An international team of scientists said Friday they had detected silica — the main component of glass — in the remnants of two distant supernovae billions of light years from Earth. Researchers used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to analyse the light emitted by the collapsing mega-cluster and obtain silica’s “fingerprint” based on the specific wavelength of light the material is known to emit. A supernova occurs when a large star burns through its own fuel, causing a catastrophic collapse ending in an explosion of galactic proportions.

It is in these celestial maelstroms that individual atoms fuse together to form many common elements, including sulphur and calcium. Silica makes up around 60 percent of the Earth’s crust and one particular form, quartz, is a major ingredient of sand. As well as glass windows and fibreglass, silica is also an important part of the recipe for industrial concrete. “We’ve shown for the first time that the silica produced by the supernovae was significant enough to contribute to the dust throughout the Universe, including the dust that ultimately came together to form our home planet,” said Haley Gomez, from Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy. “Every time we gaze through a window, walk down the pavement or set foot on a sandy beach, we are interacting with material made by exploding stars that burned millions of years ago.”

Debt Rattle November 21 2016

Nov 212016

November 21, 2016 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:56 am Finance Tagged with: APEC, debt, exports, greed, Hillary, imports, Japan, recession, savings, TPP, Trump, Tsipras 3 Responses »

NPC Fordson tractor exposition at Camp Meigs, Washington DC 1922

• Japan Exports Drop 13th Month By 10.3%, Imports Down 22nd Month By 16.5% (WSJ)

• Negative Rates Are Failing to Halt Savings Obsession in Europe (BBG)

• More Than 1 in 3 European Workers Have Difficulty Making Ends Meet (ETUC)

• Now it Begins to Unravel (WS)

• Former UBS, Credit Suisse CEO: “A Recession Is Sometimes Necessary” (ZH)

• Big Shock In France’s Presidential Election As Sarkozy Eliminated (BBG)

• The EU’s New Bomb Is Ticking in the Netherlands (WSJ)

• APEC Summit Closes With Call for More Globalization, Free Trade (AP)

• Obama Says World Leaders Want To Move Forward With TPP (AFP)

• The Grey Champion Assumes Command – Part 1 (Quinn)

• The Silver Lining In This Disaster: Clinton & Co Are Finally Gone (G.)

• Disaffected Rust Belt Voters Embraced Trump. They Had No Other Hope (G.)

• Tsipras Ready To Give In On Labor Reform To Ensure Debt Relief (Kath.)

With trade growth goes globalization.

• Japan Exports Drop 13th Month By 10.3%, Imports Down 22nd Month By 16.5% (WSJ)

Japanese exports extended their losses to a 13th straight month in October, indicating that the world’s third-largest economy has yet to regain full fitness despite better-than-expected growth in the third quarter. Exports fell 10.3% from a year earlier in October to 5.870 trillion yen, figures released Monday by the Ministry of Finance showed. The reading came in worse than a 9.4% drop forecast by economists polled by WSJ. Exports decreased 6.9% in September. Despite the grim monthly figures, exports appear to be in better shape than in the spring, when Japan’s manufacturers were being buffeted by worries over a Chinese slowdown and other headwinds from abroad. Government estimates released last week showed that Japan’s economy grew 2.2% from the previous quarter in the July-September period, beating economists’ expectations.

Exports were stronger than in the previous three months. The near-term prospects for exports have also improved after Donald Trump’s victory of U.S. presidential election put the yen’s previous uptrend in reversal. The finance ministry said export volumes for October fell 1.4% from their year-earlier levels. That marked the first fall in three months. But seasonally adjusted month-on-month figures showed exports increased 1.6%. Imports declined 16.5% on year in October to Y5.374 trillion, the 22nd consecutive month of contraction, the ministry said. Japan’s trade balance came to Y496.2 billion in surplus, according to the data. Economists polled by the Nikkei expected a surplus of Y610.0 billion.

Anything reported as a ‘savings obsession’ can be filed under ‘fake news’. It takes this article a while to get to it, but then it does: “About 44% of all Europeans were unable to pay at least one bill on time during the last 12 months, mainly because of a lack of money..” Combine that with the accounting practice of filing ‘paying off debts’ under ‘saving’, and you know what’s really happening.

• Negative Rates Are Failing to Halt Savings Obsession in Europe (BBG)

After years of turbo-driven central bank stimulus, most Europeans still want to leave their spare cash in savings accounts, even if those accounts pay zero interest. That’s the finding of a survey by Europe’s biggest debt collector, Stockholm-based Intrum Justitia AB. “After the financial crisis, people have felt a need – even if they have small means – to create some kind of security,” CEO Mikael Ericson said in an interview in Stockholm on Nov. 16. “It can’t be that people save in a bank account because of the fantastic returns, so it must be about a sense of security, having money in the bank.” Some 69% of Europeans put their savings into bank accounts, according to Intrum Justitia’s European Consumer Payment Report.

The survey is based on feedback gathered in September and covers about 21,000 people in 21 countries. The survey also shows that 26% of Europeans prefer keeping their surplus funds in cash, while 16% hold stocks. Only 14% turn to investment funds, 8% invest in real estate and 8% in bonds. In Denmark and Sweden, where central bank benchmark rates are negative, almost 80% of people put their surplus cash in bank accounts. In France, the U.K. and the Netherlands, the figure is above 80%. [..] The survey also revealed how financially fragile many Europeans continue to be almost half a decade after the region’s debt crisis. About 44% of all Europeans were unable to pay at least one bill on time during the last 12 months, mainly because of a lack of money, the survey found. Greece was worst, with 76% of households failing to pay on time.

Yeah. Savings Obsession. Sure.

• More Than 1 in 3 European Workers Have Difficulty Making Ends Meet (ETUC)

According to the European Working Conditions Survey launched today more than one third of workers report some or great difficulty in making ends meet. This is the reality behind the rosier picture painted by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions which highlights an “increasingly skilled workforce, largely satisfied with work”. However, the study also reveals that • A shocking 1 in 5 workers “has a poor quality job with disadvantageous job quality features and job holders …. reporting an unsatisfactory experience of working life.” • Only 1 in 4 workers have “a smooth running job where most dimensions of job quality are satisfactory”.

Luca Visentini, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation said “European workers are struggling to make ends meet. Work no longer assures a decent life. Is it any wonder that more and more voters are losing their faith in “the European Union and mainstream political parties? ”These results only strengthen the ETUC’s determination to fight for more public investment to create quality jobs, and for a pay rise for European workers to tackle poverty and drive economic recovery for all. Economic policies that result in 1 in 3 workers struggling to make ends meet are fundamentally wrong and must be radically changed.” “These are deeply worrying results that cannot be hidden by claiming that the world of work is increasingly complex. The survey actually shows that work is unsatisfactory or unrewarding for far too many workers.”

“The picture painted by the European Working Conditions Survey of widespread poverty in improving working conditions highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to tackle inequality across Europe. Improvements in labour markets and working conditions are modest and uneven at best; what’s more, these are being wiped out by spiralling costs of housing and austerity policies that drive insecurity for workers and their families.”

“Debt is good” is just another way of saying “Greed is good”.

• Now it Begins to Unravel (WS)

Debt is good. More debt is better. Funding consumer spending with debt is even better – that’s what economists have been preaching – because the consumed goods and services are gone after having been added to GDP, while the debt, which GDP ignores, remains until it is paid off with future earnings, or until it blows up. Corporations too have gone on a borrowing binge. Unlike consumers, they have no intention of paying off their debts. They issue new debt and use the proceeds to pay off maturing debts. Funding share-buybacks and dividends with debt is ideal. It’s called “unlocking value.” Debt must always grow. For that purpose, the Fed has manipulated interest rates to rock bottom. Actually paying off and reducing debt has the dreadful moniker, bandied about during the Financial Crisis, “deleveraging.”

It’s synonymous with “The End of the World.” At the institutional level, “debt” is replaced with more politically correct “leverage.” More leverage is better. Particularly if you can borrow short-term at near zero cost and bet the proceeds on risky illiquid long-term assets, such as real estate, or on securities that become illiquid without notice. Derivatives are part of this institutional equation. The notional value of derivatives in the US banking system is $190 trillion, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Four banks hold over 90% of them: JP Morgan ($53 trillion), Citibank ($52 trillion), Goldman ($44 trillion), and Bank of America ($26 trillion). Over 75% of those derivative contracts are interest rate products, such as swaps.

With them, heavily leveraged institutional investors that borrow short-term to invest in illiquid long-term assets hedge against interest rate movements. But Treasury yields and mortgage rates have moved violently in recent weeks, and someone is out some big money. These credit bubbles always unravel to the greatest surprise of those institutions and their economists. When they unravel, the above “End-of-the-World” scenario of orderly deleveraging turns into forced deleveraging, which can get messy. Assets that had previously been taken for granted are either repriced or just evaporate. But they’d been pledged as collateral. Suddenly, the collateral no longer exists….

“..the Swiss National Bank’s balance sheet now accounts for 100% of GDP. Japan is also 100%, but mainly invested in its own state paper. The ECB and the Fed are 30%.”

• Former UBS, Credit Suisse CEO: “A Recession Is Sometimes Necessary” (ZH)

Remember when bashing central banks and predicting financial collapse as a result of monetary manipulation and intervention was considered “fake news” within the “serious” financial community, disseminated by fringe blogs? Good times. In an interview with Swiss Sonntags Blick titled appropriately enough “A Recession Is Sometimes Necessary”, the former CEO of UBS and Credit Suisse, Oswald Grübel, lashed out by criticizing the growing strength of central banks and their ‘supremacy over the markets and other banks’. He claimed that the use of negative interest rates and huge positive balance sheets represent ‘weapons of mass destruction’. He calls for an end to the use of negative interest rates. Sounding more like a “tinfoil” blog than the former CEO of the two largest Swiss banks, Grübel warned that central banks have “crossed the point of no return” which will ultimately “end in a crash.”

Joining Deutsche Bank in slamming NIRP, Grubel said that banks are losing hundreds of millions of francs each year to negative interest rates paid to central banks. Worse, he warned that central banks will eventually lose their credibility in the markets but that this could take 10 years or more, at which point it will “all end in a crash.” What happens then? The former CEO believes that the final outcome will be wholesale financial nationalization: “after that all banks could belong to the state” Grubel also the doubted the wisdom of the Swiss National Bank’s balance sheet: “the Swiss National Bank’s balance sheet now accounts for 100% of GDP. Japan is also 100%, but mainly invested in its own state paper. The ECB and the Fed are 30%. Switzerland is far, far, far ahead. Is that wise?”

Grübel also touched on a point we have made ever since 2010 when we said that in a world of unprecedented political polarity, politicians now control the world almost exclusively through monetary policy, to wit: “After the financial crisis, politics has taken power in the banking sector: It has bound the banks into a regulatory corset and now they can no longer move. Politicians have told central banks: now you determine what is going on with the economy.” What are the implications of this power shift? “Previously, the risk was distributed to thousands of banks. They had to pay for their mistakes. The risk lay with the shareholders. Today, more and more the state carries the risk.” Which, of course, is another word for taxpayers. In other words, the next crash will be one where central – not commercial – banks are failing, and the one left with the bill will once again be the ordinary person in the street.

In a tangent, Grübel gave his thoughts on what makes a man rich: “rich is a man when he goes to bed in a carefree manner and wakes up without care.” He is then asked if, by that definition, a billionaire is rich to which he replied: “No. Money has little to do with wealth. The real rich are carefree. Those who are healthy, are not dependent. The greatest wealth is independence.”

“..the winner will be favorite to become president in May..”. Really? Then why am I thinking Le Pen is the favorite?

• Big Shock In France’s Presidential Election As Sarkozy Eliminated (BBG)

Former Prime Minister Francois Fillon, the new front-runner in France’s 2017 presidential election, is offering voters an economic-policy revolution inspired by Margaret Thatcher. Fillon, 62, vaulted from third position in most polls to win the first round of the Republican primary by 16 percentage points from the veteran Alain Juppe on Sunday with the most free-market platform among the seven candidates. They’ll face each other again in next Sunday’s runoff and the winner will be favorite to become president in May 2017. The lifelong politician is pledging to lengthen the work week to 39 hours from 35, to increase the retirement age to 65 and add immigration quotas. He’s vowed to eliminate half a million public-sector jobs and cut spending by €100 billion over his five years in office.

And he proposes a €40 billion tax-cut for companies and a constitutional ban on planned budget deficits. “Who is Fillon? The classic conservative, right-wing candidate,” Bruno Cautres, a political scientist at the Sciences Po Institute in Paris, said in an interview. “He wants a deep reform of the French model: shrinking the role of the state and cutting the welfare system.” Compared with the brash style of former boss, Nicolas Sarkozy, Fillon has a more low-key approach but he makes a virtue of telling it straight. When he took office as premier in 2007, he shocked even Sarkozy by announcing that France was a bankrupt state. Today he’s promising to reverse that, just like his role model when she became U.K. prime minister in 1979.

Europe and the scourge of direct democracy.

• The EU’s New Bomb Is Ticking in the Netherlands (WSJ)

If the European dream is to die, it may be the Netherlands that delivers the fatal blow. The Dutch general election in March is shaping up to be a defining moment for the European project. The risk to the EU doesn’t come from Geert Wilders, the leader of anti-EU, anti-immigration Party for Freedom. He is well ahead in the polls and looks destined to benefit from many of the social and economic factors that paved the way for the Brexit and Trump revolts. But the vagaries of the Dutch political system make it highly unlikely that Mr. Wilders will find his way into government. As things stand, he is predicted to win just 29 out of the 150 seats in the new parliament, and mainstream parties seem certain to shun him as a coalition partner. In an increasingly fragmented Dutch political landscape, most observers agree that the likely outcome of the election is a coalition of four or five center-right and center-left parties.

Instead, the risk to the EU comes instead from a new generation of Dutch euroskeptics who are less divisive and concerned about immigration but more focused on questions of sovereignty—and utterly committed to the destruction of the EU. Its leading figures are Thierry Baudet and Jan Roos, who have close links to British euroskeptics. They have already scored one significant success: In 2015, they persuaded the Dutch parliament to adopt a law that requires the government to hold a referendum on any law if 300,000 citizens request it. They then took advantage of this law at the first opportunity to secure a vote that rejected the EU’s proposed trade and economic pact with Ukraine, which Brussels saw as a vital step in supporting a strategically important neighbor. This referendum law is a potential bomb under the EU, as both Dutch politicians and Brussels officials are well aware.

Mr. Baudet believes he now has the means to block any steps the EU might seek to take to deepen European integration or stabilize the eurozone if they require Dutch legislation. This could potentially include aid to troubled Southern European countries such as Greece and Italy, rendering the eurozone unworkable. Indeed, the Dutch government gave a further boost to Mr. Baudet and his allies when it agreed to accept the outcome of the Ukraine referendum if turnout was above 30%, even though it was under no legal obligation to do so. This was a major concession to the euroskeptics, as became clear when strong turnout among their highly motivated supporters lifted overall turnout to 31%. With Mr. Wilders’s party, currently polling above 25%, and both Mr. Baudet and Mr. Roos having launched their own parties, Dutch euroskeptics are confident they will be able to reach the 30% threshold in future referendums.

Do they mean things would have been even worse without free trade? (if they do, let them say so): “..the benefits of trade and open markets need to be communicated to the wider public more effectively, emphasizing how trade promotes innovation, employment and higher living standards.”

• APEC Summit Closes With Call for More Globalization, Free Trade (AP)

Leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific nations ended their annual summit Sunday with a call to resist protectionism amid signs of increased free-trade skepticism, highlighted by the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum also closed with a joint pledge to work toward a sweeping new free trade agreement that would include all 21 members as a path to “sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth,” despite the political climate. “We reaffirm our commitment to keep our markets open and to fight against all forms of protectionism,” the leaders of the APEC nations said in a joint statement. APEC noted the “rising skepticism over trade” amid an uneven recovery since the financial crisis and said that “the benefits of trade and open markets need to be communicated to the wider public more effectively, emphasizing how trade promotes innovation, employment and higher living standards.”

Speaking to journalists at the conclusion of the summit, Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said the main obstacle to free trade agreements in Asia and around the world is the frustration felt by those left behind by globalization. “Protectionism in reality is a reflection of tough economic conditions,” said Kuczynski, the meeting’s host. Referring to Brexit and Trump’s election win in the U.S., he said those results highlighted the backlash against globalization in former industrial regions in the U.S. and Britain that contrasts with support for trade in more-prosperous urban areas and developing countries. “This is an important point in recent economic history because of the outcome of various elections in very important countries that have reflected an anti-trade, anti-openness feeling,” he said.

Fuhget about it.

• Obama Says World Leaders Want To Move Forward With TPP (AFP)

US President Barack Obama said Sunday that leaders from across the Asia-Pacific have decided to move ahead with a trade deal opposed by his successor Donald Trump. “Our partners made clear they want to move forward with TPP,” Obama said at a press conference after meeting leaders in Peru. “They would like to move forward with the United States.” It is unclear whether there is any future for the TPP, a vast, arduously negotiated agreement between 12 countries that are currently at different stages of ratifying it. It does not include China. Trump campaigned against the proposal as a “terrible deal” that would “rape” the United States by sending American jobs to countries with cheaper labor.

The agreement must by ratified in the US Congress – which will remain in the hands of Trump’s Republican allies when the billionaire mogul takes office on January 20. Without the United States, it cannot be implemented in its current form. However, some have suggested Trump could negotiate a number of changes and then claim credit for turning the deal around. Obama defended the increasing integration of the global economy at the close of his final foreign visit as president – a trade summit held against the backdrop of rising protectionist sentiment in the United States and Europe, seen in both Trump’s win and Britain’s “Brexit” vote. He said that “historic gains in prosperity” thanks to globalization had been muddied by a growing gap “between the rich and everyone else.” “That can reverberate through our politics,” he said.

Jim Quinn’s longtime series on the Fourth Turning continues. A problem might be that you can’t really know who’s who until afterwards. Maybe Mike Pence will turn out to be the real grey champion, or someone as yet unknown.

• The Grey Champion Assumes Command – Part 1 (Quinn)

In September 2015 I wrote a five part article called Fourth Turning: Crisis of Trust. In Part 2 of that article I pondered who might emerge as the Grey Champion, leading the country during the second half of this Fourth Turning Crisis. I had the above pictures of Franklin, Lincoln, and FDR, along with a flaming question mark. The question has been answered. Donald J. Trump is the Grey Champion. When I wrote that article, only one GOP debate had taken place. There were eleven more to go. Trump was viewed by the establishment as a joke, ridiculed by the propaganda media, and disdained by the GOP and Democrats. I was still skeptical of his seriousness and desire to go the distance, but I attempted to view his candidacy through the lens of the Fourth Turning. I was convinced the mood of the country turning against the establishment could lead to his elevation to the presidency. I was definitely in the minority at the time:

“Until three months ago the 2016 presidential election was in control of the establishment. The Party was putting forth their chosen crony capitalist figureheads – Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. They are hand-picked known controllable entities who will not upset the existing corrupt system. They are equally acceptable to Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve, the military industrial complex, the sickcare industry, mega-corporate America, the moneyed interests, and the never changing government apparatchiks. The one party system is designed to give the appearance of choice, while in reality there is no difference between the policies of the two heads of one party and their candidate products. But now Donald Trump has stormed onto the scene from the reality TV world to tell the establishment – You’re Fired!!!”

Strauss and Howe wrote their prophetic tome two decades ago. [..] They did not know which events or which people would catalyze this Fourth Turning. But they knew the mood change in the country would be driven by the predictable generational alignment which occurs every eighty years. “Soon after the catalyst, a national election will produce a sweeping political realignment, as one faction or coalition capitalizes on a new public demand for decisive action. Republicans, Democrats, or perhaps a new party will decisively win the long partisan tug of war. This new regime will enthrone itself for the duration of the Crisis. Regardless of its ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand private sacrifice. Where leaders had once been inclined to alleviate societal pressures, they will now aggravate them to command the nation’s attention. The regeneracy will be solidly under way.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

“This is a revolutionary moment. We must not allow them to shift the blame on to voters. This is their failure, decades in the making.”

• The Silver Lining In This Disaster: Clinton & Co Are Finally Gone (G.)

Hillary Clinton has given us back our freedom. Only such a crushing defeat could break the chains that bound us to the New Democrat elites. The defeat was the result of decades of moving the Democratic party – the party of FDR – away from what it once was and should have remained: a party that represents workers. All workers. For three decades they have kept us in line with threats of a Republican monster-president should we stay home on election day. Election day has come and passed, and many did stay home. And instead of bowing out gracefully and accepting responsibility for their defeat, they have already started blaming it largely on racist hordes of rural Americans. That explanation conveniently shifts blame away from themselves, and avoids any tough questions about where the party has failed.

In a capitalist democracy, the party of the left has one essential reason for existing: to speak for the working class. Capitalist democracies have tended towards two major parties. One, which acts in the interest of the capitalist class – the business owners, the entrepreneurs, the professionals – ensuring their efforts and the risks they took were fairly rewarded. The other party represented workers, unions and later on other groups that made up the working class, including women and oppressed minorities. This delicate balance ended in the 1990s. Many blame Reagan and Thatcher for destroying unions and unfettering corporations. I don’t. In the 1990s, a New Left arose in the English-speaking world: Bill Clinton’s New Democrats and Tony Blair’s New Labour. Instead of a balancing act, Clinton and Blair presided over an equally aggressive “new centrist” dismantling of the laws that protected workers and the poor.

[..] .. let us be as clear about this electoral defeat as possible, because the New Democratic elite will try to pin their failure, and keep their jobs, by blaming this largely on racism, sexism – and FBI director Comey. This is an extremely dangerous conclusion to draw from this election. So here is our silver lining. This is a revolutionary moment. We must not allow them to shift the blame on to voters. This is their failure, decades in the making. And their failure is our chance to regroup. To clean house in the Democratic party, to retire the old elite and to empower a new generation of FDR Democrats, who look out for the working class – the whole working class.

What happens when you think the economy means the rich.

• Disaffected Rust Belt Voters Embraced Trump. They Had No Other Hope (G.)

The industrial midwest is the vast sweep, from western Pennsylvania through eastern Iowa, that drove the American economy for nearly a century. The great industrial cities, such as Chicago and Detroit, led the way, but it spread into hundreds of small towns and cities – from the steel mills of Ohio to the auto parts factories of Michigan and Wisconsin and the appliance makers of Iowa and Illinois. This was Hillary Clinton’s blue wall, the states she had to win to become president. Of the 11 swing states that decided the election, five – Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa – lie in this battered old industrial heartland. If, as expected, Trump’s lead in Michigan holds, she lost them all. How did it happen? There are many reasons. The Clinton team barely campaigned there and in Wisconsin until it was too late.

Misogyny played a role. So did Clinton’s personal unpopularity and the relatively low turnout. But the real reason is that the industrial era created this region and gave a good middle-class way of life to the people who worked there. That economy began to vanish 40 years ago, moving first to the sun belt and then Mexico, before finally China. The good jobs that were left increasingly went to robots. Factories closed. So did the stores and bars and schools around them. The brightest kids fled to universities and then to the cities – to New York or Chicago or the state capital. Those left behind worked two or three non-union jobs just to stay afloat. Families broke up. Drug use increased. Life spans shortened. And nobody seemed to care – until Trump. But does he really? Who knows? He said he did.

His tirades – against trade, against elites, against Obamacare, against immigrants, against the Clintons – sounded like unhinged rants in cities and on campuses, which never took him seriously. In the old industrial zones and withering farm towns, he echoed their own resentments. Mitt Romney couldn’t do this; neither could John McCain. But Trump did, and so they embraced him. Why was this such a surprise? It’s impossible to overstate the alienation between the two Americas, between the global citizens and the global left-behinds, between the great cities that run the nation’s economy and media, and the hinterland that feels not only cheated but, worse, disrespected.

Tsipras goes from one blunder to the next. Still, as long as he’s there, the streets are quiet, amazingly quiet for a society that’s under such economic fire. But he is soon going to be voted out in favor of someone, anyone, who will then see things get much worse in the streets. A smouldering powder keg.

• Tsipras Ready To Give In On Labor Reform To Ensure Debt Relief (Kath.)

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is prepared to make further concessions to Greece’s creditors in tough negotiations that are currently under way to ensure that there is no delay in launching crucial talks on relief for the country’s debt burden, Kathimerini understands. According to sources, Tsipras and his key ministers are ready to give in to calls by foreign auditors for more flexibility in the crucial area of labor laws. The government has already agreed to put off its demands for the restoration of collective wage bargaining, a key pledge of leftist SYRIZA before it came to power last year. It is unclear to what degree the Greek side is willing to concede on other issues – such as calls by foreign officials for facilitating mass layoffs for struggling employers and making it harder for unions to call strikes.

A source at the Labor Ministry said over the weekend that the Greek side has submitted its proposals for changes to labor laws and is awaiting the reaction of foreign officials. Tsipras is said to be set on a strategy of withdrawal despite the risks. The key danger is that cohesion in the ranks of leftist SYRIZA, which has already been tested by a series of concessions to foreign creditors, is further compromised, weakening the beleaguered coalition. The other risk is that the further concessions may boost the lead of conservative New Democracy over SYRIZA in opinion polls, which is already significant, thereby enhancing the sense that SYRIZA’s coalition with the right-wing Independent Greeks is on its way out.

Debt Rattle November 10 2014

Nov 102014

November 10, 2014 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:30 am Finance Tagged with: APEC, buybacks, Canada, Catalan, China, Draghi, ebola, ETF, Illusion, Juncker, renewables, Russia Comments Off

DPC Wanted: 500 men to eat frankfurters, Bowery, Rockaway, NY 1905

• US Economic Growth Is All An Illusion (John Crudele)

• The System Is Terminally Broken (Investment Research Dynamics)

• Buybacks Biggest “Source Of Equity Demand In Recent Years” (Zero Hedge)

• Myopic Domestic Delusion or Planned Monetary Demolition? (De Landevoisin)

• What Stocks Say About The State Of The Global Economy (Zero Hedge)

• China Factory-Gate Prices Decline for Record 32nd Month (Bloomberg)

• Xi Dangles $1.25 Trillion as China Counters U.S. Refocus (Bloomberg)

• China’s Stock Markets Change Forever Next Week (MarketWatch)

• China’s $9 Trillion Untapped Market Spurs U.S. ETF Frenzy (Bloomberg)

• Russia, China Add to $400 Billion Gas Deal With Accord (Bloomberg)

• Russian Ruble Firms On Putin’s Backing (Reuters)

• Banks Face 25% Loss Buffer as FSB Fights Too-Big-to-Fail (BW)

• Jean-Claude Juncker Needs to Go (Bloomberg Ed.)

• Draghi Summons Banking Know-How for Top Posts as ECB Role Shifts (Bloomberg)

• Over 80% of Catalans Vote Yes at Independence Poll (RIA)

• Letter Reveals 2010 ECB Funding ‘Threat’ To Ireland (BreakingNews.ie)

• GM Ordered New Ignition Switches Long Before Recall (WSJ)

• A 700-Kilometre Surveillance Fence Along The Canada-US Border (NPost)

• Australia ‘Giving Up’ On Renewables (BBC)

• Australia Renewables Investment Drops 70% From Last Year (Tim Flannery)

• Why It’s Not Enough to Just Eradicate Ebola (NBC)

Haven’t seen anything by Crudele in a long time. My bad. Then again, he hides out at the NY Post of all places.

• US Economic Growth Is All An Illusion (John Crudele)

As voters were coming out of the polls on Tuesday, pesky reporters were asking why they voted the way they did — and what was going through their heads The most popular response — from 45% of the voters — was the economy. Only 28% said their families were doing better financially. The economy is always the major issue in an election during times like these. So no one should have been shocked that voters took their anger out on the party that controls the White House, even though Republicans are just as much to blame for our economy’s failures. John Harwood, a political reporter for CNBC, asked a very good question before the votes were counted: Why? As in, “Why did people appear so angry and unhappy when the stock market was at record levels, the unemployment rate is down sharply, inflation is subdued and the number of jobs is increasing?”

Harwood’s explanation was that the benefits of this economic growth weren’t being evenly distributed and were being felt only by the blessed in the American economy — the upper 1%, if you will. Harwood is only a little right. Yes, the economy is blessing the few and leaving the rest of us in limbo. What Harwood and the rest of the folks who rely solely on Washington’s mainstream thinkers and Wall Street boosters for their information don’t realize is this: The economy isn’t really doing what the statistics say it is doing. Our nation’s economic statistics are nipped and tucked, massaged, managed, fabricated and dolled up. In short, our statistics are wrong and Main Street folks know it. Here’s what a Wall Street hedge fund mogul, Paul Singer, head of Elliott Management Corp., told his clients the other day: “Nobody can predict how long governments can get away with fake growth, fake money, fake jobs, fake financial stability, fake inflation numbers and fake income growth,” Singer wrote.

“When confidence is lost, that loss can be severe, sudden and simultaneous across a number of markets and sectors.” I’m glad someone is reading my column. But it’s not like Singer — whom I don’t know — was willing to say that out loud so that everyone could understand. He wrote that in his newsletter to his clients. So, shhhhh! It’s a secret. Don’t tell Americans that the economy isn’t doing so well. (Oh, that’s right, they’ve already caught on.) I won’t get into the year-long investigation I have been conducting into the Census Bureau’s faulty economic data. Now that the Republicans control both houses of Congress, I’m sure what is going on at Census will be looked at very carefully. But fabrication of data isn’t the only problem. Put enough academics and statisticians in a room and they can turn any statistic into something it isn’t.

Word: “What would happen if the Fed decided to “experiment” by removing this massive dead-pool of money from the banks? The money isn’t really “dead,” it’s keeping the banks from collapsing.”

• The System Is Terminally Broken (Investment Research Dynamics)

The Fed has formally “ended” QE, but it hasn’t really. The Fed will continue reinvesting interest on its portfolio in more bonds and it will rollover maturities. We saw what happens to the stock market a few weeks ago when Fed official James Bullard asserted that the Fed needs to start raising rates: the S&P 500 quickly dropped 8%. Right at the bottom of the drop, the very same Bullard issued a statement suggesting that QE should be extended. This triggered an insanely abrupt “V” move back up to a new record high for the S&P 500. Bullard either did this intentionally or is a complete idiot. The stock market can’t function without Federal Reserve intervention. The stock market lost 8% quickly on just the thought that the Fed might start raising rates. Imagine what would happen if the Fed decided to “experiment” by shutting down its market intervention operations – both verbal and physical – for a month…

As for QE, if the Fed has achieved its objective of stimulating the economy, why doesn’t it start removing the $2.6 trillion of liquidity that it has injected into its member banks? This was money that was supposed to be directed at the economy. How come it’s sitting on bank balance sheets earning .25% interest? That’s $6.5 billion in free interest the Fed continues to inject into the Too Big To Fail banks. But why? What would happen if the Fed decided to “experiment” by removing this massive dead-pool of money from the banks? The money isn’t really “dead,” it’s keeping the banks from collapsing. I’m interested to watch the Government Treasury bond auctions now that the Fed is not there to soak up anywhere from 50-100% of each issue. I wonder if the banks will be moving their $2.6 trillion in Excess Reserves into new Treasury issuance. Obama is going around broadcasting the lie that the Government’s spending deficit in FY 2014 was something like $600 billion.

Yet, the amount of new Treasury bonds issued increased by $1 trillion over the same period. Either Obama is lying or the accountants at the Treasury committed a big typo. Either the Fed has found a way to continue opaquely monetizing new Government debt issuance, or the market is soon going to force U.S. interest rates up much higher.

Time to raise rates, or companies will own all their own stock. Sort of like BOJ buying up all Japanese sovereign bonds. Snake eats tail.

• Buybacks Biggest “Source Of Equity Demand In Recent Years” (Zero Hedge)

Spoiler alert: it’s not the Fed, even though the portfolio rebalancing channel courtesy of a $4.5 trillion Fed balance sheet certainly assured that the artificially inflated bubble in stocks, as a result of the Fed’s own purchases of bonds, is unlike anything seen before (and to all those debating whether the bubble is in bonds or stocks, here is the answer: it is in both). The answer, according to Goldman’s David Kostin is the following: “From a strategic perspective, buybacks have been the largest source of overall US equity demand in recent years.”

In other words, not only has the Fed made a mockery of fundamentals, the resulting ZIRP tsunami means that corporations can issue nearly-unlimited debt to yield chasing “advisors” managing other people’s money, and use it to buyback vast amounts of stock, which brings us to the latest aberation of the New Abnormal: the “Pull the S&P up by the Bootstaps” market, in which the only relevant question is which company can buyback the most of its own stock. Some further observations on the only thing that matters for equity demand in a world in which the Fed is, for the time being, sidelined:

Since the start of 4Q, a sector-neutral basket of 50 stocks with the highest buyback yields has outpaced the S&P 500.

And sure enough, with the market once again rewarding stock buybacks… companies will focus exclusively on stock repurchases in lieu of actual growth-promoting capital allocation such as CapEx (as predicted in April 2012):

We forecast S&P 500 cash spent on repurchases will rise by 18% in 2015 following a 26% jump in 2014.

Very much worth a read. People leap into assumptions about Fed and IMF goals far too easily, if you ask me.

• Myopic Domestic Delusion or Planned Monetary Demolition? (De Landevoisin)

So where is the impasse I point to? Well, as stated above, I am not quite so sanguine as Mr. Stockman is regarding the reasons behind our apparent self induced economic undoing. It is my contention that there exists ample motive behind the apparent policy insanity we are indeed witnessing and actually navigating through. What is being done is quite simply too plainly preposterous to be so innocently and readily dismissed. One has to consider what else may be driving the continuous and relentless stoking of a glaring, oncoming, head on collision train wreck dead ahead. No locomotive engineer can simply be assumed to be this brain dead, so completely out to lunch, it just doesn’t add up. Something else is at the heart of this mainlined monetary mayhem.

Call me a jaded cynic or even worse, a crackpot conspiracist, but when I see a country as majestic and powerful as the United States which has always stood for liberty and the pursuit of free enterprise, knowingly, willfully and conspicuously being undermined, as if being herded over a cliff like baffled buffaloe on the great plains, I smell a dubious dirty rat. Let us bear in mind, that the IMF Multinational Central Bankers are waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces of the train wreckage, with their deliberate SDR regime preparations. They are qualifying themselves to take on the existing immense capital account imbalances between the debtor and creditor nations. That will be a critical aspect of the developing picture.

As a new global monetary order begins to emerge and impose itself, the SDR composite will be expanded so as to address these utterly unsustainable trade imbalance. The envisaged multilateral SDR monetary instrument will be positioned to buy out the existing unserviceable sovereign debt loads, whereby the massively indebted nations of the developed world will cede a measure of influence to the creditor nations of the emerging world.

Ouch!

• What Stocks Say About The State Of The Global Economy (Zero Hedge)

The following two charts cut right through the headline propaganda and show all there is to know about the state of the global economy. The first is a chart of Global Cyclical stocks (Goldman ticker GSSBGCYC). The second shows Global Defensives (Goldman ticker GSSBGDEF). The resulting picture is worth 1000 Op-Eds welcoming you to yet another “global recovery.”

And that economy is still supposed to grow at 7%?

• China Factory-Gate Prices Decline for Record 32nd Month (Bloomberg)

China’s factory-gate prices fell for a record 32nd month in October and consumer prices remained subdued, raising pressure on policymakers to bolster the world’s second-largest economy as disinflation spreads. The producer-price index dropped 2.2% from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said in Beijing today, compared with the median projection of a 2% decline in a survey of analysts by Bloomberg News. Consumer prices rose 1.6% and the rate was unchanged from the prior month and matched economists’ estimates. China’s economy, burdened by overcapacity and weak domestic demand, is headed for the slowest full-year growth in more than two decades. Lower oil and metals prices are cutting costs at the factory gate, allowing China’s exporters to reduce prices and adding to deflationary pressures globally.

“China’s domestic demand remained soft and dis-inflationary risks are on the rise on the back of falling global commodity prices,” said Chang Jian, chief China economist at Barclays. “Subdued inflation offers room for more PBOC easing, but broad-based monetary easing will more likely to be triggered by disappointing growth numbers, which we will likely see in the coming months.” Chang said she expects the PPI drop will continue to 2015. Purchasing prices of fuels fell 3.8% in October from a year earlier, while ferrous metals costs dropped 6.9%, the NBS data showed. Prices of all nine components dropped. Oil prices have slumped into a bear market amid speculation of a global glut, slowing drilling at U.S. shale formations. Producers in OPEC countries are responding by cutting prices, resisting calls to reduce supply as they compete with the highest U.S. output in three decades.

“The extended drop in the PPI is affected by the prolonged decline of global oil prices and overcapacity in some domestic industries,” Yu Qiumei, a senior statistician at the NBS, said in a statement today. Eighteen of China’s 31 provinces and municipalities reported a nominal growth rate lower than the price-adjusted level for the first nine months of this year, signaling deflation. China’s imports moderated to a 4.6% increase in October from September’s 7% gain, according to data released by General Administration of Customs over the weekend.

Ahem: “China’s development will generate huge opportunities and benefits and hold lasting and infinite promise.”

• Xi Dangles $1.25 Trillion as China Counters U.S. Refocus (Bloomberg)

President Xi Jinping sought to counter U.S. efforts aimed at boosting influence in Asia by flexing China’s economic muscle days before a Beijing summit with his counterpart Barack Obama. Speaking to executives at a CEO gathering in Beijing, Xi outlined how much the world stands to gain from a rising China. He said outbound investment will total $1.25 trillion over the next 10 years, 500 million Chinese tourists will go abroad, and the government will spend $40 billion to revive the ancient Silk Road trade route between Asia and Europe. “China’s development will generate huge opportunities and benefits and hold lasting and infinite promise,” Xi said. “As China’s overall national strength grows, China will be both capable and willing to provide more public goods for the Asia Pacific and the world.”

China has used the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit under way in Beijing to put forward its own trade and economic proposals to strengthen its sway in Asia. Those incentives complement a greater assertiveness in territorial disputes and moves to upgrade its military after decades of U.S. dominance in the region. China is rolling out counteroffers for each promise made by President Barack Obama, whom he’ll meet this week in Beijing as part of the summit. Xi is pushing the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific in response to the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership, which excludes China. An Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank mostly financed with money from Beijing is seen as an answer to the Asian Development Bank and other multinational lenders where the U.S. and Japan have the most influence.

“Any time they have the chance to shape international economic rules or norms they are going to do that,” said Andrew Polk, resident economist at the Conference Board China Center for Economics and Business in Beijing. “It’s a bifurcated kind of response – there’s a reactive response to the developed world but trying to take a leadership role among other emerging economies.” While spelling out his message, Xi also made clear China is ready to accept a lower rate of growth, assuring executives that the economy is more resilient than ever and his government can safely guide the country through any slowdown. China’s economy is targeted to grow at about 7.5% this year, the slowest since 1990, and Xi said a growth rate around 7% would still make the country a top performer.

Big deal, but with China doing far worse than they let on, what possible outcomes are there?

• China’s Stock Markets Change Forever Next Week (MarketWatch)

When MarketWatch covers Chinese stocks, we usually focus on those listed in Hong Kong. The reason for this is that few outside of China – mainly just institutional investors with approved quotas – are able to buy what’s sold in Shanghai, Shenzhen and the other mainland Chinese bourses, while any investor in the world can buy Hong Kong-listed names. But this is all about to change in a big way next Monday, when China launches its game-changing “Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect” program. For the first time ever, retail investors around the world will be able to invest in mainland Chinese equities.

In some high-profile cases, the same companies have stock listing in both Shanghai (known as “A-shares” when denominated in yuan) and Hong Kong (“H-shares”), though here too, opportunities exist in the form of arbitrage, as a given company’s A-shares and H-shares rarely trade at the same level. “Many international investors are completely excited,” Charles Li, the chief executive of bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing (HKEx) told MarketWatch at a recent media availability. “This is probably the last frontier market that has yet to open,” Li said, “and they [global investors] probably have never seen a rebalancing possibility like this scale anytime in past history.”

I smell a huge rat. This has the potential to hide away the reality of global financial markets for a while. However, it also brings western scrutiny closer to China’s numbers.

• China’s $9 Trillion Untapped Market Spurs U.S. ETF Frenzy (Bloomberg)

The race is on to give U.S. exchange-traded fund investors access to $9 trillion of stocks and bonds in mainland China. Money managers including BlackRock and CSOP have now registered almost 40 ETFs tracking the country’s domestic shares and debt with U.S. regulators, six times the number of existing funds. The products allow anyone with a U.S. brokerage account to gain exposure to Chinese securities that were previously off limits to all but a few qualified institutions. Equities in the biggest emerging market are heading for the best annual gain since 2009, outpacing shares of mainland companies listed overseas amid speculation government plans to ease capital controls will narrow the valuation discount on domestic securities. As programs including a planned bourse link between Hong Kong and Shanghai help open up China’s markets, fund providers are rushing to stake claims to the fees they hope will come from new investors.

“There is so much potential, you just can’t ignore China,” Patricia Oey, a senior analyst at investment data provider Morningstar Inc. in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. Fund companies “want to have a foot into a very big market. China is opening up and they want to be there.” BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, is seeking to introduce its first U.S. exchange-traded fund that would invest directly in equities traded in Shanghai and Shenzhen, according to a Sept. 15 regulatory filing. CSOP, which runs a $6 billion ETF of China’s yuan-denominated A shares out of Hong Kong, filed to create a U.S. version three days later. While only a fraction of Chinese companies are listed or sell debt offshore, U.S. investors have piled almost $10 billion into ETFs that exclusively buy securities trading abroad, until recently one of the only ways for individuals to gain exposure to businesses from the world’s second-largest economy.

“Together we have carefully taken care of the tree of Russian-Chinese relations. Now fall has set in, it’s harvest time, it’s time to gather fruit.”

• Russia, China Add to $400 Billion Gas Deal With Accord (Bloomberg)

China has secured almost a fifth of the natural gas supplies it will need by the end of the decade after striking a second major deal with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed the gas-supply agreement in Beijing the day before U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in the Chinese capital for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The deal is slightly smaller than the $400 billion accord reached earlier this year, shortly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Russia’s Gazprom is negotiating the supply of as much as 30 billion cubic meters of gas annually from West Siberia to China over 30 years, it said yesterday. Another Russian company is discussing the sale of a 10% stake in a Siberian unit to state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.

Russia has turned to China to diversify its market and spur its economy as relations soured with the U.S. and Europe over the Ukraine crisis. The initial accord “will make Russia rely more on China both economically and politically,” Lin Boqiang, director of the Energy Economics Research Center at Xiamen University, said by phone. “China is probably the only country in the world that has both the financial ability and the market capacity to consume Russia’s huge energy exports on a sustainable basis over a long period of time,” said Lin. It gives Putin an opportunity to show Europe and the U.S. that his country won’t be isolated over Ukraine, he said. The two deals could account for almost 17% of China’s gas consumption by 2020, Gordon Kwan at Nomura wrote.

Russia may start selling gas to China within four to six years as part of the agreement with CNPC, Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexey Miller told reporters in Beijing. When the new supply deal begins, China will surpass Germany to become Russia’s biggest natural gas customer, according to CNPC’s website. “Together we have carefully taken care of the tree of Russian-Chinese relations,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said yesterday at a meeting with Putin at the economic forum. “Now fall has set in, it’s harvest time, it’s time to gather fruit.”

It’s one sunny message after the other at the APEC summit.

• Russian Ruble Firms On Putin’s Backing (Reuters)

The ruble firmed broadly on Monday after President Vladimir Putin said there were no reasons for the slide in the Russian currency. After a dramatic fall in previous week and volatile swings of 6% in its rate on Friday, the rouble traded 1.9% higher at 45.77 to the dollar at 0735 GMT. The Russian currency was 1.7% stronger at 57.07 against the euro. The Russian central bank said on Monday that it expects zero economic growth in 2015 and only 0.1% growth in 2016, in a three-year monetary policy strategy that anticipates Western sanctions against Russia will remain until the end of 2017. The central bank said that it was also calculating its base forecasts on the Urals oil price recovering to an average of $95 in 2015 but falling to $90 by the end of 2017, a long-term downward trend which it said would constrain economic growth.

Putin, wooing Asian investors on Monday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing, said he was hopeful that speculation against the rouble would stop soon and that there was no fundamental economic reason for the currency’s slide. The rouble has slumped nearly 30% against the dollar this year as plunging oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis shrivelled Russia’s exports and investment inflows. Russia’s central bank, which limited its support for the rouble last week by cutting the size of its interventions to $350 million a day, said on Friday it would still intervene to support the rouble it sees threats to financial stability. Putin also said Russia and China intend to increase the amount of trade that is settled in yuan, as he ruled out capital controls for Russia.

Long overdue and even now just a plan.

• Banks Face 25% Loss Buffer as FSB Fights Too-Big-to-Fail (BW)

The world’s largest banks will have to build up their loss-absorbing liability buffers to see them through a crisis, as regulators tackle too-big-to-fail lenders six years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The Financial Stability Board, led by Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, said today that the biggest banks may be required to have total loss absorbing capacity equivalent to as much as a quarter of their assets weighted for risk, with national regulators able to impose still tougher standards. The FSB is seeking comment on the rule, known as TLAC, which would apply at the earliest in 2019. Carney said the plans are a “watershed” in regulators’ mission to end the threat posed by banks whose size and systemic importance mean their failure would be catastrophic for the global economy.

“Once implemented, these agreements will play important roles in enabling globally systemic banks to be resolved without recourse to public subsidy and without disruption to the wider financial system,” he said. The rules are the latest step by the FSB in a five-year quest to boost banks’ resilience in the face of financial shocks. Agreement has already been reached on measures including tougher capital requirements and enhanced scrutiny by supervisors. The TLAC rules would apply to the FSB’s register of global systemically important banks. The latest list, published last week, contains 30 banks, with HSBC and JPMorgan identified as the most significant. The draft requirements announced by the FSB would measure banks’ ability to absorb losses in a crisis, shielding taxpayers from bailouts.

For once, I agree with the Bloomberg editors.

• Jean-Claude Juncker Needs to Go (Bloomberg Ed.)

Jean-Claude Juncker, the new president of the European Commission, was always a bad choice for the job, foisted on the bloc’s 28 national governments by a European Parliament eager to expand its powers. It’s becoming clear now just how poor a decision that appointment was. Juncker was the prime minister of Luxembourg, a tiny nation with a population 1/17th the size of London’s, for almost two decades. In that time, he oversaw the growth of a financial industry that became a tax center for at least 340 major global companies, not to mention investment funds with almost €3 trillion ($3.7 trillion) in net assets – second only to the U.S. Partly as a result of the Swiss-style bank secrecy rules and government-blessed tax avoidance schemes that helped draw so much capital, the people of Luxembourg have become the world’s richest after Qatar.

The tax arrangements, described in leaked documents provided by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, allegedly enabled multinationals, from Apple to Deutsche Bank, to reduce their tax liabilities on profits earned in other countries: The effective Luxembourg tax rates that resulted were as little as 0.25%. The countries where the money was made received nothing. It’s telling that these arrangements have long been shrouded in secrecy. (Only last month did Luxembourg’s government drop its opposition to new EU rules on banking transparency.) Juncker, you could say, made his country rich by picking the pockets of other countries, including those of the European Union he is now mandated to serve.

The commission was already conducting an investigation of Luxembourg’s tax arrangements. Juncker says he won’t interfere – but he won’t recuse himself, either. Indeed, his spokesman says he is “serene” in the face of the revelations. He shouldn’t be. At this point, he could best serve the European project by resigning. Juncker’s position as the head of the body investigating the tax practices he oversaw as prime minister is a clear conflict of interest. It’s possible the commission will find nothing improper about Luxembourg’s tax-avoidance paradise: The EU allows member governments wide latitude in taxing companies, so long as they don’t favor some over others. But with Juncker in charge of the commission, any such exoneration will fail to command public confidence.

“Oh, jeez: “This macroprudential policy was born out of the gradual recognition that the financial system isn’t always rational.”

• Draghi Summons Banking Know-How for Top Posts as ECB Role Shifts (Bloomberg)

Mario Draghi is seeking economists who understand banks, and he’s not afraid to look outside Frankfurt to find them. As the European Central Bank assumes the mantle of euro-area financial supervisor, its president has just staffed two key monetary-policy posts with non-ECB experts on how lenders function in the economy. The appointments mark a trend of turning to outsiders as the 16-year-old institution struggles to meet its changing responsibilities with existing staff. “People like Draghi have much more interest in how markets and supervision affect monetary policy than the old school,” said Anatoli Annenkov, senior European economist at Societe Generale SA in London. “It’s a reflection of the problems that the ECB is facing.” Sergio Nicoletti Altimari, a Bank of Italy financial-markets official who worked closely with Draghi during the latter’s time as governor there, will become director general for macroprudential policy and financial stability from Jan. 1.

Luc Laeven, a Belgian economist at the International Monetary Fund with a track record of analyzing financial crises, will become director general for research by March. Draghi is seeking people who can handle the new powers the ECB gained when it became the euro-area banking supervisor on Nov. 4. About 900 new staff have been hired so far who will be dedicated to oversight, and the role also brings the authority to promote financial stability throughout the economy with measures such as higher capital buffers or increased risk-weightings on lenders’ assets. This macroprudential policy was born out of the gradual recognition that the financial system isn’t always rational, and so someone needs to be watching for the emergence of risks that could escalate and broaden.

Add this to the recent revelations of the corruption agonizingly close to Rajoy and his government, and Catalunya must feel stronger every day.

• Over 80% of Catalans Vote Yes at Independence Poll (RIA)

An overwhelming majority of Catalans has supported the region’s independence, vice president of the autonomy’s government Joana Ortega said early Monday. There have been two question in the ballots: “Would you like Catalonia to become a state?” and “If yes, would you like Catalonia to become an independent state?” With 88.44% of the ballots counted, 80.72% of voters answered yes to both questions in the ballot, and 10.11% answered yes only to the first questions, according to Ortega. As few as 4% of the voters said no to both questions.

More than 2.25 million people out of 5.4 million eligible voters in the wealthy breakaway region of Catalonia in northeastern Spain voted on Sunday in the unofficial independence poll. Results of the vote are expected to come on Monday morning. Spanish government sees the voting as illegal and tried to block it by filing complaints to the Constitutional Court. However Catalan President Artur Mas has stated that Catalonia would carry out the consultation despite the central government’s protests. Earlier on Sunday the central government dismissed the vote as “useless” and unconstitutional.

The ECB is no more beyond blackmail than the rest of Brussels is.

• Letter Reveals 2010 ECB Funding ‘Threat’ To Ireland (BreakingNews.ie)

A top-level threat to cut emergency European funding to Ireland days before the humiliating international bailout will shock people, Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin has said. Letters released today by the European Central Bank (ECB) confirm the Government was warned crisis funds propping up collapsed banks in 2010 would be withdrawn unless they asked for an €85bn rescue package. The missive from then-ECB president Jean Claude Trichet to the late former Finance Minister Brian Lenihan also demanded a written commitment to punishing austerity measures, spending cutbacks and an overhaul of the financial industry. Irish high-street banks were surviving on emergency funding – known as emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) – at the time and if stopped, it could have effectively shut down the property crash-ravaged lenders.

Mr Trichet urged a speedy response to his proposals, which have been interpreted by some as the Frankfurt central bank pushing Ireland into a bailout. “It is the position of the (ECB) Governing Council that it is only if we receive in writing a commitment from the Irish government vis-a-vis the Eurosystem on the four following points that we can authorise further provisions of ELA (Emergency Liquidity Assistance) to Irish financial institutions,” Mr Trichet wrote. The four points included Ireland seeking a bailout, agreeing to austerity, reforming banks and guaranteeing to repay emergency funds. Two days after the letter was sent on November 19 Ireland officially requested a rescue package from the ECB, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission. Minister Howlin said the letters – published after a years-long campaign for their release – would “come as a shock to many people”.

OK, now we know this, go get ’em! Take ’em to court already!

• GM Ordered New Ignition Switches Long Before Recall (WSJ)

General Motors ordered a half-million replacement ignition switches to fix Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars almost two months before it alerted federal safety regulators to the problem, according to emails viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The parts order, not publicly disclosed by GM, and its timing are sure to give fodder to lawyers suing GM and looking to poke holes in a timetable the auto maker gave for its recall of 2.5 million vehicles. The recall concerns a switch issue that is now linked to 30 deaths and has led to heavy criticism of the auto giant’s culture and the launch of a Justice Department investigation.

The email exchanges took place in mid-December 2013 between a GM contract worker and the auto maker’s ignition-switch supplier, Delphi Automotive. The emails indicate GM placed a Dec. 18 “urgent” order for 500,000 replacement switches one day after a meeting of senior executives. GM and an outside report it commissioned have said the executives discussed the Cobalt at the Dec. 17 meeting but didn’t decide on a recall. The emails show Delphi was asked to draw up an aggressive plan of action to produce and ship the parts at the time. In the months that followed, the size of the recall announced Feb. 7 would balloon and spark an auto-safety crisis, casting a shadow over the industry and leading to widespread calls for faster action by auto makers addressing safety concerns.

” … the Border Integrity Technology Enhancement Project.” Alternatively, they could just burn the $92 million. Or give it to people who need it.

• A 700-Kilometre Surveillance Fence Along The Canada-US Border (NPost)

A massive intelligence-gathering network of RCMP video cameras, radar, ground sensors, thermal radiation detectors and more will be erected along the U.S.-Canada border in Ontario and Quebec by 2018, the Mounties said Tuesday. The $92-million surveillance web, formally known as the Border Integrity Technology Enhancement Project, will be concentrated in more than 100 “high-risk” cross-border crime zones spanning 700 kilometres of eastern Canada, said Assistant Commissioner Joe Oliver, the RCMP’s head of technical operations. Airport search not racial profiling when based on customs officers’ on-the-job experience: court Customs officers are not guilty of racial profiling when they use on-the-job experience to decide who to stop and search at Canada’s airports, the Federal Court of Appeal has ruled.

“Officers on the front line, such as the officer herein, cannot be expected to leave their experience — acquired usually after many years of observing people from different countries entering Canada — at home,” Justice Marc Nadon said, writing on behalf of a three-person appeal panel. Justice Nadon made the comment in overturning a tribunal decision that quashed an $800 fine imposed against an Ottawa woman, Ting Ting Tam, who failed to declare some pork rolls in her luggage. “The concept involves employing unattended ground sensors, cameras, radar, licence plate readers, both covert and overt, to detect suspicious activity in high-risk areas along the border,” Assistant Commissioner Oliver told security industry executives attending the SecureTech conference and trade show at Ottawa’s Shaw Centre. “What we’re hoping to achieve is a reduction in cross-border criminality and enhancement of our national security.”

The network of electronic eyes is to run along the Quebec-Maine border to Morrisburg, Ont., then along the St. Lawrence Seaway, across Lake Ontario, and ending just west of Toronto in Oakville. The project was announced under the 2014 federal budget, but framed solely as a measure to improve the RCMP’s ability to combat contraband cigarette smuggling. The network will be linked to a state-of-the-art “geospatial intelligence and automated dispatch centre” that will, among other things, integrate the surveillance data, issue alerts for high-probability targets, issue “instant imagery” to officers on patrol and produce predictive analysis reports.

The OZ government doesn’t seem to be in sync with its people.

• Australia ‘Giving Up’ On Renewables (BBC)

Investment into renewable energy projects in Australia has dropped by 70% in the last year, according to a new report by a climate change body. The Climate Council says foreign investors are going to other countries because Australia’s government has no clear renewable energy policy. Australia has gone from “leader to laggard” in energy projects, it added. Another new report says Australia will need to raise its carbon emission reduction target to 40% by 2025. The damning report on the state of renewable energy, entitled Lagging Behind: Australia and the Global Response to Climate Change, said the country was losing out on valuable business. Investment that could be coming to Australia was going overseas “to countries that are moving to a renewables energy future”, said Tim Flannery, one of the report’s authors. He said most countries around the world had accelerated action on climate change in the last five years because the consequences had become more and more clear.

The report found China had retired 77 gigawatts of coal power stations between 2006 and 2010 and aimed to retire a further 20GW by next year. It also said the US was “rapidly exploiting the global shift to renewable energy” by introducing a range of incentives and initiatives to investors. The future of Australia’s renewable energy industry remains highly uncertain, the report concluded, because of a lack of clear federal government renewable energy policy. “Consequently investment in renewable energy in 2014 has dropped by 70% compared with the previous year,” it said. The second new report, by the Climate Institute, calls on Australia’s government to announce an “independent, transparent” process for setting the post 2020 carbon emission reduction targets. Erwin Jackson, deputy chief executive of the climate body, said too much of the political debate had “ignored growing scientific, investment and international realities”.

With the amounts being thrown around, it looks risky to pull out.

• Australia Renewables Investment Drops 70% From Last Year (Tim Flannery)

Australia’s most important trading partners and allies, such as China, the US and the European Union are strengthening their responses to climate change. Australia will be left in the wake of these big economies (and big emitters), according to the latest Climate Council report Lagging Behind: Australia and the Global Response to Climate Change. Australia’s retreat from being a global leader at tackling climate change is as impressive as our recent performances at the cricket. Looking on the bright side, even countries not known for their sunshine like Germany are going solar in a big way. Global momentum is building as more and more countries invest in renewable energy and put a price on carbon. 39 countries are putting a price on carbon. The EU and China (now with seven pilot schemes up and running) are home to the two largest carbon markets in the world, together covering over 3,000m tonnes (MtCO2) of carbon dioxide emissions.

There’s also plenty of action in the US: 10 states with a combined population of 79 million are now using carbon pricing to drive down emissions, including California, the world’s ninth largest economy. Yet, here in Australia, we now hold the dubious distinction of being the first country to repeal an operating and effective carbon price. Like carbon pricing, support for renewables is also advancing worldwide. In the last year, more renewable energy capacity was added than fossil fuels. Globally renewables attracted greater investment with US$192bn spent on new renewable power compared to US$102bn in fossil fuel plants. China is leading the charge on expanding renewable capacity. At the end of last year, China had installed a whopping 378GW of renewable energy capacity – about a quarter of renewables capacity installed worldwide, and over seven times Australia’s entire grid-connected power capacity.

Don’t let the GOP find out Obama spends $6 billion on African health care systems.

• Why It’s Not Enough to Just Eradicate Ebola (NBC)

The new U.S. plan to spend $6 billion fighting Ebola has a hidden agenda that aid workers approve of: not only stamping out the epidemic in West Africa, but starting to build a health infrastructure that can prevent this kind of thing from happening again. President Barack Obama’s $6.18 billion request is an enormous amount of money – six times what the U.S. has already committed and far more even than what the World Health Organization says is needed. Most is going for full frontal assault on Ebola – one that hasn’t really gotten off the ground yet, months into an epidemic that has been out of control despite an outcry from international groups and governments alike. But billions are also being quietly allocated to building a health care system in the countries suffering the most – a less sexy approach that could prevent another epidemic in the future. Most aid groups are focused on eradicating the virus, which has infected at least 13,000 people, probably more, and killed at least 5,000 of them.

That’s where the public support is; donors and taxpayers alike prefer to focus on a specific goal, and an emergency always gets attention. “Had we had those things in place, we would have detected this a lot earlier.” “We are not really a developmental organization,” said Dr. Armand Sprecher of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), one of the main groups fighting Ebola in West Africa. MSF focuses on providing targeted medical care. And while that has to be the first priority, it’s important to keep an eye on the long game, says Dr. Raj Panjabi, a founder and CEO of Last Mile Health, an aid group focused on helping people in the most remote corners of the world. “The goal has to be to not just contain Ebola,” Panjabi told NBC News. Ebola spread silently in villages and remote communities where there were no health care workers to diagnose Ebola and no way for them to report it even if they did catch it. “Had we had those things in place, we would have detected this a lot earlier,” said Panjabi.