Jul 302024
 
 July 30, 2024  Posted by at 9:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  69 Responses »


Eugène-Louis Boudin Laundresses on the Beach at Étretat 1892

 

Rebel Archbishop Slams Olympics’ “Vile Attacks On God” (ZH)
Most Americans Want Biden To Resign Now – Poll (RT)
Biden Proposes Plan to Reform Supreme Court (ET)
Where Matters Stand (Paul Craig Roberts)
Trump Agrees To FBI Interview For Assassination Attempt Probe (RT)
You’ll Never Work in This Town Again! (Kunstler)
Why Harris Became The Only Possible Opponent For Trump (Lolaev)
Maduro Wins Third Term (RT)
EU Diplomats Ordered To Slash Spending – FT (RT)
Poland Suggests Hungary Leave NATO and EU (RT)
EU Readies ‘Carrot-and-Stick” Trade Strategy to Deal With Trump (Sp.)
2 Days After Trump Crypto-Crowning, Biden Admin Sells Out (ZH)
A Tale of Two Cats (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

21x

 

 

USSS

 

 

Orban

 

 

Shapiro

 

 

George Webb

 

 

Butler PA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1817961189453992170

 

 


© Getty Images / Trump Campaign Office / Handout/Anadolu

 

 

 

 

First covered him about a month ago. Can’t find anything that would hurt his credibility.

Former Vatican ambassador to the USA and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is an Italian Bishop of the Catholic Church. He is facing charges in an extrajudicial criminal trial by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The accusations include committing schism, denying the legitimacy of Pope Francis, and rejecting the Second Vatican Council.

Viganò recently labeled Pope Francis a servant of WEF, before being excommunicated 3 weeks ago by the same pope. He also called Macron an ’emissary of the World Economic Forum,’ who ‘passes off a transvestite as his own wife with impunity, just as Barack Obama is accompanied by a muscular man in a wig.’

He sounds like an interesting conversation partner, but how much longer does this 83-year old have to live?

Rebel Archbishop Slams Olympics’ “Vile Attacks On God” (ZH)

[..] Needless to say, Christians are pissed [..]…including Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò – the former papal nuncio to the United States who questioned the legitimacy of Pope Francis and the authority of the Second Vatican Council, and was excommunicated three weeks ago for “his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff.” In a scathing rebuke of the Olympics, Viganò called the opening ceremony “the latest in a long series of vile attacks on God, the Catholic Religion and natural Morality by the antichristic elite holds that hostage Western countries.” “We a dystopian dance macabre in Holograms of the horsemen of the Apocalypse alternated with a plump blue Dionysius, served under a bell of various courses; the parody of the LGBTQ+ Last Supper…” the letter continues.

Viganò also pointed to “disconcerting scenes at the 2012 London Olympics, the 2016 of inauguration of the Gotthard Tunnel, and the 2022 Commonwealth Games, featuring infernal figures, goats, and terrifying animals.” The elite who organizes these ceremonies demand not only the right to blasphemy and the obscene display of the foulest vices, but even their mute acceptance by Catholics and decent people, who are forced to suffer the outrage the most sacred symbols of their Faith and the very foundations of the Natural Law desecrated. -Carlo Maria Viganò.

According to Viganò, “Satan makes nothing: only he ruins everything. He does not invent: he tampers. And his followers are no different: they humiliate woman’s femininity in order to erase the motherhood that recalls the Virgin Mother; they castrate man’s manhood in order to tear from the image of God’s fatherhood; they corrupt the little ones in order to kill in them and make them victims of the most abject wokeism.” Viganò says it’s “no coincidence” that the ceremonies were presided over by French President Emanuel Macron, an ’emissary of the World Economic Forum,’ who ‘passes off a transvestite as his own wife with impunity, just as Barack Obama is accompanied by a muscular man in a wig.’

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That would mean President Kamala. They’re not ready for that. She will never be.

Most Americans Want Biden To Resign Now – Poll (RT)

Most American voters agree that US President Joe Biden should resign from office now, while a vast majority approve of his decision not to seek reelection, a Rasmussen Reports poll has suggested. The survey results released on Friday showed that 52% of respondents agree that Biden should resign before his term expires. The same poll found that 76% supported his decision to drop out of the race. Only 18% of respondents disapproved of Biden ending his campaign. The poll was conducted from July 22 to 24 and involved 1,074 registered voters. Immediately after Biden announced that he was quitting the race, Republican lawmakers in Congress started to openly call for him to leave the White House before his term expires.

House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed earlier this month that if Biden is not fit to run for president, “he is not fit to serve as president” adding that “he must resign the office immediately.” “Doesn’t have the mental acuity or cognitive ability to run a political campaign but can serve for six more months as president? He should resign,” Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace wrote. Senator Rick Scott, former governor of Florida, echoed these remarks. “Let me be clear, if Joe Biden can’t run for re-election, he is not capable of serving as president for the next six months and needs to resign today,” Scott said. “While we welcome the news that one of America’s most destructive presidents will be denied a second term, it changes very little as to the stakes of this election.”

Biden announced that he was ending his reelection campaign on July 21. The announcement came after weeks of growing concerns among Democrats and party donors over his declining health and ability to defeat Donald Trump in November, especially after his disastrous performance in the debate against his Republican rival. While initially defiant, Biden argued that the move was necessary, given the high stakes of the election. In the wake of his withdrawal, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor. Harris has so far secured the support of the Clintons and the Obamas; however, in the polls she lags behind the former US president, according to the latest surveys.

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On his way out, the sitting duck president is made to “reform” the highest court in the land. All the blame will be his, but he’ll already be gone..

Biden Proposes Plan to Reform Supreme Court (ET)

President Joe Biden called for Congress to back his proposals for two significant changes to the U.S. Supreme Court and a change to the U.S. Constitution. In an op-ed published the morning of July 29, the president outlined his reasoning for pursuing changes that have long been sought by progressive camps. “This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one,” the president wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. According to a White House official, President Biden will call for Congress to back term limits for Supreme Court justices and a code of ethics enforceable by the legislative branch. He also will propose an amendment to limit the extent of presidential immunity afforded by the Constitution, proposing that former presidents be granted no immunity for crimes committed while in office.

Citing his 36 years as a U.S. senator and former chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, President Biden said that while he has “great respect for our institutions and separation of powers,” what is happening now in the United States is “not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms.” “We now stand in a breach,” the president wrote. In recent years, the Supreme Court released some decisions that sparked criticism from Democrats and progressives, including its overturning of Roe v. Wade and, more recently, its 6–3 ruling that presidents and former presidents are, in principle, immune from prosecution for official acts. Today, the president made clear his resolve to dedicate time during his last five months in office to back changes that he says can restore trust and accountability in both the Supreme Court and the presidency, a White House official told The Epoch Times.

The announcement was made a week after President Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. In 2020, as a presidential candidate, he promised to create a commission to study potential changes to the Supreme Court as progressives called for the expansion of the Supreme Court. The commission published a 294-page report to the president in December 2021. President Biden has not acted on that report until now. The president is scheduled to speak on Monday about his plan, from the LBJ Presidential Library, while commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. The move is the first significant effort by a president since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s progressive court-packing plan to advocate changes to the workings of the Supreme Court. President Roosevelt’s push for a more favorable court ultimately failed in the face of significant opposition.

President Biden’s proposal follows years of progressive advocacy to push their preferred reforms on the judicial branch, which has met resistance from those who hold originalist views widely preferred within the GOP. The White House says that term limits for Supreme Court justices would help ensure that the timing of court nominations is more predictable and less arbitrary, reducing the chance that any single presidency is advantaged by the retirement times of justices. Additionally, a binding code of conduct for justices, including the disclosure of gifts, refraining from public political activity, and recusal from cases with conflicts of interest, would improve public trust in the institution, the White House said.

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“By implanting a close election in the voting public’s mind, the Democrats can steal the election.”

Where Matters Stand (Paul Craig Roberts)

The assassination issue has been reduced to operational failure and insufficient budgetary resources for the Secret Service, and the assassination has been moved aside by Kamala’s emergence as the Democrat candidate for President. The presstitutes are again speaking with one voice preparing the narrative of a close election that makes it possible to use the election theft mechanisms that have been legalized by the Democrats in the swing states. Biden had to go because he was too discredited as a viable candidate for the Democrats to be able to steal the election in his behalf. Kamala, previously soundly rejected by Democrats as a presidential candidate is now being hyped as the candidate able to defeat Trump. Rigged polls are now showing a neck and neck contest, with Trump sometimes ahead by one point and Kamala ahead by 3 points. The purpose of these rigged polls and the media emphasis on what a viable and challenging opponent Kamala presents is to prepare the public’s acceptance of another stolen election.

In 2020 Trump got more votes than he got in 2016. Yet somehow he lost to Biden whose few campaign rallies attracted minimal attendance, but despite the lack of interest Biden got more votes than Hillary in 2016 and, if memory serves, the largest number of votes in US electoral history. Clearly no such thing happened. Trump supporters take for granted that Trump is already elected. This confidence is not justified. They, and Trump himself, need to pay attention to how the presstitutes and the elite are creating a winning persona for Kamala. By implanting a close election in the voting public’s mind, the Democrats can steal the election. I think that is what will happen, thus ridding the ruling establishment of Trump’s threat to take away their power. Lies and election theft have always been part of American politics. Power, not ideas, is what is important to the contestants and their backers. However, in 2016 a major change occurred. In his campaign Trump said he intended to normalize relations with Russia.

This was a direct threat to the power and budget of the military/security complex which needs Russia as an enemy to justify its power and budget. Trump also said in his inauguration speech that he was taking power away from the ruling establishment and giving it back to the people. No president had ever spoken in this way. Trump revealed himself as an existential threat to the ruling elite. The power elite assembled at his speech smiled and laughed at the unaware clown and soon began their political assassination of Trump with Russia-gate, two impeachments in the House of Representatives, pornstar-gate, documents-gate, and an “insurrection” that has put 1,000 of Trump’s supporters in prison as “insurgents” as a warning to others. Trump’s challenge to the ruling elite and the massive support he received from the traditional American population scared the ruling elite whose control over America had been gradually tightened. The ruling elite decided on a coup.

The Republican Party, whose voters stood with Trump, had to go. What we have witnessed in the Biden regime is the elite’s decision to install a one-party state completely under their control. Rino Republican response is to continue in existence by out-competing Democrats in serving the interests of the ruling elite. Unsure of their ability to whore as well as Democrats is why the Republican Senate leader hates Trump. Trump has brought matters to a fight or surrender decision that Republicans prefer to avoid. Concerning the assassination, we have no idea what effect it will have on Trump. Will he pull in his horns in order to continue his life? What we do know is that like the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, 9/11 and other such CIA/FBI/Joint Chiefs events, there will be no real investigation. No important evidence will even be mentioned–such as the acoustic evidence of the shots and their location, such as the upward trajectory of the bullet that struck the person in the corner at the top of the stand above Trump.

How did Crooks’ shot allegedly fired at Trump, which would have had a downward trajectory strike a person above Trump? FBI director Wray prepares the cover by saying that Trump was not struck by a bullet but by shrapnel. In other words a bullet disintegrated and flew upward. Examination of the person’s wound would reveal whether it was a bullet or shrapnel. We will be told whatever fits the official narratives if we are told anything at all. Having watched many coverups in my lifetime, I tried to prevent this one by early reporting the ignored real evidence before Republicans, delighted in giving Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheaters a verbal beating, a mistake as it outraged women, moved the issue off target. Once a coverup is set in stone with an official narrative, it is immune to evidence, like the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and 9/11. Evidence does not count once an official narrative has been established.

[..] The House of Representatives has voted unanimously to set up an investigative task force over the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The fact that it is unanimous means that it will touch no real issue. Indeed, the investigation is limited to determining the nature of the failures of the Secret Service that permitted the assassination attempt by Thomas Matthew Crooks. The most likely result will be a larger budget for the Secret Service and, perhaps, a ban on such outdoor events. In other words the narrative is that the Secret Service failed to stop Crooks. There is to be no examination if there were other shooters, if Crooks was merely a patsy, no examination of acoustic evidence, no explanation for an upward bullet trajectory. Nothing but a verification of the official narrative.

Who will the House rely on for the investigation? The House will rely on the suspects themselves–the Secret Service, the FBI, Homeland Security. FBI Director Wray, a Trump appointee, will respond to the House in keeping with the official narrative. The Republicans will be made impotent by being submerged in the official explanation. At this point we do not know if Crooks fired a single shot. Despite Crooks being overlooked by Secret Service from two directions there are no videos of Crooks firing. Indeed, he was killed by a shot a quarter of a minute after all firing had stoped by a bullet that caused instant death. If he was in position firing his rifle, why is his dead body 7 feet away from the rifle?

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To find out what he knows about their role?!

Trump Agrees To FBI Interview For Assassination Attempt Probe (RT)

Former US President and Republican Party 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump said he would sit for an interview with the FBI, as part of an investigation into this month’s attempt on his life, the agency announced on Monday. Trump narrowly avoided death at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month, when he was shot in the ear. One person in the audience was killed, and two more were wounded. The FBI wants to “get his perspective on what he observed, just like any other witness to the crime,” Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office Kevin Rojek told reporters in a conference call. He explained that this kind of interview is standard practice for a victim of a crime. More than two weeks following the attempt on Trump, the FBI investigation has yet to establish the shooter’s motive.

The gunman, later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired several shots at the Republican presidential nominee as he was mid-speech at an open-air campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, grazing Trump’s ear. “While the FBI investigation may not yet have determined a motive, we believe the subject made significant efforts to conceal his activities,” Rojek said. The agency believes his actions illustrate “careful planning ahead of the campaign rally,” the FBI official added. He noted Crooks had a small social circle, which “appears to be limited to his immediate family,” and had “few friends and acquaintances throughout his life.”

The would-be assassin had used aliases to make purchases related to firearms and explosives, Rojek explained. Earlier this year, Crooks bought “six chemical precursor-related purchases online of materials used to create the explosive devices recovered in the subject’s vehicle and home,” he said. The failed assassination has spurred widespread criticism and questions about what security measures were put in place before the event. Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the agency will leave “no stone unturned” as it looks into what happened. A day earlier, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned admitting her agency had failed to properly guard the Republican frontrunner.

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“..what kind of public spectacle the Left could come up with to beat the Olympic opener. Maybe human sacrifice, say Hillary Clinton eating a parboiled toddler in front of three thousand shrieking cat-ladies at the Democratic National Convention. Has it come to that?”

You’ll Never Work in This Town Again! (Kunstler)

Did we just witness the suicide of Wokery? I think you saw what’s called, in the argot of progressive thinking, the “queering” of the Olympics. That was some spectacle. First, Death on a Pale Horse came galloping down the Seine River so that no one would miss the point of the symbolism to follow: the beheaded Marie Antoinette portrayed singing in the window of a flaming palais (revolution anyone?). . . . Then, a tableau vivant of DaVinci’s The Last Supper “queered” to-the-max with a tattooed land-whale in the Jesus seat offering a Satan hand-signal among the swaying drag queens, plus one child ostentatiously in the mix (say, whu?). . . followed by a blue Dionysius crooning about nudity (“Nu”) on a giant fruit platter, with his ball-sack clearly on display among the cherries and nectarines. . . . It rained. . .tant pis. . . . The power went out and Paris ceased to be the City of Light. Finis. . . .

Not all of Western Civ was amused by these. . . antics. Many complained that the show portrayed Christianity in a less than favorable light. Ya think? The next day, the Paris-24 organizing committee offered the world an apology of sorts. Spokesperson Anne Descamps explained that the idea was “to celebrate community tolerance.” Or, shall we say, to test it? Apparently, it flunked the test. Director of the extravaganza, Thomas Jolly, said (translation), “Our intention was never to be impertinent.” Of course, he lies, and of course it is the foundational premise of those in the Satanic fold to lie about everything. (Just as America’s Democratic Party lies about everything.) Within hours, sponsors revolted and pulled their support for the games altogether. Lord knows what the BRICs nations make of all this. Probably something like pity.

Two-hundred-thirty years ago in Paris the Jacobin faction behind the Reign of Terror was put out of business, suddenly, all in one night, really, after turning French daily life upside-down and inside-out for one year, to the huge annoyance of the French public. On July 27 (9 Thermidor), 1794, chief Jacobin activist Maximillian Robespierre made a speech before the Convention (national assembly) denouncing those who were denouncing him (theories of conspiracy!), and the audience commenced to pelt him with fruit, vegetables, and opprobrious invective. Cries rang out for his arrest. Before long: pandemonium in the chamber! The Jacobins fled and took refuge in the city hall (Hôtel de Ville), but it was too late. The whole city had turned on them. Robespierre got shot in the jaw, possibly by himself. The Jacobin gang were declared “outlaws.” The following evening, The Jacobin leaders were all executed by guillotine in the Place de la Concorde.

Thus began the Thermidorian Reaction — called that, because the Jacobins had added an extra mid-summer month, Thermidor, to their cuckoo calendar. Now, one might ask, was July 27, 2024, the start of the revolt against progressive Woke-ism? It’s hard to imagine what kind of public spectacle the Left could come up with to beat the Olympic opener. Maybe human sacrifice, say Hillary Clinton eating a parboiled toddler in front of three thousand shrieking cat-ladies at the Democratic National Convention. Has it come to that?

It’s hard to escape the feeling now that our own reign-of-terror, the Woke-Marxist psychopathocracy, has played out its string. A month of garish events and revelations has left the USA a hot mess: the momentous Supreme Court decisions, the debate horror show, the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump and the many loose ends still hanging from it, the (probably) coerced election withdrawal of “Joe Biden” and the shocking discovery (to many) that he’s only partly still there, and the elite selection process that “nominated” Kamala Harris — these strange doings have rocked the American Zeitgeist. The artificially-induced rapture that attended the apotheosis of Veep is sputtering out as the internet explodes with memes putting her clueless vacuity on laughable display.

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“..the Republican nominee was the number one newsmaker, enjoying an absurd amount of publicity unlike Harris, who stayed in Biden’s shadow for almost four years. Elections in the United States are more personalized, which means they require more time and money for media promotion of the candidate. A comparison of US election campaigns with European countries reveals this key difference.”

Why Harris Became The Only Possible Opponent For Trump (Lolaev)

After the apparent loss of the first presidential debate, the obvious question concerning presidential elections was “How long until Biden drops off from the election?” The final days of Biden’s presidential campaign after the debate were reminiscent of the sinking of the Titanic: the inexorability of the crash was matched only by its swiftness. Everyone whose support seemed unshakable back in the fall, like Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives and Senate, prominent left-leaning journalists and major donors to the Democratic Party, turned away from Biden. Finally, in a very rare but not unexpected decision, Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the election, saying that it was time to “pass the torch to a new generation.” In social media posts, he explained his decision as “best for the party, the presidency and American democracy.”

Biden became one of the few sitting American presidents who decided not to run for a second term. This moment is unique in US political history, since Biden’s decision was made shortly before the next presidential election, after he had already effectively received the Democratic nomination. The primaries ran from January to June but, by March 2024, Biden had secured enough votes to become the presumptive Democratic nominee. There have already been similar precedents in US history: in the 20th century, Lyndon B Johnson and Harry S Truman also did not run for a second term. However, they took office after the death of the sitting presidents and eventually served more than just one presidential term. Truman served all but 82 days of almost two terms. The last time Lyndon B Johnson was the one to announce his decision not to run for reelection in 1968. Like Biden, Johnson had health problems: he died two days after the end of his supposed second full term as president.

In addition, he also lost the support of important factions within his own party, in his case due to his failure to overcome the foreign-policy stalemate of the Vietnam War. Fearing a split in the Democratic Party and failure in the primaries, he announced at the end of a lengthy televised address on the War in Vietnam that he would not seek or accept his party’s nomination for a second term. Biden’s support for Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination was obvious and perhaps the only possible option in the absence of time for full-fledged primaries. Delegates to the party’s convention in Chicago in mid-August are likely to support it. Any internal conflicts within the Democrats will benefit Trump, something Biden and Harris will emphasize at every opportunity leading up to the convention in order to secure the nomination of the sitting Vice President.

Trump has long argued that Biden is not capable of governing the country, but after the president announced his withdrawal from the 2024 race, he definitely did not actually become the beneficiary of this decision. For the Republican nominee, maintaining the status quo would have been much more profitable, since it almost guaranteed him another four years in the Oval Office. Still, Trump showed his strength and political might, as in just a few days he not only survived an assassination attempt but also, in a powerful move, ousted his opponent from office after a single debate. The lack of alternatives to Harris’ candidacy for Democrats, however, does not invalidate a number of problematic issues related to her nomination. She faces an uphill battle: She has only about 100 days to convince American voters to support her in the presidential election. That short time frame stands in stark contrast to former President Donald Trump’s campaign, which began in November 2022.

His campaign was more than full of bright events, many of which, however, had negative consequences. But this does not change the fact that the Republican nominee was the number one newsmaker, enjoying an absurd amount of publicity unlike Harris, who stayed in Biden’s shadow for almost four years. Elections in the United States are more personalized, which means they require more time and money for media promotion of the candidate. A comparison of US election campaigns with European countries reveals this key difference. Parliamentary systems tend to be centralized, with candidates going to elections with well-known party agendas, which reduces differences between candidates within the same party. This means that if, for any reason, a candidate is replaced, voter support is less dependent on candidate recognition and policy track record, unlike in the US.

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Give the pushback against him, imagine how popular he must be to win regardless.

Note: Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves of any country.

Maduro Wins Third Term (RT)

Nicolas Maduro has won Venezuela’s presidential election, according to official results. The leaders of Russia and China have congratulated the head of state on securing a third term. The head of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso, announced shortly after midnight on Sunday that with 80% of ballots counted, Maduro had secured more than 51% of the vote, compared to 44% for his main rival, Edmundo Gonzales. Addressing supporters in Caracas, Maduro has described his victory as “a triumph of peace and stability.” The Venezuelan opposition has fiercely disputed the result, claiming election rules were violated, and Gonzales has also claimed victory. Opposition leader Marina Corina Machado, who was barred by a court from running for office over corruption-related charges, has rejected Maduro’s victory, claiming: “We won and the whole world knows it.”

Following the vote, Venezuela’s electoral authority, which the opposition views as favoring the ruling party, did not immediately release the tallies from each of the 30,000 polling stations nationwide, according to media reports. Maduro, 61, thanked his supporters and mocked the opposition, which he said “cries fraud” at every election. The results have drawn mixed reactions from international leaders. Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated his Venezuelan counterpart on Monday, pointing to the strategic importance of the Moscow-Caracas partnership. He expressed confidence that Maduro will continue the “progressive development” of bilateral relations “in all areas” and said he is always welcome in Russia. Beijing has also congratulated Maduro, and lauded Venezuela for “smoothly holding its presidential election,” China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lin Jian said on Monday.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was among those voicing skepticism, saying there were “serious concerns” that the result “does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.” Chilean President Gabriel Boric called the result “hard to believe” and demanded “total transparency.” Maduro has received congratulations from his regional allies, including the leaders of Cuba, Honduras and Bolivia. “Nicolas Maduro, my brother, your victory, which is that of the Bolivarian and Chavista people, has cleanly and unequivocally defeated the pro-imperialist opposition,” said Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel. “The dignity and bravery of the Venezuelan people had triumphed over pressure and manipulation,” he added. Maduro will be serving a third consecutive six-year term, having first taken office in 2013 following the death of President Hugo Chavez.

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Let Elon Musk clean up that organization. He’s good at it.

EU Diplomats Ordered To Slash Spending – FT (RT)

EU diplomats have been ordered to shelve planned travel and cancel functions after “significantly” exceeding their budget this year, the Financial Times has reported, citing unnamed officials. The bloc’s External Action Service (EEAS), which acts as the EU foreign ministry, has been told to cut €43 million ($46.5 million), or almost 5% of its planned budget, after breaching agreed spending limits, the newspaper wrote, citing sources briefed on the issue. The diplomatic service must adjust to “severe austerity measures” and will have to sell property to balance the books, the sources said. The financial squeeze will worsen next year and will make it “impossible” for the EU to maintain its existing diplomatic footprint in areas such as Africa and Latin America, they added. The EEAS has a network of more than 140 overseas delegations and offices promoting EU interests around the world.

Running repairs and maintenance in dozens of the bloc’s delegations is impossible, which raises serious security concerns, the report claimed. The EEAS is mainly funded from the EU budget, which in turn is financed by individual EU countries, in proportion to their gross national income. Customs duties on imports from outside the bloc also contribute to its financing. An EEAS spokesperson told the FT it had cut “all the expenditure we possibly could” and had halved the budgets of overseas offices “despite the crippling effects on our global outreach.” Another official said the bloc’s diplomatic service is in “dire straits” financially, adding that “the world needs more diplomacy, not less.” Meanwhile, the EU and its member states provided or committed over €143 billion ($154.6 billion) to Ukraine between February 2022 and March 2024, according to the European Council data.

The bloc also banned imports of a wide range of goods from Russia, including oil and gas, as part of an unprecedented sanctions campaign over Moscow’s military operation against Ukraine. “The war in Europe [and] increasing instability in our neighborhood and globally” are the main challenges for European foreign policy, the bloc’s next foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said last month. The former Estonian prime minister, known for her hardline anti-Russian stance, is set to succeed Josep Borrell as the head of the EEAS in the autumn.

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No, you’re stuck with your neighbors.

Poland Suggests Hungary Leave NATO and EU (RT)

Hungary can leave the European Union and NATO if it does not like the blocs’ policies, Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Teofil Bartoszewski suggested on Sunday. The comments came in response to Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s sharp criticism of Warsaw’s policies the day before. During a visit to Romania, Orban had accused Poland of pursuing “the most sanctimonious and two-faced policy in the whole of Europe,” saying it is “obliviously doing business with the Russians,” while “morally lecturing” Budapest for doing the same. ”We do not do business with Russia, unlike Prime Minister Orban, who is on the margins of international society – both in the European Union and NATO,” Bartoszewski retorted, as quoted by PAP news agency. “I don’t really understand why Hungary wants to remain a member of organizations that it doesn’t like so much,” Bartoszewski continued.

”If you don’t want to be a member of a club, you can always leave,” added the official, suggesting that Orban create a union with Russia instead. Hungary’s prime minister was condemned by a number of EU politicians earlier this month for going against the bloc’s policies and embarking on a “peace mission” to try and find a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict, during which he visited Kiev, Moscow and China. Budapest has been granted exemptions from the EU sanctions and continues to buy oil and gas from Russia. During his speech in Romania, Orban did not specify what he was referring to when saying that Poland was still doing business with Moscow. The Russian financial daily Vedomosti reported last week that Poland had emerged as a top buyer of the Russian fertilizer urea. The publication cited Eurostat data as showing that Warsaw had increased imports by 25% between January and May this year, compared to the same period in 2023, amid a bloc-wide increase of Russian fertilizer imports. EU sanctions against Russia exclude food supplies and fertilizers.

The Polish financial daily Rzeczpospolita reported in February that compared to 2019–2021, the period before the introduction of a broad range of sanctions against Russia, Poland’s trade turnover with some Eurasian countries, such as Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, had increased by several hundred percent. The publication went on to suggest that the trade between Poland and Russia was continuing though intermediaries in other countries, thus bypassing the sanctions. Poland has been among the most vocal supporters of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. It has served as NATO’s primary conduit for weapons, ammunition, and equipment deliveries to Kiev, while maintaining it is not actually a party to the hostilities.

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The EU has no face or voice. Ursula is a US ambassador.

EU Readies ‘Carrot-and-Stick” Trade Strategy to Deal With Trump (Sp.)

EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis earlier expressed hope that Brussels and Washington would avoid a repeat of past “confrontation” related to the two’s tariff war initiated by then-President Donald Trump in 2018. The European Union is hammering out a two-step trade plan to tackle Donald Trump if he wins a second term as US president, the Financial Times (FT) has reported. “We have to show we are a partner for the US, not a problem. We will look for deals, but we are ready to defend ourselves if it comes to it. We won’t be guided by fear,” an unnamed EU source told the newspaper. If Trump prevails in the November election, EU negotiators are reportedly planning to immediately approach his team, to discuss US products that the EU could buy in larger quantities.

A possible collapse of the talks and Trump’s subsequent imposition of higher tariffs, could prompt the European Commission’s trade department to draw up lists of US imports for retaliatory duties of 50% or more,” according to the source. The FT noted in this regard that EU officials “see the carrot-and-stick approach as the best response” to Trump’s previous pledge to impose a tariff of at least 10% on all $3 trillion worth of US imports in the event of his victory on November 5. EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has meanwhile stressed the importance of the bloc and the US working together on trade, but added that Brussels “defended our interests with tariffs, and we stand ready to defend our interests again if necessary.” Then-US President Trump initiated his country’s tariff war with the EU in March 2018, when he announced a 25% duty on imported steel and 10% tariff on aluminum, which prodded the bloc to retaliate with tit-for-tat levies worth about $3 billion.

Read more …

“..Orange Man bad – orange man likes bitcoin – bitcoin bad!”

2 Days After Trump Crypto-Crowning, Biden Admin Sells Out (ZH)

It appears the Biden administration does not want former President Trump’s plan to enable a strategic bitcoin reserve to come to fruition (or at the very least, shrink the size of the reserve dramatically). Less than 48 hours after Trump spoke at a major Bitcoin conference in Nashville about his ambitious goals for bitcoin in America, the Biden administration has decided that this is an opportune moment to transfer around $2 billion worth of its bitcoin stockpile (e.g. Silk Road confiscations). The timing is risible…and transparent…Orange Man bad – orange man likes bitcoin – bitcoin bad! This transfer – and its implications of potential selling pressure overhang – sent Bitcoin reeling after briefly tagging $70,000…

Presumably, Biden and Harris are against the Trump HODL? And this is all the more odd considering the pleading letter written by various Democratic lawmakers urging the administration to back off their crypto war. We give the last word to well-known crypto billionaire (and major Dem donor), Mike Novogratz: “Tone deaf anyone??? Moving Silk Road BTC two days after Trumps pledge to not move them is just dumb!!!!” Read the room, indeed! Presumably, once again, ideology trumps all common sense.

Read more …

Lovely story.

“..if they vaccinate their cats they die when they are ten years old. If they don’t vaccinate them they live twice as long.”

A Tale of Two Cats (Paul Craig Roberts)

A friend recently sent me a book, My Beloved Monster, by Caleb Carr. It is about a cat, certainly no monster, rescued by Carr that rescued him from depression and self-pity over his ailments. The cat, Masha, is a Siberian Forest Cat, not a large cat but, like many cats, a guardian of her territory. This brought Masha into conflict with a black bear which reminded me of my own little darling, Devil. In the earlier years of this website, readers were interested in my cats. Many wrote to me with stories of their own. I had taken in a young female stray, a victim I think of the housing foreclosures of 2007-08 when people forced to leave their residences abandoned their pets. In March of 2008 she presented me with seven kittens, all of which had bob tails. They were unusual and everyone wanted them. I kept the two runts. The male, Boy, grew into 25 pounds, and the female thought she was a leopard. She is absolutely fearless and a determined defender of her territory.

I have yet to figure out how cats decide on the extent of their territory, but the female earned one of her two names, Devil, by her defense of her territory. Her other name is My Little Darling. In my Blue Ridge Mountain home I took them out in harness with long leads. Devil tended to go after Copperheads, and although she was faster than they, I didn’t want to risk her being bitten. Thus the leads that gave me some control. One autumn I had them out. Devil was after a lizard. I noticed that Boy was on high alert. Looking for the cause, there was a 400 pound bear walking toward us. Normally black bears are not aggressive toward humans unless you are stupid enough to get between a mother bear and her cubs or to feed a bear and run out of food before the bear runs out of hunger. It was autumn and I wondered if cats might be included in the bear’s hibernation diet. I pulled Devil off the lizard chase and we headed for the front door.

Devil didn’t see the bear until we reached the front steps. Then ears flat, hackles up, the most incredible snarls and growls off she went for the bear. She pulled the lead out, and with tension on the lead she turned around and started pulling out of the harness. I had to run forward to remove the tension at which time she renewed her advance on the bear. The bear stood on his rear legs. I remember thinking he was bigger than a pro-football tackle. When I grabbed Devil we were within 12 feet of the bear. I headed for the front door where Boy was waiting for the door to open, put Devil down in order to open the door and off Devil went across the front porch to continue her attack on the bear. Fortunately at the end of the porch was a rock waterfall and pool and I caught her as she hesitated in figuring out how to avoid the water. I got her inside, Boy sought safety under the bed. Devil sat by the front door for 30 minutes growling and snarling. As I concluded, she thought she was a leopard.

Carr’s Masha, apparently, saw herself the same way. One evening she didn’t return home. Carr, who could barely walk, went looking for her in a rainstorm. Eventually he found her up in a tree. She wouldn’t come down. Carr went and got a ladder and managed despite his incapacity to get her out of the tree. On return to the house he discovered her wounds. At the veterinarian hospital the next morning, the vet said, judging from the wounds, that Masha had had an encounter with a bear before her lacerations of the bear’s face convinced the bear to retire from the confrontation and leave the scene. Masha’s claws had bear hair, skin, and blood. Masha recovered and the love affair between Carr and Masha continued for 17 years. Devil is 16. I lost Boy in 2018 before he reached 11. Many readers sent sympathy. The vets in the two practices who tried to save Boy from cancer both told me that the required vaccines Big Pharma has lobbied through corrupt state legislatures were the cause of the cancer. I immediately ceased vaccinating.

In my life, not all lived in urban hellholes like New York City and Washington DC, I never encountered a rabid animal. I grew up on my grandparents’ farm. I had a home in the Blue Ridge mountains for 20 years. Cottonmouth moccasins along the creek were the danger, not rabid animals. When I was a kid, dogs at six months of age got one rabies shot for life. Cats got no shots of any kind. An indoor car needs no shots, but Big Pharma has it that vets are prohibited from treating an unvaccinated cat or dog. Even for outdoor cats, the chance of encountering a rabid animal is far less than the danger to the cat of the vaccines. Everyone I know tells me that if they vaccinate their cats they die when they are ten years old. If they don’t vaccinate them they live twice as long.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Kamalabook

 

 

1st day

 

 

Kitty cat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1817578405141033375

 

 

Deer cat

 

 

Let me dig

 

 

 

 

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Nov 272019
 
 November 27, 2019  Posted by at 7:23 pm Primers Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  7 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Female bust R 1943

 

For political, but, much more, monetary reasons, the media makes their mark, and therefore Jeremy Corbyn hates Jews, Julian Assange is an unwashed rapist and Donald Trump is Putin’s handpuppet. And if you object, you’re a suspect human being. In order to make money, and retain or gain power, the media and intelligence services, along with the political powers friendly to them, inject opinions into the populace. How Orwellian do you want it?

And I get it, depending on where people lean politically, they will think these are entirely separate stories. The right will be against Corbyn, the left against Trump. And all of them together against Assange.

I was starting to write about Jeremy Corbyn yesterday, about the innuendo and allegations concerning his alleged antisemitism, and then I thought: wait, Corbyn and Trump is the same story. And Assange. They are very different people, and their stories may appear to be very very different too, but they are not really.

My personal opinion is that Assange has far too little support, and that worries me a lot every single day, while Corbyn and Trump just drown in social media and MSM nonsense. The problem is, that nonsense poses as truth today. That is what Corbyn has failed to understand, what Trump made his own to the extent that he could, and what Assange, who saw all of this better and earlier than anyone, has been entirely isolated from. But it’s still the same thing in all three cases. It’s about the media. They have become the story, instead of reporting it.

I’ve already said that I don’t think the time is right -and ripe- for Corbyn’s radical plans for Britain -if it will ever be-, but I sure don’t think Brexit should be decided on a pack of lies and smears. Still, it very much looks like it will be. “Social” media, don’t you know.

Jeremy Corbyn has long sympathized with the Palestinian people. It appears that this stance will now decide the Brexit issue. Because it allows for his detractors to label him an antisemite. Throw in an editorial once every two days or so which states that even if Corbyn himself is not an antisemite (press insurance policy), he’s guilty by association because he didn’t root out antisemitism in his party strongly enough, and you’re free to go.

But apparently the right wing is not convinced it’ll be enough, so the UK Chief Rabbi throws some more oil on the flames, and so does his close friend, the leader of the Church of England. Corbyn should have spoken out loud and clear a long time ago. He’s the right wing’s toy now. I saw this very long list of things Corbyn said and did to support the British Jewish population, but it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s got a swastika painted on his forehead now.

Corbyn keeps reasoning something like: it’s not true, so I have nothing to fear, but that’s old world thinking. Today things become reality by the grace of being endlessly repeated and, thereby, amplified. He didn’t catch the spirit of the time. He should perhaps have had a Twitter feed like Trump’s, and denounced the allegations from there. Never had a chance in the traditional media anyway.

But Corbyn does not appear to get it. Still, imagine Trump without Twitter, or Corbyn with it.

The Guardian runs a handy guide:

Antisemitism and Labour: Everything You Need To Know

• Critics of Corbyn say that criticism of Israel among some of his supporters, for example about the treatment of the Palestinian people, can too readily tip over into a generalised condemnation which becomes antisemitic. They say also that those within Labour who challenge this can face abuse and persecution. Labour says that while such incidents must be dealt with robustly, the context is that complaints connected to antisemitism amount to 0.1% of party membership, while prejudice in the Conservative party is more widespread.

• Aside from internal Labour investigations, in May the Equality and Human Rights Commission said it had placed Labour under formal investigation over whether the party had unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they were Jewish.

• Labour faced criticism from some Jewish groups after it adopted a working definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but left out one of the 11 examples given in the definition, which said it would be antisemitic to claim “that Israel’s existence as a state is a racist endeavour”. Labour later adopted all 11 examples.

Yeah, no, you don’t fight these things by directly addressing them. It’s like “when did you stop beating your wife” or “does this dress make me look fat”, there are no correct answers. Corbyn lost 2-3 years framing his response, and now it’s too late. That Chief Rabbi:

UK Chief Rabbi Attacks Labour Party

The Chief Rabbi has strongly criticised Labour, claiming the party is not doing enough to root out anti-Jewish racism – and asked people to “vote with their conscience” in the general election. In the Times, Ephraim Mirvis said “a new poison – sanctioned from the very top – has taken root” in the party. Labour’s claim it had investigated all cases of anti-Semitism in its ranks was a “mendacious fiction”, he added. Jeremy Corbyn says Labour is tackling anti-Semitism by expelling members. It comes as Labour launches a “race and faith manifesto”, which aims to improve protections for all faiths and tackle prejudice.

Labour has been beset by allegations of anti-Semitism for more than three years, leading to the suspension of a number of high-profile figures such as Ken Livingstone and Chris Williamson, and an unprecedented investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. In his article, the Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – who is the spiritual leader of the United Synagogue, the largest umbrella group of Jewish communities in the country – says raising his concerns “ranks among the most painful moments I have experienced since taking office”. But he claims “the overwhelming majority of British Jews are gripped by anxiety” at the prospect of a Labour victory in 12 December’s general election.

He writes: “The way in which the leadership of the Labour Party has dealt with anti-Jewish racism is incompatible with the British values of which we are so proud – of dignity and respect for all people. “It has left many decent Labour members and parliamentarians, both Jewish and non-Jewish, ashamed of what has transpired.” He adds that it was “not my place to tell any person how they should vote” but he urged the public to “vote with their conscience”.

[..] Jenny Manson, the co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Labour group which is not officially affiliated to the party, told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight programme she was “horrified” by the Chief Rabbi’s intervention. She added that there was no threat to Jews in the Labour Party but there was a threat from the far-right.

And his Christian friend:

Justin Welby Backs Chief Rabbi After Labour Antisemitism Remarks

The archbishop of Canterbury has in effect backed the chief rabbi’s comments on the Labour leadership’s record on antisemitism with a tweet highlighting the “deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews”. Justin Welby does not explicitly refer to the Labour party, but his intervention a few hours after the chief rabbi’s excoriating public criticism of Jeremy Corbyn is significant.

In an article in the Times, Ephraim Mirvis, Britain’s most senior Jewish leader, accused Corbyn of allowing a “poison sanctioned from the top” to take root in the party, saying the way the Labour leadership had dealt with anti-Jewish racism was “incompatible with the British values of which we are so proud – of dignity and respect for all people”.

Welby posted on Twitter: “That the chief rabbi should be compelled to make such an unprecedented statement at this time ought to alert us to the deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews. They should be able to love in accordance with their beliefs and freely express their culture and faith.”

Acknowledging the Church of England’s own history of antisemitism – the subject of a major report last week – Welby continued: “None of us can afford to be complacent. Voicing words that commit to a stand against antisemitism requires a corresponding effort in visible action.”

The chief rabbi’s comments were also supported by Rabbi Julia Neuberger, a crossbench peer, who said the Jewish community had been gripped by anxiety. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lady Neuberger said that under Corbyn’s leadership “there has been this insidious antisemitic tone to quite a lot of what’s happened and an unwillingness to really face it.”

She added: “If they’re not willing to tackle that, if they’re not willing to apologise for it, if they’re not willing to sympathise, then something is going very wrong. “A political party where some of its members leave because of antisemitic taunting, which still cannot deal with it, makes people feel very uncomfortable.”

That same archbishop of Canterbury’s church was chided for, wait for it, antisemitism, but that’s safely in the past, or so they say. So now he gets to chide others for the exact same thing. No, it’s not in the church, and not in the Conservative party, let’s focus on Corbyn, just so he loses.

Church of England Says Christians Must Repent For Past Antisemitism

Christians must repent for centuries of antisemitism which ultimately led to the Holocaust, the Church of England has said in a document that seeks to promote a new Christian-Jewish relationship. However, the church’s move to take responsibility for its part in Jewish persecution was impaired by stinging criticism by the chief rabbi of the continued “specific targeting” of Jews for conversion to Christianity.

[..] The document acknowledged that two C of E cathedrals, Norwich and Lincoln, were associated with the spread of the “blood libel” in the late Middle Ages. Jewish communities were falsely accused of abducting and killing Christian children to use their blood in the making of Passover matzos (unleavened bread). “This allegation, originating in England, became the catalyst for the murder of many Jews in this country and across Europe, especially in pogroms at Eastertide.”

[..] In a foreword to the document, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury – known to be personally close to the chief rabbi – said Mirvis’s comments were “written as a friend, and they are received in a similar spirit, however tough they are to read”. He added: “The chief rabbi has opened, with characteristic honesty and affection, a challenge upon which we must reflect. We cannot do that reflection honestly until we have felt the cruelty of our history.”

Yes, boys and girls, it’s election time, and all is fair in love and war and elections. But please pay at least some attention, don’t let these idiots frame your opinions or shape your emotions. They’re doing it for their own gains, not yours. They don’t represent you, they’re using you and will spit you out at the first occasion they see as profitable.

OffGuardian had this nice graph on how big the Labour antisemitism problem really is:

 

 

That’s right, the problem doesn’t exist. At 0.08%, nothing is a problem, it’s a rounding error. Stop listening to these people. I know, I know, too late now, and Corbyn must take the blame for that. You can’t win in 2019 with only the tools and worldview of 1969. I’m neutral on Brexit, though I don’t think the Tories’ approach, doing nothing and then expecting everything to solve itself, is good for Britain. Feels like a scam to me. Britain hasn’t made its own laws in 40 years, and it’s fine if it wants to start doing that again, but it takes a real effort. But where is that effort?

Moreover, after decades of Maggie Thatcher, neocon Tony Blair and successive Tory governments, I’m not at all surprised to read that Parts Of England ‘Have Higher Mortality Rates Than Turkey’. And so I’m not surprised either that Corbyn is so much of a threat to Boris that they send the Chief Rabbi and the Archbishop of Canterbury to finish him off, on “out of hot air” grounds.

Summarized, the media have/has changed far more than people acknowledge. Corbyn can’t win with 1969 tools, but it appears that perhaps the press can. For me this is not about Trump or Corbyn, they are merely symbolic of what is happening, the main point is that our view of the world in increasingly being pre-cooked and pre-chewed, and far too few people see what’s going on with their opinions.

They still think they’re their own opinions. But the reason why they’re fed these stories is because the media make money of off selling these opinions to them, not because of some loftier ideal.

Nice point in case is this tweet from George Monbiot, environmental writer for the Guardian:

 

 

You see, Monbiot is employed by the Guardian, at a plush salary, and he pretends to stand up for Assange here. But his employer is one of the main reasons why Assange is where he is. The Guardian has run a concerted smear campaign against Assange like nobody else I’m aware of. The entirely false story about Paul Manafort visiting Assange in the Ecuador embassy is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

So you would think George mentions that, and tells you he despises his own mealticket. You would think Monbiot perhaps would say: I only had 140 characters in that tweet. And I would say: no, George, you have zero character.

 

 

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Dec 072014
 
 December 7, 2014  Posted by at 11:53 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  6 Responses »


Arthur Rothstein Accident on US 40 between Hagerstown and Cumberland, Maryland Nov 1936

OPEC And American Shale Keep The Oil Price Spiralling Downwards (Guardian)
Oil Poised to Extend Drop After Hitting Five-Year Low (Bloomberg)
Fossil Fuel Companies “The Sub-Prime Assets Of The Future” (Telegraph)
Osborne Oversees Biggest Fossil Fuel Boom Since North Sea Oil (Guardian)
Delinquent US Car Loans Up 27% From Last Year (NY Times)
Goldman Needs Volcker Delay to Avoid Private-Equity Losses (Bloomberg)
Wells Fargo Breaks Citigroup’s 2001 Record for Bank Value (Bloomberg)
Russia Braces For An Economic Winter (Observer)
Why A Moscow Meltdown Could Spread Around The Globe (Observer)
Clashes At Greek Protests To Mark Police Shooting (BBC)
Angry Families Of MH17 Crash Victims Seek UN Investigation (Reuters)
Ukraine’s Made-in-USA Finance Minister (Robert Parry)
Prosecutor Freezes Accounts Of Former Vatican Bank Heads (Reuters)
Australian Banks Seen Needing $25 Billion After Inquiry (Bloomberg)
Minimum Viable Sociopathy (Dmitry Orlov)
Archbishop Calls For £150 Million State-Backed Food Bank System (Daily Mail)
Hunger in UK Shocks Me More Than Africa (Archbishop Of Canterbury)
Has Modern Art Exhausted Its Power To Shock? (BBC)
California’s ‘Hot Drought’ Ranks Worst in at Least 1,200 Years (Bloomberg)

” .. the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reported a huge increase in the number of investors hedging on crude hitting $40.

OPEC And American Shale Keep The Oil Price Spiralling Downwards (Guardian)

Oil prices were back near five-year lows – below $70 per barrel – at the end of last week as commodity traders, analysts and governments struggled to come up with new forecasts for 2015. The benchmark, Brent blend, had recovered from a major drop in the aftermath of last month’s meeting of the oil producers’ cartel, Opec. However, it was back down at $69.17 on Friday as the market bet on a prolonged low in prices. Igor Sechin, Russia’s most senior oil official, warned that Opec’s unwillingness to cut production could push oil down to $60, while the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reported a huge increase in the number of investors hedging on crude hitting $40. Forecasting the future price of oil has always been fraught.

There were few warnings in the first half of the year that prices were set to plunge by 40% from a June high of $115. Analysts at Citi are now expecting Brent to average $80 over the next 12 months, while their counterparts at Natixis believe it could fall as low as $74 – and that the US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, will slump below $70. Standard Chartered described Opec’s decision to keep the production target unchanged as “extremely negative for oil prices for 2015” and has cut next year’s Brent price forecast by $16 a barrel to $85. The reasons for the cuts are faltering growth in demand as the global economy continues to stutter, plus soaring production from the shale fields of Texas and Pennsylvania.

Lower prices have also been supported by a relatively benign geopolitical environment, because energy supplies have not been endangered by the Russian stand-off with the west over Ukraine or Islamic State’s advances in Syria. A divided Opec is now hoping that falling prices will be devastating for higher-cost US frackers, forcing them to shut down output and gradually bring balance to the wider oil markets. But according to Paul Stevens, oil expert at Chatham House, a similar strategy in the late 1980s did not encourage North Sea and other producers to halt production and the price continued to slide downwards.

Read more …

“We’re way oversold in both Brent and WTI, not to mention the products, and the market’s not responding ..”

Oil Poised to Extend Drop After Hitting Five-Year Low (Bloomberg)

West Texas Intermediate and Brent crudes are poised to decline from the lowest closing levels in more than five years after shrugging off a sign that the market has dropped too fast. The 14-day relative strength index (BCOM) for WTI slipped to 27.0364 yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Investors typically start buying contracts when the reading is below 30. The 14-day RSI for Brent slipped to 23.6843. The move highlights the extent of the bear market in the face of technical support. “We’re way oversold in both Brent and WTI, not to mention the products, and the market’s not responding,” Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities said by phone yesterday. “A market that ignores these bullish signals is heading much lower.”

Futures fell 1.5% in New York and 0.8% in London yesterday. State-run Saudi Arabian Oil extended its discount for Arab Light sales to Asia next month to $2 a barrel below a regional benchmark, according to a company statement Dec. 4. That’s the lowest in at least 14 years. The slide in prices accelerated as the dollar surged to a five-year high, curbing the appeal of commodities as a store of value. WTI for January delivery dropped 97 cents to $65.84 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday. It was the lowest settlement since July 29, 2009. Prices are down 33% this year.

Read more …

There’s a lot of uncertainty about how and to what extent climate agreements will result in stranded assets. Investment in fossil fuels carries a lot of risk, for yet another reason.

Fossil Fuel Companies “The Sub-Prime Assets Of The Future” (Telegraph)

Investing in fossil fuels is becoming increasingly risky because global action to tackle climate change will curb demand, forcing companies to leave unprofitable reserves in the ground, Ed Davey, the energy secretary, has warned. Financial authorities must examine the risks posed by coal, oil and gas companies to prevent pension funds investing in what could become “the sub-prime assets of the future”, Mr Davey said. The comments are Mr Davey’s first intervention into the debate over the “carbon bubble”, the theory that the world’s existing fossil fuel reserves are overvalued because the majority must be left unburned in the ground if extremes of global warming are to be avoided.

Mr Davey told the Telegraph: “One has got to worry about the investments for pensioners. “If pension funds are investing in companies or banks have on their balance sheets huge amounts of assets in fossil fuels, and those assets don’t give the return that people expect – because of changes in technology where low-carbon becomes cheaper or because of the world having to take action against carbon emissions – one has got to protect those pensioners and those investments.”

Keeping global warming within 2C (3.6F), the level scientists say is necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change, will require the world to slash its carbon dioxide emissions, phasing out the unabated burning of fossil fuels for electricity. UN talks are ongoing in Lima this week with the aim of achieving a global emission reduction agreement next year. Mr Davey singled out coal – the dirtiest of the fossil fuels – as “the short-term biggest worry by a long way” as countries including China commit to cap their coal use. “Investing in new coal mines is going to get very risky,” he said.

Read more …

The timing is exquisite.

Osborne Oversees Biggest Fossil Fuel Boom Since North Sea Oil (Guardian)

George Osborne has sparked the biggest boom in UK fossil fuel investment since the North Sea oil and gas industry was founded in the 1970s. Analysis of new Treasury data also shows investment in clean energy has plummeted this year and is now exceeded by fossil fuels, while road and airport building is soaring. After years of coalition infighting over green energy, the stark shift marks a major victory for the chancellor. But it conflicts with David Cameron’s recent statement that climate change is “a threat to our national security and to economic prosperity” and his 2010 pledge to the lead the “greenest government ever”. UK ministers are currently at UN climate talks in Peru arguing for strong action against global warming.

In Wednesday’s autumn statement, Osborne added £430m to the billions in tax breaks he has granted the fossil fuel sector since 2012. Taxpayers will also now fund seismic exploration to help companies find more oil and gas and will pay £31m for shale gas research drilling plus another £5m to “ensure the public is better engaged” with fracking. Osborne said the North Sea tax breaks “demonstrate our commitment to the tens of thousands of jobs that depend on this great British industry”. Joan Walley MP, who heads parliament’s environmental audit committee, said: “Taxpayers should not be propping up the fossil fuel industry in the 21st century.

Tax breaks should be used to support firms that come up with innovative clean energy solutions, not to keep us drilling for the fossil energy fuelling climate change.” Matthew Spencer, the director of the thinktank Green Alliance, whose experts performed the new analysis, accused Osborne of political manoeuvring before the general election. “A series of short-term tactical decisions have reversed what was a very encouraging picture for UK infrastructure. These stark figures show that you can’t focus on oil extraction and road building and expect to deliver a cleaner, leaner economy.”

Read more …

But all is well?!

Delinquent US Car Loans Up 27% From Last Year (NY Times)

An increasing number of borrowers are falling behind on their car payments, even as the total amount of outstanding debt reaches new heights, according to the latest report by Experian, the credit and research firm. In a presentation on Wednesday, Experian said the balance of loans that were 60 days delinquent increased 27%, to roughly $4 billion, in the third quarter from the same period a year ago. Signs of trouble in the market come after a significant increase in lending to people with damaged credit and limited financial means. Analysts have warned that a loosening of underwriting standards for subprime auto loans could cause widespread losses in the financial system because much of the debt has been securitized and bought by investors around the globe. Some of the highest delinquency rates in the quarter are concentrated across the South in Mississippi, South Carolina and Alabama. North Dakota had the lowest delinquency rate.

Finance companies, which tend to focus more on subprime customers than traditional banks, had the largest increases in delinquencies in the third quarter. As the delinquencies have mounted, so has the regulatory scrutiny. Subprime auto lenders have faced an onslaught of scrutiny from regulators and prosecutors, worried that the high-cost loans take advantage of some of the nation’s most vulnerable borrowers. The examinations have touched on virtually every player in the broader subprime auto lending ecosystem from used car dealers to lenders. In the latest chapter, the American Honda Finance Corporation, a lending unit of the automaker, disclosed on Tuesday that the company was bracing for an enforcement action from the Justice Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over concerns that it gives more costly loans to minority borrowers. The authorities, the company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday, notified the lender last month about the looming action.

Read more …

Here’s betting they’ll get it.

Goldman Needs Volcker Delay to Avoid Private-Equity Losses (Bloomberg)

Goldman Sachs has $7 billion invested in private equity that it might have to sell at a loss. For Morgan Stanley, it’s $2.5 billion. The big sums explain why Wall Street has been lobbying regulators to delay a July deadline for complying with the Volcker Rule, which restricts banks from investing in private equity as part of a ban on making market bets with their own capital. Banks argue that if they dump holdings quickly, they will have to accept discount prices. Analysts and lawyers for the financial industry say Wall Street’s concerns have begun to make headway with the Federal Reserve, which plans to decide on an extension soon. “There’s considerable pressure the Fed is feeling in that they don’t want institutions to have a bloodbath trying to divest funds,” said Kevin Petrasic, a partner at Paul Hastings in Washington. “The Fed has been indicating flexibility.”

The Volcker deadline underscores the tension regulators face between enforcing rules meant to curb risk-taking and responding to banks’ complaints that many Dodd-Frank Act reforms aren’t workable. The Fed is deciding what to do after lawmakers lambasted it at congressional hearings last month for weak oversight of Wall Street. Before the 2008 financial crisis, banks purchased shares in thousands of private-equity and venture-capital funds. The money invested was used to buy stakes in private companies, meaning it’s locked up for years until the businesses are sold. When Congress included the Volcker Rule in the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, it realized banks might have difficulty dumping holdings. As a result, lawmakers authorized the Fed to put the deadline off for several years. Banks want an extension until 2022, which would allow them to keep their private-equity investments until they expire. Fed General Counsel Scott Alvarez told a conference of banking lawyers last month that the central bank will make a decision soon.

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Hardly a recovery, if there’s one at all, but banks are worth more than before the crisis. This is us. This is what we do.

Wells Fargo Breaks Citigroup’s 2001 Record for Bank Value (Bloomberg)

Wells Fargo finished trading yesterday as the most valuable U.S. bank ever, surpassing Citigroup’s 2001 record. Wells Fargo closed with a market capitalization of $285.5 billion, based on 5.19 billion shares outstanding on Oct. 31, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That beats the previous record set by Citigroup on Feb. 5, 2001, when its value reached $283.4 billion, the data show. Wells Fargo, which counts Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway as its largest shareholder, doubled its size in 2008 by outmaneuvering New York-based Citigroup to purchase Wachovia Corp. Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf made one of out every four U.S. mortgages last year and now oversees the most U.S. bank branches.

“Our focus is on doing what is right for our customers every day, and we are pleased our investors place their confidence in Wells Fargo,” Ancel Martinez, a bank spokesman, said in a statement. Wells Fargo rose 1% to $55.03 in New York, and the stock’s 21% gain this year tops the 7.7% advance for the KBW Bank Index of 24 U.S. lenders. Berkshire’s stake in the San Francisco-based bank is valued at more than $25 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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Russia will act when it’s had enough of this.

Russia Braces For An Economic Winter (Observer)

A website that was going viral on Russian social networks last week shows the rouble-dollar exchange rate, the rouble-euro exchange rate and the price of Brent crude changing in real time against a backdrop of slowly breaking waves, as soothing music plays in the background. “Russian zen: meaningless and merciless”, reads the bottom of the page Zenrus.ru. It is a play on a famous quote that Russian revolt is “meaningless and merciless.” A zen-like calm is probably hard to come by for those watching the exchange rate and the price of oil: the rouble fell to new all-time lows of more than 54 to the dollar last week after the Opec oil producers’ group decided not to reduce production, which would have bolstered sinking oil prices. Russia is especially vulnerable to those prices, since energy exports make up half of its budget, and on Monday its currency recorded its largest single-day decline since the Russian financial crisis of 1998.

In all, the rouble has sunk by more than 40% this year as Russia has been buffeted by sanctions over its role in the Ukraine crisis and steep falls in the oil price. By the end of the week Brent was hovering below $70 a barrel, down from more than $105 at the start of the year. The picture of Russia’s economic future is grim, despite the rosy outlook President Vladimir Putin tried to put on it in his annual address to the federal assembly on Thursday. Inflation has been rising, and recession next year is all but certain. On Tuesday, the economic development ministry reduced its GDP growth forecast for 2015 from 1.2% to –0.8%. State-owned banks have sought help from the government after the Ukraine sanctions cut them off from the western financial industry and its cheaper credit.

According to Vladimir Tikhomirov, an economist at Russian bank BKF, the two main factors responsible for Russia’s economic woes – sanctions and a low oil price – probably won’t change any time soon. “Oil has a stronger effect on the economy than sanctions, and the oil price and sanctions are speeding up macroeconomic processes that were already there,” Tikhomirov says. “The economy was slowing down due to structural difficulties even when oil prices were high. I think that next year there won’t be new sanctions but the current sanctions will remain; I think next year the oil price will be around $80 a barrel; and I think that the economy will shrink.”

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Merkel herself has said it would be a bad thing if Russia goes into a financial crisis.

Why A Moscow Meltdown Could Spread Around The Globe (Observer)

Russia matters. It mattered in 1998 when the shock waves from its debt default reverberated around the world. And it would matter again should the plunging oil price lead to economic collapse. That’s despite the fact that Russia is a massive land mass with a relatively small economy. It accounts for only 3% of global GDP and it is dominated by an energy sector that is responsible for 70% of exports. To an extent, the structure of Russia’s economy should mitigate contagion risks. Lacking a modern manufacturing sector, it is not vital for global supply chains and, in theory, any other energy producer could make good the disruption to oil and gas supplies in the event of a deep and damaging recession. But there are at least five ways in which a crisis for Russia could spread. Russia’s immediate problems have been caused by the sharp drop in the price of crude and it is not the only one to be suffering. Venezuela and Iran are finding it hard to cope with oil down at $70 a barrel. If Russia goes, it will be a case of: who’s next?

Second, Russia still has close economic links with eastern Europe, so a collapse would have serious consequences for countries such as Poland and an already imploding Ukraine. Western Europe, too, would be affected if for any reason gas supplies through Russia’s pipeline were cut off. Third, confidence would be hit. Germany’s weak economic performance since the spring can, in part, be attributed to the gloomier economic mood. The slowdown in the rest of the eurozone has probably had a bigger impact on German activity but the tension between Moscow and Kiev has certainly not helped. Russia might be enough to tip Germany into recession, which in turn would be enough to ensure that the European Central Bank began a quantitative easing programme.

Fourth, nobody is quite sure how Vladimir Putin, pictured, would respond to the most challenging economic circumstances since 1998. Any confidence effects from an economic crisis would be exacerbated by the knowledge that Russia is controlled by a president able to make felt his country’s still considerable geo-political and military clout. Finally, the assumption is that financial market exposure to Russia is relatively limited given that overseas banks had $209bn (£134bn) of loans to Russia when sanctions were imposed in March. On the face of it, western investors do not look all that vulnerable and have had time to get their money out. But that was also the assumption in 1998, when Barclays had to set aside £250m to cover its Russian losses. Financial trades are now so complex and leveraged, it is impossible to know for sure how big losses might be this time.

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Is Greece set to explode again?

Clashes At Greek Protests To Mark Police Shooting (BBC)

Clashes have erupted in the capital of Greece during protests marking six years since police shot dead an unarmed teenager. At least 5,000 demonstrators marched in Athens on Saturday. Some attacked shops and hurled petrol bombs at riot police. Police officers used tear gas and a water cannon to disperse protesters. The demonstrators had been marking the anniversary of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos’ death. He was shot by an officer who has since been jailed. Mr Grigoropoulos’ killing on 6 December 2008 sparked violent riots across Greece, with cars being set alight and shops looted in a number of cities. Clashes have also broken out on previous anniversaries of his death. On Saturday, anti-establishment protesters attacked banks and damaged shops and bus stops.

At one point, demonstrators looted a clothes shop and set fire to the merchandise in the street, the Associated Press news agency reported. According to Reuters, police said they detained close to 100 protesters. Clashes primarily took place in Athen’s Exarchia neighbourhood, but violence was also reported in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. No injuries were reported in either city. Protesters have also been expressing support for Nikos Romanos, a friend of Mr Grigoropoulos who witnessed his death. Romanos, 21, has been jailed for attempted bank robbery. He is currently on hunger strike, demanding study leave after he was accepted onto a university course.

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WHile the government can’t stop blabbing about respect for vistims and their families, the familes themselves say: “The Netherlands “has completely botched” the fact-finding investigation and the legal framework of the case..” “There is no coordination, there is no leadership whatsoever (by) Holland.”

Angry Families Of MH17 Crash Victims Seek UN Investigation (Reuters)

Relatives of MH17 crash victims, angered by what they see as Dutch mishandling of inquiries into the disaster, want a special U.N. envoy to launch an international investigation. A letter sent to Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Friday, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, said Dutch officials had failed to build a case. They asked that inquiries by the Safety Board and prosecution service be handed over to the United Nations. Rutte should “request the U.N. to appoint a special envoy to take over,” said the letter written by Van der Goen Attorneys. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was downed on July 17 over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and crew, two-thirds of them Dutch. Experts say the most likely cause was a ground-to-air missile fired from territory held by pro-Russian separatists. The Dutch launched the largest criminal investigation in their history after the crash. This week, trucks are carrying pieces of the plane home, but much of the wreckage still lies in Ukrainian fields.

Dutch investigators, leading a case involving 11 countries, have not concluded how the plane was shot down or identified suspects. The Netherlands “has completely botched” the fact-finding investigation and the legal framework of the case, said the letter, sent on behalf of 20 relatives from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. Dutch prosecutors have been unable to access the crash site, in a war zone disputed by Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed rebels, or not met international requirements to secure evidence, the letter said. “Nobody knows who is doing what,” said Bob van der Goen, a spokesman for the law firm. “There is no coordination, there is no leadership whatsoever (by) Holland.” Rutte said on Friday the Dutch teams were returning to the Netherlands. “We have done everything we could. In view of the safety situation and the weather, we cannot do anything more right now,” he said. An international inquiry is the only way to identify who shot down the plane and ensure they are brought to court, the letter said.

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What a story, the recent – foreign – additions to the Kiev government.

Ukraine’s Made-in-USA Finance Minister (Robert Parry)

Ukraine’s new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, a former U.S. State Department officer who was granted Ukrainian citizenship only this week, headed a U.S. government-funded investment project for Ukraine that involved substantial insider dealings, including $1 million-plus fees to a management company that she also controlled. Jaresko served as president and chief executive officer of Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which was created by the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) with $150 million to spur business activity in Ukraine. She also was cofounder and managing partner of Horizon Capital which managed WNISEF’s investments at a rate of 2 to 2.5% of committed capital, fees exceeding $1 million in recent years, according to WNISEF’s 2012 annual report.

The growth of that insider dealing at the U.S.-taxpayer-funded WNISEF is further underscored by the number of paragraphs committed to listing the “related party transactions,” i.e., potential conflicts of interest, between an early annual report from 2003 and the one a decade later. In the 2003 report, the “related party transactions” were summed up in two paragraphs, with the major item a $189,700 payment to a struggling computer management company where WNISEF had an investment. In the 2012 report, the section on “related party transactions” covered some two pages and included not only the management fees to Jaresko’s Horizon Capital ($1,037,603 in 2011 and $1,023,689 in 2012) but also WNISEF’s co-investments in projects with the Emerging Europe Growth Fund [EEGF], where Jaresko was founding partner and chief executive officer.

Jaresko’s Horizon Capital also managed EEGF. From 2007 to 2011, WNISEF co-invested $4.25 million with EEGF in Kerameya LLC, a Ukrainian brick manufacturer, and WNISEF sold EEGF 15.63% of Moldova’s Fincombank for $5 million, the report said. It also listed extensive exchanges of personnel and equipment between WNISEF and Horizon Capital. Though it’s difficult for an outsider to ascertain the relative merits of these insider deals, they could reflect negatively on Jaresko’s role as Ukraine’s new finance minister given the country’s reputation for corruption and cronyism, a principal argument for the U.S.-backed “regime change” that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February.

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Small fish.

Prosecutor Freezes Accounts Of Former Vatican Bank Heads (Reuters)

The Vatican’s top prosecutor has frozen €16 million in bank accounts owned by two former Vatican bank managers and a lawyer as part of an investigation into the sale of Vatican-owned real estate in the 2000s, according to the freezing order and other legal documents. Prosecutor Gian Piero Milano said he suspected the three men, former bank president Angelo Caloia, ex-director general Lelio Scaletti, and lawyer Gabriele Liuzzo, of embezzling money while managing the sale of 29 buildings sold by the Vatican bank to mainly Italian buyers between 2001 and 2008, according to a copy of the freezing order reviewed by Reuters. The money in the three men’s bank accounts “stems from embezzlement they were engaged in,” Milano said in the October 27 sequester order.

Milano’s investigation follows an audit of the Vatican bank by non-Vatican financial consultants commissioned last year by the bank’s current management. The Vatican bank earlier this year also filed a legal complaint against the three men. The men have not been charged. The Vatican spokesman on Saturday issued a statement confirming the freezing but gave no names, amounts or other details. The Vatican bank said in a separate statement that it had pressed charges against the three as part of its “commitment to transparency and zero tolerance, including with regard to matters that relate to a more distant past”. The bank statement also gave no details, citing “the ongoing judicial enquiry”.

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For starters.

Australian Banks Seen Needing $25 Billion After Inquiry (Bloomberg)

Commonwealth Bank of Australia and its three main competitors may need as much as A$30 billion ($25 billion) after a government-commissioned inquiry called for “unquestionably strong” capital levels, analysts said. The shortfall is based on lenders needing to boost levels to within the top quartile of their global peers and set aside additional funds against potential losses on home mortgages, as recommended by the Financial Systems Inquiry report released today in Sydney by Treasurer Joe Hockey. Australia’s major lenders hold about 10% to 11.6% of their assets as Tier 1 capital compared with at least 12.2% at the world’s safest banks, the government’s first inquiry into the financial system since 1997 said. Given banks’ reliance on overseas investors for debt funding, the financial system must be robust, the report said,

“The onus on capital is in line with global changes and Australia has to fall in line,” John Buonaccorsi, a Sydney-based analyst at CIMB Group Holdings Bhd. said in a phone interview after the report was released. “I don’t expect a straight capital raising yet.” Australia’s largest banks are initially more likely to resort to dividend reinvestment plans, where investors swap all or part of their dividend for new shares, and limiting increases in payout ratios, he added. Buonaccorsi expects a shortfall between A$25 billion and A$30 billion. Omkar Joshi, who helps oversee A$1 billion as an investment analyst at Watermark Funds Management, estimated a A$15 billion to A$20 billion gap. Their predictions were based on an average mortgage risk weight of 25% to 30% and systemically important bank buffer of 2%.

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“.. if the progress of our lives starts looking too much like a random walk, then we tend to start asking ourselves difficult questions, like “What’s it all about?” and drinking too much. And that causes our walk to get even closer to random. ”

Minimum Viable Sociopathy (Dmitry Orlov)

If you simply wander aimlessly through life, breathing oxygen and eating and excreting organic matter, then you will still get somewhere. Statistically, a blind-drunk sailor who walks out of a bar will, on average, while stumbling along on his way to nowhere in particular, cover the distance of √n steps for every n steps he takes. This is known as a random walk, or Brownian motion, which is fine for molecules at anything above 0ºK, and perhaps for drunken sailors too, but most of us sentient beings want our lives to have a bit of meaning. And if the progress of our lives starts looking too much like a random walk, then we tend to start asking ourselves difficult questions, like “What’s it all about?” and drinking too much. And that causes our walk to get even closer to random. And therein lies a great danger, because this sort of downward spiral inevitably ends with somebody else telling you “What’s it all about” and what it is you have to do, supposedly for your own good, though it hardly ever is.

There is also the opposite danger. If you keep your eyes fixed on your goal and make a concerted effort to make n steps of progress in its direction for every n steps you take, then you will quickly happen upon a wall with a gate in it, and a guard at that gate will demand to see your permit, degree, qualification or certificate before letting you pass through that gate. And the process of you getting that permit, degree, qualification or certificate will end with somebody else telling you what your goal ought to be. The goal is, universally, to accumulate things: dollars or stripes on your uniform or publications and citations, or earwax. Details don’t matter, but what matters is that these things never have much of anything at all to do with your original goal.

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We need more people like Welby.

Archbishop Calls For £150 Million State-Backed Food Bank System (Daily Mail)

A new row over food banks erupted last night after a report backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury called for a £150 million state-backed system to combat hunger in Britain. The Most Reverend Justin Welby appeared to be on course for a clash with David Cameron after calling on the Prime Minister to reverse his decision not to take European funds to boost UK food banks. Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, Archbishop Welby makes a powerful call for more help to prevent families going hungry. The Archbishop is to launch a Parliamentary report in Westminster tomorrow, and calls on the Government to take ‘quick action’ to implement its recommendations in full. Separately, this newspaper has obtained details of the report’s radical proposals, which call for:

  1. A new publicly funded body, Feeding Britain, involving eight Cabinet Ministers, to work towards a ‘hunger free Britain’.
  2. Bigger food banks, called Food Banks Plus, to distribute more free food and advise people how to claim benefits and make ends meet.
  3. A rise in the minimum wage and the provision free school meals during school holidays for children from poor families.
  4. New measures to make it harder to strip people of benefits for breaking welfare rules – including soccer style ‘yellow cards’ instead of instant bans.
  5. Action to make supermarkets give more food to the poor.

The report by the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger in Britain comes amid an intense debate over welfare and poverty. Experts claimed that Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement last week would mean massive cuts in welfare in the coming years. Praising food bank volunteers who have rescued the poor from hunger, the Welby-backed report says they have achieved the ‘equivalent to a social Dunkirk.’ Notably, it adds: ‘This extraordinary achievement has been done without the assistance of central government. If the Prime Minister wants to meet his Big Society it is here.’

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The growing poverty in Britain is indeed a disgrace.

Hunger in UK Shocks Me More Than Africa (Archbishop Of Canterbury)

In one corner of a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo was a large marquee. Inside were children, all ill. They had been separated from family, friends, those who looked after them. Perhaps, mostly having disabilities, they had been abandoned in the panic of the militia attack that drove them from their homes. Now they were hungry. It was deeply shocking but, tragically, expected. A few weeks later in England, I was talking to some people – a mum, dad and one child – in a food bank. They were ashamed to be there. The dad talked miserably. He said they had each been skipping a day’s meals once a week in order to have more for the child, but then they needed new tyres for the car so they could get to work at night, and just could not make ends meet. So they had to come to a food bank.They were treated with respect, love even, by the volunteers from local churches. But they were hungry, and ashamed to be hungry. I found their plight more shocking. It was less serious, but it was here.

And they weren’t careless with what they had – they were just up against it. It shocked me that being up against it at the wrong time brought them to this stage. There are many like them. But we can do something about it. Two weeks ago, people in churches up and down the land listened to the passage in St Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus describes who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. When Christ returns, He will say: ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom… for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.’ The good people are surprised, they don’t remember helping anyone so powerful, and think He has mixed them up with someone else. Jesus tells them: ‘Just as you did it to one of the least of these… you did it to me.’ Those who did not give food to the hungry or a drink to the thirsty find out God has taken their lack of kindness into account too.

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Art reflects society before society reflects upon itself.

Has Modern Art Exhausted Its Power To Shock? (BBC)

Modern art’s desire to shock and to defy cliche has become a cliche in itself, and spawned a culture of fakery, argues Roger Scruton. “To thine own self be true,” says Shakespeare’s Polonius, “and thou canst be false to no man.” Live in truth, urged Vaclav Havel. “Let the lie come into the world,” wrote Solzhenitsyn, “but not through me.” How seriously should we take these pronouncements, and how do we obey them? There are two kinds of untruth – lying and faking. The person who is lying says what he or she does not believe. The person who is faking says what he believes, though only for the time being and for the purpose in hand. Anyone can lie. It suffices to say something with the intention to deceive. Faking, however, is an achievement. To fake things you have to take people in, yourself included. The liar can pretend to be shocked when his lies are exposed, but his pretence is part of the lie. The fake really is shocked when he is exposed, since he has created around himself a community of trust, of which he himself is a member.

In all ages people have lied in order to escape the consequences of their actions, and the first step in moral education is to teach children not to tell fibs. But faking is a cultural phenomenon, more prominent in some periods than in others. There is very little faking in the society described by Homer, for example, or in that described by Chaucer. By the time of Shakespeare, however, poets and playwrights are beginning to take a strong interest in this new human type. In Shakespeare’s King Lear the wicked sisters Goneril and Regan belong to a world of fake emotion, persuading themselves and their father that they feel the deepest love, when in fact they are entirely heartless. But they don’t really know themselves to be heartless – if they did, they could not behave so brazenly. The tragedy of King Lear begins when the real people – Kent, Cordelia, Edgar, Gloucester – are driven out by the fakes.

The fake is a person who has rebuilt himself, with a view to occupying another social position than the one that would be natural to him. Such is Molière’s Tartuffe, the religious impostor who takes control of a household through a display of scheming piety. Like Shakespeare, Moliere perceives that faking goes to the very heart of the person engaged in it. Tartuffe is not simply a hypocrite, who pretends to ideals that he does not believe in. He is a fabricated person, who believes in his own ideals since he is just as illusory as they are. Tartuffe’s faking is a matter of sanctimonious religion. With the decline of religion during the 19th Century there came about a new kind of faking. The romantic poets and painters turned their backs on religion and sought salvation through art. They believed in the genius of the artist, endowed with a special capacity to transcend the human condition in creative ways, breaking all the rules in order to achieve a new order of experience. Art became an avenue to the transcendental, the gateway to a higher kind of knowledge.

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At least.

California’s ‘Hot Drought’ Ranks Worst in at Least 1,200 Years (Bloomberg)

Record rains fell in California this week. They’re not enough to change the course of what scientists are now calling the region’s worst drought in at least 1,200 years. Just how bad has California’s drought been? Modern measurements already showed it’s been drier than the 1930s dustbowl, worse than the historic droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. That’s not all. New research going back further than the Viking conquests in Europe still can’t find a drought as bad as this one. To go back that far, scientists consulted one of the longest records available: tree rings.

Tighter rings mean drier years, and by working with California’s exceptionally old trees, researchers from University of Minnesota and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute were able to reconstruct a chronology of drought in southern and central California. They identified 37 droughts that lasted three years or more, going back to the year 800. None were as extreme as the conditions we’re seeing now. One of the oddities of this drought is that conditions aren’t just driven by a lack of rainfall. There have been plenty of droughts in the past with less precipitation. (The drought of 1527 to 1529, for example, was killer.) What makes this drought exceptional is the heat. Extreme heat.

Higher temperatures increase evaporation and help deplete reservoirs and groundwater. The California heat this year is like nothing ever seen in modern temperature records. The chart above shows average year-to-date temperatures in the state from January through October for each year since 1895. California’s drought has withered pastures and forced farmers to uproot orchards and fallow farmland. It may cost the state $2.2 billion this year, with 17,100 jobs lost and 428,000 acres of land left unplanted. Tensions are still running high between farmers and salmon fishers, who rely on the same waters. Young salmon even qualified for migration assistance this year – via tanker truck – when river levels were too low to make the swim. The effects of prolonged drought are cumulative. Maps from the U.S. Drought Monitor below show the worsening of conditions over the last three years.

More than half of the state remains in “exceptional drought” (crimson). It’s a distinction marked by crop and pasture losses and water shortages that fall within the top two percentiles. Record rainfalls recorded across the state this week — including in San Francisco and Los Angeles — did little to overcome the state’s moisture deficit, the National Drought Mitigation Center reported yesterday.

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