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Debt Rattle July 13 2025

Jul 132025
 
 July 13, 2025  Posted by at 9:21 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Road in Tahiti 1891

 

• Trump To Impose 30% Tariffs On Mexico, European Union (ZH)
• Tariff Windfall Drives Surprise $27 Billion US Budget Surplus in June (ET)
• US Lawmakers Move To Curb Trump’s Control Over Ukraine Aid (RT)
• Trump Sees Zelensky As ‘Primary Obstacle’ To Ukraine Peace – FT (RT)
• Trump Denies Coverup In Jeffrey Epstein Case (RT)
• Nvidia CEO Makes Pit Stop At White House Before China Trip (ZH)
• Why John Brennan Belongs in Prison (Harsanyi)
• The Democratic Party Civil War Just Escalated Big Time (Margolis)
• How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mamdani? Democrats Don’t Know (Caldwell)
• Americans Fighting For Ukraine Should Lose Citizenship – Tucker Carlson (RT)
• Tucker Carlson Reveals Who He Thinks Funded Jeffrey Epstein’s Crimes (VF)
• Ukraine To Receive German-funded Long-range Weapons This Month (RT)
• Baltic Sea Will Remain Common Despite NATO Fantasies – Russian Ambassador (Sp.)
• France Is Sweating Its Brains Out Thanks To The EU’s Climate Madness (Marsden)

 

 

Benz

Lacalle


https://twitter.com/dlacalle_IA/status/1944150734406091037

Gaetz
https://twitter.com/MsKristaMonroe/status/1943896573844304013
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1943722943860674593

Kirk

Miller

Scott

 

 

 

 

Has anyone seen a counterproposal from Europe? A dialogue even? Doesn’t that silence make them guilty by association?

• Trump To Impose 30% Tariffs On Mexico, European Union (ZH)

President Trump on Saturday morning fired off two trade warning letters via Truth Social, threatening to impose 30% tariffs on all Mexican and European imports starting August 1. The warning to Mexico hinges on action to curb the flow of fentanyl and dismantle drug cartels, while the threat to Europe demands an end to long-standing trade imbalances driven by EU tariffs and non-tariff barriers. This caps off a week of letters sent to America’s top trade partners, with tariff threats used as a negotiation tool by the Trump administration to seal deals.

“Despite our strong relationship, you will recall, the United States imposed Tariffs on Mexico to deal with our Nation’s Fentanyl crisis, which is caused, in part, by Mexico’s failure to stop the Cartels, who are made up of the most despicable people who ever walked the Earth, from pouring these drugs into our country,” Trump said in the letter addressed to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. He continued, “Mexico has been helping me secure the border, BUT, what Mexico has done, is not enough. Mexico still has not stopped the Cartels who are trying to turn all of North America into a Narco-Trafficking Playground.”

Here are the key points in the letter:
• 30% tariff will apply to all Mexican imports unless action is taken.
• Tariff waivers will be granted for companies that build or manufacture in the U.S.
• If Mexico raises tariffs in retaliation, the U.S. will match them on top of the 30%.
• Adjust tariffs if Mexico successfully confronts the cartels and halts fentanyl trafficking

The second letter by Trump was addressed to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, in which he informed Brussels that he would impose a 30% tariff on all EU products starting August 1, unless long-standing trade imbalances—driven by EU tariffs and non-tariff barriers—are addressed. “The European Union, despite having one of our largest Trade Deficits with you. Nevertheless, we have decided to move forward, but only with more balanced and fair TRADE,” the president said.

He emphasized:
• The U.S. market is open and fair, but EU practices have created an unsustainable trade deficit.
• The 30% tariff applies separately from any sectoral tariffs and will be higher for goods transshipped to avoid it.
• No tariffs will be applied if EU companies manufacture within the U.S.
• The EU must allow full market access to the U.S. or face higher tariffs.
• Retaliatory EU tariffs will be met with additional levies.

Trump warned that this trade deficit with the EU is a “major threat to our Economy and, indeed, our National Security!”

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The tariffs story is almost everywhere presented in a negative light. There’s a flipside.

• Tariff Windfall Drives Surprise $27 Billion US Budget Surplus in June (ET)

New data from the Treasury Department show that surging tariff revenues in June helped the U.S. government post an unexpected budget surplus of $27 billion, offering a rare fiscal bright spot amid persistently high federal deficits and suggesting that President Donald Trump’s tariff policies are becoming a significant source of government revenue. After running a $316 billion deficit in May, the government recorded a surplus of just over $27 billion last month, according to data released on July 11 by the Treasury Department. The tariff windfall helped narrow the fiscal year-to-date deficit to $1.34 trillion—a slight 1 percent improvement from the same period last year. By contrast, June 2024 saw a $71 billion deficit. A key driver of the improved balance was a record-breaking surge in customs duties.

The Treasury data released on Friday show that tariff collections soared to $27 billion in June alone, pushing total tariff revenues since October to $108 billion—the highest ever recorded for the first nine months of a fiscal year. June’s haul marked a significant jump from May’s prior record of $22 billion and was about 93 percent higher than the $56 billion collected during the same nine-month span of the previous year. So far in July, customs duties have added another $2.4 billion to federal coffers, according to daily Treasury figures. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has predicted even higher tariff revenues in the months ahead. Speaking at a July 8 White House Cabinet meeting, he said the United States is on track to collect $300 billion by the end of calendar year 2025, noting that the “major” tariffs imposed under the Trump administration did not start until the second quarter.

https://twitter.com/TRUMP_ARMY_/status/1943691228291399938

Since returning to the White House for a second term, Trump has imposed 10 percent universal tariffs on trading partners, along with reciprocal tariffs announced in April on a number of nations, depending on the trade barriers they have with the United States. Trump initially applied a 90-day pause to most of the reciprocal tariffs, and later signed an executive order that extended the reprieve to Aug. 1. In recent days, the president sent letters to several countries—including Japan, South Korea, and Thailand—informing them that reciprocal tariffs ranging from 25 to 40 percent will be imposed after Aug. 1 unless they agree to reduce trade barriers and negotiate bilateral deals. Trump has said the higher duties will substantially boost government revenue.

“The big money will start coming in on Aug. 1st. I think it was made clear today by the letters that were sent out yesterday and today,” he said during the Cabinet meeting. Bessent also cited a June 4 report from the Congressional Budget Office projecting that tariff revenues could total $2.8 trillion over the next decade—a figure he said the administration believes is understated. Trump said he won’t extend the Aug. 1 deadline for countries to start paying reciprocal tariffs, signaling a firm stance after earlier suggesting flexibility for nations offering trade concessions.

In one recent round of letters, Trump announced new tariffs as follows: 25 percent on Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Tunisia; 30 percent on Bosnia and Herzegovina and South Africa; 32 percent on Indonesia; 35 percent on Bangladesh and Serbia; 36 percent on Cambodia and Thailand; and 40 percent on Burma (also known as Myanmar) and Laos. In each letter, Trump noted that the tariffs might be lowered if countries open their markets and reduce non-tariff barriers, emphasizing that persistent trade deficits pose “a major threat” to U.S. economic and national security. More recently, Trump sent another round of letters, noting that Algeria, Iraq, Libya, and Sri Lanka will each be charged a 30 percent tariff, Brunei and Moldova will face a 25 percent tariff, and the Philippines will face a 20 percent tariff. The president has also announced that Canada will face 35 percent tariffs starting on Aug. 1.

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War guarantee.

• US Lawmakers Move To Curb Trump’s Control Over Ukraine Aid (RT)

A bill authorizing more Ukraine aid and barring the Pentagon from unilaterally halting arms shipments has passed the Senate Armed Services Committee. The measures are part of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense bill that outlines the Pentagon’s priorities and funding for the next fiscal year. The bill comes as tensions have risen between Congress and the White House over aid pauses earlier this year. In March, President Donald Trump temporarily halted all Ukraine assistance and intelligence sharing, while earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth paused weapons deliveries, citing the need to review dwindling Pentagon stockpiles. Aid resumed earlier this week after Trump expressed frustration over delays in the peace process and said Ukraine needs weapons to “defend” itself.

Media reports later suggested Trump had not been informed of the latest suspension and struggled to explain whether he had approved it. The new NDAA draft was passed in a bipartisan vote this week. It “reaffirms” US support for Ukraine, extends aid through 2028, increases annual authorizations from $300 million to $500 million, and requires the Pentagon to continue intelligence support for Kiev, according to a summary released on Friday. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, however, said the bill also includes language blocking the Pentagon from halting aid or intelligence sharing without congressional approval. She noted that provisions listed in the bill “put guardrails” on the Trump administration “to make sure promised military assistance continues to flow to Ukraine.”

A separate version of the NDAA drafted by House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers extends aid through 2028 but keeps it capped at $300 million per year. It also prohibits the Trump administration from halting funds without written justification to Congress and requires Hegseth to report regularly on support to Ukraine. The House committee will vote on its version on Tuesday. The bill must pass committee votes before being submitted for a full congressional vote. Ukraine has received nearly $115 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian US aid since its conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. The military component of this sum has come through congressional bills such as the NDAA and the Presidential Drawdown Authority, a fund capped by Congress that allows the president to send US weapons directly to Kiev.

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So get rid of him instead of giving him weapons.

• Trump Sees Zelensky As ‘Primary Obstacle’ To Ukraine Peace – FT (RT)

US President Donald Trump continues to regard Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky as the main hurdle to resolving the conflict, despite his recent criticism of Moscow, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing sources. Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, Trump said he was “unhappy” with Putin, claiming the Russian leader did not want to end the conflict. “We get a lot of bullsh*t thrown at us by Putin,” Trump said. The US president added that while Putin was “very nice all the time,” it turned out to be “meaningless” for ending the fighting. Later, he announced a “major statement” on Russia soon amid reported discussions in Washington over imposing a 500% tariff on countries that buy Russian energy and goods.

However, two unnamed senior officials involved in defense and security talks with Washington told the FT that there was little indication the White House had actually adopted a more pro-Kiev stance. Ukraine’s backers, the report said, are “still assuming Trump was predisposed to seeing Putin as his main negotiating partner in any settlement and Zelensky as the primary obstacle to a workable peace deal.” One official pointed to “a little bit of overexcitement based on a shift in tone,” while cautioning that “we’re not seeing that translate into major actions.” The FT report echoes a New York Times article in June claiming that the US president is “exasperated” with both Putin and Zelensky, but “reserves special animosity” for the Ukrainian leader, viewing him as a “bad guy” pushing the world towards a global conflict.

In May, Trump openly criticized Zelensky, suggesting that “everything out of his mouth causes problems.” The fiercest public clash between the two came in February at the White House, when Trump accused Zelensky of ingratitude and “gambling with World War III.” Commenting on Trump’s remarks targeting Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is “calm about this,” adding that “we are committed to continuing our dialogue with Washington and our policy of repairing the significantly damaged bilateral relations.” Russia maintains it is open to a diplomatic settlement of the Ukraine conflict, but in a way that would address its “root causes” and its security concerns. Moscow insists on Ukraine’s neutrality, recognition of the “territorial reality on the ground,” as well as demilitarization and denazification.

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Simple denials won’t work. See Pandora’s box.

• Trump Denies Coverup In Jeffrey Epstein Case (RT)

US President Donald Trump has pushed back against claims of a coverup in the Jeffrey Epstein case, defending his administration’s handling of the release of files related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender’s death in jail.nSome of Trump’s allies, including journalist Tucker Carlson and former adviser Steve Bannon, have criticized a report by the Department of Justice and the FBI, which found no evidence of a list of powerful individuals to whom Epstein trafficked underage girls. The report also found no signs of foul play in Epstein’s 2019 death at a Manhattan correctional facility, which was ruled a suicide. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump claimed that the so-called Epstein Files were created by prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands,” he wrote. “Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it?” he added. Trump defended his Attorney General Pam Bondi and argued that federal agencies should instead focus on investigating Democrat-linked scandals and corruption, as well as the 2020 presidential election, which he continues to claim was rigged in favor of Joe Biden. “LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB – SHE’S GREAT!” Trump wrote. He previously said that the Epstein case has been used to distract from more pressing issues, including the deadly floods in Texas.

FBI Director Kash Patel also dismissed the allegations. “The conspiracy theories just aren’t true, never have been,” he wrote on X. Critics have pointed to a minute-long gap in the surveillance footage outside Epstein’s cell on the night of his death, claiming the tape had been doctored. Bondi, however, denied that there was anything suspicious about the video. The debate surrounding the case has reportedly caused a rift within the government, with several news outlets claiming that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is considering resignation.

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“Also on Thursday, Nvidia became the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion… ”

• Nvidia CEO Makes Pit Stop At White House Before China Trip (ZH)

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met with President Trump at the White House on Thursday, just days before a trip to China. The meeting comes as Nvidia—now the world’s most valuable chipmaker (and world’s most valuable company)—remains largely shut out of China’s semiconductor market due to U.S. export restrictions. While the conversation wasn’t disclosed, Huang likely focused on the urgent need to restore Nvidia’s ability to sell advanced AI chips in the world’s second-largest economy. CNBC’s Megan Cassella reported Thursday afternoon that Huang met with Trump. No details about the meeting were released, but the president praised Nvidia in a Truth Social post: “NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs”… “COUNTRY IS NOW ‘BACK.'”

Also on Thursday, Nvidia became the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion… This was a symbolic milestone for capital markets and the current bull cycle. In a separate report, Bloomberg noted that Huang’s White House visit comes just days before he is scheduled to travel to Beijing, where he will meet with senior Chinese officials and attend the International Supply Chain Expo. Huang has been vocal in recent months about the combined impact of the Biden-Harris regime and the Trump-Vance administration’s export restrictions on advanced AI chips to China. In May, he told investors, “The $50 billion China market is effectively closed to U.S. industry.”

However, the Trump team cancelled a planned rule by former President Joe Biden called the “AI diffusion rule,” promising fewer restrictions later this year on which countries could receive Nvidia’s advanced AI chips. “The world is right now hungry, anxious to engage AI,” Huang said, adding, “Let us get the American AI out in front of everybody right now.”

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“No, I’m not under the impression Brennan will end up in prison, where he likely belongs, or even see an indictment…”

• Why John Brennan Belongs in Prison (Harsanyi)

Former CIA Director John Brennan is one of the most contemptible and shady people in public life. Few people have abused their position, power, and access with such impunity and hubris. So, it was a pleasure to read a Fox News report that the FBI has launched a criminal investigation into Brennan, along with former FBI Director James Comey, for possible wrongdoing related to the Trump campaign-Russia collusion probe, including making false statements to Congress. No, I’m not under the impression Brennan will end up in prison, where he likely belongs, or even see an indictment. The statute of limitations has largely sunset. And even if they hadn’t, the notion there will be any reckoning is remote.

My modest hope is that perhaps a better accounting of his corruption for the historical record will destroy Brennan’s reputation forever, which shouldn’t be a heavy lift. Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe released a report on the origins of the Intelligence Community Assessment that concluded Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump. It was more or less as one might have expected. One of the things we learned, however, was that Brennan claimed in 2017 testimony before Congress that the Steele dossier, an oppo doc paid for by Hillary Clinton and Democrats, wasn’t “in any way” used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment. In a 2023 House interview, Brennan claimed the “CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele Dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment.”

The problem is that newly declassified CIA emails allegedly show Brennan not only repeatedly pressing for insertion of the Steele dossier’s claims but doing it over the objections of others. In one 2016 email, Brennan allegedly disregarded warnings from his deputy that the dossier would undermine “the credibility of the entire paper.” When two CIA mission center leaders responsible for Russia challenged him about integrating a poorly constructed partisan document into the Intelligence Community Assessment, Brennan overruled them, insisting: “My bottom line is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.” Now, there is always a chance that Ratcliffe’s report is skewed to make Brennan’s emails look more incriminating than they were. We’ll have to see. We already know that Brennan has for years lied about having insider knowledge of an unprecedented seditious criminal conspiracy against the United States.

When Robert Mueller’s investigation was unable to pull together a single indictment related to “collusion,” Brennan shrugged it off by saying that he may have “received bad information.”He hadn’t. “Trump is scared of me because I know too much about Russia’s election meddling,” Brennan would tell the press. When special counsel John Durham released his report on the origins of the FBI’s investigation of the “collusion” investigation, we learned that Brennan, despite spinning unhinged conspiratorial rants nightly on cable television, knew there was nothing there. Indeed, Durham reports that Brennan had admitted to investigators that there had been “no conspiracy.” Yet, as Durham points out, only days later, the former CIA director was on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” contending the opposite, using his former position to suggest there was still much to be divulged.

To understand what little regard Brennan had for truth or position, recall a 2020 email uncovered by the House Judiciary Committee. In it, former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who was working with the Biden campaign to concoct “a talking point” to “push back on Trump” during the final presidential debates, asked Brennan to sign on to the infamous “disinformation” letter that claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian plant. “Ok, Michael, add my name to the list. Good initiative. Thanks for asking me to sign on,” Brennan replied. That’s all it took for the former director of the CIA to sign his name onto a letter that would be the ostensive reason for a major story implicating a presidential candidate with corruption to be censored by virtually every legacy media outlet and major social media platform. One hopes his legacy will now be irreparably tarnished.

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“..the Democratic Socialists of America..” Doesn’t sound American to me.

“..The Democratic civil war is no longer a distant threat. It’s here, it’s ugly, and it’s escalating.”

• The Democratic Party Civil War Just Escalated Big Time (Margolis)

The Democratic Party’s internal fractures are no longer simmering beneath the surface—they’re erupting into open warfare. The latest salvo comes from within the party’s own ranks, as the far-left wing grows increasingly emboldened to challenge the establishment’s authority. What we’re witnessing is not just a disagreement over policy or tactics, but a full-blown civil war for the soul of the Democratic Party. Democratic Socialist allies of Zohran Mamdani are reportedly laying the groundwork for primary challenges against several incumbent congressional Democrats in New York City—potentially even targeting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Following Zohran Mamdani’s primary win last month, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) declared that “this movement is bigger than one person, election, city, or organization.”

“We encourage all people inspired by the Zohran campaign to join their local DSA or YDSA chapter and get involved so we can continue to fight alongside Zohran and DSA elected officials across the country to create the future we all deserve,” the group said in a statement. Now that message appears to be turning into action. DSA leaders are reportedly weighing primary challenges against several prominent House Democrats representing New York City—including Jeffries, as well as Reps. Ritchie Torres, Jerry Nadler, Dan Goldman, and Yvette Clarke. Jeffries, who two years ago succeeded longtime House Democratic leader and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been criticized by some of New York City’s far-left leaders as a moderate and establishment Democrat.

“His leadership has left a vacuum that organizations like DSA are filling. I think that is more important right now,” New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter co-chair Gustavo Gordillo told CNN. Democratic socialist state Sen. Jabari Brisport, whose district includes some of the same areas of Brooklyn as Jeffries House district, argued in a statement to Fox News that the longtime congressman is “rapidly growing out of touch with an insurgent and growing progressive base within his own district that he should pay more attention to.” Top Hakeem Jeffries adviser Andre Richardson is sounding the alarm over rumblings of a left-wing primary challenge, lashing out at the Democratic Socialists circling Jeffries’ seat. “Our response will be forceful and unrelenting. We will teach them and all of their incumbents a painful lesson on June 23, 2026.”

Jeffries, for his part, feigned ignorance about the whole thing. “I have no idea what these people are talking about,” he told CNN, before pivoting to the usual script about “pushing back against extremism”—as if the radicals threatening to take his job aren’t in his own party. Despite praising Zohran Mamdani’s far-left campaign and defending him from Trump’s criticism, Jeffries, along with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Sen. Chuck Schumer, has stopped short of endorsing the DSA-backed Democratic nominee for mayor. That’s probably not a coincidence. What’s truly astonishing is the Democratic leadership’s inability—or unwillingness—to confront this rebellion head-on. Instead of standing up to the radicals, too many establishment figures are cowering in fear, hoping the storm will pass.

But appeasement only emboldens the insurgents. Every time a figure like Mamdani gets away with slandering party leaders, the fringe left grows stronger and more brazen. If the Democratic Party continues down this path, the results will be catastrophic for them… which make is so enjoyable to watch. A party consumed by internal warfare cannot hope to govern, let alone offer a compelling alternative to the opposition. The radicals may think they’re winning, but in reality, they’re burning down the very house they claim to want to lead. The Democratic civil war is no longer a distant threat. It’s here, it’s ugly, and it’s escalating. The question now is whether any adults are left in the room to stop the madness before it’s too late.

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In one extreme blue pocket, they manage to get an extreme candidate elected. And then draw the conclusion they should do that all over the country.

• How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mamdani? Democrats Don’t Know (Caldwell)

The meteoric rise of New York City Democrat mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani poses a major question for Washington Democrats—is his brand of Palestinian activism, economic interventionism, and pro-LGBTQ+ rhetoric the future of their party? The 33-year-old state assemblyman’s trouncing of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the city’s party primary has brought to light a host of controversial positions: supporting taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries on his campaign website, proposing government-run grocery stores, and refusing to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” among other things. Asked how he views a candidate who does not condemn phrases which many consider genocidal, Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, chose a live-and-let-live approach.

“There’s no candidate in this party that I agree 100% of the time with,” he replied. “To be honest with you, there’s things that I don’t agree with Mamdani that he said. But at the end of the day, I always believe … that you win through addition, you win by bringing people into your coalition. We have conservative Democrats, we have centrist Democrats, we have labor progressives like me, and we have this new Democrat, which is the leftist.” But what works in New York City might not work in the swing districts and swing states that decide who has power in Washington. But Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who has consistently supported Israel, said of Mamdani, “Everything that I’ve read on him, I don’t really agree with virtually any of it politically. So that’s just where I’m at as a Democrat. I mean, he’s not even a Democrat, honestly.”

Fetterman, much like swing-state Democrat Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, has generally chosen moderated rhetoric over doubling down on progressive rhetoric since Republican President Donald Trump’s victory in November. Slotkin, asked shortly after Mamdani’s mayoral primary victory how she interpreted the development, chose to focus on Mamdani’s cost-of-living proposals, while shying away from commenting on his more controversial platform planks.“People, just like in November, are still really focused on costs and the economy, and their own kitchen table math, and they’re looking for a new generation of leadership,” Slotkin said, adding, “It reinforces that you may disagree on some key issues, but understanding that people are concerned about their family budget, that is a unifying thing for a coalition.”

Slotkin, who narrowly won her Michigan Senate seat in November by just over 19,000 votes out of more than 5.57 million cast, or 48.6% to 48.3%, emphasized economic issues throughout her campaign and warned as early as September 2024 that the Democrats’ presidential candidate, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, was “underwater in our polling.” For now at least, Democrats in Washington appear to not know what to do with Mamdani. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has still not endorsed Mamdani, despite his primary win. When asked, he consistently chooses to mention Mamdani’s proposals to address the high cost of living in New York City. Jeffries has applied a bit of pushback against Mamdani’s rhetoric on the Israel-Hamas war, though, particularly his repeated refusals to condemn “globalize the intifada.”

“‘Globalizing the intifada,’ by the way of example, is not an acceptable phrase, and he’s going to have to clarify his position on that,” Jeffries said after Mamdani’s victory. “With respect to the Jewish communities that I represent, I think our nominee is going to have to convince folks that he is prepared to aggressively address the rise in antisemitism in the city of New York.” It remains to be seen how Mamdani’s rise as a national face of the Democratic Party will affect Democrats’ chances outside of their dark-blue urban centers of support. Democrats are seeking Senate seat pickups in 2026, for example, in states such as Maine and North Carolina—far removed from New York. Vice President JD Vance has accused Mamdani of creating a coalition of “downwardly mobile, college-educated people” and carved-out ethnic blocs by pandering to shared hatreds.

“That’s an interesting coalition. Maybe it works in the New York Democratic primary. I don’t think it works in the United States at large,” the vice president said in a July 5 speech in San Diego. Rural America and moderate voters appear to be the target for Democrats going into the midterms. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is now running ads against GOP incumbents such as Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin and Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, accusing them of attacking rural hospitals with the recently passed Republican budget reconciliation bill’s restructuring of Medicaid. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is also trying to appeal to moderate voters ahead of a difficult 2026 reelection campaign. As Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” was considered, he joined just three other Democrat senators to vote for an amendment to the bill that would have discouraged states from issuing Medicaid payments to illegal immigrants. That’s a far cry from Mamdani who has openly called for “standing up for our sanctuary city policies” in New York City.

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Any foreign countrry. Including Israel.

• Americans Fighting For Ukraine Should Lose Citizenship – Tucker Carlson (RT)

Americans who fight for other countries, including Ukraine and Israel, should be stripped of their US citizenship, journalist Tucker Carlson has argued. Speaking at a conservative conference in Tampa, Florida called Turning Point USA on Friday, Carlson was asked whether he believes US nationals can pledge allegiance to two countries at once. The former Fox News categorically denied the notion of double loyalty. “I think anybody… who serves in a foreign military should lose his citizenship immediately. There are a lot of Americans who’ve served in the IDF, they should lose their citizenship. There’s a lot of Americans who’ve served in Ukraine and they should lose their citizenship. You can’t fight for another country and remain an American. Period.”

He added that common sense dictates that “no man can serve two masters.” “You can only really pledge your loyalty to one person or one country,” he added. Under US law, there are no automatic penalties for serving in a foreign military. The US has never signed the 1989 UN Mercenary Convention, which aims to ban the recruitment, use, financing, and training of mercenaries. However, since the late 19th century, the US government has been prohibited from employing organizations that offer “quasi-military armed forces for hire,” meaning it cannot use the services of private military contractors such as Blackwater. Carlson’s remarks come after CNN reported in January that more than 20 US citizens had been reported missing in action in Ukraine.

In late 2024, Russian officials reported that around 6,500 out of 15,000 foreign mercenaries who had arrived in Ukraine had been killed. In recent months, several US citizens have been convicted in absentia in Russia for what are described as mercenary activity and “terrorist acts” in Russia’s Kursk Region, where a now-defeated Ukrainian incursion was launched last year. In May, Aleksandr Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, said that a total of 902 individuals had been charged with engaging in mercenary activity. Courts have delivered guilty verdicts against 97 mercenaries from 26 countries. Moscow has repeatedly warned that it treats foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine as legitimate targets.

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“..it’s extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government. Now, no one’s allowed to say that that foreign government is ISRAEL ..”

• Tucker Carlson Reveals Who He Thinks Funded Jeffrey Epstein’s Crimes (VF)

Just this Friday night, Tucker Carlson named who he believes really FUNDED Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. What he said is guaranteed to make many in Washington furious. And there’s no taking it back now. On Tuesday, Tucker Carlson delivered two theories on why Pam Bondi won’t release the Epstein Files. Theory #1 was “Trump is involved.” But Carlson thought this explanation was not very likely. Then came Theory #2, which was that Carlson believed “intel services are at the very center of this story—US and Israeli—and they’re being protected.” “I think that seems like the most plausible explanation,” Carlson said. “And we have every right to ask on whose behalf was he working? How does a guy go from being a math teacher at the Dalton School in the late 70s with no college degree to having multiple airplanes, a private island, and the largest residential house in Manhattan? Where did all the money come from?” Carlson asked.

https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1943857723658940431

Then came the big claim. “And no one has ever gotten to the bottom of that because no one has ever tried. And moreover, it’s extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government. Now, no one’s allowed to say that that foreign government is ISRAEL because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that’s naughty,” Carlson said. “There is nothing wrong with saying that,” Carlson continued. “There is nothing hateful about saying that. There’s nothing anti-Semitic about saying. There’s nothing even anti-Israel about saying that.” Someone who agrees with Carlson’s assessment is CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou. On Wednesday, he told the story of the recruitment of a copy machine repairman who earned his CIA operational officer a big promotion.

At first, Kiriakou laughed at the notion of a copy machine repairman being useful, but then he realized the brilliance of the plan when he learned that the repairman secretly sent every document from a prime minister’s office straight to the CIA. How did he do it? By planting a tiny device on the copy machine. This flow of information was pure leverage for the CIA: “You know what they’re thinking. You know their next move. You know who their enemies are and who their allies are. Maybe it’s their position on trade negotiations. Maybe the prime minister has a health problem you need to plan for. You never know what might come through,” Kiriakou explained. “That ONE critical nugget is all it takes.”

That, he says, is EXACTLY what Epstein was to Israeli intelligence: someone with access (like the copy machine repairman) who quietly delivered leverage on the world’s elite. Back to Carlson. He addressed the claims that he’s taking money from the Qatari government head-on. What was his reaction to this claim? He literally laughed out loud. “Maybe I was taking tons of money from some bad country. One of the bad countries you’re not allowed to talk about or like—Qatar!” Carlson said before bursting into laughter. “That’s the most hilarious [claim]. Qatar is kind of controlling our conversation. Qatar. Evil Qatar,” he mocked.

An audience member asked if Carlson was laughing, and he confirmed, “I am laughing.” “I’ve actually been to Qatar. It’s awesome. Never taken a dollar from the Qataris or the Qataris or whatever they’re called. Great country. But even if I was, like, on the payroll of Qatar, which I guess I’m like—I can’t now. But even if I was [taking money], it still wouldn’t make the question any less relevant. Why is this [war with Iran] a good idea?” Carlson asked. “And their refusal to answer that question lets you know right away that you are not dealing with a person of good faith. You’re dealing with a propagandist who is trying to control you.” What’s your take on Carlson’s claim about Israeli intelligence? Is he exposing an uncomfortable truth, or is he chasing attention and controversy?

Read more …

“..Dmitry Peskov accused Germany of “competing with France in primacy for stoking the war..”

• Ukraine To Receive German-funded Long-range Weapons This Month (RT)

Ukraine will receive its first batch of long-range missiles financed by Germany by the end of July, a top German general has said, acknowledging that Kiev’s battlefield situation is deteriorating. In an interview with ZDF, Major General Christian Freuding, who oversees the coordination of Berlin’s military support for Kiev, said Germany is “ready to make these weapons systems available.” Ukraine will receive the weapons “by the end of this month,” Freuding stated, adding that they will arrive “in high three-digit numbers.” He did not specify which missiles will be delivered or what their range is. ”We need weapons systems that can reach deep into Russian territory and attack depots, command facilities, airfields, and aircraft,” Freuding said.

He went on to say the deliveries stem from a contract between Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and its domestic weapons industry, backed by German funding secured in late May. Freuding stressed that Germany is not providing Kiev with long-range Taurus missiles with a range of 500km. Despite Ukraine’s pleas, Berlin has been reluctant to approve deliveries, arguing that doing so could escalate the hostilities and draw Germany into the conflict. He acknowledged that Ukraine is facing mounting battlefield challenges, noting that Russia is making “small but steady” gains, forcing Ukrainian units to retreat to deeper defensive lines. In the air, the situation has “worsened in recent weeks,” he said, citing a single night when Kiev came under an attack involving more than 700 drones and dozens of missiles.

The Russian Defense Ministry has said it only attacks military-related facilities and never targets civilians. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed support in late May for developing Ukraine’s own long-range weapons. He said that while Kiev will receive German financial backing to procure these systems, it will not face restrictions on how it uses them. Russia has warned against Western military aid to Ukraine, saying it will only prolong the conflict without changing the outcome. Responding to Merz’s announcement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Germany of “competing with France in primacy for stoking the war,” warning that these moves hinder peace efforts. He added that supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine would bring an “inevitable escalation.”

Read more …

Will anyone open fire?

• Baltic Sea Will Remain Common Despite NATO Fantasies – Russian Ambassador (Sp.)

The Baltic Sea will remain a common space for all regional states, no matter what NATO countries “fantasize” about, Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin said in an interview with Sputnik. “Whatever the alliance’s countries fantasize about, the Baltic Sea was, remains and will be a common space for all states in the region without exception,” Barbin said. He said the course chosen by Denmark and NATO countries to militarize the Baltic Sea region has no future. The ambassador said the increase in military activity does not delay, but increases the risk of a conflict, especially in the absence of direct dialogue and mutual trust between Russia and NATO.

Read more …

Overwhelming idea: You’re guilty so you don’t deserve A/C.

“Like the outdated idea that every woman should anchor her existence around a husband and kids, the anti-A/C dogma should stop where logic and personal freedom begin..”

• France Is Sweating Its Brains Out Thanks To The EU’s Climate Madness (Marsden)

Paris was melting last week, flirting with 40°C and zero chill. Apparently, the moment was ripe for an epiphany. I was in an Uber, as one does when public transport becomes a slow cooker. I always enjoy chatting with the driver – usually Algerian or Moroccan. We got to talking about our lives and what led us to France. At one point he looked at me and said, “No husband, no kids, and you have air conditioning! You’re totally cheating at life!” “Cheating,” huh? Interesting word choice. So opting out of the standard life script is breaking the rules? But whose rules? The ones written by the establishment – whichever power structure has successfully colonized your brain.

I was fortunate to have been raised by parents who believed in free thought, not groupthink, and who told me that you should be able to do anything you want with your life as long as you’re not harming others. Which is a long way of saying that if I want to crank the A/C during a heatwave in my own home, it’s nobody’s business. Especially not that of some guy in the front seat of a Peugeot who thinks that I’ve short-circuited the Matrix. But the fact that he grouped air conditioning with not having kids or a man says a lot. It’s not just cultural expectations, but also the deep programming of state-sanctioned virtue that has come to dominate cultural norms. And in France, one of the strangest markers of virtue is rejecting modern cooling technology.

The week was so blisteringly hot that the French government anticipated shutting down 1,350 schools so kids could sweat it out at home instead of in class. Even the local public swimming pool had to close – the one place that usually offers relief – because the deck hit 50°C and the water was bathtub temperature. Instead, the French spent the day playing what I call the “Blinds and Windows Game.” Open everything in the morning. Close it all when the heat starts. Pull the blinds down just right so the sun hits the metal outside instead of the window glass. I opted out. I’ve got better things to do than play around with my window coverings. So I turned on the air conditioning.

My neighbors were not fans. I’ve had a mob of French residents of my building bang on my door demanding that I turn it off. Why? Because they spotted the portable A/C exhaust tubes poking out my window. Having ignored them, I later received a formal letter with instructions on when I was allowed to use it. According to them, that would only be when they collectively decide that the temperature justifies it – and only during certain hours. “For the well being of everyone,” they wrote, before launching into a sermon about how A/C is bad for the environment and ruins it for everyone else.

Give me a break. This is a country powered by decarbonized nuclear energy, so the climate change excuse doesn’t work here. But even without that, they invent new reasons: It causes “thermal shock.” It gives you neck spasms. It’s “unnatural air.” It’ll make you sick… Like the outdated idea that every woman should anchor her existence around a husband and kids, the anti-A/C dogma should stop where logic and personal freedom begin. No, gyms shouldn’t be set to 26°C in the summer because some guy wants to do five squats and scroll on his phone without feeling “chilly” during a heatwave. You shouldn’t be sweating through your clothes at the movies. And hospitals and nursing homes shouldn’t feel like a slow death in a convection oven.

But the moment far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen suggested a “grand plan for air conditioning” a few days ago, the narrative defenders of the establishment status quo promptly lost it. “Air conditioning saves lives. Letting people die in hospitals, or letting children or vulnerable people suffer because there is no air conditioning, is completely absurd,” Le Pen said in the National Assembly. The opposition Ecologists’ national secretary Marine Tondelier shot back that “air conditioning won’t suffice.” Guess they’re still hoping to lower the Earth’s thermostat manually. Since they’re clearly failing, despite all the lifestyle sacrifices they’ve extracted from us, maybe we could at least normalize cooling the rooms we actually live in.

Apparently not. France’s Ecological Transition Minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher of Macron’s Renaissance party, said that it was okay to “air condition vulnerable people” but “not everywhere.” Because “global warming.” Oh, please. Go yell at your German Green pals from the last coalition government, that had to fire up coal plants that dump filth into Europe’s air, all because their sacred renewables can’t carry the load.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Autism
https://twitter.com/Censored4sure/status/1943754763062952419

https://twitter.com/SimonDixonTwitt/status/1943769455567548819
https://twitter.com/AlpacaAurelius/status/1943753190295711921

Parrots

Leopard
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1943917020208091433

Emanuel
https://twitter.com/DrClownPhD/status/1943792667160457554

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 25 2016

May 252016
 
 May 25, 2016  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


Alfred Palmer Conversion. Beverage containers to aviation oxygen cylinders 1942

• Hillary Clinton Loves To Trumpet Bill’s Budget Surplus. She Shouldn’t. (Week)
• Jeff Gundlach Says US Stock Market Is ‘Dead Money’ (R.)
• Eurozone Hails ‘Breakthrough’ With Greece, IMF Debt Deal (R.)
• Draghi Running Out Of Options After Draining Bond Market by $800 Billion (BBG)
• China Weakens Yuan Fixing to Lowest Since 2011 (BBG)
• China Says It Has Conquered Commodities Trading Frenzy (BBG)
• New York, London on Notice as China Targets Commodities Pricing (BBG)
• Mark Carney Denies Brexit Bias And Goldman Influence (BBG)
• Your Brain Does Not Process Information And It Is Not A Computer (Aeon)
• NATO Struggles to Recover after Years of Budget Cuts (Spiegel)
• Logging Of Europe’s Last Primeval Forest Starts Despite Protests (G.)
• Turkish Journalist Jailed, Stripped Of Her Parental Rights (Al-M)
• Turkey Threatens To Block EU Migration Deal Without Visa-Free Travel (G.)
• Over 5,600 Refugees Rescued Off Lybia In 2 Days (R/AFP)

Very interesting, and a pity I don’t have more space here. Do read the original. Steve Keen has been saying the same thing about deficits and surpluses for a long time. A government surplus means a deficit for everyone else.

• Hillary Clinton Loves To Trumpet Bill’s Budget Surplus. She Shouldn’t. (Week)

[Bill] Clinton’s budget surplus wasn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. In fact, it might have hurt the economy pretty badly. The key to understanding why rests with an underappreciated economic tool called “sectoral balances” analysis. As Eric Tymoigne — an economics professor as Lewis and Clark College in Portland — explained to The Week, it’s incredibly useful for understanding macro-economic trends. Let’s walk through how it works. A sectoral balances analysis starts with the recognition that the U.S. economy, like any national economy, is roughly comprised of three sectors.

There’s the government sector: the federal government, the Federal Reserve, and the state and local governments. There’s the private domestic sector: individuals, households, businesses, the banks, all the major industries, etc. And then there’s the foreign sector: i.e. the rest of the world, or every entity outside the U.S. national border that we trade with. Each of these three sectors are in a state of surplus or deficit at any given moment. The government is either taxing more than it spends (surplus) or spending more than it taxes (deficit). Households and businesses in the private domestic sector are either saving more than they’re spending (surplus) or vice versa (deficit). And the rest of the world is either exporting more to America than it imports (surplus), or importing from the U.S. more than it exports (deficit). (Perhaps confusingly, the foreign sector balance is the inverse of the U.S. trade balance; i.e. a surplus in the foreign sector actually means a U.S. trade deficit.)

And because of the way we calculate GDP, the sum of the deficits or surpluses of these three sectors will always be zero. So if the domestic private sector is running a surplus of 4% of GDP, for instance, then the government and foreign sectors might each run a deficit of 2%. You can see how this works in the real world in the graph below, which was provided by Scott Fullwiler, an economics professor at Wartburg College. The government sector is in red, the private domestic sector is in blue, and the foreign sector is in green:

As you can see, the government sector has almost always been in deficit since the mid-20th century while the private sector has almost always been in surplus. But what do you notice about the late 1990s? Something weird happened: The private domestic sector (the blue bars) went into deficit for the first time since 1952. Then it did it again in the second half of the 2000s. There’s no way for the spending of private households and businesses to collectively outpace saving unless its being driven by unsustainable debt. So what we’re seeing here is the stock bubble of the late ’90s, which burst in 2001, and the out-of-control mortgages and household debt of the mid-to-late ’00s, which culminated in the 2008 financial crisis. The graph also illustrates why the persistent foreign sector surplus (which, remember, means a U.S. trade deficit) that opened up in the 1990s is such a problem: It must be balanced by either a government sector deficit or a private domestic sector deficit.

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A.k.a. zombie money.

• Jeff Gundlach Says US Stock Market Is ‘Dead Money’ (R.)

Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital, said on Tuesday that the rally in U.S. stocks, which began on Monday, feels like a short squeeze and characterized U.S. stocks as “dead money.” “The market is not incredibly healthy,” Gundlach said in a telephone interview, noting recent corporate earnings have come in weak. Gundlach, who oversees $95 billion at Los Angeles-based DoubleLine, said the S&P 500 index .SPX “has gone nowhere in the past 12 months to 18 months.” On the Federal Reserve, Gundlach said it is still 50/50 odds that the U.S. central bank will raise interest rates in June. He said many Fed officials are “dying to raise rates,” but that it is Fed chair Janet Yellen’s opinion that matters the most.

“All that matters is Yellen. She is still there. I feel like we are back in December again, where everyone thinks that there is a super secret that some Fed officials have this knowledge that the economy is really good.” Last week, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said the U.S. economy could be strong enough to warrant an interest rate increase in June or July, reinforcing the drum beat from within the Fed in recent days that rate increases are coming soon. A range of policymakers with normally varying views on monetary policy are now stating a rate increase is possible at the next policy meeting in June.

Read more …

They -yet again- found a way to offer debt relief without offering debt relief. Only in 2018, and only ‘if necessary’. It never will be, the numbers will be spun to make sure of that. Greece will ‘receive’ money next month that will go straight to the ECB, and for which taxes have been raised once again, a move that will shrink the economy even more. Just two days ago, the IMF called for ‘unconditional’ debt relief. That is not what this is: ‘if necessary’ is a condition.

• Eurozone Hails ‘Breakthrough’ With Greece, IMF Debt Deal (R.)

The euro zone gave Greece its firmest offer yet of debt relief in what finance ministers called a breakthrough deal that won a commitment from the IMF finally to return to taking part in the bailout for Athens. After talks that lasted into the small hours of Wednesday, the Eurogroup ministers gave a nod to releasing €10.3 billion in new funds for Greece in recognition of painful fiscal reforms pushed through by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftist-led coalition, subject to some final technical tweaks. But a bigger step forward was a deal by which the euro zone agreed to offer Athens debt relief in 2018 if that is necessary to meet agreed criteria on its payments burden. That was enough to secure an agreement from the IMF to again join the euro zone in funding the bailout of Greece.

“We achieved a major breakthrough on Greece which enables us to enter a new phase in the Greek financial assistance programme,” Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, told a news conference. “This is stretching what I thought would have been possible not so long ago.” Acknowledging the “political capital” European ministers invested to reach the deal – a nod to strong German objections to debt relief – Dijsselbloem called it a “new phase” in a six-year drama to stabilise Greece’s finances that has taken the 16-year-old euro zone to the brink of break-up. Mutual trust was returning to the talks, he said, nearly a year after Tsipras’s rejection of austerity measures pushed Athens close to be pushed out of the euro.

Read more …

“Everything is on the table..” “Whenever they meet resistance, they get around it by adjusting the rules..” “They are basically building the boat in the open sea..”

• Draghi Running Out Of Options After Draining Bond Market by $800 Billion (BBG)

The biggest buyer of European government bonds may have to start spreading its money around a bit more widely. The ECB expanded the size of its debt-buying program in April by a third to €80 billion a month and appears to be running out of securities eligible under its own rules. Monetary policy makers increased purchases of Irish and Portuguese bonds last month by less than it did for German debt, suggesting demand already threatens to outstrip supply from some countries. Banks say it might have to include more bonds or risk diluting the stimulus to the economy the quantitative easing is designed to inject. “Everything is on the table,” said Richard McGuire at Rabobank. “Whenever they meet resistance, they get around it by adjusting the rules, adjusting the limits or targeting new asset classes.”

Purchases at the moment are based on the size of a country’s economy and there are exclusions linked to debt restructuring. Rabobank estimates €1.13 trillion of bonds currently off limits could be eligible should the ECB change the parameters. The ECB started buying sovereign debt in March last year and has spent more than $800 billion. An ECB spokesman said on Tuesday that the bank is confident the program will continue to be implemented smoothly and it sees no shortage of eligible assets under the current rules. President Mario Draghi said a month ago that there were no plans to make any changes. The securities are acquired through each country’s central bank and broadening the remit would particularly help relieve pressure on Germany. While the country has a lower amount of outstanding debt compared with say Italy, the Bundesbank currently must buy a greater amount because its economy is the largest.

“Germany is definitely affected very much by lack of eligible bonds,” said Daniel Lenz at DZ Bank in Frankfurt. “Outstanding volumes compared to other countries are low and new bond issuances are also low.” German bonds have been the best performers among the 10 largest markets eligible in the ECB program, returning 2.2% over the 14 months of its lifespan. But at today’s pace of bond buying, Germany would exhaust the supply of sovereign bonds by September 2016 or February 2017 if the debt of German regions is included. “They are basically building the boat in the open sea,” McGuire said.

Read more …

Xi has taken the full reins again of something he does not oversee.

• China Weakens Yuan Fixing to Lowest Since 2011 (BBG)

China’s central bank weakened its currency fixing to the lowest since March 2011 as the dollar strengthened. The reference rate was lowered by 0.3% to 6.5693 per dollar. A gauge of the dollar’s strength rose to a two-month high Tuesday as traders boosted wagers that U.S. interest rates will rise. The yuan weakened 0.1% to 6.5636 in a third day of losses as of 10:27 a.m. in Hong Kong. A resurgent greenback is shaking up a strategy that the People’s Bank of China pursued over the past three months –a steady rate against the dollar, combined with depreciation against other major currencies.

Traders are now pricing in a better-than-even chance of the Federal Reserve boosting borrowing costs by its July meeting, with officials lining up to indicate their willingness to support such a move, should the current strength in the economy be sustained. “It could be because the authorities want to alleviate some of the depreciation pressure before the Fed interest rate decision in June,” said Christy Tan, head of markets strategy at National Australia Bank Ltd. in Hong Kong. “If there are signs of panic dollar buying, the PBOC will step in.”

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Sometimes you get the impression they actually believe they can control world markets. They’ll find out.

• China Says It Has Conquered Commodities Trading Frenzy (BBG)

China’s leading market regulator said that its clampdown on speculation in raw materials futures has successfully reined in the frenzy, and pledged to beef up oversight as the country seeks to dislodge rivals and become the global center for commodities pricing. “Recently, we experienced huge volatility and trading volumes in some commodity futures,” Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at the Shanghai Futures Exchange’s annual conference in the city on Wednesday. “We supervised the exchanges to take measures, which have seen a notable effect.” Raw-material markets in Asia’s top economy were seized by a speculative frenzy in March and April that spurred a rapid run-up in prices and unprecedented volumes.

The outburst prompted a crackdown from the CSRC and exchanges, which tightened rules and raised fees to discourage the surge amid concern it was excessive and could jeopardize efforts to cut back excess industrial capacity. For China to now expand its role as a global pricing center, effective supervision is critical, according to Fang. “We’re facing a chance of a lifetime to become a global pricing center for commodities,” Fang told the audience in China’s commercial capital. “On the way to realize this goal, we’ll see very intense competition. We have the advantage of trading size and economic growth, but our legislation is still not sound and we lack enough talent.”

China is the world’s largest user of metals and energy, but its traders and companies rely on financial centers outside the country to set benchmark prices for the commodities they handle and consume. While raw materials trading in the nation remains largely off-limits to overseas investors, who also face currency restrictions, China has long pledged to open up. “We plan to use crude oil, iron ore and natural-rubber futures as the starting point in our efforts to open the domestic market to more foreign investors,” said Fang. “To become global pricing centers for commodities, we need appropriate and effective supervision measures.” He added: “According to our experience, the challenge for supervisors is not systematic financial risks from bringing in foreign participants, but rather the challenge is to prevent non-compliant trading by individuals with technical advantages.”

Read more …

Follow up to the “we can control world markets” article above.

• New York, London on Notice as China Targets Commodities Pricing (BBG)

China has put the world’s traditional financial centers on notice that it wants to develop its raw material markets as hubs for setting prices, seeking to marry the country’s commercial heft with a much greater say in determining how much commodities cost. “We’re facing a chance of a lifetime to become a global pricing center for commodities,” Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at the Shanghai Futures Exchange’s annual conference in the city on Wednesday. “On the way to realize this goal, we’ll see very intense competition. We have the advantage of trading size and economic growth, but our legislation is still not sound and we lack enough talent.”

China is the world’s largest user of metals and energy, but its traders and companies rely on financial centers outside the country – typically London and New York – to set benchmark prices for most of the commodities they handle and consume. While raw materials trading in the nation remains largely off-limits to overseas investors – who also face currency restrictions – China has long pledged to open up. Fang vowed to press on with that process, while also seeing tough challenges from rival centers as it does so. “We plan to use crude oil, iron ore and natural rubber futures as the starting point in our efforts to open the domestic market to more foreign investors,” Fang told the audience. China shouldn’t underestimate “the determination of current pricing centers to maintain their status,” he said.

Raw-material futures markets in Asia’s top economy became a focal point earlier this year after being engulfed in a speculative frenzy, with a rapid run-up in prices and unprecedented volumes in March and April. The outburst prompted a crackdown from the CSRC and exchanges, which tightened rules and raised fees. The intervention was successful, and for China to now expand its role as a global center, effective supervision is critical, according to Fang. “Recently, we experienced huge volatility and trading volumes in some commodity futures,” said Fang. “We supervised the exchanges to take measures, which have seen a notable effect.”

Read more …

If you ask me, it’s pretty out there, period, to have banks fund one side of the referendum. Who does he think he’s fooling.

• Mark Carney Denies Brexit Bias And Goldman Influence (BBG)

“Wow.” That was how Bank of England Governor Mark Carney responded to a query about whether his former employer, Goldman Sachs, had encouraged him to warn on the risks of the U.K. leaving the European Union. The question came from Conservative lawmaker Steve Baker, a self-confessed critic of the central bank, who noted that Goldman, where Carney worked for 13 years until 2003, has been a contributor to the Remain campaign. “Can I just give you the opportunity to refute any suggestion that Goldman Sachs may have put pressure on you?” Baker asked during the testimony, which lasted more than two hours and was dominated by Brexit. As Carney answered, sitting beside him was another Goldman alum, BOE Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent, who shook his head.

The governor’s full response was: “I refute it categorically and I am stunned to even have it raised.” Baker’s questioning followed a lengthy grilling from pro-Brexit lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg, who questioned Carney’s independence from government and said he’s dishing out the “same propaganda” as the Treasury. The governor was quick to reply: “I don’t accept that at all.” These comments on the referendum implications were probably Carney’s last, as a pre-vote purdah period begins this week. While he’s due to give a big speech in June, he plans to stay away from EU-related topics. He also acknowledged he can’t win when it comes to his commentary. “All we can do is just call the economics as we see them and our words and analysis will be used by both sides. That’s fair game.”

Read more …

How little we know. Long but worth a read.

• Your Brain Does Not Process Information And It Is Not A Computer (Aeon)

No matter how hard they try, brain scientists and cognitive psychologists will never find a copy of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the brain – or copies of words, pictures, grammatical rules or any other kinds of environmental stimuli. The human brain isn’t really empty, of course. But it does not contain most of the things people think it does – not even simple things such as ‘memories’. Our shoddy thinking about the brain has deep historical roots, but the invention of computers in the 1940s got us especially confused. For more than half a century now, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists and other experts on human behaviour have been asserting that the human brain works like a computer. To see how vacuous this idea is, consider the brains of babies.

Thanks to evolution, human neonates, like the newborns of all other mammalian species, enter the world prepared to interact with it effectively. A baby’s vision is blurry, but it pays special attention to faces, and is quickly able to identify its mother’s. It prefers the sound of voices to non-speech sounds, and can distinguish one basic speech sound from another. We are, without doubt, built to make social connections. A healthy newborn is also equipped with more than a dozen reflexes – ready-made reactions to certain stimuli that are important for its survival. It turns its head in the direction of something that brushes its cheek and then sucks whatever enters its mouth. It holds its breath when submerged in water. It grasps things placed in its hands so strongly it can nearly support its own weight.

Perhaps most important, newborns come equipped with powerful learning mechanisms that allow them to change rapidly so they can interact increasingly effectively with their world, even if that world is unlike the one their distant ancestors faced. Senses, reflexes and learning mechanisms – this is what we start with, and it is quite a lot, when you think about it. If we lacked any of these capabilities at birth, we would probably have trouble surviving. But here is what we are not born with: information, data, rules, software, knowledge, lexicons, representations, algorithms, programs, models, memories, images, processors, subroutines, encoders, decoders, symbols, or buffers – design elements that allow digital computers to behave somewhat intelligently. Not only are we not born with such things, we also don’t develop them – ever.

Read more …

There is nothing more dangerous to us than NATO. It has to make up narratives or it will cease to exist.

• NATO Struggles to Recover after Years of Budget Cuts (Spiegel)

RAND Corporation simulations aren’t for the faint of heart. The think tank in Santa Monica, California is a progeny of the Cold War and the 1960 study conducted by legendary systems theorist Herman Kahn — which examined the consequences of nuclear war – has not been forgotten. He believed the aftermath could be managed. Following a nuclear conflict, Kahn proposed, contaminated food should be reserved for the elderly since they would likely die before contracting cancer as a result of radiation. The researcher thus became one of the inspirations for Stanley Kubrick’s film satire “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Several weeks ago, the California-based game theorists released another study that received a fair amount of attention.

Financed by the Pentagon, they created a series of simulations for a hypothetical Russian invasion of the two Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia. “The outcome was, bluntly, a disaster for NATO,” the RAND researchers wrote in their report. In each simulation, the Russians were able to either circumvent the outnumbered NATO units, or even worse, destroy them. Between 36 and 60 hours after the beginning of hostilities, Russian troops stood before the gates of Riga or Tallinn – or both. The RAND simulation triggered heated debate. In an article headlined “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love NATO’s Crushing Defeat by Russia,” American military expert Michael Kofman questioned strategic parameters used in the simulations. “No one can intelligently articulate the benefits of such potential actions for the Russians,” he wrote.

But the game theorists from Santa Monica aren’t the only ones simulating grim scenarios these days. The Russians are conducting giant military exercises to practice for a war with the West. At the same time, they are reinforcing military units stationed in the exclave of Kaliningrad, located between Poland and Lithuania. NATO in turn intends to station rotating battalions to the Baltic States as a signal to Moscow that the alliance takes its commitment to mutual assistance seriously. Security experts and generals, though, are complaining that such moves are not enough and are pushing for the stationing of larger and – especially – more permanent units on the alliance’s eastern flank.

Read more …

Money changes everything.

• Logging Of Europe’s Last Primeval Forest Starts Despite Protests (G.)

Poland has started logging in the ancient Bialowieza forest, which includes some of Europe’s last primeval woodland, despite fierce protests from environmental groups battling to save the World Heritage site. “The operation began today,” national forest director Konrad Tomaszewski said of the plan to harvest wood from non-protected areas of one of the last vestiges of the immense forest that once stretched across Europe. He said the goal was “to stop forest degradation” – by combating what the environment ministry says is a spruce bark beetle infestation – and protect tourists and rangers from harm by cutting down trees that risk falling on trails.

But environmental campaigners warn that the tree chopping will destroy an ecosystem unspoiled for more than 10,000 years that is home to the continent’s largest mammal, the European bison, and to its tallest trees. “We’re calling on the European Commission to intervene before the Polish government allows for the irreversible destruction of the Bialowieza forest,” Greenpeace Poland activist Katarzyna Jagiello said in a statement. Campaigners have taken issue with the government rationale for the project, saying the beetle’s presence does not pose any threat to the forest’s ecosystem. “The minister does not understand that this insect is a frequent and natural visitor, that it has always existed and the forest has managed to survive,” Jagiello said.

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Our friends in need.

• Turkish Journalist Jailed, Stripped Of Her Parental Rights (Al-M)

Turkish female journalist Arzu Yildiz was this week sentenced to 20 months in prison for her reporting on alleged Turkish arms shipments to Syria, a highly controversial issue that has riled Ankara and landed both journalists and judicial officials in jail. The court, however, did not stop there, and stripped Yildiz also of her parental rights. While the imprisonment of journalists may have become commonplace in Turkey, now ranking 151st on the World Press Freedom Index, the restriction of Yildiz’s parental rights marks a new milestone in the extent the pressure on journalists has reached, affecting even their familial ties and social standing. Yildiz is an experienced journalist who, after working for various media outlets, was left jobless a couple of years ago.

Together with other jobless colleagues, she co-founded the nonprofit Grihat news site, where her reporting on the trucks controversy led to her conviction. The story in question was related to the interception of Syria-bound trucks in the southern provinces of Hatay and Adana in January 2014. Acting on tip-offs, prosecutors had issued search warrants for the trucks. But when stopped by police and gendarmerie officers, the men in the vehicles identified themselves as members of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and resisted the searches. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed at the time the trucks carried humanitarian supplies, but few were convinced. All judicial officials and security forces involved in the attempted search are behind bars today.

The Cumhuriyet daily’s Editor-in-Chief Can Dundar and Ankara representative Erdem Gul also found themselves behind bars for their reports on the story. Though they were released three months later, they received jail terms for revealing state secrets earlier this month. Another journalist who covered the issue, Fatih Yagmur, remains on trial. In an interview with Al-Monitor, her lawyer, Alp Deger Tanriverdi, explained what the ruling means. “Let me tell you the most significant part: The ruling strips Arzu Yildiz of her motherhood rights,” he said. “She can no longer register her kids to school, open bank accounts for them or do other similar things on their behalf. She can’t even go abroad with them.”

Asked about the grounds on which the court made the decision, the lawyer said, “The court was [actually] supposed to suspend the sentence because Yildiz had no other conviction before. That was her legal right. Yet the court arbitrarily went ahead on grounds she committed the crime willfully, which automatically brought the decision to strip her from her rights. The court could have withheld this decision as well. Such restrictions are based on the following logic: ‘You’ve committed a crime willfully, so you are guilty before society as well. Thus, you must not be allowed to have a [bad] influence on your children.’ Such is the intention of the clause, yet the court applied it to Yildiz — to humiliate her.”

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Really, Europe, this is what the EU stands for? Really? And you can’t see the warning signs?

• Turkey Threatens To Block EU Migration Deal Without Visa-Free Travel (G.)

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned the European Union that Turkey would block laws related to the landmark deal to stem the flow of migrants to Europe if Ankara was not granted its key demand of visa-free travel within the bloc. At the close of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Turkey’s president said: “If that is not what will happen…no decision and no law in the framework of the readmission agreement will come out of the parliament of the Turkish republic.” Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel warned after talks with Erdogan on Monday that the target of the end of this month to agree visa-free travel for Turks was unlikely to be met. The agreement, which is already being implemented, saw Turkey pledge to work to stop migrants cross the Aegean to Europe and also re-admit migrants who crossed illegally.

EU officials have hailed the success of the deal, but Ankara has grown increasingly uneasy about the bloc’s wariness to grant it the visa-free travel to the passport-free Schengen area it was offered in return. Erdogan also complained about the EU’s wariness in handing over to Turkey a promise of €3bn followed by another €3bn to help Syrian refugees. “Turkey is not asking for favours – what we want is honesty,” Erdogan said in an angry tirade that overshadowed the end of the summit. “Turkey is supposed to fulfil criteria? What criteria are these I ask you?” EU leaders are insisting that Turkey abides by 72 conditions before the visa exemption takes place, with a demand to change counter-terror laws proving particularly contentious. The EU wants Ankara to narrow its definition of terror to stop prosecuting academics and journalists for publishing “terror propaganda”.

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Meanwhile, over by the patio door…

• Over 5,600 Refugees Rescued Off Lybia In 2 Days (R/AFP)

Some 3,000 migrants were saved off the Libyan coast in a single day, in 23 separate rescue missions, the Italian coastguard said in a statement. The coastguard said this meant more than 5,600 migrants had been rescued from various boats and dinghies in the southern Mediterranean in just two days. Coastguard boats, vessels from the EU’s naval operation EUNAVFOR Med and its border agency Frontex, a boat from NGO SOS Mediterranee and two tug boats from an offshore oil platform were all involved in the rescue operations. Every search and rescue asset in the area was deployed, the coastguard said.

No breakdown of the nationalities of the people rescued was immediately available. Humanitarian organisations say the sea route between Libya and Italy is now the main route for asylum seekers heading for Europe after an EU deal on migrants with Turkey dramatically slowed the flow of people reaching Greece. Officials fear the numbers trying to make the crossing to Italy will increase as weather conditions continue to improve. Earlier this month, Italy said some 31,000 migrants, mainly from Africa, had reached the country by boat, slightly down on 2015 levels. However, the number of new arrivals has picked up markedly in recent days.

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