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Debt Rattle July 2 2024

Jul 022024
 
 July 2, 2024  Posted by at 9:14 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  48 Responses »


René Magritte Man in a bowler hat 1964

 

• US Supreme Court Rules Trump Has Presidential Immunity (RT)
• Trump Says Immunity Ruling ‘Big Win For Democracy’ (ZH)
• Biden Reacts To Trump Immunity Ruling (RT)
• Biden ‘United Democrats And Republicans’ With Debate Performance – Musk (RT)
• Obama Telling People Biden Can’t Win – Tucker Carlson (RT)
• Biden’s Family Urges Him To Fight On (ZH)
• DNC Weighs Early Nomination For Biden To Quash Internal Party Dissent (ZH)
• Surprise, Surprise! (Kunstler)
• Too Clever By Half (Turley)
• The Resurrection of French Nationalism? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The West – Indubitably – Has Lost Russia, And Is Losing Eurasia Too (Crooke)
• ‘Unipolar US Dollar’ Mutated Into ‘Politically Weaponized’ Tool (Sp.)
• Charles Nenner Warns “Very Hard Times Are Coming” (USAW)

 

 

 

 


https://twitter.com/i/status/1807804054136856803
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807766810130796737

 

 

Tapper

 

 

Plan B
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807876540648047090

 

 

 

 

“The President is not above the law. But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers..”

• US Supreme Court Rules Trump Has Presidential Immunity (RT)

American presidents have “absolute immunity” for their official actions, the US Supreme Court ruled on Monday, addressing a series of charges against former President Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors have charged Trump with four criminal counts related to the 2020 presidential election, alleging that he “conspired” to overturn the results by spreading “knowingly false claims” of fraud to obstruct the collection, counting, and certification of the results. “Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” the court said in a 6-3 decision. “And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which saw the six conservative-leaning justices opposed by the three liberal ones.

The decision favors the former president in terms of his tweets to the American public on January 6 and conversations with then-Vice President Mike Pence about his presiding over the certification of election results, as both of those clearly fell within the scope of official duties. However, the verdict allows lower courts to hold evidentiary hearings to determine which actions by Trump may have been unofficial, such as when he contacted state and local election officials about the 2020 vote. “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives,” the court warned. “The President is not above the law. But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts,” said the ruling.

The Supreme Court saved the immunity case for the last day of its term. The long-awaited decision puts a dent in the plans for special counsel Jack Smith to prosecute Trump in the federal court in Washington, DC before the November election. Trump challenged the 2020 election – marked by a series of unusual procedures, ostensibly adopted due to the Covid-19 pandemic – as irregular and possibly tainted by fraud, pointing to delays in counting mail-in votes that suddenly went in Democrat Joe Biden’s favor after the polls closed in a handful of states. Democrats have insisted that the election was the most secure and legitimate ever and that any questioning of the result is an attack on democracy.

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“.. ‘all but ensures’ that a trial won’t happen in Trump’s classified documents case before the November election..”

• Trump Says Immunity Ruling ‘Big Win For Democracy’ (ZH)

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in a 6-3 vote that former presidents, including Trump, enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct involving official acts during tenure in office, but he’s not immune from unofficial acts. As Bloomberg notes, the decision – which kicks the ball back to the lower court – ‘all but ensures’ that a trial won’t happen in Trump’s classified documents case before the November election.The justices, voting 6-3 along ideological lines, said a federal appeals court was too categorical in rejecting Trump’s immunity arguments, ruling for the first time that former presidents are shielded from prosecution for some official acts taken while in office. The majority ordered the lower courts to revisit the case to decide the extent of the allegations that are off limits to prosecution.

“Just as former presidents have immunity from civil liability for official acts, they have immunity from criminal prosecution unless they are impeached and removed from office for the crime alleged. This decision is supported by the writings of the framers of the Constitution, the text of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent,” wrote X user Martin Harry. As constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley notes, now “the issue is whether what constitutes official acts,” adding that the ruling will “further delay the lower court proceedings, but Trump will have to argue that his actions fall within these navigational beacons.” “The lower court judge has been highly favorable for Jack Smith in the past. Yet the court is arguing that there is a presumption of immunity for their official acts beyond the absolute immunity on core constitutional powers.” Meanwhile, Justice Thomas called into question the legality of Smith’s office:

In a blistering dissent, Justice Sotomayor writes that the ruling “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.” “Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom… the court gives former President trump all the immunity he asked for and more.” Special counsel Jack Smith is leading two federal probes against Trump, both of which led to criminal charges. In Washington, Trump has been targeted over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, while a Florida case revolves around the mishandling of classified documents – for which Trump has claimed presidential immunity. In response to the ruling, Trump said on Truth Social that it was a “”BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY.”

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No president should attack the Supreme Court.

• Biden Reacts To Trump Immunity Ruling (RT)

US President Joe Biden has attacked the Supreme Court, urging citizens to “dissent” against its ruling that American presidents have “absolute immunity” for their official actions. In a 6-3 decision on Monday, the highest US court ruled that under “our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.” Biden criticized the decision in a brief statement, calling it “a fundamentally new principle” and a “dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law.”

“There are no kings in America. Each, each of us is equal before the law. No one, no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Biden claimed – even as the Supreme Court ruling specifically stated that “the President is not above the law” and that “there is no immunity for unofficial acts.” Federal prosecutors have charged former President Donald Trump with four criminal counts related to the 2020 presidential election, alleging that he “conspired” to overturn the results. The Supreme Court verdict allows lower courts to hold evidentiary hearings to determine which actions by Trump may have been unofficial. Trump called the ruling – which puts a dent in the Democrats’ plans to prosecute him in the federal court in Washington, DC before the November election – a “big win for our constitution and democracy.”

Biden warned Americans about a possible presidential return for Trump, saying that “people must decide if they want to entrust … the presidency to Donald Trump, now knowing that he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to do it.” Biden went on to quote Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, in which she wrote: “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” “So should the American people dissent, I dissent,” Biden added, concluding his prepared remarks and taking no questions from the press.

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Very presidential…

• Biden ‘United Democrats And Republicans’ With Debate Performance – Musk (RT)

US President Joe Biden has united Democrats and Republicans in a common recognition of his cognitive decline, following a debate with Donald Trump last week, businessman Elon Musk has argued. The billionaire, who is a vocal critic of some Biden administration policies, such as on border security, supported an assessment made on Sunday by vlogger Farzad Mesbahi on X (formerly Twitter). The Spanish-born YouTuber and self-proclaimed troll said: “America seeing Biden’s cognitive decline at the debate feels like one of the most uniting things this country has experienced in a long, long time.” “True, first time I’ve seen Republicans & Democrats agree on something in a long time,” Musk responded, adding an emoji of a face with tears of joy. The entrepreneur also weighed in immediately following the debate after former 2024 GOP hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy said that Biden’s presentation made him wonder who runs the US government. Musk replied: “Maybe nobody.”

This election cycle’s first faceoff between Trump and Biden took place last Thursday in Atlanta, Georgia. Political observers have widely agreed that the incumbent failed to counter the perception that he has neither the energy nor mental acuity to lead the country for four more years. Some Democrats, either publicly or in private communications with journalists, have said Biden should stop his campaign after his dismal performance. By contrast, former President Barack Obama maintained his support for Biden’s bid despite the flop, posting on Friday: “bad debate nights happen” and that “last night didn’t change,” the stakes in the November election. Former President Bill Clinton echoed that sentiment, stating that he will relegate “the debate rating to the pundits.” The US president’s family, who reportedly are among the few who could convince him to quit, urged him to stay in the race during a meeting on Sunday, CNN sources have claimed.

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“Carlson also claimed that relations between Obama and Biden – who served as vice president between 2009 and 2017 – have never been warm, and were at times even “hostile.”

• Obama Telling People Biden Can’t Win – Tucker Carlson (RT)

Former US President Barack Obama is telling Democrats that incumbent Joe Biden has no chance of being reelected after his recent debate against GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, American conservative journalist Tucker Carlson has claimed. According to Carlson, Obama’s recent public endorsement of Biden was not sincere. Biden and Trump faced off in an open debate on Thursday night, with the president’s performance widely seen as “incoherent” and “fumbling,” underscoring concerns about his age. Following the showdown, many Democrats and their donors reportedly scrambled to find a replacement for Biden as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. Publicly, however, many Democratic heavyweights, including Obama, reaffirmed their support for Biden. While admitting that “bad debate nights happen,” the former president insisted that “this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”

Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Carlson said, citing an “unusually good source,” that Obama’s post had been “disingenuous.” “In private, Obama is telling people Biden can’t win, and he is therefore in favor of an open convention,” the journalist claimed. He added Obama is not saying whom he supports, but recently met with Biden in person to deliver the message. Carlson also claimed that relations between Obama and Biden – who served as vice president between 2009 and 2017 – have never been warm, and were at times even “hostile.” According to the journalist, those ties “recently… deteriorated further,” mostly due to First Lady Jill Biden, who allegedly “kept her husband cloistered away from anyone who might convince him to drop out” of the race for the White House after the disastrous debate.

Carlson added that Biden’s wife remains “the driving force behind her husband’s reelection campaign,” echoing a recent NBC report naming her as the only person who could convince the president to “change course.” However, CNN reported on Monday that Biden’s family, including Jill, had urged him not to end his campaign, blaming his poor performance on his team. While the Biden-Obama relationship has often been described as a “bromance” to the point of becoming meme material, numerous media reports indicated that things have been much more complicated. An Axios report in March suggested that Biden “often measures himself” against his predecessor, with a rivalry dynamic present in their relations. According to Politico, Obama also shared serious concerns about Biden’s ability to win the 2020 election.

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“..not telling Biden which camera would be on him as he blankly stared a thousand miles into space with his mouth agape..”

• Biden’s Family Urges Him To Fight On (ZH)

At a Camp David gathering on Sunday, President Biden’s extended family urged him to ignore the growing number of voices asking him to quit the race — and many of his loved ones blamed his disastrous debate on his advisors. According to Politico, the two who most forcefully encouraged the 81-year-old Biden to continue were his wife Jill and his son Hunter — the two people whose opinion he reportedly values most. The reports will strengthen a growing sense that Jill Biden is putting her own interests above that of her humiliated and failing husband. As one Democratic advisor told the New York Post over the weekend, “Jill Biden likes being First Lady…she doesn’t want to give that up.”

Meanwhile, Hunter, who doesn’t exactly have strong reputation for sound judgment, is said to long for Americans to see a version of his father that — as paraphrased by the Times — is “scrappy and in command of the facts.” Much as he once was in denial about his drug problem, Hunter now seems incapable of admitting that that version of his father is gone forever: Biden family members are said to have blamed the debate debacle on three advisors: Anita Dunn, her husband Bob Bauer — who played the role of Trump in practice sessions — and Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain, who was in charge of the debate training. Aides to Biden denied these reports from multiple outlets.

With Biden having spent a full week at Camp David gearing up for the debate, his family members and others are claiming the team worked the 81-year-old too hard, and tried to pack him full of too many statistics. They even fault advisors for a debate-night makeup job that transformed his summer-tanned face to one that was pale and unhealthy-looking. Relatives also blamed debate-host CNN for not “fact-checking” Donald Trump and not telling Biden which camera would be on him as he blankly stared a thousand miles into space with his mouth agape.

Jill

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“Democrats had already planned to nominate Biden, 81, before the convention in order to ensure he appears on the ballot in Ohio..”

• DNC Weighs Early Nomination For Biden To Quash Internal Party Dissent (ZH)

Bloomberg reports that the Democratic National Committee is considering formally nominating Joe Biden as early as mid-July to ensure that the president is on November ballots, while helping to stamp out intra-party chatter of replacing him after last week’s poor debate performance. Democrats had already planned to nominate Biden, 81, before the convention in order to ensure he appears on the ballot in Ohio, which had an Aug. 7 deadline for candidates to be certified. A potential date for Biden’s nomination is July 21, when the Democratic convention’s credentials committee meets virtually, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.nThe panel is meeting to finalize procedures before the party’s convention in Chicago starts on Aug. 19.

Interestingly, former President Trump’s sentencing hearing is set for July 11th, so he may well be in prison by then given the amount of pressure we assume is being placed on Judge Merchan’s shoulders to “lock him up”. Additionally, July 21 is just three days after Trump is scheduled to accept his party’s nomination at the Republican convention in Milwaukee. The desperate attempted message from all this narrative-shaping is simple – …nothing to see here, move along. Except we all saw the fireworks factory exploding with our own eyes. [..] At a Camp David gathering on Sunday, President Biden’s extended family urged him to ignore the growing number of voices asking him to quit the race — and many of his loved ones blamed his disastrous debate on his advisors. According to Politico, the two who most forcefully encouraged the 81-year-old Biden to continue were his wife Jill and his son Hunter — the two people whose opinion he reportedly values most.

The reports will strengthen a growing sense that Jill Biden is putting her own interests above that of her humiliated and failing husband. As one Democratic advisor told the New York Post over the weekend, “Jill Biden likes being First Lady…she doesn’t want to give that up.” Meanwhile, Hunter, who doesn’t exactly have strong reputation for sound judgment, is said to long for Americans to see a version of his father that — as paraphrased by the Times — is “scrappy and in command of the facts.” Much as he once was in denial about his drug problem, Hunter now seems incapable of admitting that that version of his father is gone forever: Biden family members are said to have blamed the debate debacle on three advisors: Anita Dunn, her husband Bob Bauer — who played the role of Trump in practice sessions — and Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain, who was in charge of the debate training. Aides to Biden denied these reports from multiple outlets.

With Biden having spent a full week at Camp David gearing up for the debate, his family members and others are claiming the team worked the 81-year-old too hard, and tried to pack him full of too many statistics. They even fault advisors for a debate-night makeup job that transformed his summer-tanned face to one that was pale and unhealthy-looking. Relatives also blamed debate-host CNN for not “fact-checking” Donald Trump and not telling Biden which camera would be on him as he blankly stared a thousand miles into space with his mouth agape. John Morgan, a top donor and friend of Biden’s brother Frank, was not at the family meeting, but joined the delusional pile-up on Biden’s advisers, telling the Times that the week-long debate prep — which involved rehearsals at various times of the day — was excessive: “It would be like if you took a prizefighter who was going to have a title fight and put him in a sauna for 15 hours then said, ‘Go fight.’ I believe that the debate is solely on Ron Klain, Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn.”

Unlike his family, the president is said to still hold confidence in the trio. Klain assured the Times that Biden will see the race through, saying, “He is the choice of the Democratic voters…We had a bad debate night. But you win campaigns by fighting — not quitting — in the face of adversity.” Of course, Biden is “the choice of Democratic voters” largely because the Democratic National Committee made sure he was the only choice available. A post-debate CBS News poll found that just 54% of registered Democrats think Biden should be in the race. The poll found 41% of Democrats think Biden lacks has the requisite mental and cognitive health. More importantly, 72% of all voters give him a failing grade on mental health. The family gathering at Camp David was reportedly scheduled before the debate, with the expectation that it would be a celebration of his performance and an opportunity for the extended Biden family — including his children and grandchildren — to be photographed by famed celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz.

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“The Bidens flew off to the Hamptons Saturday to milk the showbiz cows and hedge-funders for a campaign that might not still exist..”

• Surprise, Surprise! (Kunstler)

Since his hiding-in-the-basement campaign in 2020 “Joe Biden’s” Party of Chaos has pretended that he is fit and alert for the job and now all of sudden they pretend to be shocked to see how far gone in the head he really is. The bullshit shovelers of the mainstream news media were especially rocked, not by the truth of the situation per se, but at being unmasked as the contemptible, confabulating tools that they’ve become. The New York Times wheeled around on a dime from their servile lionizing of the presidential hologram they helped create to its editorial board abjectly yelling for him to drop out and get gone. They were joined instantly by a long list of other opinion-shapers, campaign donors, political celebs, and Beltway players.

Right after the debate, First lady Dr. Jill led a cheerleading session before a roomful of partisans that went beyond cringeworthy into uncharted territory of mortification. (“You were great, Joe! You answered all the questions!”). By the time the entourage moved to a pre-planned event at a nearby Atlanta Waffle House, “JB” had gone full-on zombie. If all that was intended to be reassuring, the effect was the opposite. Someone handed the blank-faced old grifter a milkshake and they beat it out of there. The Bidens flew off to the Hamptons Saturday to milk the showbiz cows and hedge-funders for a campaign that might not still exist. “Everyone paid in advance. . .so it could be an opportunity to encourage him to drop out,” an invited guest told a New York Post reporter. “I wanted to go and see the train wreck,” another donor said. “I’d rather choose someone from a phone book than have Biden.”

That was generally the tone among the woke-gay-communist echelons all over the land — surprisingly vehement, considering that just forty-eight hours before they were all in on re-election. Some could probably see their lucrative hustles whirling around the drain, and others might fret about just how far and wide prosecutions under a Trump Attorney General might loom. “JB” and his family circle attempted to regroup over the weekend at Camp David where first son, Hunter (“the smartest man I know,” the president often says), led the buoying-up session, perhaps mindful of the many bank accounts set up by his lawyers in the name of Biden family members (including little grandchildren) for receipt of influence-peddling revenue gathered sedulously from entities abroad during “Joe Biden’s” post-veep high-earning years. The family emerged from that meet-up triumphantly, ready to forget the one bad evening and jump back into the election game.

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“Smith has long tended to push the law to the breaking point to bag defendants..”

• Too Clever By Half (Turley)

The Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. United States rejecting the use of obstruction of legal proceedings against January 6th defendants will potentially impact hundreds of cases. For some, it may lead to dismissals or, in the cases with multiple charges, resentencings. One of those cases that will be impacted is the pending prosecution of former president Donald Trump who is facing four charges, including two obstruction counts. However, it is not clear if Special Counsel Jack Smith will yield to the decision or possibly take the dubious path laid out by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her concurrence. Smith has long tended to push the law to the breaking point to bag defendants. That was the case when his conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell was unanimously reversed as overextending another law.

It is doubtful that he will go quietly into the night after the Fischer decision. In most cases, a prosecutor would go back and secure a superseding indictment in light of the loss of the obstruction claims. Those claims were central to the narrative of the government under the current indictment. That is not Smith’s style. He may decide to push even harder for a trial before the election on the remaining counts. Smith has made the trial before the election an overriding priority throughout his appointment. He also has a very favorable and motivated judge in United States District Judge Tanya Chutkan. He could also take a not-so-subtle hint from Jackson in her concurrence. Jackson supported the majority in finding that the obstruction provision, Section 1512(c), was enacted after the Enron case to address the destruction of documents and records.

Section 1512(c)(1) prohibits corruptly obstructing an official proceeding by altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a record, document, or other object with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding. However, a second provision under subsection (c)(2) allowed for charges that would “otherwise” obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding. The Court held that the obstruction cases under Section 1512(c)(2) must be tied to impairing the integrity or availability of evidence. However, in a single justice concurrence, she added a way that Smith and other prosecutors might still be able to shoehorn January 6th into a Section 1512 offense:

“That official proceeding [Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote] plainly used certain records, documents, or objects—including, among others, those relating to the electoral votes themselves. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 65–67. And it might well be that Fischer’s conduct, as alleged here, involved the impairment (or the attempted impairment) of the availability or integrity of things used during the January 6 proceeding “in ways other than those specified in (c)(1).” Ante, at 8. If so, then Fischer’s prosecution under §1512(c)(2) can, and should, proceed. That issue remains available for the lower courts to determine on remand.” Notably, no other justice joined Jackson in the concurrence. However, Smith and Chutkan could reason that it was not expressly rejected and presumably, the three justices in dissent would support the broader reading since they were willing to sign off on the ultimate extension of the obstruction of justice statute. That includes Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

However, that still leaves less than a majority and an application that runs against the grain of the opinion. Just saying that a proceeding involves “certain records” is transparently artificial and forced. Even the submission of an alternative slate of electors is not the destruction of electors certified by the secretaries of state. The federal law allows for challenges in Congress, which Democrats previously utilized without claims of insurrections or attacks on democracy. J6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), voted to challenge the certification of the 2004 results of President George W. Bush’s reelection; committee member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to challenge Trump’s certification in 2016. Both did so under the very law that Trump’s congressional supporters used in 2020. And Pelosi and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) praised the challenge organized by then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in 2004.

Those challenges under the same loose theory could have been viewed as attempting to negate or destroy certifications from the states. It would likely, in my view, result in another reversal. It is, in my view, too clever by half. That may not concern Smith who may still want to use the obstruction counts to increase the likelihood of convictions on the other counts. In such a circumstance, the overturning of the two obstruction convictions might still leave the conviction for conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy against the rights of citizens. We will see in the coming weeks, but Smith is likely waiting for the other shoe to drop in the Trump immunity case. That could add additional complications if the case is remanded by the Court for further proceedings. There is little time for a trial before November if the district court must hold hearings on claims that statements or actions were taken by Trump as part of his office.

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“If Putin does not immediately use sufficient force to terminate the conflict, World War Three seems certain..”

• The Resurrection of French Nationalism? (Paul Craig Roberts)

France was the last European nation to lose its sovereignty, and France might be the first to recover its sovereignty. In the 1960s France was still a nation of ethnic French as contrasted with the tower of babel and a geographical entity that it is today. During the ten-year presidency of Charles De Gaulle (1959-69) France’s policy was one of national independence. DeGaulle refused to join NATO, and he opposed a supranational Europe in which nations would subordinate themselves to a European Union.French independence could be on the point of return judging from the success of Marine Le Pen’s party yesterday in the current French elections. Her nationalist party has in the first round of the parliamentary elections taken 34% of the votes with President Macron’s centrist coalition receiving only 21% support. If the second round produces similar results, a restoration of French independence is possible.

For many years European governments have worked consistently to overwhelm their ethnic populations with third world immigrant-invaders. It has reached the point where ethnic European women raped by immigrant-invaders fear to report the crime as it can result in a charge of racism or worse against the victim. For example, in response to a gang-rape of an ethnic German female, a 20-year old ethnic German female citizen called one of the gang rapists a “disgraceful rapist pig.” The German citizen was sentenced to jail for defaming an immigrant-invader, a protected species under German law, while the rapist was given a suspended sentence and served no jail time. For many years the European working class has experienced their living standards reduced in the name of economy. Not long ago the French were protesting the rise in the retirement age, which forces them to work longer for their pension.

The French have noticed that economy measures only apply to their living standards and not to the vast sums that Macron pours into the West’s war against Russia in Ukraine. Now all of Europe hears continually that they must prepare, and cough up money for, war with Russia. The French don’t want war with Russia. Nor do the Germans, or the Italians. Only “their” governments do, and war is what Washington’s puppets have put on the agenda. Europeans don’t want the high energy cost and lost profit and employment opportunities imposed on them by Washington’s “Russian sanctions.” It seems to Europeans that the purpose of Washington’s sanctions is to make Europe more dependent on Washington, essentially reducing them to serfs. Finally, after suffering decades of abuse, insult, and total disregard by their leaders, Europeans protested in the recent European Union parliamentary elections. The ruling parties were repudiated across the board.

The Belgian prime minister had to resign. The French president had to call national elections. I wrote that if the repudiation carries over into the national elections, we could see the unravelling of NATO, the European Union, and a return of sovereign European nations. World War II gave control of Europe to the US instead of to Germany. The Soviet collapse gave Washington control over the Warsaw Pact, placing NATO on Russia’s border. Washington’s policy was to de-Germanize Germany and to destroy a national awareness. Washington controlled German education and indoctrinated Germans that nationalism was racist, produced Hitler and the Holocaust. Legislation was passed essentially criminalizing a positive attitude toward German nationalism. It meant that you were a Nazi. It still does. It is unclear if a German state can ever be resurrected.

Rid of the Germans, Washington turned its efforts on France. De Gaulle’s departure weakened France. It took time, but eventually Washington controlled who the French president would be. With France, Germany, and the British in Washington’s pocket, the rest of Europe went along. Today European nations that shared the rule of the world are puppets of a criminal regime in Washington. The notion that there is any military power in these puppet states is laughable. The self-confidence that made the British the ruler of the world has long departed. It was destroyed at Oxford and Cambridge. No Western country has a positive opinion of itself. All are being keyed for war with Russia, China, Iran, while they themselves are being overrun by immigrant-invaders who are paid tribute for their support and permitted to rape European women as a form of restitution.

The Kremlin does not understand the hollowed out, empty, West where there is no support for any government. Western peoples are brainwashed into impotence and cannot even protect their constitutional rights. Why would anyone fight for these governments, and if forced, with what spirit? Putin sits there in his legalistic way accepting insult after insult, provocation after provocation, as his way of avoiding war with the West. It is not only Western provocations that are widening the Ukraine conflict into World War III. Putin has permitted the conflict to go on and on and on, and this has enabled Washington to get more and more and more involved, thus widening the conflict. If Putin does not immediately use sufficient force to terminate the conflict, World War Three seems certain. There is hope that if Le Pen wins France and does not sell out to Washington, the unravelling of NATO and resurrection of European independence will begin. But this can be a slow process, while the developments in Ukraine toward wider war are accelerating. The time is rapidly ending during which Putin can use sufficient force to end the conflict before it results in World War Three.

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“The West has ‘lost’ Russia much more profoundly than is understood..”

• The West – Indubitably – Has Lost Russia, And Is Losing Eurasia Too (Crooke)

There perhaps was a momentary shrugging-off of slumber in Washington this week as they read the account of Sergei Lavrov’s démarche to the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow: Russia was telling the U.S. – “We are no longer at peace”! Not just ‘no longer at peace’, Russia was holding the U.S. responsible for the ‘cluster strike’ on a Crimean beach on last Sunday’s Pentecost holiday, killing several (including children) and injuring many more. The U.S. thereby “became party” to the proxy war in Ukraine (it was an American-supplied ATACM; programmed by American specialists; and drawing on U.S. data), Russia’s statement read; “Retaliatory measures will certainly follow”. Evidently, somewhere an amber light flashed hues of pink and red. The Pentagon grasped that something had happened – ‘No going around it; This could escalate badly’. The U.S. Defence Secretary (after a pause since March 2023) reached for the phone to call his Russian counterpart: ‘The U.S. regretted civilian deaths; the Ukrainians had full targeting discretion’.

The Russian public however, is plain furious. The diplomatic argot of ‘there now being a state of betweenness; not war and not peace’ is but the ‘half of it’. The West has ‘lost’ Russia much more profoundly than is understood. President Putin – in his statement to the Foreign Ministry Board in wake of the G7 sword-rattling – detailed just how we had arrived at this pivotal juncture (of inevitable escalation). Putin indicated that the gravity of the situation demanded a ‘last chance’ offer to the West, one that Putin emphatically said was to be “No temporary ceasefire for Kiev to prepare a new offensive; nor a freezing the conflict – but rather, needed to be about the war’s final completion”. It has been widely understood that the only credible way to end the Ukraine war would be a ‘peace’ agreement emerging through negotiation between Russia and the U.S. This however is rooted in a familiar U.S.-centric vision – ‘Waiting on Washington …’.

Lavrov archly commented (in paraphrase) that if anyone imagines we are ‘waiting for Godot’, and ‘will run for it’, they are mistaken. Moscow has something much more radical in mind – something that will shock the West. Moscow (and China) are not simply waiting upon the whims of the West, but plan to invert completely the security architecture paradigm: To create an ‘Alt’ architecture for the ‘vast space’ of Eurasia, no less. It is intended to exit the existing bloc zero-sum confrontation. A new confrontation is not envisaged; however the new architecture nevertheless is intended to force ‘external actors’ to curtail their hegemony across the continent. In his Foreign Ministry address, Putin explicitly looked ahead to the collapse of the Euro-Atlantic security system and to a new architecture emerging: “The world will never be the same again”, he said.

What did he mean? Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s principal Foreign Policy adviser (at the Primakov Readings Forum), clarified Putin’s ‘sparse’ allusion: Ushakov reportedly said that Russia increasingly has come to the view there is not going to be any long-term re-shaping of the security system in Europe. And without any major re-shaping, there will be no ‘final completion’ (Putin’s words) to the conflict in Ukraine. Ushakov explained that this unified and indivisible security system in Eurasia must replace the Euro-Atlantic and Euro-centric models that are now receding into oblivion. “This speech [of Putin at the Russian Foreign Ministry], I would say, sets the vector of further activities of our country at the international stage, including the building of a single and indivisible security system in Eurasia,” Ushakov said.

Read more …

“.. the United States has massively over-extended itself and damaged its own reliability as a global trade partner.”

• ‘Unipolar US Dollar’ Mutated Into ‘Politically Weaponized’ Tool (Sp.)

“In essence, the more the United States prints and spends USD, the more the rest of the world is expected to invest in US government paper, and subsidize this debt-spending. The BRICS nations and their adherents are advocating for the use of national currencies for cross-border trade, eventually de-linking from the increasingly unipolar and visibly unreliable US Dollar,” Goncharoff explained. Furthermore, analysts at the Russia’s Pivot to Asia website wrote that two “main global financial evolutionary events” are unfolding right now. These involve changes to the role of the US dollar, and “technology and the digitization of financial transactions.” America has itself to blame for the loss of the greenback’s credibility as a global currency, mainly due to the mind-boggling US-dollar issued debt – a whopping $32.72 trillion.

“It has created a scenario where foreign governments are increasingly wary of investing in additional US dollar debt until a management system is put in place that will be able to support such a load,” Goncharoff noted. He forecasts that the US dollar “will become prone to increasing shocks, leading to uncertainty and mistrust on the global financial markets.” If the US were to default on its debt, American bondholders would carry losses on their investments, and the negative impacts on global trade would be huge, he warned. He underscored that the US treasury norm of printing of more dollars to cover up the fiscal debt “debases the actual value of the currency and encourages inflation.”

While Moscow has effectively “inoculated” itself from looming future problems with the US economy, other countries, like China, are doing the same. The trade focus is shifting away from the United States, fueling a geopolitical evolution of trade blocs like BRICS, the Eurasian Economic Union and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, with some like BRICS discussing alternative currency platforms. “One proposal for a unified BRICS trade unit is the “BRICS Bridge” allowing the ten current members to exchange units based 60% of their sovereign currencies and 40% backed by their gold reserves,” noted Goncharoff, and summed up:. “For Russia, and most other nations, there is a far bigger picture – where non-US dominated, global trade opportunities beckon.” Furthermore, the US has used the dollar as a trade and geopolitical weapon, said the pundit, seeking to abuse economies of Venezuela, Iran, Turkey and Russia amongst others.

“It has done this in two main areas, firstly by manipulating the US dollar currency exchange rates in order to damage other national currencies when the US wants to inflict fiscal punishments or seek trade advantages,” remarked the analyst, adding that Washington “has also used the global SWIFT payment network as a switch to turn US dollar trade on and off according to its policies.” “Other governments are becoming concerned that these punishments could in future be meted out to them, which also creates mistrust and fear of US dollar over-exposure. Any one of these problems are serious. It appears ultimately unlikely the United States will be able to fend off the repercussions of them all. In short – the United States has massively over-extended itself and damaged its own reliability as a global trade partner.”

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“The children here have not gone to school for a year, and we are under rocket fire day and night. It is a very strange situation.”

• Charles Nenner Warns “Very Hard Times Are Coming” (USAW)

This week, Nenner’s war cycle “turned straight up” and his economic cycle “turned straight down.” The next big conflict is not going to be in Ukraine or Taiwan–just yet. On Saturday, this headline: “Iran Threatens Israel With ‘Obliterating War’ If It Attacks Lebanon.” Nenner says all hell is about to break loose. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran and Turkey are key players in an escalating war with Israel. Nenner, who lives on the border with Lebanon in Northern Israel, interviewed with USAW just after a barrage of 100 rockets hit near his location. Nenner reports, “The children here have not gone to school for a year, and we are under rocket fire day and night. It is a very strange situation. What I don’t understand is the Arab resistance, led by Iran, did not see what happened in Gaza. If this really goes, Lebanon is going to disappear from the map…

How do I know these things? I know these things because I work with several governments in the world… In the 1960’s, there was a war, and half of Cypress ended up Turkish and half of Cypress is Greek. Turkey never accepted that. . . . Israel is using airfields in Cypress. . . . If this really gets going, Turkey is going to take over Cypress because they support Hamas (and Hezbollah). Turkey will invade Cypress, and this will lead to a war between Greece and Turkey. Of course, Iran is going to be involved also. Big boats are heading to Israel, so America is going to be involved. Russia has its ideas too… I don’t think Americans have any clue what is going on there, and they have no background. They are only busy with trying to win the Election, and it’s going to lead to catastrophe. If there is a war, Turkey is going to be involved, Cypress is going to be involved, NATO is going to be involved, and it is going to be much more serious than people think.”

Nenner says, “We are already in the next big war cycle.” Nenner still thinks China is going to be a big problem and says, “I would say if the world is busy with all this nonsense, then this is a time for China to take Taiwan over. The war cycle is extra up, so we have to be very careful. A lot of my wealthy clients are busy trying to get visas . . . to Caribbean islands. I know many wealthy people busy trying to get visas and trying to get out of America. This is what is going on below the surface, and most small investors don’t know what is going on… They are worried about a nuke strike or terrorists blowing stuff up left and right because they came through the border. This is a very dangerous situation. They are not leaving right now, but they are preparing now… The war cycle has turned up, and it is going to be extra dangerous from the 3rd of July on.”

Nenner says his big clients are also leaving the cities and buying houses in rural locations. Nenner told me this is a trend that has been going on for about 5 years, but it has picked up speed in the last year and a half. Nenner says his economic cycles have turned straight down. In NYC, Nenner points out, “I have very wealthy clients that just got out of commercial real estate with a 67% loss. I also know the banks, they are holding all these bad loans.” “The banks have US bonds coming to maturity that they have lost a fortune on. So, the banks, especially the regional banks, are going to be in big trouble… The regional banks are very weak. A lot is burning below the surface, which nobody tells you about.” Nenner still likes gold, but it’s going to consolidate here. Inflation is getting ready to take off again, and Nenner says, “Layoffs are coming soon. . . . Very hard times are coming.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Macgregor
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807746047541694893

 

 

Thomas

 

 

Issa

 

 

Silicone

 

 

Wave

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 5 2023

Jan 052023
 
 January 5, 2023  Posted by at 9:32 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  89 Responses »


Takeuchi Seiho Bear in snow 1940

 

• US Climbs Escalation Ladder in Ukraine (Bhadrakumar)
• U.S. Forces in Europe Prepare for War With Russia (Celente)
• The Russia-Ukraine Conflict Is Existential For Both Sides (Lukyanov)
• Effect Of EU Sanctions On Moscow Is ‘Less Than Zero’ – Verhofstadt (RT)
• Russian Drones Far Cheaper Than Ukrainian Air Defenses – NYT (RT)
• US Makes Europeans Suffer – De Gaulle’s Grandson (RT)
• China Setting New World Energy Order – Zoltan Pozsar (RT)
• US Spies Used False Russiagate Claims To Bring Twitter To Heel (Livshitz)
• Schiff Asked Twitter to Censor Paul Sperry Over Impeachment Whistleblower (BB)
• Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads (Taibbi)
• Breathing Trouble (Bardi/Walach)
• Swedes Adamant In Face Of Türkiye’s NATO Demands (RT)
• A History of Dissent (Lauria)
• Post-vaccine Treatment Protocol (FLCCC)

 

 

There is so much talk about McCarthy and the House Speaker contest, you’d almost think they’re trying to hide something behind it. I’ll leave that alone for now.

 

 

 

 

Bhakdi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1610685980671094784

 

 

 

 

VDB
https://twitter.com/i/status/1610443745014710278

 

 

 

 

Cause unknown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..although Russian intelligence would have a fair idea of the location of NATO officers conducting the Ukrainian operations, they have not been so far targeted.”

• US Climbs Escalation Ladder in Ukraine (Bhadrakumar)

In all probability, the message conveyed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov from his American counterpart Antony Blinken via Israel’s new foreign minister Eli Cohen concerned the Ukrainian missile attack on Makeyevka (Donetsk) on New Year Day at 12.02 am killing 89 Russian conscripts. Kiev claimed that up to 400 Russian soldiers might have been killed. Russian MOD has made a rare acknowledgment of scores of deaths — latest figure is 83. Moscow rarely releases figures for casualties in the war. The Russian statements stressed that US-made Himars missiles were used in the attack. The site was a “a temporary deployment facility” (a vocational school temporarily used as barracks for scores of recently mobilised troops sent by Moscow.

The incident sparked renewed public criticism over the state of Russia’s military and the decision to use civilian infrastructure to house soldiers. The First Deputy Head of the Main Military-Political Department of the Russian Armed Forces Lieutenant General Sergey Sevryukov told reporters: “It has already become obvious at present that the main cause of the occurrence was activation and large-scale use, contrary to the ban, of personal phones by personnel within the reach of enemy’s destruction means. This factor enabled the enemy to take the bearing and determine coordinates of servicemen location to deliver a missile strike. Required measures are being taken at present to exclude such tragic incidents in the future.” Apparently, blame game has begun — that the “main cause” of the tragedy was the unruly behaviour of soldiers who used mobile phones on the warfront. But there is going to be consequences.

Public pressure may increase demanding maximum use of force to end the war quickly. There is always the danger of escalation if certain unwritten, unspoken red lines in the conduct of the war are crossed. It is entirely conceivable that there could be Cold-War style “strategic deconfliction” parameters worked out between the general staff in Moscow and the Pentagon aimed at avoiding miscalculation or any set of actions (by either side) that could lead to unnecessary conflict. The US and Russian forces have been operating in Syria for years and a communications line, used daily, has helped the two sides avoid direct conflict.

Now, the New Year attack comes as the Biden administration is trying to provide billions in weaponry to Ukraine while also claiming that avoiding a direct clash with Russia has been a top US priority. At any rate, although Russian intelligence would have a fair idea of the location of NATO officers conducting the Ukrainian operations, they have not been so far targeted. That is why, the Russian MOD’s decision on Monday to highlight that US-supplied Himars missiles have killed scores of Russian soldiers on Sunday night would have caused some uneasiness in Washington. The big question is whether Moscow will also now go up the escalation ladder and directly target American military personnel deployed in Ukraine.

Of course, any killing of American military personnel in Ukraine will make very damaging headlines in the US news cycle for the Biden Administration. So far, there has not been a single instance of a body bag arriving from Ukraine. The Russian generals probably ensured that.

Read more …

The US will let other countries’ troops do the combat.

• U.S. Forces in Europe Prepare for War With Russia (Celente)

U.S. troops stationed in Eastern Europe are preparing for all-out war and have been performing war simulations against Russian forces, according to a new report. The U.S.’s 101st Airborne Division deployed to Romania for the first time in 80 years. The “Screaming Eagles” as a light infantry force that is trained to take to any battlefield and fight within hours. The U.S. Army said in a statement in June that the division arrived at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Airbase to “reinforce NATO’s eastern flank and engage in multinational exercises with partners across the European continent in order to reassure allies and deter further Russian aggression.” “Being here, so close to that fight (in Ukraine), is exactly where the 101st Airborne Division is destined to be,” said Maj. Gen. JP McGee, 101st commander, during the livestreamed ceremony, Stars & Stripes reported at the time.

U.S. infantry arrived at a military base in Estonia last month to train allied troops and secure Europe’s eastern flank amid the Ukraine War. The troops are stationed at the Taara base in Võru and will train alongside Estonia forces. The base is about 20 miles from the Russian border. The troops in Romania have been training Ukrainian forces on advanced weapons systems that are being shipped into Kyiv, The New York Times reported. “You get a chance to train and operate on the very ground that you might have to defend,” McGee told the paper. AntiWar.org noted: “The Times report stressed that the 101st Airborne deployment was about deterrence. If the US were preparing to enter the war directly, it would likely send significantly more troops. While in Romania, the soldiers are also participating in coastal defense drills, and Romanian troops are practicing firing HIMARS rocket launch systems into the Black Sea.”

The Pentagon has said it is sending U.S. troops into Ukraine, under the guise that they are going there not to fight, but instead just to track the billions of dollars of weapons the West sent into the country. NBC News, citing three senior U.S. officials, reported last month that there is discussion in the White House about sending additional troops into the country to help the U.S. track weapons. The report said there are already U.S. troops in the country, again, under the guise that all they are doing is monitoring weapons. The New York Times reported in June that Ukraine is filled with CIA officers and special forces from the West. The report said the CIA personnel have been working out of Kyiv. We reported in October that there are currently more U.S. special forces and CIA agents in Ukraine today than there were at the beginning of the war.

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“No mere recital from the actor, but earnest loss he must reveal..”

• The Russia-Ukraine Conflict Is Existential For Both Sides (Lukyanov)

The year 2022 turned everything inside out. With the benefit of hindsight – having overcome the shock everyone experienced in February, when Russian troops entered Ukraine – it’s not that difficult to explain how it came about. And even how it could not have been otherwise. Also, after a full ten months, it is pretty clear why the campaign did not go as planned. The latter is probably even a positive thing. The façade crumbled, exposing the frame. It was not quite as imagined. Some structures thought to be load-bearing had surprisingly sagged. Others, suspected of being unreliable, stood up stronger than had been thought. There are fewer illusions, though the information machine works to maintain them. But this is basically by inertia. The need for a radical renewal of the architecture is obvious.

The Ukrainian landmine was laid when the Soviet Union collapsed. The grim realists knew from the outset that the separation of what had long been a single space – where it was almost impossible to draw a natural boundary – would not be possible. In Russia, as at the bottom of a peat bog, disagreement with the loss of territories of defining cultural and historical significance was smoldering. In Ukraine, radical nationalists lamented that independence came ‘cost-free’ and believed that nations are born in wars. The extremes have now converged. Russia took up the Ukrainian issue when it became central to the world order. Although it may have been the other way round – it became so important because Russia tried to solve it. The tipping point was probably former President Viktor Yanukovich’s decision on whether to tilt West (to the EU) or East (towards the EEU), back in 2013.

The two divergent positions are now firmly entwined. And our country faces fierce resistance, because of the desire of the neighboring state to defend its identity, and the readiness of Western grandees to sacrifice this very nation to put Moscow in its place. However, Russia voluntarily submitted itself to this stress test, and its future depends on the outcome. At this juncture, it is no longer possible to reverse course. Furthermore, the uncertainty of the objectives of the ‘special military operation’ reflects the overarching nature of the challenge. The goals won’t be fully understood until the end, because they won’t be apparent until that comes to pass. The peculiarity of the modern world is that there is no such thing as an outright victory. This is the main paradox here – war has returned as a form of state relations, but it does not involve a clear outcome in the classical sense.

This dramatically complicates the nature of competition and makes it inherently non-linear. And its result is thus ‘hybrid’, with the decisive factor the endurance and resilience of states under the volley of different blows that abound in the unpredictable international environment. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has become a clash for self-determination for Russia as much as for Ukraine. In the literal sense: as in who we are. While Ukraine’s self-determination is similar to examples from the history of nation-state building, in Russia the situation is far more complex. Many of the concepts from the past will not pass the test of this collision. Outright archaic positions are unsustainable in today’s global conditions, even if it seems that the world has turned backwards. But postmodern imitation will no longer work either. It’s too real and tragic. “No mere recital from the actor, but earnest loss he must reveal,” to quote the writer Boris Pasternak, in his poem ‘I Should Have Known that this Would Happen’.

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“We are rewarding Russia for its war against us!”

Russia has no war vs the EU. You’re just making that up.

• Effect Of EU Sanctions On Moscow Is ‘Less Than Zero’ – Verhofstadt (RT)

The EU’s sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict have been a complete failure, Belgian member of the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt said on Monday. He added that the EU was only “rewarding” Russia by increasing imports from the country. Writing on Twitter, Verhofstadt, who served as Belgian prime minister from 1999 to 2008 and has been an MEP since 2009, claimed that the effect of the EU’s nine packages of sanctions on Moscow “is less than 0.” The former PM said that in the bloc’s attempts to punish Russia, it has achieved the opposite result. “We are rewarding Russia for its war against us!” Verhofstadt also posted a chart titled ‘Still Filling Putin’s Coffers’, showing Russia-EU trade from February to August 2022. The graphic, which cites Eurostat data, shows that most EU member states, including Germany, France, Italy, and Poland, significantly increased imports from Russia. In total, only seven EU members were buying less from the country.


Following the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the EU imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow, targeting entire sectors of the economy. In December, the bloc, along with the G7 countries and Australia, introduced a price cap on Russian seaborne oil, setting it at $60 per barrel. In response, last week, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning the supply of oil and petroleum products from Russia to countries which apply these restrictions. The sanctions on Russia have exacerbated the bloc’s energy crisis, causing fuel prices and the cost of living to soar. This has prompted protests against the sanctions policy in several EU countries. In December, a demonstration organized by the right-wing Patriots party took place in Paris against the government’s stance on Russia and France’s membership in NATO. In his New Year’s address, Putin said that the West’s “full-blown sanctions war” against Moscow has largely failed to undermine the economy.

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“..using a missile against a UAV costs up to seven times more than the drone itself..”

• Russian Drones Far Cheaper Than Ukrainian Air Defenses – NYT (RT)

The fact that the smaller kamikaze drones used by Russia are much cheaper than the Ukrainian air defense missiles used against them is creating problems for Kiev and its Western backers, the New York Times has acknowledged. In an article on Tuesday, the paper didn’t question Kiev’s claims that most of the UAVs launched by Russia are being shot down, but pointed out that even in this case Ukrainian air defense stocks were being exhausted. “How long can Ukraine sustain its effort when many of its defensive measures cost far more than the drones do?” the NYT wondered. In addition to trying to destroy the incoming drones with anti-aircraft guns and small-arms fire, Kiev’s forces have “also relied heavily on missiles fired from warplanes and the ground,” which are very expensive, it wrote.

The paper cited the head of the Ukrainian consultancy Molfar, Artem Starosiek, who claimed that using a missile against a UAV costs up to seven times more than the drone itself. The drones that Russia uses are priced at around $20,000 per unit, while a surface-to-air missile from Ukraine’s arsenal ranges from $140,000 for a Soviet-era S-300 to $500,000 for a US-supplied NASAM system, he said. The article claims that the drones used by Russia in Ukraine are Shahed-136s, supplied by Iran. This claim has been denied by both Moscow and Tehran on many occasions. The Russian Defense Ministry insists that its Geran-2 drones are domestically made, just like all the other hardware used in the military operation against Kiev. The Iranian Foreign Ministry has only confirmed sending a small batch of drones to Russia before the outbreak of the conflict with Ukraine, stressing that no new deliveries have been made since then.

Starosiek nevertheless defended Kiev’s strategy, arguing that it still “costs far less to shoot down a drone than to repair a damaged or destroyed power station.” However, the NYT warned that the price difference between drones and air defenses was “an imbalance that could over time favor Russia, costing Ukraine and its allies dearly, some analysts say.” According to estimations by Molfar, Russia has targeted Ukrainian military infrastructure and energy systems with some 600 UAVs since September, when they began to be used more widely. Russia drastically ramped up its strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure in early October in response to repeated Ukrainian sabotage on Russian soil, including the bombing of the Crimean Bridge, which Moscow blamed on Kiev. Although the attack was widely cheered by top Ukrainian officials, Kiev has denied any involvement.

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“I revolt and protest this intellectual dishonesty in the Ukraine crisis because the triggers of the war are the Americans and NATO..”

• US Makes Europeans Suffer – De Gaulle’s Grandson (RT)

The US is making Europeans suffer by fueling the Ukraine conflict and waging a pre-planned economic war against Russia, Pierre de Gaulle, the grandson of former French President Charles de Gaulle, has said. After leading the French resistance against the Nazi occupation during World War II, Charles de Gaulle founded the modern French political system and served as president from 1959 to 1969. His grandson, a strategy and corporate finance consultant, said he believes that the Ukraine conflict was incited by the West. “I revolt and protest this intellectual dishonesty in the Ukraine crisis because the triggers of the war are the Americans and NATO,” Pierre de Gaulle told the Franco-Russian Dialogue Association last week. “The United States, unfortunately, continues the military escalation, making not only the Ukrainian population suffer, but the European population as well.”

The scale and the number of sanctions show that all of this was organized a long time in advance. It is an economic war, from which the Americans are the beneficiaries. The Americans sell their gas to Europeans for a price four to seven times higher than they do in their own country. The Western sanctions imposed on Russian fossil fuel exports have exacerbated the financial and energy crisis in Europe, making “everyone suffer in their daily lives,” de Gaulle said. He also accused former German Chancellor Angela Merkel of “knowingly contributing” to the conflict by “authorizing the Ukrainian nationalist expansion,” which came after the 2014 pro-Western coup in Kiev. The government that came to power that year sought to “annihilate Russian culture… and the ability to speak Russian” in the largely Russophone Donbass, he said.

The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) broke away from Ukraine following the 2014 coup. The 2014-15 Minsk accords, brokered by Germany, France, and Russia, were designed to provide a peaceful reintegration of the rebellious territories into Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk peace accords as reasons for launching the military operation in Ukraine in late February. The DPR and LPR, along with two other former Ukrainian territories, joined Russia after voting overwhelmingly in favor of the move in September. Merkel, as well as former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, stated last year that Kiev had used the accords to buy time in order to rebuild its military and economy. Ukraine has adopted several laws since 2014 that restrict the use of the Russian language in the public sphere, including education and the media.

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“..Xi Jinping’s meeting with the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in December marked “the birth of the petroyuan..”

• China Setting New World Energy Order – Zoltan Pozsar (RT)

The global energy order is being reshaped as deepening energy ties between China and the Middle East signifies the rise of the petroyuan, which could challenge the petrodollar, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar. According to Pozsar, China has been boosting purchases of crude and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and some African nations using its national currency. However, President Xi Jinping’s meeting with the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in December marked “the birth of the petroyuan,” he said in a note to clients. At the summit, the Chinese leader confirmed that Beijing is ready to make energy purchases in yuan instead of the US dollar with GCC countries.

“China wants to rewrite the rules of the global energy market,” Pozsar said, adding that the move to de-dollarize the oil and gas trade is backed members of the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). According to the Credit Suisse analyst, the steps towards ditching the greenback in the energy trade have intensified in the wake of the sweeping sanctions imposed by Western nations on Russia, one of the world’s major energy producers and exporters, in response to the military operation in Ukraine. Pozsar added that dollar foreign exchange reserves were militarized in the sanctions war, making the use of the currency unsafe for major exporters and importers of oil, gas, and other commodities.

Cooperation between China and the GCC may potentially involve joint exploration and production in places such as the South China Sea, as well as investment in refineries, chemicals, and plastics. Pozsar said that implementing all of these projects in the yuan would mark a massive shift in the global energy trade. He added that even if it does not replace the dollar as a reserve currency, trading in the petroyuan will nevertheless come with significant economic and financial implications for policymakers and investors.

Read more …

“Twitter was flooded with demands from so many officials, departments and agencies, they were confused and overworked. If action wasn’t taken promptly, followup emails quickly appeared, asking if action had yet been taken, and if not, why..”

• US Spies Used False Russiagate Claims To Bring Twitter To Heel (Livshitz)

In a pair of blockbuster #TwitterFiles threads, this week, journalist Matt Taibbi has blown open, even wider, the media giant’s concerning collusion with the US national security state. The former Rolling Stone writer exposed how political pressure from the US Democratic Party very effectively forced the company to endorse the lie that its platform was extensively weaponized by Russia, with hugely significant consequences. The first, boldly titled ‘How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In’, documents how in August 2017, despite dubious allegations that Russian bots and trolls were responsible for the election of Donald Trump in the mainstream media reaching fever pitch, Twitter’s hierarchy knew its platform wasn’t riddled with malign Kremlin-directed actors. [..]

After years of bending over backwards to placate the Democratic establishment, Twitter attempted to push back. Over a series of internal emails, various executives spelled out deep concerns about allowing the Center any influence over the platform, and initially rejected an FBI request for the organization to be included in the moderation club’s regular ‘industry call’. It was felt the Center’s involvement would pose “major risks … especially as the election heats up.” Eventually, the FBI offered a compromise – the CIA, NSA, and Global Engagement Center would be able to simply listen to the industry calls, but wouldn’t be active participants. Twitter relented, a decision its higher-ups seem to have quickly come to regret. Before long, the social network was being bombarded with requests to censor content and ban users from every US government body under the sun.

This extended to US government officials asking for users to be banned because they didn’t personally like an individual in question. Notorious House Intelligence Committee chief Adam Schiff, a Democrat, once asked Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry, due to his critical reporting on the Committee’s work. After initially refusing, Sperry was later suspended. Almost every other request was granted immediately, even those from the Global Engagement Center. This included demands to ban independent media outlets falsely claimed to be “GRU-controlled” and linked “to the Russian government.” In one email, a former CIA staffer remarked that Twitter would soon be unable to deny a single request. “Our window on that is closing,” they said.

In the weeks before the 2020 Presidential election, Twitter was flooded with demands from so many officials, departments and agencies, they were confused and overworked. If action wasn’t taken promptly, followup emails quickly appeared, asking if action had yet been taken, and if not, why, and when it would be. In one request, an FBI official even apologized “in advance for your workload.” Once, a no doubt exhausted senior attorney at the social network complained internally, “my inbox is really f***ed up at this point.” Previous #TwitterFiles threads exposed how the FBI paid the social network $3 million to process its requests. Based on the most recent disclosures, it’s clear the company and its staff were significantly underpaid for their efforts. Future releases promise yet further bombshell revelations, but the long-hidden truths divulged so far should prompt every Twitter user to reflect how the site for many years in secret operated as an effective wing of the US intelligence – and may well still do so.

Tucker Russia

Read more …

He should disappear.

• Schiff Asked Twitter to Censor Paul Sperry Over Impeachment Whistleblower (BB)

House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) pressured Twitter to censor the account of Paul Sperry, an investigative journalist who first published the name of the so-called impeachment “whistleblower.” In September 2019, Schiff announced that his committee had reached an agreement with the “whistleblower,” who allegedly filed a complaint about President Donald Trump’s July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to testify in his inquiry, which became the impeachment investigation. But Schiff never produced the whistleblower and later claimed, falsely, that the whistleblower had a “right” to anonymity. Schiff also lied about his contact with the “whistleblower,” first claiming that his committee had never spoken to the whistleblower, then admitting — after a New York Times report to the contrary — that they had done so.

Later, Sperry published an article at RealClearInvestigations identifying the “whistleblower” as a CIA analyst named Eric Ciaramella, who had worked at the Trump White House before returning to the CIA. Sperry also published other articles identifying links between Schiff’s committee and aides who had worked at the Trump White House and who had been “holdovers” from the Obama administration. The media and the tech industry suppressed the name of the whistleblower, and Schiff refused to allow Republicans to ask questions about the whistleblower during the impeachment investigation. Even Chief Justice John Roberts played along, censoring a question from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) during the Senate impeachment trial about the whistleblower.

On Tuesday, in the latest installment of the “Twitter files,” investigative journalist Matt Taibbi produced email evidence showing that Schiff’s office had asked Twitter, in writing, to censor Sperry after the November 2020 election, claiming (without evidence) that Sperry had spread “QAnon conspiracies” on the platform. Sperry told the New York Post Tuesday that Schiff’s claims were false and that he had never promoted QAnon: In an email Tuesday, Sperry told The Post, “I have never promoted any ‘QAnon conspiracies.’ Ever. Not on Twitter. Not anywhere.” “Schiff was just angry I outed his impeachment whistleblower and tried to get me banned,” he said. “I challenge Schiff to produce evidence to back up his defamatory remarks to Twitter.” Sperry also said, “This is a scurrilous smear, but par for the course for the unscrupulous Chairman Schiff.”

Read more …

Library.

• Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads (Taibbi)

It’s January 4th, 2023, which means Twitter Files stories have been coming out for over a month. Because these are weedsy tales, and may be hard to follow if you haven’t from the beginning, I’ve written up capsule summaries of each of the threads by all of the Twitter Files reporters, and added links to the threads and accounts of each. At the end, in response to some readers (especially foreign ones) who’ve found some of the alphabet-soup government agency names confusing, I’ve included a brief glossary of terms to help as well.

Read more …

Masks.

• Breathing Trouble (Bardi/Walach)

Just like smoking a single cigarette never killed anyone, wearing a face mask for a few hours or a few days does not cause irreversible damage either. But the immediate short-term physiological effects are detectable: A recent study led by Pritam Sukul, senior medical scientist at the University Medicine Rostock in Germany, found masks to cause hypercarbia (high concentration of CO2 in the blood), arterial oxygen decline, blood pressure fluctuations, and concomitant physiological and metabolic effects. On a time scale of weeks or months, these effects appear to be reversible. But how can we know what can happen to people who wear masks for several hours a day for several years? Will we have to wait for decades before concluding that masks are bad for people s health, as was the case with cigarettes?

Not necessarily, for we are able to assess face masks in terms of the air quality breathed by the wearers. One important parameter for air quality is CO2 concentration. Over the years, a lot of data has been accumulated in this field from miners, astronauts, submariners, and other people exposed to high concentrations of CO2 . Measurable negative effects on mental alertness already occur at CO2 concentrations over 600 parts per million (ppm), which is only slightly higher than the average concentration in open air (a little more than 400 ppm). Values higher than 1,000-2,000 ppm are not recommended for living spaces, especially for children and pregnant women. 5,000 ppm is the commonly accepted limit in working environments or in submarines and spaceships. Concentrations in the range of 10,000-20,000 ppm are not immediately life-threatening but can only be withstood for short periods.

Even higher concentrations may lead to loss of consciousness and death. So what kind of CO2 concentration are people exposed to when they wear a face mask? Measuring the concentration of CO2 inside the small volume of a face mask while it is being used poses practical problems, and there are no standardised methods and procedures to evaluate this. Nevertheless, during the past few years, several papers dealing with this subject were published. Some of these papers were criticised, but often baselessly. For instance, some fact checkers claimed that the same amount of CO2 could be found without face masks in exhaled breath. This is true, but trivial. The studies mentioned above measured the amount of CO2 in the inhaled air under face masks; the fact checkers measured the air exhaled. Other fact checkers provided a priori statements by experts, including a sports reporter.

Read more …

“..79% of respondents think their country should “stand up for Swedish laws” in the face of Türkiye’s demands..”

• Swedes Adamant In Face Of Türkiye’s NATO Demands (RT)

An overwhelming majority of Swedes believe their country should not betray its legal principles to meet Türkiye’s conditions for ratifying Stockholm’s NATO bid, according to a new Ipsos poll commissioned by Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter and released on Monday. The survey found that 79% of respondents think their country should “stand up for Swedish laws” in the face of Türkiye’s demands. This red line, they said, should not be crossed even “if that delays joining NATO.” Only 10% said that “Sweden should try to join NATO as soon as possible,” even if it entails legal compromises, while 11% said they were not sure.

The poll shows only minor discrepancies in opinion between various social groups. Men are said to be more open to compromises with Ankara than women, although they also tend to insist on protecting the country’s legal principles. As for differences along political lines, those who vote for right-wing parties are more inclined to agree to a give-and-take approach. Despite the delays in joining NATO, the poll revealed that as many as 60% of Swedes still want to become part of the US-led military bloc, with only 19% opposing Stockholm’s membership bid. The survey, which was conducted between December 6 and 18, is based on 1,248 interviews with Swedish voters.

In June, NATO agreed to accept Sweden and Finland to the bloc, but their membership bid has yet to be ratified by all members of the alliance, with Hungary and Türkiye’s approval still pending. Ankara has been reluctant to finalize the accession process, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pushing Sweden and Finland to do more to combat Kurdish “terrorism,” including extraditing people that Türkiye accuses of having terrorist links. In early December, Sweden reportedly made some progress in this regard, handing over a man to Türkiye who had been convicted in his home country of being a member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Two weeks later, however, Sweden’s Supreme Court blocked the extradition of Bulent Kenes, a former editor-in-chief of Zaman Daily who Ankara accused of being involved in an attempt to topple Erdogan in 2016.

Read more …

Good to remember.

• A History of Dissent (Lauria)

The United States was founded by dissenters. The Declaration of Independence is one of history’s most significant dissenting documents, inspiring people seeking freedom around the world, from the French revolutionists to Ho Chi Minh, who based Vietnam’s declaration of independence from France on the American declaration. But over the centuries a corrupt centralization of American power seeking to maintain and expand its authority has at times sought to crush the very principle of dissent which was written into the United States Constitution. Freedom to dissent was first threatened by the second president. Just eight years after the adoption of the Bill of Rights, press freedom had become a threat to John Adams, whose Federalist Party pushed through Congress the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.

They criminalized criticism of the federal government. There were 25 prosecutions and 10 convictions, under the Sedition Act. The acts expired and some repealed by 1802. The Union then shut down newspapers during the U.S. Civil War. Woodrow Wilson came within one vote in the Senate of creating official government censorship in the 1917 Espionage Act. The 1918 Alien and Sedition Act that followed jailed hundreds of people for speech until it was repealed in 1921. Since the 1950s, McCarthyism has become the byword for one of the worst periods of repression of dissent in U.S. history. The closest we’ve come to Wilson’s troubling dream is the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governance Board under the Department of Homeland Security, which after heavy criticism was disbanded.

The roots of repression are in the earliest English settlers in North America, described in The Scarlet Letter and applied to McCarthyism in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Though its industrial and scientific achievements are most lauded, America’s tradition of dissent is probably the greatest thing in U.S. history and it is once again under threat.

Read more …

Protocol to get rid of vaxx.

• Post-vaccine Treatment Protocol (FLCCC)

Major public health authorities do not recognize post-COVID-vaccine injuries and no official definition exists. However, a temporal correlation between receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and the beginning or worsening of a patient’s clinical manifestations is sufficient to diagnose a COVID-19 vaccine-induced injury, when symptoms are otherwise unexplained by concurrent causes. Since there are no published reports detailing how to manage vaccine-injured patients, our treatment approach is based on the postulated pathogenetic mechanism, clinical observation, and patient anecdotes. Treatment must be individualized according to each patient’s presenting symptoms and disease syndromes. Chances are, not all patients will respond equally to the same intervention; a particular intervention may be life-saving for one patient and completely ineffective for another. Early treatment is essential; the response to treatment will most likely be attenuated when treatment is delayed.

Read more …

 

 

 

Trump 1991

 

 

 

Musk electric planes
https://twitter.com/i/status/1610745168743006209

 

 

Tiger spoons

 

 

Sunfish

 

 

Octopus

 

 

Samoyed

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 4 2021

May 042021
 
 May 4, 2021  Posted by at 7:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


Franco Fontana Prague 1967

 

• US To Authorize Pfizer Vaccine For Ages 12-15 Early Next Week (R.)
• Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely In The US, Experts Now Believe (NYT)
• The Missing Piece of the Covid-19 Death Puzzle: Co-Infection (Sardi)
• The CDC, VUMC, Johns Hopkins Are All *DONE* (Denninger)
• England To Pilot Daily Covid Tests As Way To Avoid Self-isolation (G.)
• SARS-CoV-2 Variants Still Recognized by T Cells (NIH)
• Covid S Protein Impairs Endothelial Function via Downregulation of ACE 2 (AHA)
• Florida Gov. DeSantis Suspends All Local Coronavirus Emergency Orders (JTN)
• ‘Far More Likely’ Coronavirus Came From Lab, Ex-MI6 Chief (LBC)
• The Criminalization of Dissent (CJ Hopkins)
• Biden Family Justice (Kunstler)
• Moscow Has Plan To Ditch US Dollar & Axe Dependency On West (Gavin)

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Main reason for hesitancy to take Covid vaccine from average Americans is they assume ALL risk. If something goes wrong, you can’t sue Moderna/Pfizer. And without FDA approval government isn’t accountable, either. Therefore, the patient/citizen assumes ALL risk.”

 

 

 

This for me remains the scariest part of it all.

“Pfizer and Moderna have also launched trials in even younger children, from six months to 11 years old.”

• US To Authorize Pfizer Vaccine For Ages 12-15 Early Next Week (R.)

The US Food and Drug Administration is preparing to authorize the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine for adolescents between ages 12 and 15 years by early next week, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing federal officials familiar with the agency’s plans. An approval is highly anticipated after the drugmakers said in March that the vaccine had been found to be safe, effective and produced robust antibody responses in 12- to 15-year-olds in a clinical trial. Responding to a Reuters request for comment, the FDA said its review of expanding the vaccine’s emergency use authorization was continuing, but it did not provide further details. The vaccine has already been cleared in the United States for people age 16 and above.


The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) director, Rochelle Walensky, said earlier in April that the vaccine could be approved by mid-May. If an approval for the 12-15-year-olds is granted, the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel will probably meet the following day to review the clinical trial data and make recommendations for the vaccine’s use in adolescents, the report said. Approval of the vaccine would boost the country’s immunization drive and help allay fears of parents anxious to protect their children from Covid-19. Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are also testing their vaccines in 12- to 18-year olds, with data from Moderna’s trial expected to come soon. Pfizer and Moderna have also launched trials in even younger children, from six months to 11 years old. Both companies have said they hope to be able to vaccinate children under 11 as soon as early 2022.

Read more …

Vaccine promo (vaccine porn?) . One-dimensional. It’s a pattern: first promotion of hand cleaners, then masks, then of lockdowns, now of vaccines.

Where would we be if they had promoted vit. D and ivermection in the same fashion?

• Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely In The US, Experts Now Believe (NYT)

Early in the pandemic, when vaccines for the coronavirus were still just a glimmer on the horizon, the term “herd immunity” came to signify the endgame: the point when enough Americans would be protected from the virus so we could be rid of the pathogen and reclaim our lives. Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable – at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.

Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers. How much smaller is uncertain and depends in part on how much of the nation, and the world, becomes vaccinated and how the coronavirus evolves. It is already clear, however, that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily and vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon. Continued immunizations, especially for people at highest risk because of age, exposure or health status, will be crucial to limiting the severity of outbreaks, if not their frequency, experts believe.

“The virus is unlikely to go away,” said Rustom Antia, an evolutionary biologist at Emory University in Atlanta. “But we want to do all we can to check that it’s likely to become a mild infection.” The shift in outlook presents a new challenge for public health authorities. The drive for herd immunity – by the summer, some experts once thought possible – captured the imagination of large segments of the public. To say the goal will not be attained adds another “why bother” to the list of reasons that vaccine skeptics use to avoid being inoculated.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration’s top adviser on Covid-19, acknowledged the shift in experts’ thinking. “People were getting confused and thinking you’re never going to get the infections down until you reach this mystical level of herd immunity, whatever that number is,” he said. “That’s why we stopped using herd immunity in the classic sense,” he added. “I’m saying: Forget that for a second. You vaccinate enough people, the infections are going to go down.”

Read more …

“The so-called “super-spreaders” are the asymptomatic RNA-vaccinated (Pfizer/ Moderna) individuals that shed the virus. In an anticipated misdirection, the unvaccinated will then be mistakenly blamed for the spread of the virus and a predicted witch hunt will ensue for the anti-vaxxers..”

• The Missing Piece of the Covid-19 Death Puzzle: Co-Infection (Sardi)

Funny thing we realized on the way to the funeral parlor to bury our friends and loved ones who were vaccinated against COVID-19 coronavirus, that the vaccine didn’t work. COVID-19 vaccines, like flu shots, don’t work as well for new strains of the virus. For that, you will need perpetual immunization, say vaccine makers. Oh, there are people dying, 7700 every day in the US. But was their passing solely attributed to COVID-19? Since the COVID-19 fatality numbers are exaggerated by a PCR nasal swab test that results in 97% false positives (all of the COVID-19 PCR tests during the past 14 months have been found to be invalid), there is no way to confirm deaths were caused by COVID-19 or COVID-19 was a bystander, the difference between dying OF COVID-19 or dying WITH COVID-19! Deaths are being drummed up to create fear and false demand for vaccines.

Also, in case you hadn’t heard, “a resurgence in both hospitalizations and deaths will be ‘dominated by those that have received two doses of the vaccine,” says the respected Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group. “At least 60 percent of all new COVID-19 cases are occurring in people who were already vaccinated.” So far, hundreds who have been vaccinated got sick again and some have died. This is being reported in different locations. We have a vaccine that reduces severity of symptoms but not the ratio of hospitalizations and deaths among infected subjects! The so-called “super-spreaders” are the asymptomatic RNA-vaccinated (Pfizer/ Moderna) individuals that shed the virus. In an anticipated misdirection, the unvaccinated will then be mistakenly blamed for the spread of the virus and a predicted witch hunt will ensue for the anti-vaxxers, a development foreseen in my March 26, 2021 posting.

But how could a mutated common cold virus kill off humans like flies? Well, at no time were any human populations dying like flies. As stated in prior reports, the percentage of people dying of COVID-19 who reside outside of nursing homes is but one-quarter of one-percent. Vaccination, which is said to be 95% effective, but that is not 95 out of 100 in hard numbers. On an accumulated basis as of May 1, 2021 in the U.S., 31,889,171 laboratory- confirmed infections (9.7% of the population) with 568,836 questionable deaths (0.0017% or 1.7 per thousand). But even these numbers are fallacious. If the PCR nasal swab test were properly performed, then 97% COVID-19 infections as a cause of death cannot be confirmed.

Only 6% of deaths were without co-morbid conditions (diabetes, heart disease, etc.), meaning maybe only 34,130 COVID-19 deaths solely attributed to COVID-19 instead of 568,836 – for a true fatality risk 0.0001 or 1 in 10,000. That means 10,000 must be vaccinated to spare 1 life. While the serious side effect rate for the vaccines is very small, it exceeds the number who will potentially benefit from vaccination. Your chance of benefiting from vaccination is nil. And vaccination will not prevent infections or deaths if your immune system is not intact, or if the strain of the virus does not match the vaccine. [..] How are face masks, social distancing and hand washing, going to meaningfully reduce your risk of dying from COVID-19 when only 1 in 10,000 are at risk?

Read more …

“COVID-19 mRNA vaccines give instructions for our cells to make a harmless piece of what is called the “spike protein.” The spike protein is found on the surface of the virus that causes COVID-19.”

“The science says it’s not harmless; it is in fact pathogenic. The CDC is lying and as a result people are dying.”

• The CDC, VUMC, Johns Hopkins Are All *DONE* (Denninger)

There might be a few fathers left in this country. Maybe. If so it is my sincere hope that they hold people to personal account who inflicted these harms on their sons and daughters, of which there will be tens if not hundreds of thousands reasonably tied to these so-called “interventions”, including the shots, in the current and coming years. The ghouls involved did not give a crap about the law from the start. The EUAs were flatly illegal because we knew by summer of 2020 that there were decades-old proved safe and believed effective treatments. We didn’t use them, on purpose, for the explicit reason that doing so would prevent these EUAs from being issued. By deliberately lying the FDA, CDC and dozens of other organizations and individuals along with the corporate physician and hospital networks directly caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans who should not have died, and caused deliberate harm to hundreds of thousands more who are now left with what may well be a lifelong debilitating impact as a result of the scream-fest for “everyone” to go get these unproved and now-known-dangerous injections.

Nobody knows how bad, or for how long, those future disabilities and risk of death will be or for how long they will continue but that there is severe impact is now known; we are now down to trying to figure out how horrid. The CDC still claims the spike protein in the shots is “harmless” despite three scientific papers dating to December stating otherwise, one of which is peer reviewed and another from Salk, with the first known published evidence of a problem dating back to September of 2020. All were deliberately ignored and still are being ignored. “COVID-19 mRNA vaccines give instructions for our cells to make a harmless piece of what is called the “spike protein.” The spike protein is found on the surface of the virus that causes COVID-19.”

The science says it’s not harmless; it is in fact pathogenic. The CDC is lying and as a result people are dying. If you think this can remain “under wraps” and not get into the public consciousness you’re wrong. While the pharma firms may have legal immunity no private entity or public other entity does and the ambulance chasers will be out in droves to make the next $10 or $50 billion windfall asset-stripping colleges and their endowments, sports teams, concert venues and other commercial and government entities of every bit of flesh they can pick off. Unfortunately the injured will get little or nothing after the lawyers get done, as has always been the case. The destruction of these entities is both just and will happen, but it’s nowhere near the end game or best of outcomes.

The best of outcomes, which we will also obtain, will be the complete destruction of any sort of trust, belief or other willingness to listen to so-called “public health” authorities for years or even decades into the future. This is not a bad thing; they’ve been full of crap for decades, poisoning people slowly by advocating the consumption of a carbohydrate-rich diet, essentially cramming liquid milk into the gullets of children, many of whom are lactose intolerant to some degree and for which there is no evidence of benefit, calling “ketchup”, which is mostly sugar, a “vegetable” and other similar outrages. McDonalds and the rest of the fast food industry followed said “guidance” and stopped using beef tallow from their hamburgers to fry the potatoes; that switch alone has killed hundreds of thousands over the last few decades, as vegetable oils of this sort should never be consumed in any meaningful quantity. They do not occur in nature in anything similar to what we consume today and every one of them has a horrid inflammatory profile.

Read more …

Next up: hourly testing.

Do any of these tests look for the presence of T cells?

• England To Pilot Daily Covid Tests As Way To Avoid Self-isolation (G.)

Daily testing of the contacts of people who test positive for Covid is to be trialled, the government has announced, in an effort to reduce the need for people to self-isolate unnecessarily. People who test positive for Covid and their close contacts currently have to isolate for 10 days, but recent research has suggested compliance may be low. One study found that only about 50% of people who had Covid symptoms said they fully adhered to self-isolation. The trial, which launches on Sunday and is led by Public Health England (PHE) and NHS test and trace, will explore whether the use of daily testing of close contacts could reduce the need for people to isolate.


“We know that isolating when you have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19 is challenging, but it remains vitally important to stop the spread of infection,” said Prof Isabel Oliver, PHE’s national infection service director and the study lead. “This study will help to determine whether we can deploy daily testing for contacts to potentially reduce the need for self-isolation, while still ensuring that chains of transmission are stopped. “Contacts of cases are at higher risk of infection, so testing them is a very effective way of preventing further spread. This study will play an important part of our evaluation of daily contact testing and how the approach to testing might evolve.” The government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) had previously noted the potential for daily testing.

Read more …

From March 31 2021. It appears to say T cells come from vaccines or infection, but we know many people (81%?!) have T cells regardless. I’m not sure of these are the specific CD8+ T cells.

• SARS-CoV-2 Variants Still Recognized by T Cells (NIH)

When variants of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) emerged in late 2020, concern arose that they might elude protective immune responses generated by prior infection or vaccination, potentially making re-infection more likely or vaccination less effective. To investigate this possibility, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues analyzed blood cell samples from 30 people who had contracted and recovered from COVID-19 prior to the emergence of virus variants. They found that one key player in the immune response to SARS-CoV-2—the CD8+ T cell—remained active against the virus. The research team was led by NIAID’s Andrew Redd, Ph.D., and included scientists from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Immunomics-focused company, ImmunoScape.

The investigators asked whether CD8+ T cells in the blood of recovered COVID-19 patients, infected with the initial virus, could still recognize three SARS-CoV-2 variants: B.1.1.7, which was first detected in the United Kingdom; B.1.351, originally found in the Republic of South Africa; and B.1.1.248, first seen in Brazil. Each variant has mutations throughout the virus, and, in particular, in the region of the virus’ spike protein that it uses to attach to and enter cells. Mutations in this spike protein region could make it less recognizable to T cells and neutralizing antibodies, which are made by the immune system’s B cells following infection or vaccination. Although details about the exact levels and composition of antibody and T-cell responses needed to achieve immunity to SARS-CoV-2 are still unknown, scientists assume that strong and broad responses from both antibodies and T cells are required to mount an effective immune response.

CD8+ T cells limit infection by recognizing parts of the virus protein presented on the surface of infected cells and killing those cells. In their study of recovered COVID-19 patients, the researchers determined that SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T-cell responses remained largely intact and could recognize virtually all mutations in the variants studied. While larger studies are needed, the researchers note that their findings suggest that the T cell response in convalescent individuals, and most likely in vaccinees, are largely not affected by the mutations found in these three variants, and should offer protection against emerging variants. Optimal immunity to SARS-Cov-2 likely requires strong multivalent T-cell responses in addition to neutralizing antibodies and other responses to protect against current SARS-CoV-2 strains and emerging variants, the authors indicate. They stress the importance of monitoring the breadth, magnitude and durability of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 T-cell responses in recovered and vaccinated individuals as part of any assessment to determine if booster vaccinations are needed.

Read more …

Coincidentally, also from March 31 2021.

A comment: “Why spike protein containing or mRNA transcription to self-produce the spike protein (S-protein) is likely to increase blood clotting and inflammation, especially in at-risk individuals: The SARS-CoV2 (SARS2) spike protein is biologically active.”

• Covid S Protein Impairs Endothelial Function via Downregulation of ACE 2 (AHA)

Read more …

2024. Watch him.

• Florida Gov. DeSantis Suspends All Local Coronavirus Emergency Orders (JTN)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday suspended local coronavirus emergency orders via an executive order. The Sunshine State Republican also signed a bill approved by the Florida legislature which will give the governor the power to invalidate local emergency orders. The bill is effective July 1 and the governor signed the executive order effective July 1st that will invalidate local emergency coronavirus orders. “The bill ensures that neither the state nor local governments can close business or keep kids out of in-person instruction unless they satisfy demanding and continuous justifications,” DeSantis said.


“It also says that any local emergency order, excluding hurricane emergencies, are capped at seven-day increments and may only be extended to a maximum duration of 42 days. And most importantly, as governor I’ll have the authority to invalidate a local emergency order if it unnecessarily restricts individual rights or liberties,” the governor said. Prior to signing the documents DeSantis explained that he would “sign the bill, it’s effective July 1st. I’ll also sign an executive order pursuant to that bill invalidating all remaining local emergency COVID orders effective on July 1st. But then to bridge the gap between then and now I am gonna suspend under my executive power the local emergency orders as it relates to COVID. I think that’s the evidence-based thing to do.”

Read more …

Context: MI6: Russia, China, Taliban.

• ‘Far More Likely’ Coronavirus Came From Lab, Ex-MI6 Chief (LBC)

Coronavirus was more likely to have escaped from a lab than to have come from an animal, the former head of MI6 has told LBC. Sir Richard Dearlove said aspects of the virus “point in the direction of it being somewhat tailored” though he warned this may never be proven. The former “C” of the Secret Intelligence Service – equivalent to “M” in James Bond – also told LBC’s Tom Swarbrick that more information on the coronavirus’ origin will soon come out. Some have theorised the coronavirus could have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Work to establish the origin of the virus is ongoing. Sir Richard, who headed up the spy agency between 1999 and 2004, told Tom the World Health Organisation’s report, which said a lab leak was highly unlikely but further work was needed, was a “farcical investigation”.

While he admitted “it’s possible” the virus jumped to humans from nature, Sir Richard said: “But the fact that… it’s far more likely, if you’re a scientist, that it was put together. “All right, put it like this… It’s a natural virus that’s been, as it were, mucked around with and the characteristics of things like the spike protein, which make it so highly infectious, also point in the direction of it being somewhat tailored.” He alleged that Chinese influence was hindering the publication of scientific articles on the matter. “I honestly don’t think that this issue can be resolved one way or another,” he continued. “I think there’s a balance of probability. Obviously, if it cannot be proven, and I don’t think it can, because the evidence that could have proved it one way or another has been destroyed, because of the extent of the Chinese clean up.

“Okay, so you can’t prove it’s zoonotic. You can’t prove it’s a lab escapee. What I’m saying is there’s a balance of probability.” He expects forthcoming books to further outline the argument for coronavirus’ lab origin. Sir Richard described China as a more “acute” threat, though he added that Russia presents the most immediate challenge. He also said the UK should commit to training the security forces in Afghanistan for another two decades, after President Joe Biden announced the Americans would leave ahead of the September 11 20-year anniversary. It is a “mistake” to leave and the UK had become safer by deposing the old Taliban regime, he argued. “It could be (another 20 year stay),” Sir Richard said.

Read more …

“The United Nations and the highest levels of governments must take direct, even confrontational, approaches with Russia, and move to dismantle anti-vaccine groups in the United States.”

• The Criminalization of Dissent (CJ Hopkins)

Here’s California State Senator Richard Pan, author of an op-ed in the Washington Post: “Anti-vax extremism is akin to domestic terrorism,” quoted in the Los Angeles Times: “These extremists have not yet been held accountable, so they continue to escalate violence against the body public … We must now summon the political will to demand that domestic terrorists face consequences for their words and actions. Our democracy and our lives depend on it … They’ve been building alliances with white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and [others] on the far right …” And here’s Peter Hotez in Nature magazine:

“The United Nations and the highest levels of governments must take direct, even confrontational, approaches with Russia, and move to dismantle anti-vaccine groups in the United States. Efforts must expand into the realm of cyber security, law enforcement, public education and international relations. A high-level inter-agency task force reporting to the UN secretary-general could assess the full impact of anti-vaccine aggression, and propose tough, balanced measures. The task force should include experts who have tackled complex global threats such as terrorism, cyber attacks and nuclear armament, because anti-science is now approaching similar levels of peril. It is becoming increasingly clear that advancing immunization requires a counter-offensive.”

We’ll be hearing a lot more rhetoric like this as this new, more totalitarian structure of global capitalism gradually develops. Probably a good idea to listen carefully, and assume they mean exactly what they say.

Read more …

“..the FBI was in possession of Hunter’s laptop from at least one month prior to the commencement of impeachment proceedings in December of 2019. And nobody was informed about that… not least the president’s lawyer?”

• Biden Family Justice (Kunstler)

The campaign of false witness against US citizens went into overdrive when Donald Trump strutted onto the scene and “seventeen agencies of the Intel Community” conspired with The New York Times and other news media to manufacture the RussiaGate hoax. No top official across the boards has been taken to law for the stupendous cavalcade of false accusations and deceitful investigations associated with that venture in sedition, and the nation is still waiting for the apparition known as Special Counsel John Durham to make a peep. In fact, since 2017 much of the publicly-reported activity around the DOJ and FBI has demonstrated only their attempts to suppress their own felonious misdeeds — cover-ups on top of cover-ups.

Now comes the curious case of Rudy Giuliani, whose apartment was raided on a warrant last week by the FBI seeking his computers and cell phones. The probable cause remains murky — something to do with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in representing Ukrainian clients in the US? So, the DOJ wants Rudy’s files, emails, and memoranda on that? Of course, Rudy was acting as the President’s lawyer in impeachment No. 1 over a telephone call to Ukraine, and what was that about? Hunter Biden’s grifting activities, his cumulatively receiving millions from the Burisma Company, of which Hunter’s dad was due to receive at least his usual ten percent cut? And concerning which activity, Joe Biden threatened former Ukraine President Poroshenko in withholding US aid, unless an investigation into Hunter’s Burisma grift was dropped.

It might be helpful to the current occupant of the Oval Office to know what kind of evidence Rudy has acquired on all that and more over the years — yes? But then, there’s plenty of evidence about it and much much much more on Hunter’s wayward laptop. Perhaps hundreds of millions in wide-ranging grifts beyond lowly Ukraine all the way to China, where to this day Hunter retains active and substantial financial connections through his Skaneateles LLC financial company. And it has become known that the FBI was in possession of Hunter’s laptop from at least one month prior to the commencement of impeachment proceedings in December of 2019. And nobody was informed about that… not least the president’s lawyer?

Read more …

Majority of trade between Russia and China is in euros these days.

• Moscow Has Plan To Ditch US Dollar & Axe Dependency On West (Gavin)

The characteristically blunt Zakharova told RT over the weekend that new economic barriers were “having a complex negative impact on both Russian and Western economies.” According to her, the price of playing out hostilities through the financial markets is high, and “estimates of the damage vary, but are well within the hundreds of billions of dollars.” “Unfortunately,” the diplomatic spokeswoman said, “the reality of our time has been the increased use of politically motivated unilateral measures by some Western states, mainly the US. We see the sanctions against Russia more and more as a ‘gesture of desperation’ due to the inability of elites to accept the new realities, abandon their collective groupthink, and recognize Russia’s right to determine its own development path and build relations with its partners.”

One reason behind this, she claimed, is that Washington and its allies “seem to find it difficult to accept the obvious successes of the Russian economy, the increase in its international competitiveness and the expansion of the presence of quality Russian goods and services on world markets.” While the ruble has been hit hard by falling oil prices, geopolitical uncertainty, and the global recession that has accompanied the Covid-19 pandemic, the country appears more resilient than most of its contemporaries. While a number of other European nations are still languishing in lockdowns, most Russian businesses have been trading consistently with few restrictions since an initial strict quarantine period in the first half of last year.

The governor of Russia’s Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, has previously said that “the economy is bouncing back rather steadily” and, “given the current positive trends,” its analysts have maintained their outlook on GDP growth for 2021 at 3 to 4%. Her bullishness comes at a time when the path back to growth appears uncertain for many countries.

Read more …

 

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Debt Rattle December 29 2017

Dec 292017
 
 December 29, 2017  Posted by at 10:16 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Snowy landscape with Arles in the background 1888

 

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• Natural Time Cycles: A Dow Forecast For 2018-2020 (Freeze)
• Trump Says Russia Inquiry Makes US ‘Look Very Bad’ (NYT)
• Russiagate Is Devolving Into an Effort to Stigmatize Dissent (Carden)
• US Fiscal Path Will Rattle the Rafters of the Casino – Stockman (SG)
• China May Be A Bigger Worry For 2018 (CNBC)
• China’s Leaders Fret Over Debts Lurking In Shadow Banking System (R.)
• China Temporarily Waives Taxes To Get Foreign Firms To Stay (AFP)
• How Far the Scams & Stupidities around “Blockchain Stocks” are Going (WS)
• IRS Guidance on Property Taxes Has the US Confused (BBG)
• Turns out, Uber Shareholders Are Eager to Sell at 30% Discount (WS)
• UK Holds Back Historic Files on EU as It Prepares for Brexit (BBG)
• Greek Migration Ministry Responds To Criticism Over Island Camps (K.)

 

 

Gann is all the vogue these days. Why has it taken so long? Lots of graphs here.

• Natural Time Cycles: A Dow Forecast For 2018-2020 (Freeze)

The analysis and forecasts presented in this article are based on the analytical framework of W.D. Gann. Gann is an investing legend, labeled as genius by many financial historians. He reportedly accumulated $50 million in profits during his trading career. His superior track record and those of others using his methods argues that, regardless of our opinion of his methodology, we should heed the advice of his work. A more detailed explanation of his analytical framework is included in the last section of this article.

Forecast: 2018-2020

The Dow Jones Industrial Average forecast, in the graph above, is based upon the natural 20-year cycle that Gann identified. The lines in the graph show the projected monthly cumulative percentage returns from the peak level. The yellow line is the average scenario and the aqua line is the pessimistic scenario. The graph provides monthly estimates for 2018. The last data point represents June 2020, which covers the entire 30-month period from December 2017. My average scenario forecasts a -15.29% price return for 2018. The cumulative price return is forecast to bottom in June 2020 at -20.39%, at which time an extended rally should ensue. My pessimistic scenario forecasts a -32.90% price return for 2018. The cumulative price return is forecast to be little-changed in June 2020 at -31.23%, at which time an extended rally in should ensue.

Read more …

The New York Times feels obliged to cede the stage to the one person they’ve sought to discredit for the past 2 years. Must be humiliating.

• Trump Says Russia Inquiry Makes US ‘Look Very Bad’ (NYT)

President Trump said Thursday that he believes Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, will treat him fairly, contradicting some members of his party who have waged a weekslong campaign to try to discredit Mr. Mueller and the continuing inquiry. During an impromptu 30-minute interview with The New York Times at his golf club in West Palm Beach, the president did not demand an end to the Russia investigations swirling around his administration, but insisted 16 times that there has been “no collusion” discovered by the inquiry. “It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position,” Mr. Trump said of the investigation. “So the sooner it’s worked out, the better it is for the country.”

Asked whether he would order the Justice Department to reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, Mr. Trump appeared to remain focused on the Russia investigation. “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” he said, echoing claims by his supporters that as president he has the power to open or end an investigation. “But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter.” Hours after he accused the Chinese of secretly shipping oil to North Korea, Mr. Trump explicitly said for the first time that he has “been soft” on China on trade in the hopes that its leaders will pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. He hinted that his patience may soon end, however, signaling his frustration with the reported oil shipments.

[..] Mr. Mueller’s investigation appears to be moving ahead despite predictions by Mr. Trump’s lawyers this year that it would be over by Thanksgiving. Mr. Trump said that he was not bothered by the fact that he does not know when it will be completed because he has nothing to hide. Mr. Trump repeated his assertion that Democrats invented the Russia allegations “as a hoax, as a ruse, as an excuse for losing an election.” He said that “everybody knows” his associates did not collude with the Russians, even as he insisted that the “real stories” are about Democrats who worked with Russians during the 2016 campaign. “There’s been no collusion. But I think he’s going to be fair,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Mueller.

[..] Mr. Trump said he believes members of the news media will eventually cover him more favorably because they are profiting from the interest in his presidency and thus will want him re-elected. “Another reason that I’m going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes,” Mr. Trump said, then invoked one of his preferred insults. “Without me, The New York Times will indeed be not the failing New York Times, but the failed New York Times.” He added: “So they basically have to let me win. And eventually, probably six months before the election, they’ll be loving me because they’re saying, ‘Please, please, don’t lose Donald Trump.’ O.K.”

Read more …

Russiagate has turned into a huge embarrassment.

• Russiagate Is Devolving Into an Effort to Stigmatize Dissent (Carden)

Of all the various twists and turns of the year-and-a-half-long national drama known as #Russiagate, the effort to marginalize and stigmatize dissent from the consensus Russia-Trump narrative, particularly by former intelligence and national-security officials and operatives, is among the more alarming. An invasion-of-privacy lawsuit, filed in July 2017 by a former DNC official and two Democratic donors, alleges that they suffered “significant distress and anxiety and will require lifelong vigilance and expense” because their personal information was exposed as a result of the e-mail hack of the DNC, which, the suit claims, was part of a conspiracy between Roger Stone and the Trump campaign.

According to a report in The New York Times published at the time of the suit’s filing, “Mr. Trump and his political advisers, including Mr. Stone, have repeatedly denied colluding with Russia, and the 44-page complaint, filed on Wednesday in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, does not contain any hard evidence that his campaign did.” (Emphasis added.) In a new development, in early December, 14 former high-ranking US intelligence and national-security officials, including former deputy secretary of state William Burns; former CIA director John Brennan; former director of national intelligence James Clapper; and former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul (a longtime proponent of democracy promotion, which presumably includes free speech), filed an amicus brief as part of the lawsuit.

The amicus brief purports to explain to the court how Russia deploys “active measures” that seek “to undermine confidence in democratic leaders and institutions; sow discord between the United States and its allies; discredit candidates for office perceived as hostile to the Kremlin; influence public opinion against U.S. military, economic and political programs; and create distrust or confusion over sources of information.” The former officials portray the amicus brief as an offering of neutral (“Amici submit this brief on behalf of neither party”) expertise (“to offer the Court their broad perspective, informed by careers spent working inside the U.S. government”).

The brief claims that Putin’s Russia has not only “actively spread disinformation online in order to exploit racial, cultural and political divisions across the country” but also “conducted cyber espionage operations…to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and, in the general election, influence the results against Secretary Hillary Clinton.”

Read more …

“The Fed will sell more bonds in the next 3-4 years than had been accumulated by all of the central banks of the world in all of recorded history as of 1995!”

• US Fiscal Path Will Rattle the Rafters of the Casino – Stockman (SG)

[..] the US government is spending money like a drunken sailor. But nobody really seems to care. Since Nov. 8, the US national debt has risen $1 trillion. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 (a small-cap stock market index) has risen by 30%. Former Reagan budget director David Stockman said this makes no sense in a rational world, and he thinks the FY 2019 is going to sink the casino. In a rational world operating with honest financial markets those two results would not be found in even remotely the same zip code; and especially not in month #102 of a tired economic expansion and at the inception of an epochal pivot by the Fed to QT (quantitative tightening) on a scale never before imagined.” Stockman is referring to economic tightening recently launched by the Federal Reserve. It’s not only the increasing interest rates.

By next April the Fed will be shrinking its balance sheet at an annual rate of $360 billion and by $600 billion per year as of next October. By the end of 2020, the Fed will have dumped $2 trillion of bonds from its books. Stockman puts this into perspective. So the net of it is this: The Fed will sell more bonds in the next 3-4 years than had been accumulated by all of the central banks of the world in all of recorded history as of 1995!” Now pause for just a moment and think about this. The GOP just passed a tax plan that will add another $1.5 trillion to the deficit. And word is Trump’s next big push will be to pass an infrastructure bill – even more spending and debt. Meanwhile, during a time of rising debt, the Fed will be flooding the market with bonds. And what do governments have to do to finance debt? That’s right. They sell bonds.

There is literally a fiscal red ink eruption heading straight at the Fed’s balance sheet shrinkage campaign that will rattle the rafters in the casino … Uncle Sam’s borrowing requirements are likely to hit $1.25 trillion or more than 6% of GDP in FY 2019 owing to the fact that the tax bill is so heavily front-loaded and the GOP’s wild spending spree for defense, disasters and much else.”

Read more …

It’s starting to feel like Xi is seriously stuck. Let zombies default, and accept the lost jobs and mom and pop investments, or keep propping them up.

• China May Be A Bigger Worry For 2018 (CNBC)

For a market dependent on synchronized global growth, investors may be betting too much that China will not rock the boat next year. Part of the S&P 500’s rally to record highs this year comes on the back of better economic growth around the world. A major contributor to that growth was stability in China as leaders prepared for a key 19th Communist Party Congress this fall. Now that the congress is over and Beijing looks set to take action on its growing debt problems, worries about a sharper-than-expected slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy could hurt U.S. stocks. “With the 19th Party Congress now behind us, the risk is that the peak growth in China is also behind us,” David Woo, head of global rates, FX and EM FI strategy & econ research at Bank of America, said in an outlook report.

“Curiously, the market has been ignoring the string of negative Chinese data surprises in recent weeks. It is possible that the market views them as temporary.” “We are concerned that China could be vulnerable to US tax reform getting done,” Woo said, noting that a resulting increase in U.S. rates and the U.S. dollar would likely cause capital flight from China to accelerate and weaken the Chinese yuan. If that happens, China’s central bank would be likely “to tighten liquidity, which in turn would raise further concerns about the growth outlook,” he said. Fears of negative spillover from a rapid slowdown in China’s economy hit global markets in August 2015 after a surprise yuan devaluation. Further weakness in the currency in the first few weeks of 2016 contributed to the worst start to a year on record for both the Dow and S&P 500.

Since then, Chinese authorities have proven they are still able to control their economy. But stability has come at the cost of ever-increasing debt levels. The IMF warned in October that China’s banking sector assets have risen steadily to 310% of GDP from 240% of GDP at the end of 2012. S&P Global Ratings downgraded China’s long-term sovereign credit rating in September, following a similar downgrade by Moody’s in May. “If clusters of credit defaults start to form, concerns about contagion into the wider economy could take hold if fears of default in wealth management products arise,” UBS Wealth Management’s chief investment office said in its 2018 outlook. “Should this happen, the Chinese government, in our view, would likely have sufficient resources to prevent widespread contagion.”

Read more …

Xi made the conscious choice to rise on the shadow’s coat tails. Now he has to keep riding or else.

• China’s Leaders Fret Over Debts Lurking In Shadow Banking System (R.)

Before the 2008 financial crisis, there was very little shadow banking in China. In the aftermath of that shock, Chinese authorities launched a massive effort to stimulate the economy, mostly through a huge increase in lending. This led to a boom in property and infrastructure spending that continues today. Demand for credit increased sharply, especially from local and municipal government-owned companies. To meet this demand, banks began selling wealth management products offering higher interest rates than normal deposits. Many investors believed these products were implicitly guaranteed by the issuer, even if it was not expressly stated in the contract. Banks also borrowed cash from other banks and companies. For banks, these funds can then be lent to borrowers prepared to pay higher rates.

But the banks want to sidestep rules designed to restrict lending to overheated sectors including property, mining and other resources. So, people in the shadow banking industry say, these loans are often disguised by directing them through a complex chain of intermediaries, including trusts, securities companies, other banks and asset managers. To earn interest on these loans, a bank will buy a financial product from one of the intermediaries, which directs earnings back to the bank. That allows the bank to describe what is really a loan as an investment on its books. This type of lending can be more profitable because banks can set aside much less capital than they are required to hold for regular loans as a safeguard against defaults. By the end of 2015, shadow lending was growing faster than traditional bank lending, and was equivalent to 57% of total bank loans, according to a 2016 report from investment bank CLSA.

This dramatically accelerated the speed at which overall debt expanded in China’s financial system. Moody’s said in a November report that China’s shadow banking assets grew more than 20% in 2016 to 64 trillion yuan ($9.8 trillion), equivalent to 86.5% of GDP. [..] At the center of shadow banking are the 12 nationally licensed joint stock banks and many of the more than 100 city commercial lenders which hold about a third of China’s commercial banking assets. From 2010, these mid-tier banks and regional lenders set about competing with the country’s so-called Big Five lenders, the state-controlled behemoths that dominate the economy. The key to the upstarts’ growth is selling wealth management products and borrowing from other banks, allowing them to create loans wrapped in financial instruments to give the appearance of investments.

Read more …

Translation: foreign reserves are fleeing. Blame the Trump tax plan.

• China Temporarily Waives Taxes To Get Foreign Firms To Stay (AFP)

China will temporarily waive income taxes for foreign companies on profits they reinvest in the country as Beijing battles to retain foreign firms and investment. The finance ministry announced Thursday the new tax policy, which will apply retroactively from January so businesses will be able to take advantage of the exemption for this year’s taxes. The new incentives for foreign business to keep their earnings in China follow the passing last week of a corporate tax overhaul in the United States. The US reform will lower the tax rate for most corporations to 21%. Businesses in China pay 25%. The temporary exemption “will create a better investment environment for foreign investors and encourage foreign investors to sustain their investments in China,” a spokesman for the ministry of commerce said.

The policy announcement also comes as China has struggled with capital flight and tightened capital controls this year to stem the outflow of money. But foreign companies have long complained of the onerous bureaucracy they must navigate, barriers to market access, and policies that favour local firms. The new tax incentives aim to make China more attractive but come with a slew of restrictions. To be eligible, the profits must be invested in industries and activities where the Chinese government encourages foreign investment: manufacturing, services, research and development. Locations in the west of the country are also prioritised for development. Companies have three years to apply for the exemptions after paying tax.

Read more …

“This can happen only during the very late stage of a bubble.”

• How Far the Scams & Stupidities around “Blockchain Stocks” are Going (WS)

It just doesn’t let up. UBI Blockchain Internet, a Hong Kong outfit whose shares trade in the US [UBIA], filed with the SEC to sell an additional 72.3 million shares owned by its executives. In other words, it isn’t selling the shares to raise money for corporate purposes, but to allow its executives, including CEO Tony Liu, to bail out. This is happening after the company – which sports zero revenues and a disconnected phone number in its SEC filings – managed to get its shares to spike briefly by over 1,100%, pushing its market capitalization to $8 billion. UBI Blockchain didn’t do an IPO. Instead, in October 2016, it acquired a publicly traded shell company registered in Las Vegas, called “JA Energy.” It then changed the name and ticker symbol to what they’re now.

Over the six trading days starting on December 11, 2017, its shares soared over 1,100%, from $7.20 to $87 on December 18, as the word “blockchain” in its name and sufficient hype and speculator-idiocy took hold. By December 21, shares had plunged 67% to $29. They closed on Wednesday at $38.50. At this price, it still has a ludicrous market cap of $3.64 billion. In its prospectus for the share sale, filed with the SEC on December 26, UBI explains the overcooked spaghetti of its dreamed-up activities: UBI Blockchain Internet Ltd. business encompasses the research and application of blockchain technology with a focus on the Internet of things covering areas of food, drugs and healthcare. Management plans to focus its business in the integrated wellness industry, by providing procedures for safety and effectiveness in food and drugs, but also preventing counterfeit or fake food and drugs.

With the advancement of the blockchain technology, the Company plans to trace a food or drug product from its original source within the context of the Internet of Things to the final consumer. It explains that “management is uncertain that the Company can generate sufficient revenues in the next 12-months to sustain our operations. We shall need to seek additional funding to continue our operations and implement our plan of operations.” It added that “due to the uncertainty of our ability to meet our financial obligations and to pay our liabilities as they become due,” the auditors in the financial statement for the year ended August 31, 2017, questioned “our ability to continue as a going concern.” For the year, UBI had an operating loss of $1.83 million on zero revenues. It had $15,406 in cash, and: “In order to keep the company operational and fully reporting, management anticipates a burn rate of approximately $220,000 per month, pre and post-offering.”

Read more …

Overtime for accountants.

• IRS Guidance on Property Taxes Has the US Confused (BBG)

New guidance from the Internal Revenue Service that limits taxpayers’ ability to deduct prepaid property levies on their 2017 tax returns is causing confusion nationwide as people rush to pay in advance without knowing whether they’re wasting their time and money. The IRS said Wednesday that taxpayers can deduct prepaid state and local property taxes for 2018 on 2017 returns only if the taxes were assessed before 2018. The brief guidance – which doesn’t define the term “assessed” – had local tax officials scratching their heads. Some see the issue as an early signal of far wider confusion that’s coming soon – the predictable result of passing a bill that rewrites the tax code just two weeks before many of the changes take hold.

“This is the tip of the iceberg as state and local governments try to figure this out – and by the way, they’re trying to figure it out with one week before the changes take effect,” said Richard Auxier, a researcher with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a Washington public policy group. “And that week happens to be the week between Christmas and New Year’s.” The IRS guidance comes after many state and local officials – including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – have taken pains to clear the way for their residents to accelerate property-tax payments. The nationwide flurry came ahead of the new tax law that will cap property tax deductions – along with those for state and local income taxes or sales taxes – at an overall total of $10,000.

Read more …

Uber just lost a third of its valuation.

• Turns out, Uber Shareholders Are Eager to Sell at 30% Discount (WS)

Softbank, an acquisitive junk-rated Japanese holding company that also owns about 80% of Sprint, has been preparing for months to buy a large stake in Uber. At the end of November, it launched a tender offer to buy enough shares from investors and employees to give it a 14% stake. It dangled out a price of $33 a share, which valued Uber at $48 billion – a 30% discount from Uber’s “valuation” of $69 billion, which had been established behind closed doors during the last fund-raising round. The offer at a $48-billion valuation is even lower than Uber’s valuation back in June 2015 of $51 billion. When the tender offer was started, there was uncertainty if enough sellers would be willing to dump their shares at this discount. The other option for them would be to hold out until the IPO, in the hopes for a better deal. The tender offer expired today at noon Pacific Time.

Turns out, there are plenty of eager sellers – despite any dreams of a blistering IPO: The tendered shares amount to about 20% of the company’s equity, “people familiar with the matter” told the Wall Street Journal. But SoftBank will likely acquire only a 15% stake, “the people said.” Other members of the consortium SoftBank is leading – including Dragoneer Investment Group and Tencent Holdings – are likely to buy some but not all of the remaining tendered shares. This deal will not raise money for Uber itself but will allow employees and early investors to cash out some of their holdings – at a steep discount. But to maintain the illusion of the previous “valuation” of $69 billion – which is critical for a properly hyped future IPO – SoftBank will also make a $1-billion direct investment into Uber at the $69-billion “valuation,” as part of the deal.

Since startup “valuations” are based on the price paid during fund-raising, this $1-billion deal forms Uber’s new “valuation,” the same as the prior one. So the “valuation” illusion remains intact. [..] SoftBank already owns major stakes in other rideshare startups, including Didi Chuxing, the largest rideshare company in China; Grab, a major rideshare company in Southeast Asia; Ola, the largest rideshare company in India, slightly ahead of Uber; and 99, the largest rideshare company in Brazil. So SoftBank is serious about getting into this business on a global scale. But all rideshare companies are competing with each other, with taxis, rental cars, mass transit, and other modes of transportation on service and low fares, and they’re competing with each other to rope in drivers by offering them incentives.

The plan is to dominate the markets. And all of them are losing money hand over fist. The chart below shows what quarterly “adjusted” losses look like for Uber. Actual losses under GAAP would be much larger since the costs of employee stock compensation, interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization have been stripped out of the figures that Uber shows the media:

Read more …

It’s hard to keep track of all the Monty Python moves at Downing Street 10.

• UK Holds Back Historic Files on EU as It Prepares for Brexit (BBG)

As Prime Minister Theresa May prepares for the next round of Brexit negotiations, her government has held back publication of secret files relating to the creation of the European Union. The documents from 1992 were due to be released Friday at the National Archives under British rules that allow government papers to enter the public domain. Out of 495 files from the prime minister’s office that year, a total of 114 were held back. Of those, 12 related to European policy. The main opposition party was quick to pounce. Jon Trickett, a high-ranking Labour politician described it as “profoundly shocking, particularly given the current state of the national debate.”

May’s government has had a series of problems with information around Brexit. Last week, after months of ministers trying to keep them secret, the government published an assessments of how different segments of the economy will cope with leaving the EU. Lawmakers commented that the documents contained little that couldn’t be found on Wikipedia. The Cabinet Office, which supports May in running the government, said in an email that “there is no question that any files are deliberately ‘withheld’ from the media.” A further 26 files covering the EU were sent to the archives too late for journalists to read them before publication.

It explained that “we have to ensure all files are properly reviewed and prepared before they are transferred, so that they do not harm national security or our relations with other countries or disclose the sensitive personal data of living individuals.” The files that were released reveal the extent to which Britain’s 1992 expulsion from the Exchange Rate Mechanism turned Conservatives against Europe. That year, Sept. 16 was christened “Black Wednesday” after the government’s failed attempt to keep the pound within the system by pushing interest rates up to 15%.

Read more …

Everybody accuses everybody else, because assigning the blame is more important than helping the refugees.

• Greek Migration Ministry Responds To Criticism Over Island Camps (K.)

The Migration Ministry has blamed local authorities for the grim conditions inside island migrant camps in the wake of criticism from a senior European Union official. In an interview with news website New Europe on Sunday, the EU’s special envoy on migration, Maarten Verwey, said the European Commission had made funding available to ensure appropriate accommodation for all. “However, the Commission cannot order the creation or expansion of reception capacity against the opposition of the competent authorities,” he added. Speaking to Kathimerini on Thursday, sources inside the ministry did not deny the existence of EU funds, adding however that Verwey had omitted any mention of the difficulties “although he has personal experience.”

Authorities on Lesvos and Chios have opposed government plans to expand screening centers for refugees. Meanwhile, only a small amount of the available funds have been absorbed. Of the 540 million euros earmarked until 2020, Greece has received just 97 million euros, according to the Economy Ministry. The same sources referred to recent remarks by Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas, who accused EU governments of “hypocrisy” for failing to shoulder their fair share of the refugee burden.

Read more …

Debt Rattle July 16 2015

Jul 162015
 
 July 16, 2015  Posted by at 4:27 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


John Collier Grandfather Romero, 99 years old. Trampas, New Mexico 1943

• China’s Debt-to-GDP Ratio Just Climbed to a Record High (Bloomberg)
• China Stock Suspensions Opens Can Of Derivatives Worms (Reuters)
• Greek Lawmakers Pass Austerity Bill Despite Strong SYRIZA Dissent (Kathimerini)
• EMU Brutality In Greece Has Destroyed The Trust Of Europe’s Left (AEP)
• Lexit: The Left Must Now Campaign To Leave The EU (Guardian)
• There’s No End In Sight To The Greco-European Drama (Guardian)
• Shock Announcement From IMF Reveals Greece Was Duped by Europe (EI)
• The EU Shot Its Greek Hostage, Now Spain Is Nervous (Fiscal Times)
• Greece’s Lessons for an Indebted World (WSJ)
• 13 Short Lessons From The Greek Crisis (J.W. Mason)
• The Euro-Summit ‘Agreement’ on Greece – Annotated (Yanis Varoufakis)
• I Love Germany. And Greece. And Especially Finland. (Waldman)
• IMF Chief: Greek Bailout Talks a ‘Colossal’ Challenge Going Forward (WSJ)
• Greek Pudding (Jim Kunstler)
• What’s Wrong with Our Monetary System and How to Fix It (Kuzminski)
• Kiwi Dollar Falls As Dairy Prices Plunge At Latest Auction (NZ Herald)

Private debt: 207%.

• China’s Debt-to-GDP Ratio Just Climbed to a Record High (Bloomberg)

While China’s economic expansion beat analysts’ forecasts in the second quarter, the country’s debt levels increased at an even faster pace. Outstanding loans for companies and households stood at a record 207% of GDP at the end of June, up from 125% in 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show. China’s stimulus, including interest rate and reserve-ratio cuts to shore up growth, threatens to delay the country’s efforts to reduce its debt, posing risks to the financial stability of the world’s second-largest economy. Nonperforming loans had already climbed by a record 140 billion yuan ($23 billion) in the first quarter as the expansion in gross domestic product slowed.

“It’s quite an alarming issue,” says Bo Zhuang, a China economist at London research firm Trusted Sources. “The government is trying very hard to slow down the pace of the leveraging up, but they are not deleveraging. The debt-to-GDP ratio will continue to go up.”
China’s economy expanded 7% in the three months through June from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday, unchanged from the first quarter and beating economists’ estimates of 6.8%. Corporate and household borrowing rose 12% in June from a year earlier. China went on an unprecedented borrowing binge following the 2008 global financial crisis and has been struggling to clean it up ever since. Rising debt will keep slowing the country’s growth, according to Ruchir Sharma at Morgan Stanley

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Do we even want to know?

• China Stock Suspensions Opens Can Of Derivatives Worms (Reuters)

The suspension of hundreds of mainland China stocks during a market plunge from mid-June could lead to disputes between banks and their clients over the valuation of billions of dollars of equity derivatives. Banks dealing in derivatives are concerned that valuation terms covering market disruptions in other Asian markets, such as trading halts when stocks move up or down by the exchange’s daily range limits, might not apply to the wave of stock suspensions in China. As China’s stocks tumbled by 30 percent in less than a month, around 1,500 listed companies, more than half the market, suspended their own stocks in a bid to sit out the rout.

“It’s not yet clear if the existing disruption event language for other Asian jurisdictions can be applied to China or how the existing disruption definitions for limit-up, limit-down would apply to suspended stocks,” said Keith Noyes, regional director, Asia Pacific, at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), which represents the world’s largest derivatives dealers. Noyes and an in-house lawyer at a major Asian dealer said banks were reviewing the issue. “There could be wrangling over issues such as whether the Shanghai composite index closing price, which would generally be the easiest to use to value contracts, is a good price or a disrupted price, given that so many stocks are now suspended,” said Noyes.

Dealers have written at least $150 billion of outstanding over-the-counter (OTC) equity derivatives on mainland-listed shares, according to estimates by Shanghai-based investment consultancy Z-Ben Advisors. When drawing-up such instruments, most dealers draw on ISDA standard definitions as a basis for valuing equity derivative positions when the underlying stock market is disrupted. The language was drawn up in 2008 following disruptions in the South Korean and Taiwan markets, when China’s markets were all but closed to outside investors, and applies to a number of Asian markets, including Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong, but not mainland China. Noyes said the dealer community may need to reach an agreement on whether it could be extended to China to help more easily resolve disputes.

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Major shuffle coming?!

• Greek Lawmakers Pass Austerity Bill Despite Strong SYRIZA Dissent (Kathimerini)

Greek Parliament passed the prior actions demanded by lenders to pave the way for bridge financing and a third bailout in a vote during the early hours of Thursday morning. A total of 229 MPs voted for the measures, 64 voted against, six voted present and one was absent. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras saw 32 of his MPs vote against the measures, while another six abstained. All of the deputies from coalition partner Independent Greeks backed the legislation. This means that the number of coalition lawmakers supporting the bill remained above the 120-mark, which is the level below which the government is considered not to have a mandate to continue.

Before the vote, Tsipras said the agreement with lenders was the only viable option open to him and challenged rebels within his party to propose a better one. In his speech before Parliament, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos sought to defend Greece’s agreement with creditors as a necessary evil. “It’s a difficult agreement, a deal which only time will show if it is economically viable,” he said. “I don’t know if we did the right thing, but I know we felt we had no choice,” he said. “We never said this was a good agreement,” he added, noting that “a lot will depend on how politicians will handle the many changes included in the agreement.”

Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis, for his part, declared that “these are moments for responsibility,” noting that everyone “must state clearly where they stand on Greece’s dilemma. The government received a half-finished second bailout which was frozen and was confronted by non-viable system,” he said. SYRIZA’s parliamentary spokesman Nikos Filis accused eurozone officials of executing a “coup” at a summit in Brussels on Monday when the agreement was reached. Their aim, he said, was “to topple the Greek government, to give the message that a leftist administration cannot survive in Europe.”

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“The lesson that they will draw from this debacle is: negotiating with Germany is a waste of time; be willing to act unilaterally, be willing to default unilaterally, have a plan for achieving a primary surplus if you haven’t already achieved it, have a hard default and euro exit option in your back pocket, and be willing to use it at the first sign of hassle from the ECB,”

• EMU Brutality In Greece Has Destroyed The Trust Of Europe’s Left (AEP)

The EU establishment henceforth faces what it has always feared: a political war on two fronts at once. It is long been fighting an expanding coaltion of free marketeers, parliamentary “souverainistes”, anti-immigrant populists on the Right. Its has now lost its remaining emotional hold on the Left after the scorched-earth treatment of Greece over the past five months – culminating in the vindictive decision to impose yet harsher terms on this crushed nation just days after its cri de coeur in a landslide referendum.
This has been coming for a long time. We Conservatives have watched in disbelief as one Socialist party after another immolates itself on the altar of monetary union, defending a project that favours the elites – a “bankers’ ramp”, as the old Left used to call it.

We have watched our friends on the Left apologise for 1930s policies. We have seen them defend a regime of pro-cyclical fiscal cuts imposed on the whole eurozone by a handful of “Ordoliberal” reactionaries in the German finance minstry. To the extent that these gentlemen know what they are doing – and most Nobel economists would dispute that – they have certainly not risen to the challenge of pan-EMU leadership. As ex-official Philippe Legrain writes in Foreign Policy, Germany is proving to be a “calamitous hegemon”. By a twist of fate, the Left has let itself become the enforcer of an economic structure that has led to levels of unemployment once unthinkable for a post-war social democratic government with its own currency and sovereign instruments.

It has somehow found ways to justify a youth jobless rate still running at 42pc in Italy, 49pc in Spain and 50pc in Greece, despite mass emigration. It has acquiesced in the Long Slump of the past six years, deeper in aggregate than the span from 1929 to 1935. It meekly endorsed the EU Fiscal Compact, knowing that it imposes a legal requirement on eurozone states to slash their public debt by 1.5pc of GDP in France, 2pc in Spain and 3.5pc in Italy and Portugal, every year for the next two decades – a formula for near permanent depression. It outlaws Keynesian economics, and indeed classical economics. It is a doomsday construct. This is what they agreed to, and what they have reluctantly defended, because until now they dared not question the sanctity of EMU.

And so the once mighty Dutch Labour Party has been reduced to a pitiful relic. Pasok has been obliterated in Greece. The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party has lost its left-wing to the rebel Podemos movement, freshly victorious in Barcelona. France’s Socialist leader, Francois Hollande, has been languishing at 24pc in the polls as the French working class defects to the Front National. Yet events in Greece have finally broken the spell. “Progressives should be appalled by EU’s ruination of Greece. It’s time to reclaim the Eurosceptic cause,” writes Owen Jones in a remarkable piece in The Guardian. The new term “Lexit” is gaining currency. The voices of Left are uneasy. Their instincts are to oppose everything that UKIP stands for. “At first, only a few dipped their toes in the water; then others, hesitantly, followed their lead, all the time looking at each other for reassurance,” Mr Jones writes.

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Perhaps “Leftit” is a better term. And not just in Britain.

• Lexit: The Left Must Now Campaign To Leave The EU (Guardian)

At first, only a few dipped their toes in the water; then others, hesitantly, followed their lead, all the time looking at each other for reassurance. As austerity-ravaged Greece was placed under what Yanis Varoufakis terms a “postmodern occupation”, its sovereignty overturned and compelled to implement more of the policies that have achieved nothing but economic ruin, Britain’s left is turning against the European Union, and fast. “Everything good about the EU is in retreat; everything bad is on the rampage,” writes George Monbiot, explaining his about-turn. “All my life I’ve been pro-Europe,” says Caitlin Moran, “but seeing how Germany is treating Greece, I am finding it increasingly distasteful.” Nick Cohen believes the EU is being portrayed “with some truth, as a cruel, fanatical and stupid institution”.

“How can the left support what is being done?” asks Suzanne Moore. “The European ‘Union’. Not in my name.” There are senior Labour figures in Westminster and Holyrood privately moving to an “out” position too. The list goes on, and it is growing. The more leftwing opponents of the EU come out, the more momentum will gather pace and gain critical mass. For those of us on the left who have always been critical of the EU, it has felt like a lonely crusade. But left support for withdrawal – “Lexit”, if you like – is not new. If anything, this new wave of left Euroscepticism represents a reawakening. Much of the left campaigned against entering the European Economic Community when Margaret Thatcher and the like campaigned for membership.

It would threaten the ability of leftwing governments to implement policies, people like my parents thought, and would forbid the sort of industrial activism needed to protect domestic industries. But then Thatcherism happened, and an increasingly battered and demoralised left began to believe that the only hope of progressive legislation was via Brussels. The misery of the left was, in the 1980s, matched by the triumphalism of the free marketeers, who had transformed Britain beyond many of their wildest ambitions, and began to balk at the restraints put on their dreams by the European project.

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“The real disaster is if everything stays as it is..”

• There’s No End In Sight To The Greco-European Drama (Guardian)

The last act of the classical Greek tragedy ends with two outcomes: disaster and catharsis. In the current Greek debt drama, however, there has been no catharsis. The purification has failed to materialise. It would have meant that both sides had seen the error of their ways and come to their senses. Instead, the madness continues: Greece will take on €86bn of debt in addition to the existing €317bn (not including the emergency loans from the ECB). From Angela Merkel through François Hollande to Alexis Tsipras, all eurozone government leaders assert that Greece will emerge from over-indebtedness more quickly this way and will be economically healed in three years. Europe pretends that the bailout will help. And Greece acts as if everything is fine now.

The Brussels summit was not a disaster, though. Greece does not fall into chaos and the euro remains stable. Maybe Walter Benjamin, who once said: “The real disaster is if everything stays as it is,” was right. When it comes to classical drama, it seems we have not reached the final act after all. The fourth act, the “retardation”, continues. The action is slowing down, with suspensory moments: the troika returns to Athens and monitors the situation, while the Greek authorities delay and tinker about again. Until the action moves into a phase of extreme tension towards the finale. When will that be? Merkel hopes it will be after the next parliamentary elections.

For the Greeks, there is more at stake in this drama than there is for the Germans. The Germans will lose a lot of money at the most. The Greeks, however, have long since come under the tutelage of the donors. What Tsipras signed on Monday is the permanent abandonment of Greek sovereignty. Athens will be told what budget surplus it must achieve and what taxes it should raise. Fiscal sovereignty is broken. The constitution will be interfered with to impose pension cuts. The administration and judiciary must be rebuilt according to the standards of the northerners. It is not about a bailout loan, but it is avowedly about nation building, as if Greece were a failed state. Even the IMF has condemned the deal as unworkable and said the levels of debt are unsustainable.

Greek culture is being encroached upon in every way. The Sunday opening of shops is being enforced, whether the still strongly religious population likes it or not. Consumption is more important than orthodox religion – that is the credo of the north. In international law the internal affairs of a nation are largely taboo; in the euro protectorate there are no taboos.

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And more than once.

• Shock Announcement From IMF Reveals Greece Was Duped by Europe (EI)

The IMF has fiercely criticised the bailout deal offered to Greece by the Eurozone, revealing that the Eurogroup of finance ministers had ignored its advice when negotiating with Greece over the weekend. In a communique released last night, the IMF said Greece’s public debt was now “highly unsustainable” before concluding: “Greece’s debt can now only be made sustainable through debt relief measures that go far beyond what Europe has been willing to consider so far.” It now appears that the deal, rather than seeking to help the Greek economy, was designed principally to teach Greece a lesson and remove Syriza from power. Today the Greek parliament votes on whether to accept the austerity deal that it was bullied into over the weekend during negotiations dominated by Germany.

Certainly, the IMF bombshell is likely to stiffen the resolve of the those Syriza MPs such as Papas Lapavitsas, an economics Professor from the School of African and Asian Studies (SOAS) in London, who have long argued that a Greek exit from the euro is the only realistic choice open to revive the Greek economy. He’s previously outlined these ideas in articles he has written for the Guardian and for ThePressProject. Regardless of the immediate outcome of the vote, the whole drama has weakened transparency and democracy in Europe. The euro project is now clearly seen as a failing project and its eventual break-up appears inevitable to many. The only questions remains when and how exactly it will occur.

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“I don’t take hostages I’m not willing to shoot..”

• The EU Shot Its Greek Hostage, Now Spain Is Nervous (Fiscal Times)

In a battle over banking regulation at the end of the Clinton administration, former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas remarked on the importance of being willing to inflict pain when negotiations don t go your way. “I don’t take hostages I’m not willing to shoot”, Gramm explained. The point Gramm was making is that once you demonstrate that you don’t make idle threats, future negotiations are easier. The treatment of Greece by its European creditors may have had a similar effect. In Spain, which is even more indebted than Greece, the leftist Podemos Party has been gaining influence, in part by making promises in line with those made by Greece’s Syriza Party. In May, Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, demanded that Spain’s debt be restructured and that debt payments be tied to economic growth.

“For Spain to be able to meet its international obligations, we have to link debt payments to economic growth and expansive job creation policies”, he said. A similar argument had been made by former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who so aggravated his European counterparts that he was eventually replaced. The reaction of Podemos to the punishing deal to enable another Greek bailout was telling. After battling to the bitter end, Syriza was forced to accept a humiliating offer from its creditors. In a deal primarily driven by Germany and other northern European countries, Greeks face pension cuts, huge tax increases, reduced services, and the forced sale of $50 billion worth of the country s physical assets.

In Madrid on Tuesday, it was as though the Eurogroup, fresh from dealing with Greece, had turned to Spain with smoking gun in hand and asked, “What were you saying”? The answer from Podemos top economic policy officer, Nacho Alvarez, was essentially, “Who, me? Nothing. Nothing at all.” Speaking to reporters, Alvarez said that debt restructuring wasn t really necessary after all. ‘Spain, he said, is not Greece’. Or so he must fervently hope. “Greece and Spain are different economies in very different situations which demand different economic strategies”, Alvarez said at a press conference. He added, “Podemos and Syriza have different economic approaches and said that he is confident the country’s current programs to stimulate economic growth will allow it to manage its debts.

Whether Podemos has detected a significant shift in the country s economic future over the last two months or has had a change of heart more related to the Eurogroup s treatment of Greece is up for debate. However, if part of the aim of Greece’s creditors was to punish Syriza pour encourager les autres, there seems to be little room for debate at all. It worked. In the near term, at least, it worked.

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Defaults come in clusters.

• Greece’s Lessons for an Indebted World (WSJ)

Sovereign defaults are like cockroaches: There’s seldom just one. Greece’s debts are so high, its recession so deep and its economy so uncompetitive, it’s easy to play down the lessons it offers to the rest of the world. But while Greece is exceptional, the entire world is suffering from an overhang of debt. Since 2007, public debt in advanced economies (including national, state and local governments) has risen by 35 percentage points of total economic output, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. In many countries it has risen by far more: 47 points in Italy, 50 in Britain, 63 in Japan, 83 in Portugal. A country can shed such steep debt several ways: via austerity, economic growth and low real (that is, inflation-adjusted) interest rates.

More common than appreciated, though, is the more radical step of restructuring debt by reducing interest, lengthening the maturity or slashing the amount owed. “Will Greece be the last sovereign debt restructuring of this cycle? No,” says Susan Lund of McKinsey. “Look around the world and you can see other countries with very toxic combinations of high debt and low growth.” In their 2009 history of financial crises, Harvard University economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff observe that “country defaults tend to come in clusters.” In the 1930s, the Great Depression triggered defaults throughout Europe and Latin America. In the 1980s, plunging commodity prices triggered a wave of defaults by emerging economies that had borrowed heavily from Western banks.

Noteworthy defaults this time around have been rare: they include Greece, Cyprus and Argentina (the latter linked to its prior-decade restructuring). The quietude is unlikely to last. Ukraine is now seeking to restructure its debts to private investors, as is Puerto Rico (which, to be sure, is not a sovereign country). Opposition politicians in Ireland, Spain and Italy have in the past pressed to restructure some of those countries’ debts, which according to McKinsey stood last year at 115%, 132% and 139% of gross domestic product, respectively.

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“The euro system today is an instrument in the hands of European capital to roll back the gains of social democracy.”

• 13 Short Lessons From The Greek Crisis (J.W. Mason)

The deal, obviously it looks bad. No sense in spinning: It’s unconditional surrender. It is bad. There’s no shortage of writing about how we got here. I do think that we — in the US and elsewhere — should resist the urge to criticize the Syriza government, even for what may seem, to us, like obvious mistakes. The difficulty of taking a position in opposition to “Europe” should not be underestimated. It’s one of the ironies of history that the prestige of social democracy, earned through genuine victories by and for working people, is now one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of those who would destroy it. Personally I don’t think I can be a useful contributor to the debate about Syriza’s strategy. But we also need to understand the economic logic of the situation. So, 13 theses on the Greek crisis and the crisis next time. These points are meant as starting points for further discussion. I will try to write about each of them in more detail, as I have time.

1. The euro system today is an instrument in the hands of European capital to roll back the gains of social democracy. On twitter, Marshall Steinbaum says, “That is why everyone supports the euro: as a route around their domestic political difficulties, ie, voting.” I think that’s right, I think the overriding goal of the system today is to create a set of apparently objective constraints that allow elected governments to take unpopular measures while saying “we had no choice, the markets require it.” I’ve written about this here and here.

2. A great myth of the euro is that it’s been good for Germans. It’s a puzzle, the kind of story that calls for dialectics, that Germany has both Europe’s strongest working class and most advanced social democracy, and its most rigidly conservative elite. For a while those forces were roughly balanced, but over the past generation German workers have done the worst, absolutely and relatively, of any country in Europe. The north-south divide in Europe perhaps analogizes to the racial divide in the US, so perhaps the same slogans apply: Black and white, unite and fight!

3. The euro is not a new gold standard. This is a tricky one — I feel a clear vision here requires one to first see how the euro is a new gold standard, and only then seeing how it isn’t one after all. Despite the dreams of its supporters (and fears of its opponents) the euro system does not provide an automatic constraint on the choices of elected governments. In the abstract, it looks more like Keynes’ proposals at Bretton Woods. Its actual functioning as the enforcement mechanism of neoliberalism, requires the active intervention of the authorities.

4. The ECB is a political actor. You may think that the ECB has violated the norms of independent central banks, or you may think it has revealed their true content. But either way it is actively intervening in the political process to reshape society in fundamental ways, not just following a set of objective rules to fulfill a narrow technical function. It was already evident several years ago that the ECB was selectively withholding support from financial markets to put pressure on elected officials, and now it is undeniable.

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Brutally honest. Yanis voted NO last night. Can he stay on as MP?

• The Euro-Summit ‘Agreement’ on Greece – Annotated (Yanis Varoufakis)

The Euro Summit statement (or Terms of Greece’s Surrender – as it will go down in history) follows, annotated by yours truly. The original text is untouched with my notes confined to square brackets (and in red). Read and weep…

Euro Summit Statement Brussels, 12 July 2015

The Euro Summit stresses the crucial need to rebuild trust with the Greek authorities [i.e. the Greek government must introduce new stringent austerity directed at the weakest Greeks that have already suffered grossly] as a pre- requisite for a possible future agreement on a new ESM programme [i.e. for a new extend-and-pretend loan].

In this context, the ownership by the Greek authorities is key [i.e. the Syriza government must sign a declaration of having defected to the troika’s ‘logic’], and successful implementation should follow policy commitments.

A euro area Member State requesting financial assistance from the ESM is expected to address, wherever possible, a similar request to the IMF This is a precondition for the Eurogroup to agree on a new ESM programme. Therefore Greece will request continued IMF support (monitoring and financing) from March 2016 [i.e. Berlin continues to believe that the Commission cannot be trusted to ‘police’ Europe’s own ‘bailout’ programs].

Given the need to rebuild trust with Greece, the Euro Summit welcomes the commitments of the Greek authorities to legislate without delay a first set of measures [i.e. Greece must subject itself to fiscal waterboarding, even before any financing is offered].

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“Perhaps Hell is full of creditors who failed to fit through the eye of a needle..”

• I Love Germany. And Greece. And Especially Finland. (Waldman)

If you are sympathetic to Greece and therefore mad at Germany, you are a sucker. If you think the Greeks are lazier and more dishonest than is usual in the human species, you are also a sucker, and have let a political framing cajole you into bigotry. If you think Germans are unusually cruel, you have also let politics make a bigot of you. If you are taking sides in a conflict framed as nation versus nation, you have already taken the wrong side. You’ve made a basic error, like picking a day when a tricky prosecutor asks whether you committed the murder yesterday or last Thursday. (I presume your innocence.)

You can usually find evidence in support of lots of different narratives. Hypotheses of human affairs are not in general mutually exclusive. Many different stories can in some sense be true. Among those in-some-sense-true narratives, we should choose to emphasize those whose application will lead to better social outcomes over other potentially defensible narratives. That’s why I frequently argue that we should emphasize the role of creditors rather than debtors when lending arrangements go bad. I am not making a claim about God’s view of the subject. Perhaps Hell is a debtors’ prison, and there is truly no greater evil than failing to repay a loan. Perhaps Hell is full of creditors who failed to fit through the eye of a needle. These questions are, I think, beyond the sort of knowledge that should inform policy.

What is clear is that unserviceable debt arrangements, when they accumulate, are enormously costly in human and economic terms, and so we need norms and institutions to regulate credit extension. My view, which I think almost anyone with a passing familiarity with the human species would have to concede, is that people under financial stress make decisions with a view to a shorter-term time horizon and with less capacity to be fastidious than people who have already financed their own immediate term. That is why I argue that we should emphasize norms that hold creditors accountable more than norms that hold debtors accountable. Creditors as a class are capable of regulating the initiation of debt arrangements at lower cost and with greater effectiveness that debtors are.

If we want societies that yield good outcomes, then, we should impose a heavy regulatory burden on creditors, and we must choose moral narratives consistent with that. Perhaps the very worst moral narratives in all of human history are those that allocate blame on the basis of tribal, ethnic, or national groups. There is just never, ever, any sufficient reason to go there in my view. It is perfectly reasonable to hold leaders and governments accountable, as well as the institutional embodiments of interest groups. This is not because leaders individually are worse people than members of the public who may agree with their decisions. I carry no water for fairy tales about the inherent virtue of ordinary folk.

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Shouldn’t be so hard, you know what to do.

• IMF Chief: Greek Bailout Talks a ‘Colossal’ Challenge Going Forward (WSJ)

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said she still had hope the eurozone would provide Greece with a substantial restructuring of the country’s debt, but warned of difficult negotiations as officials seek to complete a bailout deal in the weeks ahead. Ms. Lagarde’s comments come a day after the fund warned in a report that Greece needed much more debt relief than European officials have so far considered—an apparent effort to pressure Germany into concrete commitments on debt restructuring. Normally, the fund reserves its most honest assessments for secret, high-level meetings.

But by taking the highly unusual step of making public its bleak appraisals of Greece’s economy, Ms. Lagarde and her lieutenants are drawing a red line for the eurozone: Agree to substantial debt relief or lose the fund’s support and risk a Greek exit from the eurozone. “What I very much hope is that we can all keep to a very tight timetable and we can respond to a challenge that is colossal,” Ms. Lagarde said in an interview on CNN on Wednesday. The debt-restructuring commitments will be key as Athens tries to sell a bailout program that Greece’s voters have already rejected in a recent referendum.

The IMF and its largest shareholder, the U.S., worry that without such a commitment the government won’t be able to persuade the public or parliament to support the major budget cuts and economic overhauls creditors say are vital for the country’s financial salvation. “Up until a few months ago, our partners didn’t discuss the issue of debt restructuring,” said Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos. Still, he said it was “too early to judge this deal.” “We will be able to see when talks wind up in 30 to 40 days when we have the final agreement. Then we can all judge it with seriousness for the good of the country,” Mr. Tsakalotos said.

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“The eventual implosion of the European Union, and the banking system hugging its face vampire squid style, will be the financial equivalent of the Black Death..”

• Greek Pudding (Jim Kunstler)

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, the old saw goes. This one, alas, is a mélange of several old shit sandwiches bound in a liaison of subterfuge and seasoned with political absurdities. Having been fooled in this bistro before, citizen-patrons leave the table resigned to yet another bout of food poisoning as the music of universal upchuck rings across the European Union from Helsinki to Lisbon What is on display more brightly and clearly than ever, though, is the utter fakery of international banking. The players have lost faith in their own shenanigans. They simply go through the motions now awaiting the political fallout, which is to say the revolt of the people who can still do arithmetic. So, now Greece can supposedly expect another $90Billion-equivalent in new loans on top of the $350Billion-equivalent already racked up.

That’s rich. The loan repayment schedule must look like a map of Middle Earth. Most perplexing — especially for those on summer hiatus in which time seems to be suspended — is the fact that the rescue package will take weeks, perhaps months, to gin up while Greece is right now so utterly paralyzed in bankruptcy that no goods can move, no bills can be paid, and the economy cannot deliver the necessities of daily life. The old refrain, “your check is in the mail” may not be so reassuring to folks who haven’t eaten for three days. Personally, I would expect the gasoline bombs to be flying around Syntagma Square before the middle of the week.

Has anyone noticed the eerie paucity of news emanating from the other hard-luck nations of the EU, namely Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland? The money hole that these deadbeats are in makes Greece look like a dimple in the sand. What, I wonder, is the message to them from the Greek negotiation melodrama? (Lend more money to real estate developers to build more houses and condos that will never be sold? That’ll work!) No, the entire EU debt fiasco harks back to the original meaning of “ring around the rosie” — a theme song of the Black Death. The eventual implosion of the European Union, and the banking system hugging its face vampire squid style, will be the financial equivalent of the Black Death. Kingdoms will fall and social systems will be turned upside down.

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“The idea of giving private banks a monopoly over money creation goes back to seventeenth century England.”

• What’s Wrong with Our Monetary System and How to Fix It (Kuzminski)

Something’s profoundly wrong with our global financial system. Pope Francis is only the latest to raise the alarm: “Human beings and nature must not be at the service of money. Let us say no to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth.” What the Pope calls “an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules” is widely evident. What is not so clear is how we got into this situation, and what to do about it. Most people take our monetary system for granted, and are shocked to learn that the government doesn’t issue our money. Almost all of it is created by loans made “out of thin air” as bookkeeping entries by private banks.

For this sleight-of-hand, they charge interest, making a tidy profit for doing essentially nothing. The currency printed by the government – coins and bills – is a negligible amount by comparison. The idea of giving private banks a monopoly over money creation goes back to seventeenth century England. The British government, in a Faustian bargain, agreed to allow a group of private bankers to assume the national debt as collateral for the issuance of loans, confident that the state would be able to service the debt on the backs of taxpayers. And so it has been ever since. Alexander Hamilton much admired this scheme, which he called “the English system,” and he and his successors were finally able to establish it in the United States, and subsequently most of the world.

But money is too important to be left to the bankers. There is no good reason to give any private group a lucrative monopoly over the creation of money; money creation should be the public service most people mistakenly believe it to be. Further, privatized money creation allows a few large banks and financial institutions not only to profit by simply making bookkeeping entries, but to direct overall investment in the economy to their corporate cronies, not the public at large. Ordinary people can get the financing they need only on burdensome if not ruinous terms, leaving them as debt peons weighed down by mortgages, student loans, auto loans, credit card balances, etc. The interest payments extracted from these loans feed the private investment machine of Wall Street finance, represented by the ultimate creditor class: the notorious “one percenters.”

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Not looking good down under.

• Kiwi Dollar Falls As Dairy Prices Plunge At Latest Auction (NZ Herald)

The latest GlobalDairyTrade auction was another shocker, the GDT price index dropping by 10.7% from the last sale a fortnight ago and with wholemilk powder prices registering their biggest fall in 12 months Whole milk powder – which is responsible for about 75% of Fonterra’s farmgate milk price – fell in price by 13.1% to US$1,848 a tonne to its lowest level in six years. Fonterra’s current milk price forecast of $5.25 per kg of milksolids for 2015/16 is based on GDT prices reaching about US$3500 a tonne towards the end of this season. Dairy NZ estimates $5.70 a kg to be the breakeven point for most farmers. AgriHQ dairy analyst Susan Kilsby said the auction result was “disastrous”.

“Farmers now face two consecutive seasons of extremely low milk prices,” she said in a commentary. “The majority of farmers can’t breakeven at such a low milk price.” Economists estimate a $1/kg drop in the milk price equates to about $2 billion less income for dairy farmers. “Farm debt levels will rise. Rural communities will suffer as farmers reduce spending to the bare essentials,” Kilsby said. AgriHQ’s theoretical 2015-16 farmgate milk price has decreased to $4.22 per kg milksolids – down 83c on a fortnight ago and $1.27 lower than a month ago. The dairy auction result was responsible for taking around 40 pips off the Kiwi dollar, and the NZ/Australian dollar cross rate dropped to below A89.50c.

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