Jul 102020
 


Berenice Abbott Vanderbilt Avenue from East 46th Street, NYC 1935

 

Biden Says His Economic Plan Would Create Five Million New US Jobs (R.)
Kayleigh McEnany Says Trump’s Tax Returns Are Still Under Audit (Axios)
California, Florida, Texas Report Highest Daily COVID19 Death Tolls (CBS)
Mississippi Hospitals Cannot Take Care of Mississippi Patients (MFP)
China Warns Of Unknown Pneumonia Deadlier Than COVID19 In Kazakhstan (SCMP)
IMF Urges ‘Equity-Like’ Government Support For Virus-Hit Firms (R.)
Lack Of COVID Insurance Threatens Hollywood Production (R.)
Harvard Professor Under Fire In Latest Attack On Free Speech (Turley)
Calls To Boycott Goya Foods After CEO Praises President Trump (NPR)
Bank Settlement Could Provide Roadmap To Punishing Epstein Collaborators (JTN)
House Approves Huge Military Budget, More War in Afghanistan (Greenwald)
US Judge Hearing Flynn Case Asks Appeals Court To Reconsider Dismissal (R.)
New Steele Evidence Strengthens Durham Prosecution (Solomon)
Warning (Sven Henrich)

 

 

I’m going to have to come back on the Joe Biden economic plan. Steve Bannon calls Biden’s puppeteers very smart, but I’m not so sure. If all Biden can do is parrot Trump, why not vote for the original? Because the imitation comes with a bit of cancel culture seasoning? Buy America is Trump, has been for four years, Biden can’t steal it. Biden even takes a stab at China for good measure. Very original too. And as for the 5 million jobs Biden “promises”, Trump will simply say 20 million. I just don’t see it.

 

 

New world record, US falls just short of a record:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Former senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon today says that Biden’s Buy America proposal is “very smart” — “the campaign and White House have been caught flat-footed … Biden has very smart people around him, particularly on the economic side.”


Jeff Stein at WaPo: “Peter Navarro crafted a “Buy America” executive order more than 3 months ago but it has been held up over objections from Mnuchin/Kushner. Potentially huge implications for 2020″

Biden Says His Economic Plan Would Create Five Million New US Jobs (R.)

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden promised on Thursday to spend $700 billion on American-made products and industrial research, which he said would give at least 5 million more people a paycheck during a job-killing pandemic. “I’ll be laser-focused on working families: the middle-class families I came from here in Scranton, not the wealthy investor class,” Biden said in a speech outlining the plan near his childhood hometown in northeastern Pennsylvania. “They don’t need me, but working families do.” The proposals come as Biden, leading President Donald Trump in national opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 election, tries to chip away at an incumbent seen by a larger share of voters as a better steward of the economy.

Biden is adding an even bigger price tag to the trillions in economic recovery policies he has promised as the U.S. economy reels from on-and-off coronavirus shutdowns. A record 32.9 million people collected unemployment checks in the third week of June, Labor Department data showed on Thursday. Republican Vice President Mike Pence also toured Pennsylvania on Thursday, telling a business roundtable in the Philadelphia suburb of Malvern that “even in the midst of outbreaks that we’re seeing in Sunbelt states, we are opening up America again.” The dueling visits underscored Pennsylvania’s status as a key election battleground. Trump carried the state in 2016 by a slim margin, the first Republican to do so since 1988, helping elevate him to the White House.

Biden’s announcement was the first prong of his broader economic plan titled “Build Back Better,” which includes proposals to build a clean-energy economy, support caregivers and advance racial equity. “Biden’s willful attack on our jobs, our families, and the American way of life will reverse all the gains we’ve made together and plunge us into economic catastrophe,” Trump campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement. Both Biden and Pence were visiting areas that have grown less hospitable to their parties in the Trump era.

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Manhattan DA Cy Vance can get them, and then they can be leaked?! Note: Cy Vance is linked to the Epstein case.

Kayleigh McEnany Says Trump’s Tax Returns Are Still Under Audit (Axios)

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters on Thursday that President Trump’s taxes are still under audit, and that he will not release them until the audit is completed. Trump has claimed for years that his taxes are under “routine audit.” The president’s relentless fight to keep his financial records secret has brought him all the way to the Supreme Court. In a pair of 7-2 rulings, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Manhattan prosecutor Cy Vance has the legal right to subpoena records from Trump’s financial institutions, while rejecting, at least for now, the House’s effort to subpoena similar records, Axios’ Sam Baker reports.

Key exchange: REPORTER: “The president, whatever the court says, can release his taxes whenever he likes. Why shouldn’t Americans believe at this point that the president isn’t trying to hide something?” MCENANY: “The media’s been asking this question for four years, and for four years, the president has said the same thing, his taxes are under audit, and when they’re no longer under audit, he will release them.”

McEnany disputed that Trump’s nominees ruled against him on Thursday, noting that the majority decision gave the president the right to challenge subpoenas “on any grounds permitted by state law.” “The justices did not rule against him, in fact it was a unanimous opinion saying that this needs to go back to the district court, and they even recognized that the president has an ample arsenal of arguments that he can make,” she said.
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s two appointees to the Court, sided with liberal members on the 7-2 vote.

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Unstoppable.

California, Florida, Texas Report Highest Daily COVID19 Death Tolls (CBS)

The coronavirus crisis nationwide is not only deepening, it is growing more deadly. The country’s three biggest states — California, Florida and Texas — are reporting their largest single-day death tolls since the pandemic began. There are now 41 states that are reporting increases in average new cases compared to two weeks ago. In California, 149 deaths were reported on Wednesday, the highest single-day number since the pandemic began. “For those that just think, now people are getting it, no one’s dying, that is very misleading,” Governor Gavin Newsom said at his briefing Thursday. The country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said he believes the country’s hardest-hit states should consider pausing plans to reopen.


More than 3 million cases of coronavirus have been infected by the virus across the country, and nearly 133,000 people have died nationwide. In Florida, Walt Disney World reopened Thursday to guests who have season passes as the county where Disney is located has seen a 130% increase in coronavirus infections in the last 14 days. Disney is opening up the park to the general public on Saturday. Loyal annual pass holders got first dibs, but the magic won’t quite be the same. As visitors and employees enter, temperatures will be checked, and guests are required to wear masks and social distance. Dr. Terry Adirim, a physician and dean at Florida Atlantic University, was concerned to see the theme park reopen. “I think it’s like pouring gasoline on a fire,” Adirim told CBS News. “I don’t think it’s going to help us drive down our case rates. I think it’s going to do the opposite.”

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#MaskUpMississippi

Mississippi Hospitals Cannot Take Care of Mississippi Patients (MFP)

Mississippi hospitals are “stretched thin,” and Mississippians “will not be able to get the health care (they) need” as the novel coronavirus outbreak accelerates across the state, top health experts warned during a dire press conference this morning. Already, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said, five of the state’s largest hospitals have already run out of ICU beds for critical patients. “At the (University of Mississippi) Medical Center, we are full. Many days, we have more patients than we have rooms,” UMMC Vice Chancellor LouAnn Woodward said as she stood in front of a podium with a poster and the hashtag, “#MaskUpMississippi” covering the front of it.

The cast of health experts, which included physicians from across the state as well as representatives from the Mississippi State Department of Health and the Mississippi State Medical Association, warned that at the current rate of COVID-19’s spread, the state risks a New York City-level crisis. “Mississippi hospitals cannot take care of Mississippi patients,” Dr. Dobbs told a room of reporters this morning. [..] “We are speaking for the health-care workforce of the state of Mississippi. We are begging, and we are asking for the people of Mississippi to get on board with us,” said Dr. Woodward, who noted that Mississippi “went from shelter-in-place to wide open, whether official or not official.”

[..] The virus’ spread had begun to slow in Mississippi during May, as Gov. Tate Reeves began to reopen some businesses. By the second half of June, as the governor began a broad reopening of state businesses, Mississippi averaged just 11 novel coronavirus deaths per day, down from an average of 15 per day in May. In July so far, the state has averaged 15 deaths per day. Deaths rose sharply in the past two days, though, with MSDH confirming a record 34 new deaths on Tuesday and another 30 on Wednesday. Cases have also risen at record rates, with health officials announcing 705 additional cases per day on average since July 1. In June, the state averaged about 390 cases per day.

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“Unknown Pneumonia”. A familiar term.

China Warns Of Unknown Pneumonia Deadlier Than COVID19 In Kazakhstan (SCMP)

The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan has warned of a deadly “unknown pneumonia” after the former Soviet republic reported a spike in pneumonia cases since June. “The death rate of this disease is much higher than the novel coronavirus. The country’s health departments are conducting comparative research into the pneumonia virus, but have yet to identify the virus,” the embassy said in a warning to Chinese citizens in the country. While the Chinese embassy described the illness as an “unknown pneumonia”, Kazakhstani officials and media have only said it is pneumonia. It was not clear why the Chinese embassy had described the illness as “unknown” or what information it had about the pneumonia.


The embassy’s website, citing local media reports, said the provinces of Atyrau and Aktobe and the city of Shymkent have reported significant spikes in pneumonia cases since the middle of June. Shymkent and the capital city of Atyrau are 1,500km (930 miles) apart, while the distance between the capital cities of Atyrau and Aktobe is 330km (205 miles). The Chinese embassy said that so far there have been nearly 500 pneumonia cases in the three places, with over 30 people in a critical condition. The country as a whole saw 1,772 pneumonia deaths in the first part of the year, 628 of which happened in June, including some Chinese nationals, the embassy continued.

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What, central banks can’t do enough?

IMF Urges ‘Equity-Like’ Government Support For Virus-Hit Firms (R.)

International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Gita Gopinath urged governments to shift to “equity-like” support from one focused on loans as the coronavirus pandemic inflicts prolonged damage on companies. Gopinath said the massive scale of the shock meant more firms will become insolvent as they suffer lower revenues for many months. Government support in the form of loans would saddle such companies with huge debt, which would serve like a tax that makes it difficult for them to emerge from the crisis, she said. “Because there’s a bigger insolvency issue here, government support would have to shift more towards being equity-like as opposed to debt-like. Otherwise, you would end up with a lot of firms that exit this crisis with a huge amount of debt over-hang,” she said.


“If the lending takes form more like equity … then that’s less onus on the firms. That will make it easier for firms to recover from the crisis,” Gopinath said in a webinar co-hosted by the IMF and the University of Tokyo on Friday. She did not elaborate on how such financing support would work. During its domestic banking crisis in the late 1990s, Japan injected capital into firms via schemes where state-affiliated bodies bought preferred shares issued by these firms. Gopinath said any recovery of the global economy will be “highly uneven and highly uncertain,” urging countries to continue deploying aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus measures to support their economies.

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Re-runs far into the future.

Lack Of COVID Insurance Threatens Hollywood Production (R.)

Insurers have largely stopped covering independent film and television productions against the risk of COVID-19 illness, a shift that threatens the supply of new entertainment in 2021, Hollywood producers, insurers and industry experts said. Thousands of shoots around the world shut down abruptly in March as the novel coronavirus spread and governments imposed lockdowns. Now as filmmakers try to get back to work they are finding insurers have largely stopped providing the COVID-19 coverage they need to secure financing. Some insurers are even adding exclusions for COVID-19 or communicable diseases to existing policies when cast members get medical exams, insurance lawyer Kirk Pasich told Reuters.


Without coverage, many producers cannot get the completion bond, or guarantee, that banks require to lend to productions. Until crews can work safely again and insurance covers COVID-related costs, “there will be less content of the caliber that we’re used to,” independent film producer Robert Salerno told Reuters. Insurers, already reeling from other pandemic claims, say they cannot offer the coverage because it is unclear how the pandemic will play out.

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The list of 593 signatories to the letter Turley is talking about may well be the strongest condemnation of academia I’ve ever seen. You can flush them all down the loo. Useless to society. Useful only to their own careers.

Harvard Professor Under Fire In Latest Attack On Free Speech (Turley)

By any measure, Harvard Professor Steven Pinker, who holds the Johnstone Family Chair of Psychology, is one of the most influential intellectual leaders in the world. He is also someone who believes in robust intellectual discourse and free thought and speech. That propensity for academic freedom has now made him a target of hundreds of academics and graduate students who are seeking his removal from the Linguistic Society of America. The letter is one of the most chilling examples of the new orthodoxy that has taken over our academic institutions. The signatories seek his removal for holding opposing views on issues like underlying causes of police shootings and other research. The cited grievances are at best nuanced and at worst nonsensical.

Yet, hundreds signed their names and academic affiliations to try to punish a professor for holding opposing views to their own. We have been discussing these cases across the country including a similar effort to oust a leading economist from the University of Chicago. It is part of a wave of intolerance sweeping over our colleges and our newsrooms — a campaign that will devour its own in the loss of academic freedoms and free speech. (I should note that I do not know Dr. Pinker and, to the best of my knowledge, I have never met him). The campaign against Pinker is based on a small number of tweets where he dares to challenge the views of his colleagues and others on issues related to police shootings. There was a time when it would have been viewed as a shameful betrayal of our profession to retaliate against a fellow academic in this way.

Now, hundreds (shown below) seek to have their names associated with an effort to punish a professor for his challenging a new orthodoxy in academia. As a blog focused on free speech and academic freedom issues, the merits of these disagreements is less important than the effort to silence or punish opposing views. However, the underlying postings (and Pinker’s apparent viewpoints) are relevant to understanding the growing intolerance for conflicting viewpoints. We will briefly discuss the six objections below. In so doing, I will have spent more written analysis addressing the attacks on Pinker than these academics and students spent in accusing him of the most vile predilections. My complaint is not that his views are beyond criticism. My objection is to the lack of substantial evidence or analysis, and, most importantly, the effort to remove him from a key academic group. Indeed, the letter states many of the signatories want him to be effectively barred from academic discourse.

Pinker has been vocal in his opposition to the level of police shootings in our society and has recognized their devastating impact on the African American community. He has however suggested that the level of police shootings may be the result of poor training and the excessive use of force generally by police in the United States. He is not alone in raising that issue. We have previously discussed how the United States has far greater use of lethal force that virtually any other nation. Pinker, and others, have not denied that racism plays a role or that we have systemic racist problems in society. Rather he has suggested that, if we want to reduce police shootings, we may want to consider whether they are being driven by a police culture and common training that tend to escalate the level of force used in these situations.

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What is this country coming to? All parrots all the time?

Calls To Boycott Goya Foods After CEO Praises President Trump (NPR)

Twitter users are calling for a boycott of Goya Foods, a brand most known for its Hispanic-staple food offerings, after the CEO of the company lavished praise on President Trump during a Thursday visit to the White House. Robert Unanue, chief executive of the family-owned operation since 2004, said that the country was “blessed” to have Trump at the helm, during remarks following a roundtable with Hispanic business and political leaders from across the country. “We’re all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder,” Unanue said during the Rose Garden speech.

“We have an incredible builder. And we pray. We pray for our leadership, our president, and we pray for our country — that we will continue to prosper and to grow.” Unanue also announced a plan, along with some partners, to donate 1 million cans of Goya chickpeas and 1 million pounds of food to food banks. A statement issued late Thursday by Goya Foods did not address the negative reaction from some in the Hispanic community to Unanue’s White House appearance and praise of Trump. In the statement, Unanue reiterated his support for the president’s Hispanic Prosperity Initiative, which Trump established by executive order at the White House roundtable.

“Our country faces a time of historic challenge but we will meet that challenge together and continue to work towards greatness, focus on a strong recovery, and hold onto the hope for a healthier future for all,” Unanue said in the statement. [..] Unanue, a third-generation Spanish American, enraged many with his remarks at the White House, including some high-profile Democrats, who also signaled that they would no longer support Goya’s products. [..] By Thursday evening, “Goya,” #BoycottGoya, and #Goyaway were trending topics on Twitter.

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We want names.

Bank Settlement Could Provide Roadmap To Punishing Epstein Collaborators (JTN)

If federal prosecutors are looking to punish more than the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell for the late Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged underage sex ring, New York regulators’ settlement this month with Epstein’s former bank may provide an intriguing roadmap. Buried in documents attached to Deutsche Bank’s $150 million penalty agreement with the New York State Department of Financial Services is a long list of suspect activities, including withdrawals of money by lawyers, payments to Russian models and other women, and financial transactions with people previously identified by federal authorities as co-conspirators in Epstein’s prior plea deal on charges of prostitution with a minor more than a decade ago. The story still being unraveled now by federal and state prosecutors is how Epstein managed to allegedly keep his sex empire going after becoming one of America’s most famous registered sex offenders.

Experts say the extensive documentation made public with the bank case, including a consent order, places a bullseye over transactions and players in Epstein’s orbit now facing new legal exposure. And it could augment a list of names contained in Epstein’s “black book” of contacts that investigators have possessed for years. “It seems as if anyone connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking and abuse activity should be extremely concerned by the New York State Department of Financial Services investigation that was announced on Monday,” said J. Robert Flores, a former federal prosecutor and assistant district attorney in Manhattan who specialized in sex crimes and reviewed the settlement documents at the request of Just the News.

[..] When Epstein opened up his Deutsche Bank accounts in 2013, he was a Tier 3 registered sex offender. That alone should have served as the most important red flag to any bank official. In law enforcement and judicial circles, Tier 3 registered sex offenders translate into serial offenders, who usually repeat their crimes. “Immediately following Epstein’s arrest we contacted law enforcement and offered our full assistance with their investigation,” Deutsche Bank explained in a statement. But that was only after Deutsche Bank terminated its relationship with Epstein a few months earlier.

[..] In a statement released on Tuesday, Linda Lacewell, the superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, said Epstein’s accounts paid out “millions of dollars of suspicious transactions” that Deutsche Bank “inexcusably failed to detect or prevent.” The investigation findings included: • payments to individuals publicly alleged to have been Epstein’s co-conspirators connected to his 2007 non-prosecution agreement; • settlement payments to law firms totaling over $7 million, as well as dozens of payments to law firms totaling over $6 million for what appear to have been the legal expenses of Epstein and his co-conspirators; • payments to Russian models, payments for women’s school tuition, hotel and rent expenses, and payments directly to numerous women with Eastern European surnames; • periodic suspicious cash withdrawals by one of his agents, totaling more than $800,000 over approximately four years; • “The Butterfly Trust” account that paid the co-conspirators and other parties; • a Gratitude America account.

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House Democrats side WITH Liz Cheney and AGAINST their own Tulsi Gabbard. Okay! But why would anyone vote anymore?

House Approves Huge Military Budget, More War in Afghanistan (Greenwald)

While the country is subsumed by both public health and an unemployment crisis, and is separately focused on a sustained protest movement against police abuses, a massive $740.5 billion military spending package was approved last week by the Democratic-controlled House Armed Services Committee. The GOP-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee will almost certainly send the package with little to no changes to the White House for signing. As we reported last week, pro-war and militaristic Democrats on the Committee joined with GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney and the pro-war faction she leads to form majorities which approved one hawkish amendment after the next.

Among those amendments was one co-sponsored by Cheney with Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado that impeded attempts by the Trump administration to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and another amendment led by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Cheney which blocked the White House’s plan to remove 10,000 troop stationed in Germany. While those two amendments were designed to block the Trump administration’s efforts to bring troops home, this same bipartisan pro-war faction defeated two other amendments that would have imposed limits on the Trump administration’s aggression and militarism: one sponsored by Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to require the Trump administration to provide a national security rationale before withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed with the Soviet Union in 1987, and another to impose limits on the ability of the U.S. to arm and otherwise assist Saudi Arabia to bomb Yemen.

Perhaps most remarkable is the amount of the military budget itself. It is three times more than the planet’s second-highest military spender, China; it is ten times more than the third-highest spender, Saudi Arabia; it is 15 times more than the military budget of the country most frequently invoked by Committee members as a threat to justify militarism: Russia; and it is more than the next 15 countries combined spend on their military. They authorized this kind of a budget in the midst of a global pandemic as tens of millions of newly unemployed Americans struggle even to pay their rent.

How does this happen? How do Democrats succeed in presenting an image of themselves based on devotion to progressive causes and the welfare of the ordinary citizen while working with Liz Cheney to ensure that vast resources are funneled to the weapons manufacturers, defense sector and lobbyists who fund their campaigns? Why would a country with no military threats from any sovereign nation to its borders spend almost a trillion dollars a year for buying weapons while its citizens linger without health care, access to quality schools, or jobs? Who are the people in Congress doing this, and why?

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A judge speaking through his lawyers. Oh, why not? Let’s go full Bizarro. It’s all about running out the clock.

US Judge Hearing Flynn Case Asks Appeals Court To Reconsider Dismissal (R.)

The judge hearing the criminal prosecution against U.S. President Donald Trump’s former adviser Michael Flynn on Thursday asked an appeals court to reconsider a recent decision dismissing the case. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan asked the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the June 24 decision that directed him to drop the Flynn case. The Justice Department sought to dismiss the case against Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, following pressure from Trump and his allies, leading to criticism that Attorney General William Barr was using his office to help the president’s friends. Sullivan refused to immediately sign off on the dismissal, instead appointing a retired judge to argue in favor of denying the Justice Department’s request.


Sullivan has said he cannot serve as a “rubber stamp” and must carefully review the dismissal request. In a 2-1 decision issued last month, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit directed Sullivan to grant the department’s motion to clear Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty. “This is plainly not the rare case where further judicial inquiry is warranted,” Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, wrote for the court, adding that Sullivan had intruded on “the executive branch’s exclusive prosecutorial power.” Sullivan’s attorneys told the appeals court the panel decision marked a “dramatic break from precedent” that “threatens to turn ordinary judicial process upside down.”

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Oh wait, there’s Victoria Nuland. Wherever she appears there’s fishy things going on.

New Steele Evidence Strengthens Durham Prosecution (Solomon)

It was in London that the whole Russia collusion caper began four years ago, so it seems only fitting that as the discredited probe enters its final phase that damning new evidence of the FBI’s failures would emerge back in England. This week when a British judge ruled against the former FBI human source Christopher Steele, the decision delivered more than an order for the former spy’s company to pay damages to two Russian businessmen maligned by his dossier. It also introduced new incontrovertible evidence that bolsters Attorney General William Barr’s and U.S. Attorney John Durham’s probe into whether the FBI engaged in misconduct and criminally deceived the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to win permission to spy on the Trump campaign.

Buried in Justice Mark Warby’s ruling were several new pieces of evidence that answer long lingering questions about just what the FBI knew, and when it knew it. For instance, Congressional Republicans have long questioned when exactly the FBI knew that Steele’s dossier was a product ordered up for the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic Party. After all, the bureau never revealed the connection to the FISA court despite its central relevance to the motives of the dossier. Warby’s lengthy ruling unearthed a gem of new evidence to answer the question: Steele kept his own notes of what he told FBI agents the first time he met them on July 5, 2016 in London to discuss his anti-Trump Russia research.

And, Warby revealed, the notes make clear that Steele told his FBI handlers from the get-go that the dossier’s “ultimate client were (sic) the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign.” So the FBI knew immediately that the dossier it used to justify a FISA warrant targeting the Trump campaign was a political opposition research product designed to help Clinton defeat her Republican opponent and did not divulge the connection. [..] The ruling discloses that officials at the State Department where Hillary Clinton had served as secretary of state were uniquely involved in Steele’s efforts to bring the dossier to attention, including Mrs. Clinton’s former Russia expert Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland, Clinton’s successor as secretary of state John Kerry and Joe Biden’s former national security adviser Tony Blinken.

Steele “elaborated, by explaining that his understanding in July 2016 was that the FBI officer he met had cleared his lines with the Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland,” the judge disclosed. And after Trump won the election, the judge added, Steele disclosed he gave copies of his dossier to longtime Clinton friend Strobe Talbot in hopes it would get to the top of the State Department. Talbott “said that he was due to meet a group of individuals at the State Department, and asked Mr Steele to share a copy of the Dossier with him, with a view to him being able to discuss the national security issues raised with these individuals,” the court revealed. “Mr Steele agreed. He did so on the understanding that Mr Talbott had been speaking to the US Secretary of State John Kerry, and Ms Nuland, who knew of the Dossier and its broad content; and that the individuals whom Mr Talbott was due to meet included the then US Deputy Secretary of State, Tony Blinken,” the court added.

[..] Steele admitted to the FBI his ultimate client was Clinton. He admitted he was leaking to the news media. He admitted he didn’t do much to verify his raw allegations. And he admitted he was working political figures in the Clinton sphere to get his allegations into circulation. Such actions have already been deemed to be negligent by prior watchdog reviews. But now Durham has fresh evidence that goes to the issue of intent. The FBI had prior knowledge about these problems and didn’t come clean to the court as required by law and duty. If Durham is building a case that FBI officials conspired to defraud the FISA court and Congress, his team just got some new exhibits from across the Atlantic Ocean.

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Stop calling them markets.

Warning (Sven Henrich)

Raising red flags during a bubble is a thankless job. The crowd gleefully cheers the momentum and as tops are processes anyone voicing contrarian reservations looks to be wrong while the bubble proceeds. I’m a big boy I can handle it. I was faced with the same issue late last year into Q1 this year as they kept chasing stocks into the high heavens before the 35% crash. Oh but it was Covid, nobody could’ve seen this coming. Nonsense. Covid was the trigger but the technical and excess were long building and now we’re in such phase again, except this one may be worse. I know, we live in the age where trillions are tossed around candy by centra banks and governments and everybody’s eyes just glaze over as the numbers defy context and comprehension. But let me throw a bit of reality into the mix and it’s absolutely mind boggling. 5 stocks have just added over half a trillion in market cap in just 6 days. Six days. Ponder that:

And they’re even higher on the open today. I ran the numbers:

5 stocks now have a combined market cap over $6.5 trillion. These very same stocks have added over $1.6 trillion in market cap in 2020:

That would be a feat during any bull market during times of great growth, but in a historical recession? So some of these stocks grabbed some market share during the shutdown, but don’t tell me $AAPL sold more phones during this. It gets worse. Since 2019 these stocks have added over $3.2 trillion in market cap:

Now, if you can convince yourself to believe that these stocks have earnings growth stories to support market cap expansions anywhere near these figures I suppose you can convince yourself to believe anything. During bubbles people will convince themselves of anything. And this is nothing new. After all people convinced themselves that tech’s valuations versus the rest of the economy were justified before.

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Nov 132018
 
 November 13, 2018  Posted by at 10:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Peasant burning weeds 1883

 

Dow Plunges 600 Points As Apple Leads Tech Rout (CNBC)
The Economic Consequences Of Debt (Roberts)
The Fed Supports Capital In Its Eternal War With Labor (Hunt)
China State Banks Selling Dollars In FX Market To Arrest Yuan Losses (R.)
Goldman Sachs Down Most In 7 Years On 1MDB, ‘Fear Of The Unknown'(BBG)
Banking Consolidation In Europe Is ‘Inevitable’ – UBS Chief (CNBC)
China Scours Social Media, Erases Thousands Of Accounts (R.)
Working to Protect the World from Bananas (Epsilon)
Turkey, France Spar Over Khashoggi Killing (AFP)
US Federal, State Elections Still In Flux (R.)
Rock the Vote (Kunstler)
Crucifying Julian Assange (Chris Hedges)
Stan Lee Leaves a Legacy as Complex as His Superheroes (DB)

 

 

“..the FANG trade is dead and the market is struggling to find a replacement.”

Dow Plunges 600 Points As Apple Leads Tech Rout (CNBC)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 602 points on Monday after a big decline in Apple shares, a rise in the U.S. dollar and lingering worries about global trade weighed on investor sentiment. Monday’s losses bring the Dow’s decline over the past two sessions to 804 points; it closed at 25,387.18. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite pulled back 2.8 percent to 7,200.87 and fell back into the correction territory it first entered during the October market rout. The S&P 500 dropped 2 percent to 2,726.22 as financials tanked, led by Goldman Sachs. In late-afternoon trading, the major indexes hit their lows of the day after Bloomberg News reported the White House was circulating a draft report on auto tariffs. Shares of General Motors turned negative following the report.

Apple shares tanked by 5 percent after Lumentum Holdings, which makes technology for the iPhone’s face-recognition function, cut its outlook for fiscal second quarter 2019. Lumentum CEO Alan Lowe said one of its largest customers asked the company to “materially reduce shipments” for its products. Shares of Lumentum plunged 33 percent. The decline in Apple pressured the broader technology sector. The Technology Select Sector SPDR dropped 3.5 percent. Alphabet and Amazon shares pulled back 2.7 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively. Amazon shares fell into bear-market territory, down about 20 percent from its 52-week high. [..] Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, said “the FANG trade is dead and the market is struggling to find a replacement.”

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I’m partial to the last graph. It shows an undeniable long term trendline.

The Economic Consequences Of Debt (Roberts)

The relevance of debt growth versus economic growth is all too evident as shown below. Since 1980, the overall increase in debt has surged to levels that currently usurp the entirety of economic growth. With economic growth rates now at the lowest levels on record, the growth in debt continues to divert more tax dollars away from productive investments into the service of debt and social welfare. It now requires nearly $3.00 of debt to create $1 of economic growth.

Another way to view the impact of debt on the economy is to look at what “debt-free” economic growth would be. In other words, without debt, there has actually been no organic economic growth.

In fact, the economic deficit has never been greater. For the 30-year period from 1952 to 1982, the economic surplus fostered a rising economic growth rate which averaged roughly 8% during that period. Today, with the economy expected to grow at just 2% over the long-term, the economic deficit has never been greater.

But it isn’t just Federal debt that is the problem. It is all debt. When it comes to households, which are responsible for roughly 2/3rds of economic growth through personal consumption expenditures, debt was used to sustain a standard of living well beyond what income and wage growth could support. This worked out as long as the ability to leverage indebtedness was an option. The problem is that when rising interest rates hit a point where additional leverage becomes problematic, further economic cannot be achieved. Given the massive increase in deficit spending by households to support consumption, the “bang point” between rates and the economy is likely closer than most believe.

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The Fed must step back as wages rise.

The Fed Supports Capital In Its Eternal War With Labor (Hunt)

For 46 years, from 1951 to 1997, we were no more and no less rich than our economy grew. Which makes sense. That’s the neutral vision of monetary policy, where you’re not trying to pull forward future growth through leverage and easy money in order to create more wealth today. For the past 20 years, however, we have had a series of wealth bubbles – first the Dot-Com bubble, then the Housing Bubble, and today the Financial Asset Bubble – that have made us richer than our economy grows. Each of these bubbles was intentionally “blown” by the Fed through monetary policy. That’s the tried and true method of creating a wealth bubble in the modern age of fiat money – you artificially lower the cost of money to encourage borrowing and leverage, which in turn pulls future growth into the present. It’s a neat trick so long as you can keep it going.

But that’s the problem, of course. The Fed can’t keep it going, not if it wants to satisfy its raison d’etre, which is to keep inflation bottled up, particularly wage inflation. Once wage inflation starts to pick up, the Fed ALWAYS stops blowing bubbles. Why? Because the Fed, like every central bank, was created to support Capital in its eternal war with Labor. It’s in the name. They are bankers. I know that sounds all Marxist and conspiratorial and all that, but it’s really not. It’s very straightforward. It’s Alexander Hamilton, not Karl Marx. In case you haven’t noticed, wage inflation has started to pick up. The Fed has stopped blowing this Financial Asset Bubble. Then isn’t the inescapable conclusion that we are now inevitably heading back to that GDP growth line? And if that IS the conclusion, then how bad could it get for investors?

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A very ominous sign.

China State Banks Selling Dollars In FX Market To Arrest Yuan Losses (R.)

Major state-owned Chinese banks were seen selling dollars at around 6.97 per dollar in the onshore spot foreign exchange market in early trade on Tuesday, three traders said, in an apparent attempt to arrest sharp losses in the local currency. The onshore spot market opened at 6.9681 per dollar, weakening to a low of 6.9703 at one point in early deals. “Big banks were selling (dollars) to defend the yuan,” said one of the traders. The move by the state-run banks helped the yuan recover to 6.9550. The onshore spot yuan was trading at 6.9645 as of 0237 GMT.

Traders attributed the sharp morning losses in the yuan to broad strength in the U.S. dollar, which hit 16-month highs against a basket of six other major currencies. They also suspect the authorities are keen to prevent the yuan from weakening too sharply before U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping’s meeting later this month. The two countries’ leaders plan to meet on the sidelines of a G20 summit, in Argentina at the end of November for a high-stakes talk.

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The Squid got hungry.

Goldman Sachs Down Most In 7 Years On 1MDB, ‘Fear Of The Unknown'(BBG)

Goldman Sachs Group’s reputation is facing one of its biggest crises of the decade – and now its shares are, too. Since prosecutors implicated a trio of Goldman Sachs bankers in a multi-billion-dollar Malaysian fraud early this month, investors have endured an almost daily drip of news on the firm’s ties to the scandal. The barrage culminated on Monday (Nov 12) as Malaysia’s finance minister demanded a “full refund”, tipping Goldman’s shares into their biggest drop since 2011. Across Wall Street, analysts expressed surprise over the dive, noting the bank – which hasn’t been charged with wrongdoing – can probably stomach any payment that might be extracted in the case. Instead, some said, the decline appeared to be due to a combination of concern over the persistently harsh spotlight and uncertainty about what’s to come.

It was also a generally bad day in US markets. “It’s not so much the dollar amount,” said Mr Gerard Cassidy at RBC Capital Markets. “It’s more that we don’t know all of the facts yet; we don’t know all of the important points to the story at this time. It’s the fear of the unknown.” On Nov 1, at least three senior Goldman Sachs bankers were publicly implicated by the US Department of Justice in a multi-year criminal enterprise that included bribing officials in Malaysia and elsewhere and laundering hundreds of millions of dollars. The firm has said it’s cooperating with the investigations and may face “significant” fines. [..] The Malaysia probe focuses on the country’s scandal-plagued state investment company, 1Malaysia Development Bhd and the US$6.5 billion it raised in 2012 and 2013. Goldman Sachs handled the deals, reaping almost US$600 million in fees.

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“..technology will make the sector more “effective and more efficient.”

Banking Consolidation In Europe Is ‘Inevitable’ – UBS Chief (CNBC)

The European banking system needs consolidation and “as time goes by, it will become more and more inevitable,” the head of one of the largest banks in Europe told CNBC on Tuesday. Often investors, policy-makers and other industry experts refer to fragmentation as one of the biggest hurdles to European banks. UBS chief Sergio Ermotti told CNBC that the issue is “not sustainable.” “That’s something that as time goes by will become more and more inevitable, is part of the solutions. For sure consolidation needs to happen, in particular in Europe, where we see a lot of fragmentation that it is not sustainable,” Ermotti told CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche. He further added that technology will make the sector more “effective and more efficient.”

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Self-media: social media not run by government.

China Scours Social Media, Erases Thousands Of Accounts (R.)

China’s top cyber authority has scrubbed 9,800 social media accounts of independent news providers deemed to have posted sensational, vulgar or politically harmful content on the Internet, it said late on Monday. China’s strict online censorship rules have tightened in recent years with new legislation to restrict media outlets, surveillance measures for media sites and rolling campaigns to remove content deemed unacceptable. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement that the campaign, launched on Oct. 20, had erased the accounts for violations that included “spreading politically harmful information, maliciously falsifying (Chinese Communist) party history, slandering heroes and defaming the nation’s image.”

CAC also summoned social media giants, including Tencent’s Wechat and Sina-owned Weibo, warning them against failing to prevent “uncivilized growth” and “all kinds of chaos” among independent media on their platforms. “The chaos among self-media accounts has seriously trampled on the dignity of the law and damaged the interests of the masses,” CAC said. The term “self-media” is mostly used on Chinese social media to describe independent news accounts that produce original content but are not officially registered with the authorities.

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Despair no more. Big Brother is here.

Working to Protect the World from Bananas (Epsilon)

The main story is the increased pace and arc of the Chinese system overall, not the ‘play-by-play’. With technology, even totalitarian surveillance technology, there typically is no ‘big bang’, just a bunch of independent systems coming on line, getting adopted over time, then getting networked together, resulting in a series of subtle shifts in personal behavior, and then a tipping point. Having watched this system come on line for nearly 20 years, the deployment of the Chinese technology-driven domestic surveillance system was pretty limited even up until 2010, but has been absolutely rip-roaring and accelerating over the last five years thanks to the same driving forces of most other tech advances since 2010:

• Ubiquitous handheld connected device • App adoption • Cheap sensors (inc. cameras) • Cheap massive data storage • Sophisticated statistical algorithms • Leaps forward in compute power and cost. All of these advances are so powerful for surveillance with its inherent big, unstructured data characteristics that I think we are now really close to an inflection point where the system is starting to really work in a functional day-to-day way, which will then lead to a behavioral tipping point. I don’t think the main story is that controversial at this point, i.e., I don’t think anyone, even the Chinese government, denies this system is being built, the intention of it, or that it is starting to work in a practical way.

Therefore, I think the more interesting story in many ways is the sub-story of the willful ignorance of the main story by the West. I was at an event last week where a new fancy think tank on AI ethics based here in San Francisco was presenting and expounding their tenet of “Working to protect the privacy and security of individuals”, whilst simultaneously welcoming Baidu into their organization. I’m sorry, but that’s like “Working to protect the world from bananas” while signing up Del Monte as a member. Bananas. With hypocritical sprinkles. And a big ignorant cherry on top.

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They’ve all heard the tapes, but not one of them talks about the content.

Turkey, France Spar Over Khashoggi Killing (AFP)

Turkey on Monday lashed out at “unacceptable” and “impertinent” comments by the French foreign minister who accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of playing a “political game” over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey had shared recordings linked to the Saudi journalist’s murder last month with Riyadh, the United States, France, Britain and other allies, without giving details of the tapes’ specific content. In an interview with France 2 television on Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he “for the moment was not aware” of any information transmitted by Ankara. Asked if the Turkish president was lying, he said: “It means that he has a political game to play in these circumstances.”

His comments provoked fury in Ankara. “We find it unacceptable that he accused President Erdogan of ‘playing political games’,” the communications director at the Turkish presidency, Fahrettin Altun, told AFP in a written statement. “Let us not forget that this case would have been already covered up had it not been for Turkey’s determined efforts.” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu responded even more sharply, saying that his French counterpart’s accusations amounted to “impertinence”. “It does not fit the seriousness of a foreign minister,” he said, accusing Le Drian of “exceeding his authority”.

[..] Altun said Ankara had shared evidence linked to the murder with officials from a large number of countries and that France was “no exception”. “I confirm that evidence pertaining to the Khashoggi murder has also been shared with the relevant agencies of the French government,” he said. A representative of French intelligence listened to the audio recording and examined detailed information including a transcript on October 24, he added.

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The US is incapable of building a strong election system. How disgraceful is that?

US Federal, State Elections Still In Flux (R.)

Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Nov. 6 elections and Republicans held onto a majority in the U.S. Senate, but more than a dozen races remain undecided nearly a week later. The outcomes of two Senate races, 13 House seats and two governorships had yet to be settled on Monday. The results of Arizona’s U.S. Senate race became clear on Monday, when Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema declared victory and Republican candidate Martha McSally conceded after multiple media outlets called the race for Sinema. Florida ordered a recount in the race where Democratic Senator Bill Nelson trailed his Republican challenger, Florida Governor Rick Scott.

Florida also ordered a recount for its gubernatorial race, while the winner of the governor’s race in Georgia remained uncertain, with a December runoff still possible. In one of Mississippi’s U.S. Senate races, Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and her Democratic challenger, Mike Espy, will contest a runoff on Nov. 27 after neither won a majority. Vote tallies continue to trickle in for the 13 U.S. House races that appear too close to call, and there is no consensus among media outlets and data provider DDHQ that a victor has emerged. Democrats held narrow leads in eight of those races, according to unfinished tallies compiled by DDHQ.

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“.. C-Span will be livelier and more colorful than the WWE Wrestlemania round-robin, midget division.”

Rock the Vote (Kunstler)

It warmed my heart to read in The Wall Street Journal that Hillary Clinton is preparing to re-enter the Washington DC swamp from her deluxe exile in the woods of Chappaqua, New York, and make another run for the White House — though it’s hard to calculate how many porters in sandals and loincloths will be required to lug all her baggage around the campaign trail. Will hubbie hit the hustings with her? That would be rich. I can just imagine the pussy-hatted legions shrieking #MeToo at every stop. Surely there is no better way to put the Democratic Party out of its misery. The post-election melodramas in Georgia and Florida grind on, despite the various rules and laws about deadlines for certifying ballots and accounting for their origin.

What is a ballot after all but a mere scrap of paper, easily reproducible, and interchangeable. Sometimes, they make strange journeys out of election headquarters in trucks and SUVs, seeking fun and excitement, and they have been known to mysteriously turn up by the hundredweight in broom closets where they retreat to caucus. Only one thing is certain: the ballot fiasco is a billable hours bonanza for DC lawyers arriving on the scene to sort things out — which they may not manage anyway. If the vote count somehow remains in favor of the provisional winners — Republicans Rick Scott, Ron DeSantis (Fla), and Brian Kemp (Ga) — you can be sure we’ll be in a frenzy of sore loserdom that will make the Medieval ergot outbreaks of yore look like episodes of Peewee’s Playhouse.

If the provisional votes get overturned, the attorneys billable hours will quickly exceed the national debt, and we’ll find ourselves in a new era where the free citizens of this republic can‘t be trusted to the simple task of counting ballots, or even holding elections in the first place. [..] Meanwhile, the new Democratic majority congress prepares to ramp up its longed-for multi-committee inquisition against Trump and Trumpism, and the Republican Senate will counter-punch with binders of criminal referrals against the superstars of the Resistance. C-Span will be livelier and more colorful than the WWE Wrestlemania round-robin, midget division.

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The role of the MSM demands much more scrutiny.

Crucifying Julian Assange (Chris Hedges)

Assange was once feted and courted by some of the largest media organizations in the world, including The New York Times and The Guardian, for the information he possessed. But once his trove of material documenting U.S. war crimes, much of it provided by Chelsea Manning, was published by these media outlets he was pushed aside and demonized. A leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch dated March 8, 2008, exposed a black propaganda campaign to discredit WikiLeaks and Assange.

The document said the smear campaign should seek to destroy the “feeling of trust” that is WikiLeaks’ “center of gravity” and blacken Assange’s reputation. It largely has worked. Assange is especially vilified for publishing 70,000 hacked emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and senior Democratic officials. The Democrats and former FBI Director James Comey say the emails were copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, by Russian government hackers. Comey has said the messages were probably delivered to WikiLeaks by an intermediary. Assange has said the emails were not provided by “state actors.”

The Democratic Party—seeking to blame its election defeat on Russian “interference” rather than the grotesque income inequality, the betrayal of the working class, the loss of civil liberties, the deindustrialization and the corporate coup d’état that the party helped orchestrate—attacks Assange as a traitor, although he is not a U.S. citizen. Nor is he a spy. He is not bound by any law I am aware of to keep U.S. government secrets. He has not committed a crime.

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Enough controversy for ten.

Stan Lee Leaves a Legacy as Complex as His Superheroes (DB)

He was born Stanley Martin Lieber in the Bronx. For nearly 22 years, beginning almost immediately after graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School, he labored in obscurity as a writer, editor, and art director in a publishing industry just one cultural rung above pornography: comic books. And then, in 1961, he became one of the pivotal 20th century figures who elevated comics into the first draft of American pop culture. Stan Lee, who died Monday, November 12 at age 95, is synonymous with Marvel Comics. Nearly every movie released by Hollywood upstart-turned-juggernaut Marvel Studios can trace part of its creative origins to Lee. (The exceptions are the Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, and forthcoming Captain Marvel franchises.)

Among people who shaped the legacy of the Disney company, which purchased Marvel in 2009 for $4 billion, Lee is probably second only to Walt Disney himself. George Lucas is third because of the debts Star Wars owes to the comics creations of Lee’s greatest creative partner and bitterest foe, Jack Kirby. Lee’s legacy at Marvel is immortal. But so too is the debate and controversy over what that legacy specifically is. In some quarters in comics, and especially to devotees of Kirby, Stan Lee is a supervillain–a man who stole credit, and corresponding fortunes, from the people who truly shaped Marvel creatively in the ’60s, relegating them to also-ran obscurity.

Aspects of that critique, uncomfortably, have merit. Lee had a maestro’s instincts for what we now call branding, and it cast a shadow long enough to keep his Marvel collaborators in darkness. In press interviews, his endless public appearances, and his own writing, Lee portrayed himself as the driver of the Marvel Universe, rendering artists like Kirby and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko as afterthoughts.

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Oct 132017
 
 October 13, 2017  Posted by at 9:04 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


Joan Miro Dancer 1925

 

The Shoeshine Boy Moment For FANG And Friends (DR)
Valuations Are Expensive (Lance Roberts)
Central Banks Have Effectively Manufactured The World’s Biggest Economy (BBG)
ECB to Consider Cutting QE Purchases in Half Next Year (BBG)
Boeing Passenger Jets Have Falsely Certified Kobe Steel Products (R.)
Kobe Steel Scandal Expands Into Core Business Overseas (BBG)
Distressed Investors Buying Houston Homes for 40 Cents on the Dollar (BBG)
Tesla Plays Auto Game By Silicon Valley Rules (DN)
What Powers America (CB)
Greek Civil Servants’ Wages 38% Higher Than Private Sector Staff (K.)
US Obesity Rates Hit New Records: 39.6% of Adults Now Obese (AFP)
Antibiotic Resistance Could Spell End Of Modern Medicine (G.)
Penguin Disaster As Only Two Chicks Survive From Colony Of 40,000 (G.)

 

 

My guess is that once one of them starts falling, the others will domino right along.

The Shoeshine Boy Moment For FANG And Friends (DR)

In early March 2009, the current bull market began in the same way that most of the great bull runs in history have, at a moment when investors were terrified to own stocks. Since then it has been nothing but good times. We are now eight and a half years into this bull market making it the second longest in history. This party has been fun. And for a handful of the most popular stocks, fun doesn’t do it justice. The party has been positively off the chains. The stocks that I’m talking about are the FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google) stocks plus a few of their friends (Tesla, Alibaba and others). These stocks have vastly outperformed the market during this bull-run. Now this is where I become a bit of a party-pooper.

Where Joseph Kennedy Sr. had his shoeshine boy moment for the market in 1929, I believe that a similar warning sign arrived for FANG and friends this summer. Remember, they don’t ring a bell at the top but there are signs. This I believe is a big one… The demand for these stocks has become so high that specific ETFs and dedicated index funds are being launched that are comprised only of FANG and friends. Not just an ETF or index fund, but multiple versions. That latest is called the NYSE FANG+ index. It includes 10 highly liquid stocks that are considered innovators across tech and internet/media companies. It is marketed as a benchmark of today’s tech giants. That may be true, but it is also a benchmark of some of the most expensive stocks in the entire S&P 500. Here are its components:

Yes, I’d love to go back in history and own this group of stocks three years ago. But would I want to own them after an already incredible run? No! As a group these stocks are frighteningly expensive today. That is generally what happens when stocks go up that fast, they become much less attractively valued.

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Another great effort by Lance.

Valuations Are Expensive (Lance Roberts)

[..] the repetitive cycle of monetary policy: • Using monetary policy to drag forward future consumption leaves a larger void in the future that must be continually refilled. • Monetary policy does not create self-sustaining economic growth and therefore requires ever larger amounts of monetary policy to maintain the same level of activity. • The filling of the “gap” between fundamentals and reality leads to consumer contraction and ultimately a recession as economic activity recedes. • Job losses rise, wealth effect diminishes and real wealth is destroyed. • Middle class shrinks further. • Central banks act to provide more liquidity to offset recessionary drag and restart economic growth by dragging forward future consumption. •Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

If you don’t believe me, here is the evidence. The stock market has returned more than 60% since 2007 peak, which is more than three times the growth in corporate sales growth and 30% more than GDP. The all-time highs in the stock market have been driven by the $4.5 trillion increase in the Fed’s balance sheet, hundreds of billions in stock buybacks, PE expansion, and ZIRP.

It is critical to remember the stock market is NOT the economy. The stock market should be reflective of underlying economic growth which drives actual revenue growth. Furthermore, GDP growth and stock returns are not highly correlated. In fact, some analysis suggests that they are negatively correlated and perhaps fairly strongly so (-0.40). However, in the meantime, the promise of a continued bull market is very enticing as the “fear of missing out” overrides the “fear of loss.” This brings us back to Jack Bogle and the importance of valuations which are often dismissed in the short-term because there is not an immediate impact on price returns. Valuations, by their very nature, are HORRIBLE predictors of 12-month returns should not be used in any strategy that has such a focus. However, in the longer term, valuations are strong predictors of expected returns.

[..] I have also previously modified Shiller’s CAPE to make it more sensitive to current market dynamics. “The need to smooth earnings volatility is necessary to get a better understanding of what the underlying trend of valuations actually is. For investor’s, periods of ‘valuation expansion’ are where the bulk of the gains in the financial markets have been made over the last 116 years. History shows, that during periods of ‘valuation compression’ returns are more muted and volatile. Therefore, in order to compensate for the potential ‘duration mismatch’ of a faster moving market environment, I recalculated the CAPE ratio using a 5-year average as shown in the chart below.”

To get a better understanding of where valuations are currently relative to past history, we can look at the deviation between current valuation levels and the long-term average going back to 1900.

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“Central Banks’ Return to Normalcy Is Nothing But a Charade”

Central Banks Have Effectively Manufactured The World’s Biggest Economy (BBG)

The Federal Reserve keeps talking about a “return to normal” in monetary policy. The media must buy into it, because it keeps repeating the phrase. Many investors buy into it, too. After all, it is the high and mighty Fed speaking. This “normal” is defined by interest rates, but interest rates are defined by the economics that surround them. Interest rates do not exist in a vacuum. But since we are in an economic environment never before seen in history, where data compiled by Bloomberg show that central banks have amassed $21.5 trillion in assets, how can there possibly be any notion of “normal?” Nothing in history supports the claim. Without a history, “normal” is a meaningless term. Think about it: In response to the financial crisis, central banks have essentially manufactured in just nine years an economy that is bigger than the gross domestic products of either the U.S. or China.

I am more than willing to recognize the accomplishment, but to call it “normal” is either a ruse or the height of foolishness. There is nothing “normal” about it. Some may say it is the “crown of creation,” and a case can be made for this argument, but it is not a crown that was ever seen before. This is why, when assessing financial markets, I keep pointing at the money. It is the giant amount of manufactured capital that is holding interest rates down, pushing equities up and compressing all risk assets against their sovereign benchmarks. It isn’t inflation or housing data or wages or any other piece of data that can be singled out. Those are, by comparison, flyspecks in the wind. Simply put, all that money has created demand that outstrips the current supply in bonds, in equities, in stock price-to-earnings multiples, in historical risk valuations and in credit assets.

Therefore, the economic environment that underlies asset pricing is, in fact, distorted. The Fed’s claim of some sort of “normalcy” is a charade. Fed Chair Janet Yellen can say it, and so can Fed governors and presidents, but there is not one grain of truth in the telling. It is nothing more than mumbo-jumbo because they do not wish you to recognize what is actually happening. They have taken over markets and now totally control and dominate them, regardless of the usual day-to-day antics.

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More ‘normalcy’.

ECB to Consider Cutting QE Purchases in Half Next Year (BBG)

ECB officials are considering cutting their monthly bond buying by at least half starting in January and keeping their program active for at least nine months, according to officials familiar with the debate. Reducing quantitative easing to €30 billion ($36 billion) a month from the current pace of €60 billion is a feasible option, said the officials, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. While the central bank’s governors are split on the need to identify an end date for purchases, a pledge to keep buying bonds until September – with the proviso that it could be extended if needed – may offer grounds for compromise, they said. Policy makers led by President Mario Draghi are becoming increasingly confident that ECB policy makers will on Oct. 26 agree to the specifics of how much debt the euro-area’s central banks will buy in the coming year.

After more than 2 1/2 years of trying to revive the region’s economy through bond purchases, some governors see the recent period of robust growth as a reason to rein in the support. Others are concerned that inflation remains too weak. Any changes to the sum and time frame of quantitative easing would still fit into the ECB’s present guidance on monetary policy, which commits the ECB to promise “a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation consistent with its inflation aim.” It also pledges that if “the outlook becomes less favorable, or if financial conditions become inconsistent with further progress toward a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation, the Governing Council stands ready to increase the program in terms of size and/or duration.”

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The Japanese government better act fast. Kobe requires controlled demolition.

And this sort of comment needs to stop: “Boeing does not as yet consider the issue a safety problem..”

Of course it’s safety problem. Or are we to believe the safety standards never amounted to anything?

Boeing Passenger Jets Have Falsely Certified Kobe Steel Products (R.)

Boeing, the world’s biggest maker of passenger jets, has used Kobe Steel products that include those falsely certified by the Japanese company, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Boeing does not as yet consider the issue a safety problem, the source stressed, but the revelation may raise compensation costs for the Japanese company, which is embroiled in a widening scandal over the false certification of the strength and durability of components supplied to hundreds of companies. The U.S. airline maker is carrying out a survey of aircraft to ascertain the extent and type of Kobe Steel components in its planes and will share the results with airline customers, said the source who has knowledge of the investigation.

Even if the falsely certified parts do not affect safety, given the intense public scrutiny that airlines operate under they may opt to replace suspect parts rather than face any backlash over concerns about safety. Any large-scale program to remove those components, even during scheduled aircraft maintenance, could prove costly for Kobe Steel if it has to foot the bill. Kobe Steel’s CEO, Hiroya Kawasaki, on Thursday said his company’s credibility was at “zero.” The company, he said, is examining possible data falsification going back 10 years, but does not expect to see recalls of cars or airplanes for now.. Also in the U.S., General Motors said it is checking whether its cars contain falsely certified components from Kobe Steel, joining Toyota and around 200 other firms that have received falsely certified parts from the company.

Boeing does not buy products such as aluminum composites, used in aircraft because of their light weight, directly from Kobe Steel. Its key Japanese suppliers, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Subaru, however, do. These Japanese companies are key parts of Boeing’s global supply chain, building one fifth of its 777 jetliner and 35% of its carbon composite 787 Dreamliner.

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This is getting bigger by the minute.

“..the company holds roughly half of the global market share for the wires used in valve springs of auto engines

Kobe Steel Scandal Expands Into Core Business Overseas (BBG)

Kobe Steel’s fake data scandal expanded to its core business after the company admitted “inappropriate actions” related to steel wire produced overseas, triggering a fresh collapse in its shares and heightened speculation that the steelmaker may get broken up. Customers have been informed about the issue, which has been resolved, Tokyo-based spokeswoman Eimi Hamano said by phone, declining to provide details. Kobe Steel falsified quality certification data for steel wire used in auto engines and to strengthen tires, the Nikkei newspaper reported Friday. Kobe’s admission of misconduct in its steel business, which accounts for about a third of revenue, ratchets up the pressure on Japan’s third-biggest steelmaker.

The company’s disclosures had up until now dealt with aluminum, copper and iron ore products used in everything from cars to computer hard drives to Japan’s iconic bullet trains, although there haven’t been any reports of products being recalled or safety concerns raised. The deepening scandal “suggests that this is company culture, not just the actions of a few rogue employees,” Alexander Robert Medd, managing director at Bucephalus Research in Hong Kong, said by email. The question to be resolved is “were they trying to save money or just unable to produce the right spec in the right quantities,” he said. Kobe’s shares have plunged 42% this week, including a 9.1% drop on Friday, after it revealed on Sunday that it had fudged data on the strength and durability of metals supplied to as many as 200 customers around the world, including Toyota, General Motors and space rocket-maker Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

[..] SMBC Nikko Securities said in a note the new revelations around steel wires could be “quite negative” for Kobe Steel’s creditworthiness as the company holds roughly half of the global market share for the wires used in valve springs of auto engines. If doubts arose over the safety of the wires, it could “shake the foundation” of the company, according to chief credit analyst Takayuki Atake.

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“The whole thing makes me feel like there’s a bunch of vultures sitting on my back fence..”

Distressed Investors Buying Houston Homes for 40 Cents on the Dollar (BBG)

Bryan Schild drives through the byways of Houston looking for what could be the investment opportunity of a lifetime: homes selling for as little as 40¢ on the dollar. “We Pay Cash For Flooded Homes $$$$$$$$ Don’t fix it, sell it. Quick close,” read the signs piled in the back seat of his Ford pickup. Schild stops by a ranch-style house where 74-year-old Paul Matlock lives with his wife, disabled from multiple sclerosis. Matlock is desperate to leave and is considering Schild’s offer of $120,000—half the home’s value three weeks earlier. A half-dozen other investors have made offers, one as low as $55,000. “The whole thing makes me feel like there’s a bunch of vultures sitting on my back fence,” Matlock says. “They’re waiting for the dead body to fall over.”

It’s axiomatic on Wall Street that the time to buy is when fear overtakes greed—when blood (or, in this case, water) is in the streets. Now some are eyeing the billions of dollars in hurricane-ravaged property in Texas and Florida and deciding it may be the time to take out their checkbooks. Investors such as Schild figure they can buy low, either fix up and flip the houses or rent them out for several years, and unload them later, doubling their money or more. Those kinds of bets have often paid off. Buyers who snapped up co-ops and office towers when New York was near bankruptcy in the 1970s made a killing. More recently, companies including Blackstone and other marquee names bought foreclosed homes after the 2008 financial crisis and are sitting on billions in potential gains.

The cycle begins with small-time investors such as Schild, who’s bought more than 30 waterlogged houses for an average $175,000 apiece. Then Wall Street swoops in. Gary Beasley, former CEO of Waypoint Homes, also sees an opportunity. He’s pitching private equity firms and pension funds on the potential profit in buying flooded homes, repairing them, and renting them back to homeowners. Bain Capital and billionaire Marc Benioff, co-founder of Salesforce.com, are backing Beasley’s two-year-old company, Roofstock. It runs a website where investors can buy and sell single-family rental properties. Beasley thinks owner-occupants may be interested in selling there, too, and that flooded neighborhoods are the Next Big Thing. “It’s much like the housing crisis, when the institutional guys came in to buy homes nobody wanted,” he says. Like other investors, Beasley and Schild view themselves as helping homeowners to move on and Houston to rebuild.

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Will Musk take Silicon Valley down with him?

Tesla Plays Auto Game By Silicon Valley Rules (DN)

Lest there be any doubt, the electrified race for supremacy in self-driving cars is being played by Silicon Valley rules. How do we know this? By Tesla Chairman Elon Musk’s recognition that his long-awaited Model 3 compact is “in production hell,” that it’s complicated by “bottlenecks” and by confirmation that parts of the cars are being “hand-built.” This amazing accomplishment is being greeted, well, differently by investors than it would if, say, General Motors Chairman Mary Barra copped to the same kind of chaos with its electric Chevrolet Bolt … or just about any other eagerly anticipated model in its lineup. Tesla mostly gets a pass, as it does for losing money on every car it produces. The nearly 4% slide in its shares Monday, the first trading day after The Wall Street Journal reported the messy Model 3 launch, has since recouped most of the loss, judging by the market close Wednesday.

To free “resources to fix Model 3 bottlenecks” and increase battery production to help hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, Musk tweeted that Tesla’s anticipated demonstration of its self-driving truck would be delayed until Nov. 16. Detroit (and its foreign-owned rivals) would get crucified for a similar mess. Analysts, the news media and, especially, investors would show scant tolerance for misses of that magnitude from traditional auto industry players — and all of them would demand answers. Tesla? Not so much. Never mind that Musk, the automotive wunderkind, might risk missing what Barclays Research calls the “iPhone moment” for the Model 3, Tesla’s long-awaited entry into the volume-priced electric car segment. You know, the segment already occupied by GM’s Chevy Bolt, Nissan’s Leaf and a slew of coming electric entrants from global automakers.

As a rule, they don’t botch production launches with the same aplomb as Musk’s hand-built production hell. They also have broader distribution networks under existing state franchise laws; more disciplined production systems with longer lead times to ensure more consistent quality at launch; and greater transparency with investors, analysts and the news media. This will be fascinating to watch. Tesla’s Model 3 is one of the most highly anticipated car launches in a long time. It’s supposed to be sheet metal and electric powertrain proof that Silicon Valley innovation can beat Detroit and Stuttgart, Tokyo and Seoul at their own game.

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Click the link to see the whole thing.

What Powers America (CB)

The US electricity system is often described as the world’s largest machine. It is also incredibly diverse, reflecting the policy preferences, needs and available natural resources of each state. Carbon Brief has plotted the nation’s power stations in an interactive map to show how and where the US generates electricity. A few key messages can be gleaned from the map and associated data interactives below: • The US electricity system has been changing rapidly over the past decade. This reflects not only federal policy, but also technologies, geographies, markets and state mandates. •The average US coal plant is 40 years old and runs half the time. Some 15% are at least 50 years old, against an average retirement age of 52. • Planned new power plants are almost exclusively gas, wind or solar.

Supplying electricity to a nation’s homes, business and industry is an almost uniquely challenging enterprise. For now, electrical energy is either expensive or inconvenient to store, meaning supply and demand must be balanced in real time. It is also easier to generate power close to home than to transport it over long distances. The way electricity is generated fundamentally depends on the fuels and technologies available. The march of progress means this mix is changing – but natural resources and geographies are fixed. Moreover, US states have broad powers to influence the electricity systems within their borders. Putting the US electricity system on a map offers visual confirmation of how important these factors are. Why is solar so prevalent in North Carolina, for example? Or coal in West Virginia?

You can use Carbon Brief’s interactive map to view all the power plants in the US and their relative electricity generating capacities, which are proportional to the size of the bubbles. The dynamic chart in the sidebar summarises the makeup of the capacity mix. It’s important to note that the map and related charts, below, are based on electrical generating capacity. The electricity generated each year by each unit varies according to its load factor (average output of a power station, relative to its installed capacity). US wind has a load factor of around 35% while solar is around 27%. These are lower load factors than for nuclear at around 90%. Coal and gas can, in theory, have similarly high load factors, but in practice both are at around 50% in the US.

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Article gets numbers mixed up, but one thing is certain: Greeks make very little money compared to cost of living.

Greek Civil Servants’ Wages 38% Higher Than Private Sector Staff (K.)

Despite years of austerity policies, Greek civil servants remain significantly better paid than private sector wages, with their average wages 38% higher than their counterparts in the private sector, according to the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV). The average net monthly wage in the public sector is €1,075 compared to €777 in the private sector, according to figures made public in SEV’s weekly bulletin which underlined that the gap between the two is widening rather than closing. In the first half of this year, the average wage in the public sector rose marginally – by 0.1% – compared to a drop of 1.3% for private sector salaries, according to SEV’s analysis, which concluded that private sector workers saw their wages shaved by about €10 a month over that period.

In a related development, a report conducted by the civil servants’ union ADEDY reported an increase in permanent staff in the Greek civil service over the past year. An additional 1,293 staff were hired between August 2016 and last August, bringing the total number to 566,022, according to the report. Another finding was that most Greek civil servants – 80% of the total – take home a net monthly salary of less than €1,300. Half earn up to €1,000 a month, 44% take home between €1,000 and €1,500 and 3.6% net between €1,500 and €2,100, according to the report. Last month, SEV painted a dire picture of the state of the Greek pension system, which it described as running on empty, while warning that the country’s beleaguered private sector has taken on a disproportionate share of the burden to support pensioners and the public sector.

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Easy to figure out what this will mean to health care. The richest country in the world kills its people for profit.

US Obesity Rates Hit New Records: 39.6% of Adults Now Obese (AFP)

The rate of obesity in the United States has reached a new high, at 39.6% of adults, according to US government data released Friday. Health experts are concerned about obesity because it is associated with a number of life-threatening health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and certain kinds of cancer. The adult obesity rate in the United States has risen steadily since 1999, when 30.5% of adults were obese. “From 1999–2000 through 2015–2016, a significantly increasing trend in obesity was observed in both adults and youth,” said the report, based on a nationally representative sample of the population, and issued by the National Center for Health Statistics.

“The observed change in prevalence between 2013–2014 and 2015–2016, however, was not significant among both adults and youth.” Its previous report for 2013 to 2014 found that 37.7% of adults were obese. Researchers said the difference between the current and last report is not statistically significant because it falls within the margin of error of the estimate. Adult obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher. Among youths aged two to 19, 18.5% are obese, the report said. The rate of youth obesity was 13.9% in 1999.

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Another example of killing people for profit.

Antibiotic Resistance Could Spell End Of Modern Medicine (G.)

England’s chief medical officer has repeated her warning of a “post-antibiotic apocalypse” as she urged world leaders to address the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. Prof Dame Sally Davies said that if antibiotics lose their effectiveness it would spell “the end of modern medicine”. Without the drugs used to fight infections, common medical interventions such as caesarean sections, cancer treatments and hip replacements would become incredibly risky and transplant medicine would be a thing of the past, she said. “We really are facing – if we don’t take action now – a dreadful post-antibiotic apocalypse. I don’t want to say to my children that I didn’t do my best to protect them and their children,” Davies said.

Health experts have previously said resistance to antimicrobial drugs could cause a bigger threat to mankind than cancer. In recent years, the UK has led a drive to raise global awareness of the threat posed to modern medicine by antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Each year about 700,000 people around the world die due to drug-resistant infections including tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. If no action is taken, it has been estimated that drug-resistant infections will kill 10 million people a year by 2050. The UK government and the Wellcome Trust, along with others, have organised a call to action meeting for health officials from around the world. At the meeting in Berlin, the government will announce a new project that will map the spread of death and disease caused by drug-resistant superbugs.

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Too sad for words.

Penguin Disaster As Only Two Chicks Survive From Colony Of 40,000 (G.)

A colony of about 40,000 Adélie penguins in Antarctica has suffered a “catastrophic breeding event” – all but two chicks have died of starvation this year. It is the second time in just four years that such devastation – not previously seen in more than 50 years of observation – has been wrought on the population. The finding has prompted urgent calls for the establishment of a marine protected area in East Antarctica, at next week’s meeting of 24 nations and the European Union at the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Hobart. In the colony of about 18,000 breeding penguin pairs on Petrels Island, French scientists discovered just two surviving chicks at the start of the year. Thousands of starved chicks and unhatched eggs were found across the island in the region called Adélie Land (“Terre Adélie”).

The colony had experienced a similar event in 2013, when no chicks survived. In a paper about that event, a group of researchers, led by Yan Ropert-Coudert from France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, said it had been caused by a record amount of summer sea ice and an “unprecedented rainy episode”. The unusual extent of sea ice meant the penguins had to travel an extra 100km to forage for food. And the rainy weather left the chicks, which have poor waterproofing, wet and unable to keep warm. This year’s event has also been attributed to an unusually large amount of sea ice. Overall, Antarctica has had a record low amount of summer sea ice, but the area around the colony has been an exception.

Ropert-Coudert said the region had been severely affected by the break-up of the Mertz glacier tongue in 2010, when a piece of ice almost the size of Luxembourg – about 80 km long and 40km wide – broke off. That event, which occurred about 250km from Petrels Island, had a big impact on ocean currents and ice formation in the region. “The Mertz glacier impact on the region sets the scene in 2010 and when unusual meteorological events, driven by large climatic variations, hit in some years this leads to massive failures,” Ropert-Coudert told the Guardian. “In other words, there may still be years when the breeding will be OK, or even good for this colony, but the scene is set for massive impacts to hit on a more or less regular basis.”

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Nov 052016
 
 November 5, 2016  Posted by at 10:36 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  2 Responses »


Harris&Ewing House-Capitol tunnel, Washington, DC Feb 3 1939

S&P 500 Down For 9th Straight Day; Longest Losing Streak In 36 Years (R.)
FB, AMZN, NFLX, GOOGL Stocks Lose Over $100 Billion In A Week (ZH)
Americans Not In Labor Force Surge By 425,000 To 94,609,000 (ZH)
Theresa May Told To Act To Calm Brexit ‘Mob’ Anger (G.)
Assange: ‘Clinton and ISIS Funded By Same Money’ (Ind.)
Many More Voters Think Hillary Actions Illegal, Trump Unethical (McC.)
Clinton Charity Confirms $1 Million Qatar Gift While She Was At State Dept (R.)
Clinton Foundation Being Investigated by IRS, FBI & Intelligence (Armstrong)
Chelsea Manning Attempts Suicide In Prison For Second Time This Year (AP)
3 New Scandals Show Pervasive and Dangerous Mass Surveillance in West (GG)

 

 

Still a shallow loss. But 1980 seems a distant memory.

S&P 500 Down For 9th Straight Day; Longest Losing Streak In 36 Years (R.)

The S&P 500 ended lower on Friday for a ninth straight day, the longest losing streak for the benchmark index in more than 35 years, as investors stayed on edge ahead of an uncertain U.S. election. The Nasdaq also ended lower for a ninth-consecutive session, while the Dow industrials closed down for a seventh straight day. Investors have been unnerved by signs of a tightening presidential race between Clinton and Trump. Clinton had been thought to have a clear lead until the re-emergence last week of a controversy over her use of a private email server while secretary of state. “Investors are uncertain about the outcome of the election, and they have grown more uncertain since last Friday,” said Walter Todd, CIO with Greenwood Capital.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 42.39 points, or 0.24%, to 17,888.28, the S&P 500 lost 3.48 points, or 0.17%, to 2,085.18 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 12.04 points, or 0.24%, to 5,046.37. Despite the historic run, the S&P has pulled back by only about 3.1% over that time. For the year, the index is up 2%. It was the 14th time since 1928 that the S&P 500 had declined for nine sessions in a row, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. On Friday, Wall Street had posted solid gains as of the afternoon, spurred by a strong U.S. employment report, but then lost steam and sold off into the close.

“Obviously the big concern this week has been the shift in the polls in the election. We did have a bounce for a period of time, but when it didn’t hold and people just decided to liquidate going into the close to reduce exposure in case any more news hits over the weekend,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut. “There’s a lot of headline risk out there.”

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“..the four horsemen of the Fed’s wealth creation bubble…”

FB, AMZN, NFLX, GOOGL Stocks Lose Over $100 Billion In A Week (ZH)

In the last week the so-called FANG stocks (FB, AMZN, NFLX, GOOGL) have stumbled. As earnings and outlooks disappointed, shareholders have awoken to the new normal low growth world and wiped over $100 bilion in market capitalization of the four horsemen of the Fed’s wealth creation bubble. FANGs are now down 8 days in a row…

 

 

Losing a massive $108 billion in that time…

 

This is the biggest drop since the February growth scare – which was only saved by massive coordinated global central bank money-printing… which is simply not about to happen this time.

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The only stat from the BLS report that tells a real story.

Americans Not In Labor Force Surge By 425,000 To 94,609,000 (ZH)

On the surface, the establishment survey print of 161K jobs was just good enough when taking into account the 44,000 in upward revisions to August and September jobs. However, the household survey was less impressive, with the number of workers employed declining by 43,000 to 151,925 even as the number of persons unemployed declined from 7,939K to 7,787K.

So how did the unemployment rate drop? Because contrary to expectations that people are rushing back into the labor force, in October the number of Americans who were not in the labor force rose by a substantial 425,000 to 94,609, the highest print in the series since May, and suggests that the exodus of Americans out of the labor force has resumed.

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Civilized society attacked from all sides.

Theresa May Told To Act To Calm Brexit ‘Mob’ Anger (G.)

Theresa May’s government has been accused of failing to restrain the furious backlash against this week’s high court judgment about article 50, as one of her own MPs resigned, stepping up the political pressure as she battles to stick to her Brexit timetable. Stephen Phillips, the MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham in Lincolnshire, stepped down on Friday with immediate effect. He was unhappy that the government had not planned to consult parliament before triggering article 50 – the issue that led to Thursday’s ruling. Former ministers warned that the febrile tone of media coverage, which included the judges who ruled against the government being condemned as “enemies of the people” by the Daily Mail, risked poisoning public debate.

Dominic Grieve, the Conservative former attorney general, said reading hostile coverage in the Mail and the Daily Telegraph “started to make one think that one was living in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe .. I think there’s a danger of a sort of mob psyche developing – and mature democracies should take sensible steps to avoid that”. Labour also raised concerns about the absence of a ministerial response to the media coverage. Lord Falconer, who was lord chancellor under Labour between 2003 and 2007, said faith in the “independence and quality” of the judiciary was being undermined “by this Brexit-inspired media vitriol” in an article written for the Guardian. Jeremy Corbyn will accuse the government of opposing democratic scrutiny because “frankly, there aren’t any plans, beyond the hollow rhetoric of Brexit means Brexit”.

In a speech on Saturday, the Labour leader will say: “Thursday’s high court decision underlines the necessity that the prime minister brings the government’s negotiating terms for Brexit to parliament without delay. “Labour accepts and respects the decision of the British people to leave the European Union. But there must be transparency and accountability to parliament about the government’s plans.” May called European leaders to tell them again that she would meet her self-imposed deadline and trigger article 50 by the end of March 2017, despite losing the high court case. The prime minister otherwise refused to be drawn into the row. Her spokesman refused to condemn the media coverage on Friday, saying: “I don’t think the British judiciary is being undermined.” But the pro-remain former business minister Anna Soubry told the Guardian: “I think we have to call this out and say ‘not in my name’.”

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“..Trump will not be permitted to win..”

Assange: ‘Clinton and ISIS Funded By Same Money’ (Ind.)

Wealthy officials from Qatar and Saudi Arabia who donated money to Hillary Clinton’s charitable foundation also provided financial support to Isis, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has claimed. In an extended interview at the Ecuadorian embassy in London with documentary maker John Pilger for RT, Mr Assange said the same Saudi and Qatari officials could be seen to be supporting both the Clinton Foundation – founded by Mrs Clinton’s husband Bill – and funding the activities of Isis. Mr Pilger asked if Mr Assange believed that “this notorious jihadist group, called Isil or Isis, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation” “Yes,” Mr Assange replied.

The WikiLeaks founder pointed to an email exchange between presidential hopeful Ms Clinton and her campaign manager John Podesta, leaked by his organisation last month, which he believes “is the most significant email in the whole collection”. In the email sent on August 17 2014, Ms Clinton asked Mr Podesta, who at that time worked under president Barack Obama, to help put “pressure” on Qatar and Saudi Arabia regarding the countries’ alleged support for the terrorist group Isis. “We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to Isil and other radical Sunni groups in the region,” Ms Clinton wrote.

Mr Assange noted the US government had never acknowledged governments of Middle East nations had financially supported Isis, instead arguing such support was isolated to “some rogue princes using their cut of the oil money to do whatever they like, although the government disapproves”, according to the WikiLeaks founder. According to the Clinton Foundation, the Saudi Arabian government has donated between $10m (£8m) and $25million since the foundation was set up in 1997. Last month it was reported the government of Qatar offered to donate $1m to the foundation in celebration of Bill Clinton’s birthday. Representatives from the Clinton Foundation have repeatedly denied accusations Ms Clinton has solicited funds and used donations to boost her campaign.

There were no donations from Saudi Arabia while she was acting as secretary of state between 2009 and 2013. Mr Assange also used the interview to dismiss the prospect of a Donald Trump victory in next week’s election, which the polls show will be close. “My analysis is that Trump will not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he has had every establishment against him. Trump does not have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment. “Banks, intelligence, arms companies, foreign money, etc are all united behind Hillary Clinton. And the media as well. Media owners, and the journalists themselves.”

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“..51% saying she did something illegal..” “..Just 26% think he’s done something illegal..”

Many More Voters Think Hillary Actions Illegal, Trump Unethical (McC.)

A majority of voters believe Hillary Clinton has done something illegal, according to a new McClatchy-Marist Poll days before the presidential election. A total of 83% of likely voters believe that Clinton did something wrong – 51% saying she did something illegal and 32% saying she something unethical but not illegal. Just 14% said she’s done nothing wrong. By comparison, 79% think Donald Trump did something wrong, though not nearly as many think he did something illegal. Just 26% think he’s done something illegal, while 53% think he’s dome something unethical but not illegal. Just 17% think he’s done nothing wrong. The deep suspicion of Clinton is likely a top reason she’s lost much of her lead and the race for the White House has tightened in the race’s closing days.

In a four-way race, the two are neck and neck with Clinton supported by 44% and Trump by 43%. Libertarian Gary Johnson has 6%, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein has 2%. In a two-way match up, Clinton has 46%, Trump 44%. Both candidates are disliked. Clinton gets a favorable rating from just 40% while 57% have unfavorable views of her. Voters have a 61% to 36% unfavorable-favorable rating of Trump. “This is practically off the charts,” said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York, which conducted the nationwide survey. “You have candidates coming before the electorate with enormous baggage.”

Even 57% of those who are supporting Trump and 58% of Republicans think he acted unethically. 55% of voters said the accusations against Trump would make a difference in how they vote. At the same time stories about the FBI inquiry may have raised more suspicion about Clinton, they also may have energized the vote for Trump. The poll shows Trump gaining support among Republicans, as running mate Mike Pence and others have urged GOP voters in recent weeks to “come home.” Trump enters the final weekend with the support of 92% of Republicans. That’s more than Clinton, who has 89% support of Democrats.

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The irony of people voting for her because Hillary’s a woman is dazzling given how Qatar thinks about women.

Clinton Charity Confirms $1 Million Qatar Gift While She Was At State Dept (R.)

The Clinton Foundation has confirmed it accepted a $1 million gift from Qatar while Hillary Clinton was U.S. secretary of state without informing the State Department, even though she had promised to let the agency review new or significantly increased support from foreign governments. Qatari officials pledged the money in 2011 to mark the 65th birthday of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton’s husband, and sought to meet the former U.S. president in person the following year to present him the check, according to an email from a foundation official to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta. The email, among thousands hacked from Podesta’s account, was published last month by WikiLeaks. Clinton signed an ethics agreement governing her family’s globe-straddling foundation in order to become secretary of state in 2009.

The agreement was designed to increase transparency to avoid appearances that U.S. foreign policy could be swayed by wealthy donors. If a new foreign government wished to donate or if an existing foreign-government donor, such as Qatar, wanted to “increase materially” its support of ongoing programs, Clinton promised that the State Department’s ethics official would be notified and given a chance to raise any concerns. Clinton Foundation officials last month declined to confirm the Qatar donation. In response to additional questions, a foundation spokesman, Brian Cookstra, this week said that it accepted the $1 million gift from Qatar, but this did not amount to a “material increase” in the Gulf country’s support for the charity. Cookstra declined to say whether Qatari officials received their requested meeting with Bill Clinton.

[..] At least eight other countries besides Qatar gave new or increased funding to the foundation, in most cases to fund its health project, without the State Department being informed, according to foundation and agency records. They include Algeria, which gave for the first time in 2010, and the United Kingdom, which nearly tripled its support for the foundation’s health project to $11.2 million between 2009 and 2012. Foundation officials have said some of those donations, including Algeria, were oversights and should have been flagged, while others, such as the UK increase, did not qualify as material increases. The foundation has declined to describe what sort of increase in funding by a foreign government would have triggered notification of the State Department for review.

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IRS. New kid on the block.

Clinton Foundation Being Investigated by IRS, FBI & Intelligence (Armstrong)

The internal war we have warned is unfolding with Intelligence and Law Enforcement standing against Obama and the corrupt DOJ under Lynch is really heating up. The FBI realizes that Lynch’s DOJ will protect Hillary at all costs and will never allow her to be criminally charged. They have no choice now but to leak everything they can to show the corruption going on in the Department of Justice (see Daily Mail). There are 650,000+ emails on Weiner’s laptop. Meanwhile, Huma Abedin is preparing for her own criminal changes of obstruction of justice. She did not turn over that laptop when ordered to do so. She is now crying “she doesn’t know how her emails wound up on her husband’s computer” according to the Washington Post. She is saying that and it is not plausible. She had to be using that computer.

Oh she may try to claim that her husband hacked her emails to escape the criminal charges. But that will get really messy. It would also mean there was a MAJOR breach of security. Now the FBI is letting the press know that Clinton’s server was hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies. There are now also two addition investigations into Hillary on that score. State Department has revealed there were 10 attempts to hack Hillary in just 2 days. Let’s face it, if Hillary is elected, she will most likely be IMPEACHED as was her husband, but this time she would be removed. This is not a Monica deal. This election is going down in history as the tipping point for the United States. It has revealed how corrupt Congress really is. We have even former Bush Sr saying he will vote for Hillary.

He just lost all my respect for he has chosen the status quo to save the politicians rather than his country. This is just over the top. Even Podesta began a lobbying firm with his brother, which now collects $120,000 PER MONTH in a fee from Saudi Arabia. Hillary has tried to slander Assange saying all these hacks came from Russia. Assange has come out and bluntly said the hacked Clinton emails didn’t come from Russia government. They may be coming from sources inside the USA. Do not forget, to my surprise, there is one source that has EVERYTHING. Hello – NSA! Anyone remember they are storing everyone’s emails, text messages, and phone calls? Nobody want to order the NSA to turn it all over because it will reveal treason, where Hillary took money from foreign government and they approved arms deals.

If Hillary is elected, it will be by rigging the election. Our computer has NEVER been wrong on this score. So if she takes office, this will be the worst administration in history and may very will set in motion the phase transition where capital flees to bonds and we see a significant rise in civil unrest.

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Say a prayer, light a candle.

Chelsea Manning Attempts Suicide In Prison For Second Time This Year (AP)

An attorney for Chelsea Manning says the transgender soldier imprisoned in Kansas has tried to kill herself for the second time in recent months. Vincent Ward said Friday that Manning attempted suicide last month at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, though the attorney declined to divulge specifics. Manning also tried to take her own life in July. Wayne Hall, an Army spokesman, on Friday would not discuss the latest attempt, citing medical privacy laws. Manning is serving a 35-year sentence. She was arrested in 2010 as Bradley Manning and was convicted in 2013 in military court of leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks. Manning was an intelligence analyst in Iraq at the time.

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Everyday practices.

3 New Scandals Show Pervasive and Dangerous Mass Surveillance in West (GG)

[..] three major events prove how widespread, and dangerous, mass surveillance has become in the west. Standing alone, each event highlights exactly the severe threats which motivated Edward Snowden to blow his whistle; taken together, they constitute full-scale vindication of everything he’s done. Earlier this month, a special British court that rules on secret spying activities issued an emphatic denunciation of the nation’s domestic mass surveillance programs. The court found that “British security agencies have secretly and unlawfully collected massive volumes of confidential personal data, including financial information, on citizens for more than a decade.” Those agencies, the court found, “operated an illegal regime to collect vast amounts of communications data, tracking individual phone and web use and other confidential personal information, without adequate safeguards or supervision for 17 years.”

On Thursday, an even more scathing condemnation of mass surveillance was issued by the Federal Court of Canada. The ruling “faulted Canada’s domestic spy agency for unlawfully retaining data and for not being truthful with judges who authorize its intelligence programs.” Most remarkable was that these domestic, mass surveillance activities were not only illegal, but completely unknown to virtually the entire population in Canadian democracy, even though their scope has indescribable implications for core liberties: “the centre in question appears to be the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s equivalent of a crystal ball – a place where intelligence analysts attempt to deduce future threats by examining, and re-examining, volumes of data.”

The third scandal also comes from Canada – a critical partner in the Five Eyes spying alliance along with the U.S. and UK – where law enforcement officials in Montreal are now defending “a highly controversial decision to spy on a La Presse columnist [Patrick Lagacé] by tracking his cellphone calls and texts and monitoring his whereabouts as part of a necessary internal police investigation.” The targeted journalist, Lagacé, had enraged police officials by investigating their abusive conduct, and they then used surveillance technology to track his calls and movements to unearth the identity of his sources. Just as that scandal was exploding, it went, in the words of the Montreal Gazette, “from bad to worse” as the ensuing scrutiny revealed that police had actually “tracked the calls and movements of six journalists that year after news reports based on leaks revealed Michel Arsenault, then president of Quebec’s largest labour federation, had his phone tapped.”

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