May 312023
 


John Singer Sargent Palmettos, Florida 1917

 

NATO Is Creating Another Battlefield On European Continent (GT)
NATO Is ‘Escalation Factor’ In Kosovo – Moscow (RT)
Maidan-Style Coup Attempt Unfolding In Belgrade — Russian Ambassador (TASS)
NATO To Send More Troops To Kosovo Following Clashes (RT)
Another Strike on Vladimir Putin? (GP)
US ‘Encourage’ Ukraine To Attack Russia – Ambassador (RT)
Russia Will Be Appropriately Represented At BRICS Summit – Kremlin (RT)
Oil Flows Can Only Be Redirected, Not Stopped (Slav)
Pfizer, the EU, and Disappearing Ink (Pol.eu)
Growing List of Whistleblowers Reporting Reprisal Under Biden Admin (ET)
New Insight into Hunter Biden and his Collapsing World of Corruption (Turley)
Jim Rogers Is Bracing For The Worst Bear Market Of His Life (BI)
Student Loans Represent 7% of US GDP (ZH)
Greece and Poland Join Forces to Seek German War Reparations (GR)
Donald Trump, Pence’s Taskforce, and DeSantis’s Revisionist Attacks (NP)
‘Swiftboating America’ (Mahncke)

 

 


Former Ukraine PM AZAROV: “Over the years, presidents of Ukraine made promises to turn the country into a new France or a new Switzerland. Zelensky went further than anyone and turned the country into a new Afghanistan, to the delight of the Anglo-Saxons and defense companies.”

 

 

Putin: NOT geopolitics

 

 

 

 

Lavrov genocide
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663332335620874240

 

 

 

 

RFK Ukraine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663573559044702210

 

 

 

 

Kiev supermarket
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663363631520661504

 

 

Carrey

 

 

Sources in Kiev said that as a result of a strike on a military facility on Rybalsky Island, one of the control centers was hit. With the beginning of the air raid, the personnel of the center descended into the shelter, but the Russian Aerospace starwars Forces used a missile with a penetrating warhead, which pierced through the building, penetrated the foundation and exploded, destroying the shelter, where at that moment there were up to a hundred officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and civilian personnel, including twenty foreign military from the USA and Great Britain, who interacted between the Center and similar Western headquarters. A rescue operation was immediately launched. Its results are unknown, but, according to the call center of the Kiev “Ambulance”, more than ten cars were immediately pulled there and about thirty flights were made. On the same evening, two helicopters urgently took off from Kiev towards the border with Poland.

 

 

 

 

Two different fronts: Kosovo and Belgrade. This is from China’s Global Times:

NATO Is Creating Another Battlefield On European Continent (GT)

The situation in the Balkans is now at an explosive point. KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, clashed with Serb protesters on Monday. The tension arose after ethnic Albanian mayors took office in northern Kosovo’s Serb majority area after April elections that the Serbs boycotted. Kosovo and Serbia have long-running tensions. Kosovo was originally an autonomous province of Serbia in the former Yugoslavia. With the support of the US and the West, Kosovo has been seeking to move further on the road of “independent statehood” and adopted a hardline attitude toward Serbia. NATO’s involvement has further exacerbated the rift between Kosovo and Serbia, leading to military conflicts between the two sides and undermining the peace and unity of the Western Balkans.

As the situation escalates, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has called on Kosovo to tone down tensions with Serbia. But it remains doubtful if NATO truly wants to stop the conflict. The NATO-led multinational contingents were deployed to four municipalities in Kosovo to contain “violent demonstrations” as “newly elected mayors in recent days tried to take office,” KFOR said in a statement. NATO calls for easing tensions on one hand, but on the other hand, increases military presence. It seems that NATO is just buying time to arm Kosovo, analysts argued. From its past wars, it’s clear the US is quite good at pretending fairness in stopping a fight while helping one side, buying time for those it supports by calling for a ceasefire. The promises made by NATO and other Western countries to protect the Serbs in Kosovo simply cannot be fulfilled. An article in the Financial Times said that the West’s push to heal the divide between Serbia and Kosovo is ill-fated.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times that NATO forces did not truly engage in peacekeeping in Serbia and Kosovo, but rather aimed to maintain the basic fact of “Kosovo’s independence” and helped Kosovo oppress Serbs. Serbia’s sovereignty and national security aren’t NATO’s priority. “The Russia-Ukraine conflict has not yielded any results for peace, and there is a possibility of escalation. The possibility of renewed conflict in the Balkans also exists. Because the Russia-Ukraine conflict has not achieved the desired effect for the US, Washington needs to create a new war on the European continent,” Song said. From the perspective of the US, the country is not concerned about the possibility of more wars breaking out in Europe, as it is not directly involved in the region. Washington can withdraw its military forces at any time.

Washington actually hopes to see chaos in Europe, as well as the mess of the European economy and Europe’s dependence on the US. The US does not want a united and strong Europe to exist. Meanwhile, as the Russia-Ukraine conflict has consumed much of the US energy and resources, the US is likely to view the worsening rift between Serbia and Kosovo as an opportunity that it can take advantage of to weaken Russia’s influence in Serbia and the Balkans. The ultimate goal of the US is to have both Europe and Russia suffer losses, which is more in line with its global strategy and hegemonic interests. Now the US sees Europe as two powder kegs, one in a hot war and one about to explode. In Washington’s eyes, Europe’s crisis is an opportunity for the US to take advantage of.

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“Not only have they shown their incompetence … [they] themselves became a source of unnecessary violence, an escalation factor..”

NATO Is ‘Escalation Factor’ In Kosovo – Moscow (RT)

Instead of defusing hostilities between the local authorities and the Serbian ethnic majority in the northern part of Kosovo, NATO troops have only exacerbated the unrest, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Tuesday. Zakharova pointed out that the situation in the area had reached “a critical red line.” She was referring to violent clashes between local Serbs and NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) that erupted after the bloc’s soldiers attempted to disperse demonstrators that were protesting against the inauguration of the new mayor of the Albanian ethnicity. The stand-off resulted in dozens of injuries on both sides. The unrest came after local Serbs, who have long sought for more autonomy, boycotted Pristina-backed elections in the northern part of Kosovo.

Despite a turnout of less than 4%, local authorities treated them as legitimate, resulting in the election of four ethnically Albanian mayors. Zakharova argued that the crisis in Kosovo, which could be resolved peacefully, turned out to be “a nut too hard to crack” for NATO service members. “Not only have they shown their incompetence … [they] themselves became a source of unnecessary violence, an escalation factor,” the spokeswoman claimed. As a result, those who were charged with protecting Serbs from this crackdown, “supported Pristina’s xenophobic aspirations, basically turning into terror accomplices” by defending local authorities, she said. The spokeswoman also urged the West to “silence its false propaganda” and stop accusing desperate Serbs of provoking incidents when they were just trying to defend their legitimate rights in a peaceful manner.

“While looking for the guilty, mediators from the US and the EU should muster up some courage and look in the mirror,” the official stated. “To de-escalate, decisive steps are needed, and not half-measures like an idea proposed by the US to temporarily ‘move’ the newly-minted ‘mayors’ from municipal buildings to other facilities,” Zakharova stressed, adding that those steps may include the creation of an association of Serbian municipalities in Kosovo. The region unilaterally declared independence in 2008 with the support of the US and many of its allies. It is not recognized by several countries, including Russia, China, and Serbia itself.

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Promises were made to the Serbs in Kosovo, and not kept. Sound familiar? If you base your far-reaching actions on “elections” with a turnout under 4%, then yes, you will have trouble.

Maidan-Style Coup Attempt Unfolding In Belgrade — Russian Ambassador (TASS)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s opponents are trying to stage a Maidan-style coup (the term “Maidan” was coined after Kiev’s central Independence Square, or Maidan Nezalezhnosti, to refer to anti-government riots) in the capital, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said on Tuesday. “This is part of the hybrid war. I would like to stress that anti-Belgrade forces acted almost synchronously; they operate on two fronts – this is the situation in Kosovo and attempts at a Maidan coup here, in Belgrade,” he said. An anti-government rally was held in Belgrade on May 28. The protesters gathered near the building of Serbia’s national broadcaster. It was the fourth protest rally in the past month. Grass-roots demonstrations under the slogan Serbia Against Violence were held in Belgrade on May 8, 12, and 19 following two shootings that occurred on consecutive days in the country on May 3 and 4.


The first was a school shooting in Belgrade where ten people died and seven were wounded, followed up by eight people being killed and 14 wounded by an armed man in Mladenovac the next day. People demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic and chief of the Security Information Agency Aleksandar Vulin. Apart from that, the demonstrators insisted that some pro-government media propagating violence and hatred be shut down. The first rally was quite peaceful, with practically no anti-government slogans. People were simply congregating in silence in front of the parliamentary building. During the second rally, protesters blocked a bridge across the Sava River and chanted anti-government slogans. The third demonstration had an anti-government character too. According to the Serbian interior ministry, more than 11,000 people took part in these rallies.

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Yeah, that will bring peace… Military troops vs civilians.

NATO To Send More Troops To Kosovo Following Clashes (RT)

The NATO bloc will deploy 700 additional peacekeepers to Kosovo, where 30 troops were wounded during clashes with local Serb protesters. Another battalion will be placed on high alert in the event of further escakation. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the move during a Tuesday press briefing, saying the deployment was a response to recent “attacks” on the peacekeeping force, which he said were “unacceptable.” Stoltenberg urged officials in Pristina and Belgrade to take “concrete steps” to de-escalate the situation, and said the two sides should participate in an EU-brokered dialogue. Violent clashes between local Serbs and NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) erupted after peacekeepers attempted to disperse demonstrators protesting the inauguration of a an Albanian mayor in a Serb-majority area. The standoff resulted in dozens of injuries on both sides.

The unrest came after local Serbs, who have long sought autonomy in Kosovo, boycotted Pristina-backed elections in several regions of Serbia’s breakaway province. Despite a turnout of less than 4%, local authorities accepted the votes as legitimate, announcing the election of four Albanian mayors. KFOR was first established in 1999 in the wake of NATO’s intervention in the Kosovo conflict on behalf of Kosovar Albanians and the bloc’s months-long bombing campaign in Serbia. The force consisted of around 50,000 troops at its height, but has since declined to about 3,700 soldiers today.

Kosovo has seen several waves of unrest since the 1999 war. In 2008, the Western-backed Albanian authorities unilaterally declared independence from Belgrade. The move was quickly backed by the United States and many other Western countries. Russia and China are among the states that continue to view Kosovo as part of Serbia. Moscow has said NATO is largely responsible for the recent spike in hostilities. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused the alliance of becoming “a source of unnecessary violence” and an “escalation factor” in the region. She urged the bloc to “silence its false propaganda” against local Serbs, who she said had been wrongly blamed for provoking incidents.

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“The early morning assault specifically targeted the wealthiest areas of the city, where Putin and multiple Russian elites have homes.”

Another Strike on Vladimir Putin? (GP)

Did the Ukrainians attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday morning? Did they have assistance? The Daily Mail reported that Moscow was attacked by several suspected Ukrainian drones Tuesday morning ostensibly in revenge for Russian attacks on Kyiv. The early morning assault specifically targeted the wealthiest areas of the city, where Putin and multiple Russian elites have homes. One local resident pointed out the attacks all happened within “an earshot” of Putin’s official residence in Novo-Ogaryovo. Here are the full details from the Daily Mail:

“Several buildings were damaged in wealthy suburbs of Moscow, including the elite district of Rublyovka to the south-west of the capital. One drone exploded into a mushroom cloud near the village of Usovo, which is just down the road from Putin’s official Novo-Ogaryovo residence. Explosive drones also struck blocks of flats in Leninsky Prospekt and Profsoyuznaya Street about six miles from the centre of Moscow, reportedly wounding several residents and damaging the buildings. Tuesday’s early morning raid targeted some of Moscow’s wealthiest areas including a western enclave where Putin and the elite have residences. Two people were injured while some Russians in two damaged apartment blocks were briefly evacuated, according to Moscow’s mayor.”

The New York Times notes that this marked the first time strikes hit civilian areas in the Russia’s capital. Looks like the crazy ukrainian lunatics may be planning on attacking Moscow? What is Biden getting us into? [..] If Ukraine was involved in this attack, the odds of World War III just skyrocketed. A peace deal must be struck quickly.

Maiman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663467784578412544

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“The Russian Federation has been sentenced to ‘capital punishment’ in the [West] long ago. But simply, they don’t have it in them to achieve this goal..”

US ‘Encourage’ Ukraine To Attack Russia – Ambassador (RT)

The US has been inciting Ukraine to strike Russian territory, despite claiming the opposite, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said on Wednesday. Antonov argued that Washington’s statements in response to the recent drone raid on the Russian capital “sound like an encouragement for Ukrainian terrorists.” “Doesn’t the [US] administration understand that no one believes their slogans about non-support of Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory?!” the diplomat said, according to a statement on the embassy’s Telegram channel. Antonov’s remarks came after a White House spokesperson told reporters that “as [a] general matter, we do not support attacks inside of Russia.” The goal of the drone attack was to “sow fear among Russians” and undermine trust in the authorities, he said.


“The Russian Federation has been sentenced to ‘capital punishment’ in the [West] long ago. But simply, they don’t have it in them to achieve this goal,” the ambassador stated. Drones carrying explosives crashed into residential buildings in Moscow on Tuesday morning. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, eight UAVs participated in the attack, and all of them were either destroyed by air defenses, or veered off course due to the use of jamming equipment. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that no one was killed or seriously injured. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s senior adviser Mikhail Podoliak denied Kiev’s involvement in the attack, but suggested that more similar raids would come.

We’re taking no blood

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Putin will not attend: “the immunities do not override any warrant issued by any international tribunal (like the ICC) against any attendee..”

Russia Will Be Appropriately Represented At BRICS Summit – Kremlin (RT)

Russia plans to take part in the BRICS summit in South Africa at the “proper level,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday in response to a question about whether President Vladimir Putin would attend. Putin has been invited to the gathering. However, by virtue of being a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued a warrant against the Russian leader for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, South Africa would be obliged to arrest him if he attends. The 15th BRICS Summit in August will bring together the leaders of the world’s leading emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Speaking at a news briefing on Tuesday, Peskov emphasized, as cited by the news agency TASS, that “Russia attributes great importance to the development of this integration format.”


Moscow will therefore “take part in this summit at the proper level.” Although he did not give any specifics, he offered assurances that “all the details” on the issue would be provided at a later stage. “We count as a bare minimum on partner countries in such an important format not being guided by such illegal decisions,” he said in reaction to a query about Pretoria implementing the warrant, Reuters reported. South Africa’s Foreign Ministry has granted diplomatic immunity to foreign officials participating in the summit from August 22-24, as well for a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers this week. Clayson Monyela, spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, explained that such immunities are customary for international gatherings. However, “the immunities do not override any warrant issued by any international tribunal (like the ICC) against any attendee,” he clarified in a tweet.

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Oil simply follows the path of least resistance. It doesn’t go away. Too much demand for that.

“India’s fuel exports to Europe over the past 12 months have jumped by over 70% [..] there is precious little the EU could do to change this without plunging the European economy into a deep recession brought on by fuel price inflation.”

Oil Flows Can Only Be Redirected, Not Stopped (Slav)

Asian oil imports were due for a marked rebound this month after the end of the maintenance season. Chances are that a lot of the additional oil would be coming from Russia, which has become one of the largest suppliers of China and India. In fact, Russian oil flows are growing despite claims from Moscow that it has reduced its total oil production. According to Bloomberg, Russian oil exports actually hit the highest since the start of 2022 last month. This is happening in the context of the most severe sanction push by the collective West against the country. And it is the clearest evidence yet of just how essential oil is for the functioning of the global economy. Before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s biggest oil clients were European countries. For China and India, it was a minor supplier. Since last year this has changed dramatically.

Now, China and India are the two biggest buyers of Russian crude. The two together took in as much as 80% of Russia’s total oil exports last month, according to the International Energy Agency. And the total, at 8.3 million barrels daily, was markedly higher than the annual average for both last year and the year before that. What’s more, Europe, which placed an embargo on direct Russian oil and fuel imports, has been taking in more fuels made in Asia—notably India. In fact, it seems to be taking in a lot of these fuels if the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell had to call publicly for an end to this practice. Indeed, India’s fuel exports to Europe over the past 12 months have jumped by over 70%, Reuters reported earlier this month. The report also noted that there is precious little the EU could do to change this without plunging the European economy into a deep recession brought on by fuel price inflation.

So, while until a year ago, Russian crude and fuels were going mostly to Europe directly, now almost all crude oil that Russia exports ends up in China and India. From there, processed into fuels, it goes to Europe. The routes have shifted. Oil demand has not. It is because of the resilience of oil demand that Russia’s oil revenues are recovering, too. In a recent report, Finland-based energy think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said Moscow’s oil export revenues have rebounded to the highest since last November over the past couple of months. The authors noted that total budget revenues were down in April on an annual basis, but added that “Russia was able to export its main crude oil variety, for the first time, at prices that were systematically above the price cap level set by the U.S., EU and allies.”

There has been a lot of reporting about how China and India were benefiting from the discount at which Russian crude sells because of the sanctions. Most of that reporting has had an optimistic spin along the following lines: sanctions and the price cap are working because Russian oil is flowing, keeping global prices in check and bringing in lower revenues for the Kremlin. What the optimistic spin omits is that Russian oil prices remain tied to global prices, and as global prices recover, so do the prices of Russian crude, as stated by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. In other words, global oil demand, and Asian oil demand specifically, is so inelastic that no amount of sanctions can sap it.

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They simply refuse to testify or provide files. Sort of like the FBI in the US. Ursula must be fired, or the EU has a giant credibility problem. The total bill is €21.5 billion..

Pfizer, the EU, and Disappearing Ink (Pol.eu)

It’s as if Pfizer’s massive COVID-19 vaccine deal with the European Commission were written with disappearing ink: the more time passes, the more details seem to vanish. For a while now controversy has raged around the text messages supposedly exchanged between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla in the run-up to the April 2021 deal for 1.1 billion doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. The content and even existence of the messages has been shrouded in secrecy, with requests for clarification met with a fat “no comment.” On Friday, the Commission said it had reached a long sought-after deal with Pfizer to revise the terms of the contract. The new deal cuts down the 450 million doses that were still due to be delivered in 2023, and spreads them out over the next four years.

That’s all the information you get. The Commission isn’t revealing the new number of doses that member countries must buy, nor any of the financial terms of the amended contract. A lack of transparency has been a consistent feature of this deal. The Commission refused a Brussels journalist’s “access to documents” request to see von der Leyen’s alleged messages with Bourla — despite reproach from the European Ombudsman. The EU’s budget watchdog was blocked from looking into the negotiations, with no explanation given. The European Parliament’s committee on COVID-19 didn’t fare any better, with von der Leyen dodging a summons to appear in front of MEPs to answer their questions. It wasn’t always like this. The Commission was initially keen to flaunt the deal, which secured up to 1.8 billion doses of the vaccine that the U.S. pharmaceutical company jointly developed with Germany’s BioNTech.

Back then in April 2021, COVID-19 was still raging and governments were scrambling to secure access to limited supplies of vaccines; a couple of months earlier, the recently Brexited U.K. had secured a preferential supply line from AstraZeneca. Then came the big contract. It was the third deal the Commission had signed with BioNTech/Pfizer, but it dwarfed anything that came before. It locked the bloc into purchasing 900 million doses of vaccine upfront — enough to vaccinate the EU’s adult population three times over. Eventually an option for another 200 million doses was exercised, bringing the total number of doses to 1.1 billion, worth €21.5 billion based on vaccine prices reported by the Financial Times. Von der Leyen even took a victory lap in the New York Times, revealing that she took an unusual personal role in the talks in the run-up to the deal.

In the article, titled “How Europe Sealed a Pfizer Vaccine Deal With Texts and Calls”, the U.S. newspaper cites interviews with both von der Leyen and Bourla, revealing that the two texted and called each other in the run-up to the contract. At the top of the article, von der Leyen is photographed staring, steely-eyed, out of the Berlaymont onto Brussels, lending her face to the deal. More recently, though, the contract has become something of an embarrassment for the EU’s executive. [..] Alexander Fanta, a Brussels reporter at Netzpolitik, put in an “access to documents” request after reading the New York Times story. The Commission said it couldn’t find the texts, earning a rap on the knuckles from the European Ombudsman.

The EU’s budget watchdog, the European Court of Auditors, also came up against a wall of silence. In a report on the EU’s vaccine procurement published September last year, the agency auditors said that unlike with other contract negotiations, the Commission refused to provide records of the discussions with Pfizer, either in the form of minutes, names of experts consulted, agreed terms, or other evidence. Next it was the turn of the European Parliament. The committee on COVID-19, led by Belgian Socialist Kathleen Van Brempt, didn’t fare any better that the auditors. Twice, Pfizer’s CEO refused to appear in front of MEPs. And senior figures in the Parliament blocked a public cross-examination of the Commission president. Even the New York Times, where von der Leyen first trumpeted her success, is now suing the Commission to have the text messages released.

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The investigation into Hunter started in 2018…

Growing List of Whistleblowers Reporting Reprisal Under Biden Admin (ET)

In just under two-and-a-half years of the Biden administration, a growing number of whistleblowers have come forward to allege serious misconduct from officials in the FBI, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and even the White House. By law, whistleblowers are protected from retaliation. However, according to several recent whistleblowers, reprisal has been a common result for individuals who have come forward with allegations of misconduct under the current administration. Below are some of the individuals who have blown the whistle on wrongdoing under the Biden administration and faced or feared punishment for doing so. Last month, an unnamed IRS criminal supervisory agent alleged to Congress that the IRS was mishandling its investigation of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

In an April 19 letter, the whistleblower’s attorney, Mark Lytle, wrote to Congress seeking legal protections for his client to provide further details about disclosures the agent had made internally at the IRS, to the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and the Justice Department inspector general. The disclosures, Lytle wrote, “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee” and involved unresolved conflicts of interest and examples of preferential treatment for political reasons. Although the letter did not mention the younger Biden by name, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) revealed in an April 20 interview with Fox News that the allegations were related to the federal probe of potential tax crimes committed by the president’s son—an investigation that has been ongoing since 2018.

Following the letter’s publication in the media, rumors swirled that the referenced political appointee was Attorney General Merrick Garland, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March that the investigation into Hunter Biden would remain free of political influence. However, on May 15, Lytle and Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt—who is also representing the whistleblower—revealed in a subsequent letter to Congress that their client and his entire team had been removed from the investigation, allegedly at the request of the Justice Department. The change, the attorneys said, was “clearly retaliatory” even though such reprisal violates federal law.

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“I cannot find you, believe it or not I have been looking. I [have] driven by Hallie’s, you fathers. Called texted you … I want to help all the deals are still alive.”

New Insight into Hunter Biden and his Collapsing World of Corruption (Turley)

In 2018, Hunter Biden’s world was collapsing. The New York Times had run a story on one of his shady deals with the Chinese and his father, then vice president, was pulled into the vortex. It appears that Hunter was in a free fall and his uncle Jim Biden reached out in newly discovered messages to offer him a “safe harbor.” The exchange is an insight into a train wreck of a life of the scion of one of the most powerful families in the country. However, it is also insight into a world of influence peddling where millions simply evaporated in the coffers of the Biden family. On their face, the messages seem to contradict public statements from President Biden on the foreign-influence peddling that was used to fund Hunter’s drug-infused, self-destructive lifestyle. The Times story caused a panic in the Biden family.

Despite a largely supportive media, the Bidens have long been known for influence peddling. Jim Biden has been repeatedly criticized for marketing his access to his brother in pitches to clients. Hunter knew that the Times story was only the tip of an iceberg. There were deals all over the world with foreign figures worth millions and some of these figures had close ties to foreign intelligence or regimes. As revealed recently by the House Oversight Committee, the Bidens constructed a labyrinth of corporations and accounts to transfer millions from these deals to a variety of Biden family members, including grandchildren. Nevertheless, Joe Biden repeatedly claimed as a presidential candidate and as president that he had no knowledge of any foreign dealings of his son. Those denials now appear patently false.

The laptop includes pictures and appointments of Hunter’s foreign business associates with Joe Biden. It also includes a recording concerning a Times report on Dec. 12, 2018, detailing Hunter’s dealings with Ye Jianming, the head of CEFC China Energy Company. Ye would later be arrested for corruption. As Biden associates pushed the Times to change aspects of the story, Joe Biden called to report on the results. In his message, Biden ends his call to Hunter with the statement “I think you’re clear. And anyway if you get a chance, give me a call, I love you.” The new messages indicate that the Bidens were worried that Hunter was in a free fall as these dealings were becoming known and revenue was declining. Jim Biden appears to be rushing to get Hunter to work the problem with the family.

He assures him that they can find him “a safe harbor” and that “I can work with you[r] father alone!” Hunter previously complained that he was giving as much as half of his proceeds to his father and was now facing towering financial demands. He appears to have cut off the family. That is a dangerous development for a man who had a long struggle with drugs and alcohol. Hunter blew through a fortune on narcotics and women, including allegations that he may have used a shared credit card with his father to pay off prostitutes. Both Joe and Jim Biden were reaching out to Hunter to assure him that he was in the “clear” and that there is a “safe harbor.” However, Jim pushed him to remain in contact and in the fold: “I cannot find you, believe it or not I have been looking. I [have] driven by Hallie’s, you fathers. Called texted you … I want to help all the deals are still alive.”

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“The world has never seen the debt and the spending and the money printing like in the last few years. So something is going to have to be very, very ruinous to solve this problem this time.”

Jim Rogers Is Bracing For The Worst Bear Market Of His Life (BI)

Jim Rogers is bracing for the biggest market downturn in eight decades. The 80-year-old investor issued the grave warning during a recent RealVision interview. He also cautioned the US dollar’s global dominance is under threat, and higher interest rates will be necessary to rein in soaring prices. The cofounder of George Soros’ Quantum Fund also slammed US lawmakers for the current debt-ceiling debacle, touted commodities as the best hedges against inflation, and dismissed the idea that governments will embrace bitcoin. Here are Rogers’ 7 best quotes, lightly edited for length and clarity:
1. “The next bear market will be the worst in my lifetime, because the debt has gone up by such staggering amounts in the past 14 years.” (Rogers said the 2008 crash was caused by excessive amounts of debt, and borrowing has ballooned since then, suggesting a far worse downturn lies ahead.)

2. “We should always be concerned about Washington. They don’t have a clue what they’re doing. And they prove it day in and day out.” (He was discussing the current political gridlock over raising the debt ceiling.)

3. “You should be extremely worried. If you’re not, you don’t know what’s going on. Many countries are starting to look for alternatives to the US dollar, partly because of its horrendous debt problem. I’m looking every day, because I know that something bad is going to happen in the currency markets in the next two or three years.” (Rogers was commenting on de-dollarization fears.)

4. “Interest rates are going to go higher worldwide. I don’t know how high they have to go to kill inflation this time around. The world has never seen the debt and the spending and the money printing like in the last few years. So something is going to have to be very, very ruinous to solve this problem this time.”

5. “There’ll be trouble in all the markets — property markets, stock markets, bond markets, currency markets, everything. You have to learn about cash or selling short in order to survive what’s coming.”

6. “I don’t think that the world is going to convert to bitcoin. It will be computer money, but it will be government computer money.”

7. “The best place to be when you have inflation is real assets, and real assets are commodities. The cheapest asset that I know is still commodities.” (Rogers said he owns some silver and gold currently.)

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“..the average student loan payment is $393 per month..” For 25 million Americans. That adds up to $9.825 billion. And as per September 2023, for the first time in 39 months, that must be repaid again. Which removes it from discretionary spending.

Student Loans Represent 7% of US GDP (ZH)

Here are the details: late last year, Biden extended the repayment pause, which postpones roughly $5bn per month in student loan repayments, until 60 days after the Supreme Court ruled on the separate $400bn loan forgiveness plan the – the Supreme Court is likely to rule on loan forgiveness in June, so this likely would mean a restart of payments after August 2023. And now, the debt limit agreement prohibits further extension of the payment pause, but remains silent on the student loan forgiveness plan which however will be nixed by SCOTUS much to the chagrin of screaming libs and lifelong members of the “free $hit” army. Prior to the announced debt limit deal Goldman had already assumed the repayment pause would end on schedule, though there was clearly a chance the White House might have extended it once again.

The debt limit agreement eliminates that possibility (“except as expressly authorized by an act of Congress”) and should result in a restart of student loan payments in September 2023. What happens then? Well, according to Jefferies, the return of monthly loan payments presents risks similar to the effects of the 2013 fiscal cliff, when tax increases led to reduced consumer spending. And in a note released Monday (available to pro subscribers), JPMorgan’s chief US economist Michael Feroli said that the end of the payment moratorium will reduce annual disposable personal income by $38 billion, which will reduce consumer spending. Separately, a March analysis by FreightWaves found that federal government programs boosted personal income by an estimated $2.3 trillion from March 2020 to December 2022.

According to The Motley Fool, consumers received an average of $3,450 in stimulus during the COVID economy. This included direct payments into bank accounts, an expanded Child Tax Credit and an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit. But one of the biggest COVID-related stimulus programs was not factored into the s numbers: student loan forbearance. As noted above, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the student loan deferment program will end no later than June 30, 2023, and payments are expected to resume by Sept. 1, 2023: “The amount of money we are talking about, in excess of a trillion dollars, is staggering. Student loans represent 7% of U.S. GDP” according to FrightWaves.

Putting these numbers in context, 64% of the $1.7 trillion in student loan debt have been in forbearance for the past three years, amounting to $1.1 trillion. Many of the 25 million Americans who have deferred payments for student debt are aged 18-44 years old, one of the most important demographic groups that drive consumer spending. Some more math: according to a New York Fed study, the average student loan payment is $393 per month. For consumers taking advantage of the program, they have deferred 39 months worth of payments, resulting in more than $15,327 in additional discretionary income during the period, much larger than the amount most consumers received from other COVID stimulus programs.

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Good luck.

Greece and Poland Join Forces to Seek German War Reparations (GR)

Poland is seeking the help of Greece to demand World War II reparations from Germany, according to press reports in Poland. Polish state television TVP, reported that a major international conference on German war reparations will be held in Greece in June with the participation of Polish, Italian, Greek, and Serbian lawyers. Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk told Polish Radio 24 on Tuesday that “We are launching an international discussion.” Mularczyk stressed that in the background of Poland’s political actions in regard to obtaining war reparations from Germany, there is a kind of battle for historical memory. He added that besides striving to obtain reparation funds, Poland is also trying to educate and inform people about WWII history.


“5.4 million people died in Poland as a result of acts of aggression by the German Nazi occupying power, while 330,000 died in Greece.” “This quantitative difference is visible in other areas too. Both Poland and Greece share a similar fate of so-called ‘small allies’. In terms of reparations, they have been marginalized. Right up to today,” Muarczyk pointed out according to TVP. Earlier, Polish Ambassador to Greece Artur Lompart said in an interview with the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that the issue of reparations from Germany for damages suffered during World War II has never been closed in Greece. He noted that it is a field for cooperation between Poland and Greece. During her recent visit to Berlin, President of Greece Katerina Sakellaropoulou raised the issue of war reparations once again. At her meeting with her German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier in January, she stressed “the utmost importance of the issue of war reparations and the occupation loan.”

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“The swamp runs deep.”

Donald Trump, Pence’s Taskforce, and DeSantis’s Revisionist Attacks (NP)

There’s plenty of things we can say we would have done differently at the onset of COVID-19. I was originally supportive of Mike Pence’s taskforce, and the 14 days to slow the spread. I regret that. Though I don’t regret calling it out as a lab-leaked virus from day one. Donald Trump surely has his own regrets, expressed through his repeated disowning of Antony Fauci, Deborah Birx, and many of the bureaucrats who we now know colluded to provide him with incorrect information. Perhaps you don’t recall the anger from the corporate media when Trump called out the falsification of data, and attempted to stop it informing policy. But there’s more that keeps niggling at me about the way Trump’s opponents – mostly DeSantis surrogates – now deal with that issue.

They point to DeSantis’s (scarcely better) record. It’s true to say the Florida governor course corrected faster than Democrat leaders across the country. But it’s ludicrous to argue that Florida was operating “as normal” throughout COVID. As a reminder, DeSantis declared a public health emergency in March; limited beach gatherings and restaurant occupancy; issued an executive order closing down businesses; imposed quarantine orders; set up highway checkpoints; issued stay-at-home orders. He was even far behind Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and both North and South Dakota in defying Tony Fauci. When he did re-open his state, he admitted he was “following President Trump’s recommendations to reopen.” But the campaign talking points from Team DeSantis aside, there’s something everyone seems to ignore: the origins of the COVID-19 taskforce, and the beginning of Operation Warp Speed.

Trump’s first Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price made Big Pharma very uncomfortable. Which is why they briefed his “unorthodox” views on mandatory vaccination to the Washington Post’s health reporter Amy Goldstein. The article quotes someone from Avalere Health – a D.C. health policy consultancy firm – who said: “I’ve seen people with extreme views come into government and take the position very seriously, and I’ve seen people with extreme views come into government and pursue their specific interests.” The “extreme” position at the time? That Price used to be a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) which at the time opposed mandatory vaccination as “human to human experimentation.” Avalere Health, for what it’s worth, is led by a woman called Elizabeth Carpenter, who previously worked at the globalist New American Foundation, which receives most of its funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and even the United States Department of State. The swamp runs deep.

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”The Epoch Times presents the second part of an exclusive edited extract from the forthcoming book “Swiftboating America” by Hans Mahncke, co-host of “Truth over News” on EpochTV. Sign up at SwiftboatingAmerica.com to get a notification once the book is out.”

“In her failed attempt to become president, Hillary Clinton had swiftboated America herself.”

‘Swiftboating America’ (Mahncke)

On May 20, 2022, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, finally admitted that it was Clinton herself who had greenlighted her presidential campaign’s scheme to smear Donald Trump with Russia collusion claims. Mook’s admission, made during his testimony in Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s trial for lying to the FBI about Clinton’s scheme, marked the final chapter in a six-year saga that ruined a presidency and turned the world order on its head. It all began in early 2016 when Jennifer Palmieri, director of communications for the Clinton presidential campaign, received an email from Joel Johnson, a senior adviser to Bill Clinton. Johnson wrote: “Who is in charge of the Trump swift boat project? Needs to be ready, funded and unleashed when we decide—but not a half assed scramble.”

Palmieri sarcastically replied: “Gee. Thanks, Joel. We thought we could half-ass it. Let’s discuss.” The exchange was buried in a huge trove of emails from Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta that were released by whistleblower group WikiLeaks in October 2016. The significance of the two emails was largely overlooked at the time. It was only with hindsight—and the progressive unraveling of Clinton’s scheme to vilify Trump—that their importance has become apparent. We now know that the two emails marked the inception of the dirtiest political trick of all time: Clinton’s Russiagate scam, a multi-pronged and multi-layered campaign to paint Trump as an asset of the Kremlin. Her scheme was completely unheard of and beyond the bounds of anything that had previously happened in the dirty world of American politics.

In 1972, Republican operatives broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Office Building in Washington. The ostensible purpose of the break-in was to eavesdrop on a political opponent, but even that act pales in comparison to what Clinton did. Clinton’s intention was to execute an elaborate scheme that painted her opponent as an agent of a foreign power. It was a devious plan, and it came at a heavy price for all Americans. Russiagate not only consumed Trump’s presidency, but it also altered the geopolitical balance of power for generations yet to come. In her failed attempt to become president, Hillary Clinton had swiftboated America herself.

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Gervais
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663497038527438849

 

 


A typical steak is 8 ounces. 28.35 grams in one ounce. So you can have approx 1/20th of a steak per day which is like 1 bite. Maybe 2 bites.

 

 

Goat gravity
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663554790058754052

 

 

 

 

Girl, dog

 

 

The best life
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663781293182578689

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 172021
 


Edvard Munch Spring 1889

 

The Eruption of the Refugee Crisis and the Push for Vaccine Passports (MPN)
And Now Proof: Covid Vaccines Are More Dangerous Than Covid (Denninger)
Florida Gov. DeSantis Says Lockdowns Were A “Huge Mistake” (ET)
De-escalate Before Ukraine Conflict Turns Into Nuclear Holocaust- Gabbard (RT)
How Putin’s “Saber-Rattling” Forced A Biden Summit (ZH)
Russia Blocking Of Black Sea Would Be ‘Unjustified’ – NATO (Y!)
Biden Isn’t Ending The Afghanistan War, He’s Privatizing It (GZ)
Journalists Spread a CIA Fraud About Russia, Embrace a New One (Greenwald)
Liz Cheney Was Top Peddler Of Debunked ‘Russian Bounties’ Story (ZH)
Rachel Maddow is Bill O’Reilly (Taibbi)
US Corporate Media Is Guilty Of The Exact Same “Interference” As Russia (Tracey)
Joe Biden’s Demonic Phase (Jim Kunstler)
Hunter Biden on Burisma, Don Jr., and Cooking Crack (DB)
Govt’s Won’t Let Bitcoin Take On State-issued Currencies – Jim Rogers (Kitco)
The Echoes Of China’s Financial Crisis Are Being Heard (SMH)

 

 

 

 


A sailboat shielded by clouds, Chios Island, Greece. @avgoustidisermis

 

 

“..the architects of the biosecurity state..”

The Eruption of the Refugee Crisis and the Push for Vaccine Passports (MPN)

The controversy erupted on Twitter even as the 32,000-foot-high plume of smoke from Saint Vincent’s La Soufrière volcano was still rising in the sky. The firestorm on American social media platforms over reports that only those vaccinated against COVID-19 would be allowed to evacuate the eastern Caribbean island sheds light on the architects of the biosecurity state who have descended on Saint Vincent & the Grenadines (SVG) to explore the limits of mandatory public health protocols in the midst of a natural disaster now projected to “last months.” Global organizations, NGOs, and members of the scientific community are coordinating emergency response efforts in Saint Vincent. Power outages, no clean water, and continued volcanic eruptions have rendered parts of the island virtually uninhabitable, plunging Vincentians who have managed to escape into a condition of quasi-statelessness where notions of human rights and civil liberties become malleable.

“Refugees are in a position of complete vulnerability,” says Dr. Diego Garcia Ricci, from the Ibero-American University in Mexico City, speaking to MintPress. The constitutional law professor and data privacy expert addressed some of the issues surrounding the plight of refugees as biometric data like retinal scans, fingerprinting and even gender, become a pillar of identity documentation and incipient travel requirements in the wake of the pandemic. “While biometrics can be useful for identification purposes, mistakes do happen,” Garcia Ricci warns. Most at risk from these mistakes, abuse and racial profiling arising out of biometric digital identity systems are those whose need for the ‘state’ is made indispensable by virtue of being rendered stateless. Free agents with no agency are prime targets for global entities like the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which claims to speak for close to 80 million forcibly displaced people.

Vincentians who are unable or refuse to leave the island are likely to be reclassified as “internally displaced persons” or IDPs, another kind of refugee as defined by the UNHCR. Such classifications are part of a vast structure of laws and guidelines enshrined in the archives of supranational state entities like the European Commission and the United Nations, based on the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, which establishes international rules governing the treatment and rights of refugees, whose numbers have nearly doubled since 2012, ballooning from 45.2 million “displaced” to 79.5 million as of the last count.

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“In healthy adults and especially healthy children they should be prohibited outright as they are, on the math, more dangerous than the virus.”

And Now Proof: Covid Vaccines Are More Dangerous Than Covid (Denninger)

I suspected the data would be forthcoming showing this given the VAERS reports and now we have it:

I Using an electro nic health records network we estimated the absolute incidence of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) in the two weeks following COVID-19 diagnosis (N=513,284), or influenza (N=172,742), or receipt of the BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccines (N=489,871).


The incidence of portal vein thrombosis (PVT) was also assessed in these groups, as well as the baseline CVT incidence over a two-week period. The incidence of CVT after COVID-19 diagnosis was 39.0 per million people (95% CI, 25.2–60.2). This was higher than the CVT incidence after influenza (0.0 per million people, 95% CI 0.0 – 22.2, adjusted RR=6.73, P=.003) or after receiving BNT162b2 or RNA-1273 vaccine (4.1 per million people, 95% CI 1.1 – 14.9, adjusted RR=6.36, P<.001).

Wait a second…. you said the vaccines are more dangerous yet the data says that Covid-19 is ten times as dangerous as the vaccine for the same condition. So how can the title of this article be correct? Simple: For every reported infection somewhere around ten are not reported. Either they’re completely asymptomatic (about 30%) or mild enough that the person in question does not identify it as potentially Covid-19 and thus does not get tested. Yet both of the latter confer immunity just as does a symptomatic case. Further, you’re not guaranteed to get the disease. You are guaranteed to take the risk if you get the shot. Therefore we must adjust for the risk of contracting the disease which is not certain; you may have already had it and not know it and, in addition, you may have cross-reactive immunity.

Therefore the shot is close to or even more-dangerous than the disease. The baseline for approval of any therapy is that it must be much less dangerous than the disease itself. When it comes to vaccines the usual expectation is that it should 100x or more safer to get the shot than the disease, simply on the basis that you are not guaranteed to get the disease irrespective of how bad it is. If the disease is particularly lethal either generally or to you then a risk that is material for the vaccine is acceptable. What’s even worse is that this risk is basically identically in both mRNA and viral-vector (e.g. J&J) formulations; they both cause the same result in the same percentage of recipients, yet the FDA is still allowing the mRNA vaccines to be administered!

Covid-19, in non-morbid (young, but not exclusively so) people, only kills about 1/50,000 times — so if the shot gets you 1/250,000 times it’s a bad risk since a huge percentage of infections are not medically known as they are clinically significant and you are not guaranteed to be infected at all since you may have already had it and not known it or be resistant due to a previous infection with some other coronavirus and thus not at risk of developing clinical disease. These shots are not approvable on the math for other than materially-morbid individuals. In healthy adults and especially healthy children they should be prohibited outright as they are, on the math, more dangerous than the virus.

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“When you have people too scared to go to the emergency room when they’re literally having a heart attack, that didn’t happen in a vacuum..”

Florida Gov. DeSantis Says Lockdowns Were A “Huge Mistake” (ET)

Standing behind the desk in his office in Tallahassee, DeSantis leafed through a folder of praise he’s received from around the nation and across the globe. Hanging on the walls around the relatively small space was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights as well as the uniform the governor wore as the captain of the Yale baseball team. When asked why he chose Lincoln, DeSantis said the president is the best example of a leader who had to make difficult decisions in a time of crisis. When asked why some of the leaders today have continued with lockdowns even with ample evidence of their ineffectiveness, the governor theorized that the people involved have committed too much to the narrative and have made it impossible to change course.

“You have a situation where if you’re in this field, the pandemic, that’s something that you kind of prepare for and you’re ready for. And a lot of these people muffed it,” he said. “When push came to shove, they advocated policies that have not worked against the virus but have been very, very destructive. They are never going to admit they were wrong about anything, unfortunately.” Elected leaders aren’t the only ones to blame, according to the governor. The media and big tech companies played a major role in perpetuating fears about the virus while selectively censoring one side of the mitigation debate. DeSantis said the media and tech giants stood to benefit from the lockdown as people stayed home and consumed their products.

“It was all just to generate the most clicks that they could. And so that was always trying to do the stuff that would inspire the most fear,” DeSantis said. Two weeks after the interview, an undercover video recorded by Project Veritas showed a technical director at CNN talking about the boost the network received due to its pandemic coverage. “It’s fear. Fear really drives numbers,” CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester said. “Fear is the thing that keeps you tuned in.” The fear-mongering worked, DeSantis said, pointing to CDC statistics showing that 4 out of 10 American adults delayed or avoided getting urgent or routine medical treatment in June 2020. The agency’s report said that the pattern may have contributed to the excess deaths reported during that period, due to preventable illnesses and injuries going untreated.

Emergency room doctors had reported that fewer people were coming in with cardiac-related chest pains while more were coming in with late-stage appendicitis, something that is usually caught much earlier. The pandemic has also led to a sharp decrease in cancer screenings and detections. “When you have people too scared to go to the emergency room when they’re literally having a heart attack, that didn’t happen in a vacuum,” DeSantis said.

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“..the American people must decide if they’re willing to go to war with Russia on behalf of Ukraine. If not – the rhetoric must be toned down.”

De-escalate Before Ukraine Conflict Turns Into Nuclear Holocaust- Gabbard (RT)

Unless the world wants to see loved ones “burned alive in a nuclear holocaust,” politicians should cut out the “macho” act and begin to deescalate. That’s according to former US congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a US Army veteran. Speaking to Tucker Carlson on Fox News on Thursday, Gabbard said the American people must decide if they’re willing to go to war with Russia on behalf of Ukraine. If not – the rhetoric must be toned down. “Such a war would come at a cost beyond anything we can really imagine,” she told Carlson. “This is something that will directly impact…every single one of your viewers.” “It is a war in which there are no winners,” she added.

The conflict in Donbass started in 2014, when two pro-Russia breakaway republics unilaterally declared independence from Kiev. While a peace deal was agreed upon later that year, both sides regularly report ceasefire violations. Much of the region is now split into the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. According to Kiev, both of the unrecognized states are controlled by Russia, which the Kremlin denies. Moscow says both Donetsk and Lugansk are part of Ukraine. Fears of a full-scale war have been growing in recent weeks. Media reports have revealed a build-up of both Russian manpower and equipment, particularly on the Crimean peninsula and by the eastern Ukrainian frontier. This came after news of increased shelling of Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region by Kiev’s forces, and revelations that the Ukrainian Army was increasing its number of troops in the area.

Kiev is supported by the US, which has provided money, equipment and expertise. However, Washington has not given Ukraine the status of a full ally. According to Gabbard, it would be a disaster if a war kicks off in Ukraine. In particular, she highlighted the “thousands of nuclear weapons” Moscow and Washington have aimed at each other, warning that “hundreds of millions” could die and suffer if a war kicks off.

Tulsi Gabbard
https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1383022106779267076

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Uhhh, no. Putin is not eager to meet with Biden, Lavrov et al have made that plenty clear: such ameeting would only be used to make Putin look bad, or worse. And no, it’s not saber-rattling when you respond to 10s of 1000s gathering on your border.

How Putin’s “Saber-Rattling” Forced A Biden Summit (ZH)

[..] given Biden’s recent offer to sit down with Putin for a bilateral summit this summer, which is still on the table, it appears Ukraine’s leadership has been effectively sidelined. As one FT piece underscored this week, Putin’s troop build-up has succeeded in pressuring the Biden administration for a coveted summit to decide the future of Ukraine. “The summit format will also please the Kremlin by effectively cutting Kyiv out of any negotiations, and allow Putin to project the image of two global superpowers deciding the future fate of the conflict,” FT observed. Here’s more from FT… “If Vladimir Putin’s decision to deploy tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine’s border in the past few weeks was driven primarily by a desire to get the west’s attention, he did not have to wait too long for his reward.

Hours after his defense minister on Tuesday admitted Russia had mobilised two armies and three paratroop divisions to positions close to the conflict-wracked frontier, US President Joe Biden phoned the Kremlin with an offer of a bilateral summit: a long sought-after prize for Putin who craves a seat at the world’s highest negotiating table. …Those 50,000 extra soldiers, scores of tanks and other heavy weaponry spooked Kyiv and other European powers, and sparked a hurried response from Nato and the US amid fears over a potential outbreak of fighting between the two countries.” This wasn’t a stand-alone assessment, given also this week BBC came to a similar conclusion.

The BBC commentary underscored that the Russian troop build-up was never ultimately about some kind of hyped “invasion” of Ukraine – as Kiev officials have been shouting – but instead about bringing massive leverage to bear in forcing Biden’s hand. To the chagrin of the West’s Russia hawks, the BBC essentially pointed to a major diplomatic victory and ‘checkmate’ of sorts for the Russian side… The build-up has been impossible to ignore: thousands of Russian troops deployed towards Ukraine; US warships reportedly heading for the Black Sea and Russia’s foreign ministry warning them off “for their own good”. As the hostile rhetoric and military moves around Ukraine have intensified, Western politicians have begun fearing an open invasion and urging Russia’s Vladimir Putin to “de-escalate”.

Russia has refused: the defense ministry this week insisted its moves were in response to “threatening” Nato exercises in Europe. Then Mr Putin got a phone-call from the White House. And then, noted the BBC, Biden suggested a near-future face-to-face summit with Putin, which gives Russia the edge given it was the US side that first proposed it: “In Putin’s game of brinkmanship, Biden blinked first,” argues journalist Konstantin Eggert, after Joe Biden made his first call to the Kremlin and proposed meeting Mr Putin “in the coming months”. It’s just weeks after the US president agreed with an interviewer that Russia’s leader was “a killer”. President Biden’s new move is now a new topic of debate – disaster prevention or a mistaken concession – but in the run-up to a summit, the risk of major military action by Russia certainly fades.

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Well, the US stated again that it doesn’t recognize the present status of Crimea, maybe that’s enough to make it justified.

Russia Blocking Of Black Sea Would Be ‘Unjustified’ – NATO (Y!)

Russian plans to block parts of the Black Sea would be “unjustified”, NATO said Friday, calling on Moscow “to ensure free access to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov, and allow freedom of navigation”. Russian state media have reported that Moscow intends to close parts of the Black Sea to foreign military and official ships for six months. Such a move could affect access to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait, on the eastern tip of the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. The move has triggered concerns in the United States and the European Union.

Russia’s “ongoing militarisation of Crimea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov are further threats to Ukraine’s independence, and undermine the stability of the broader region,” a spokeswoman for NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement. Blocking the Black Sea would “be an unjustified move, and part of a broader pattern of destabilising behaviour by Russia,” she added. NATO called on Russia to “de-escalate immediately, stop its pattern of provocations, and respect its international commitments”. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby noted that Russia was justifying plans to block the Black Sea until October on the grounds that it is preparing military exercises.

“Russia has a history of taking aggressive actions against Ukrainian vessels and impeding international maritime transit in the Black Sea, particularly near the Kerch Strait,” he told reporters. “It’s just the latest example of its ongoing campaign to undermine and destabilise Ukraine,” he added, reaffirming Washington’s “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. “We call on Russia to cease its harassment of vessels in the region, and reverse its build-up of forces along Ukraine’s border and occupied Ukraine.”

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“Over 18,000 Pentagon contractors remain in Afghanistan..”

Biden Isn’t Ending The Afghanistan War, He’s Privatizing It (GZ)

Over 18,000 Pentagon contractors remain in Afghanistan, while official troops number 2,500. Joe Biden will withdraw this smaller group of soldiers while leaving behind US Special Forces, mercenaries, and intelligence operatives — privatizing and downscaling the war, but not ending it.

On April 14, President Joe Biden announced that he would end the U.S.’s longest war and withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan on the 20th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. Over 6,000 NATO troops will also be withdrawn by that time. “War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking,” Biden said during his remarks from the White House Treaty Room, the same location from which President George W. Bush had announced the war was beginning in October 2001. “We were attacked. We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives. Bin Laden is dead and al Qaeda is degraded in Afghanistan and it’s time to end the forever war.”

Biden’s claim that he is ending the forever war is misleading. As The New York Times reported, the United States would remain after the formal departure of U.S. troops with a “shadowy combination of clandestine Special Operations Forces, Pentagon contractors and covert intelligence operatives.” Their mission will be to “find and attack the most dangerous Qaeda or Islamic state threats, current and former American officials said.” The Times further reported that the United States maintains a constellation of air bases in the Persian Gulf region as well as in Jordan, and a major air headquarters in Qatar, which could provide a launching pad for long-range bomber or armed drone missions into Afghanistan.

Matthew Hoh, a disabled combat veteran who resigned from the State Department in 2009 in protest of the war, stated that a genuine peace process in Afghanistan is “dependent upon foreign forces leaving Afghanistan.” Further, Hoh said that, “Regardless of whether the 3500 acknowledged U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, the U.S. military will still be present in the form of thousands of special operations and CIA personnel in and around Afghanistan, through dozens of squadrons of manned attack aircraft and drones stationed on land bases and on aircraft carriers in the region, and by hundreds of cruise missiles on ships and submarines.”

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Clickbait.

Journalists Spread a CIA Fraud About Russia, Embrace a New One (Greenwald)

The story appeared — coincidentally or otherwise — just weeks after President Trump announced his plan to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2020. Pro-war members of Congress from both parties and liberal hawks in corporate media spent weeks weaponizing this story to accuse Trump of appeasing Putin by leaving Afghanistan and being too scared to punish the Kremlin. Cable outlets and the op-ed pages of The New York Times and Washington Post endlessly discussed the grave implications of this Russian treachery and debated which severe retaliation was needed. “This is as bad as it gets,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Then-candidate Joe Biden said Trump’s refusal to punish Russia and his casting doubt on the truth of the story was more proof that Trump’s “entire presidency has been a gift to Putin,” while Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) demanded that, in response, the U.S. put Russians and Afghans “in body bags.”

What was missing from this media orgy of indignation and militaristic demands for retaliation was an iota of questioning of whether the story was, in fact, true. All they had was an anonymous leak from “intelligence officials” — which The New York Times on Thursday admitted came from the CIA — but that was all they needed. That is because the vast majority of the corporate sector of the press lives under one overarching rule: When the CIA or related security state agencies tell American journalists to believe something, we obey unquestioningly, and as a result, whatever assertions are spread by these agencies, no matter how bereft of evidence or shielded by accountability-free anonymity, they instantly transform, in our government-worshipping worldview, into a proven fact — gospel — never to be questioned but only affirmed and then repeated and spread as far and wide as possible.

That has been the dynamic driving the relationship between the corporate press and the CIA for decades, throughout the Cold War and then into the post-9/11 War on Terror and invasion of Iraq. But it has become so much more extreme in the Trump era. As the CIA became one of the leading anti-Trump #Resistance factions — a key player in domestic politics to subvert the presidency of the 45th President regarded by media figures as a Hitler-type menace — the bond between the corporate press and the intelligence community deepened more than ever. It is not an exaggeration to call it a merger: so much so that a parade of former security state officials from the CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS and others was hired by these news outlets to deliver the news. The partnership was no longer clandestine but official, out in the open, and proud.

The first goal this story served was to weaponize it in the battle waged by pro-war House Democrats and their neocon GOP allies to stop Trump’s withdrawal plan from Afghanistan. How, they began demanding upon publication of the CIA/NYT story, can we possibly leave Afghanistan when the Russians are trying to kill our troops? Would that not be a reckless abdication to the Kremlin of this country that we own, and would withdrawal not be a reward to Putin after we learned he was engaged in such dastardly plotting to kill our sons and daughters?

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“Cheney was persistent in pushing the story, much to the frustration of colleagues and even allies on Capitol Hill..”

Liz Cheney Was Top Peddler Of Debunked ‘Russian Bounties’ Story (ZH)

As Democrats seized on a now-debunked New York Times report that the Kremlin placed bounties on the heads of American troops in Afghanistan – blaming President Trump for deliberately downplaying the aggression to appease ‘Lord Putin’ (as the story goes) – Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) punched right, peddling the fabricated bounties story to any and all who would listen, according to The Federalist. Fast forward ten months later, and the Daily Beast reports that a senior administration finally admitted: “The United States intelligence community assesses with low to moderate confidence that Russian intelligence officers sought to encourage Taliban attacks on U.S. and coalition personnel in Afghanistan in 2019 and perhaps earlier. “Low to moderate confidence” is another way of saying “unproven and potentially false, “in part because it relies on detainee reporting,” which is often unreliable.


Yet, Cheney pounced in an effort to undermine then-President Trump, while using the fake news to also lobby for a prolonged military presence in the region as the Trump administration was pulling troops out of Afghanistan. More via The Federalist: “Two days later, Politico, in an article titled, “Cheney takes on Trump,” wrote, “in her latest rebuke of Trump, Cheney openly questioned whether the president was aware of reports that the Russians offered Afghan militants bounties to kill U.S. troops and demanded the administration take a more aggressive posture toward the Kremlin. Cheney was persistent in pushing the story, much to the frustration of colleagues and even allies on Capitol Hill as she continued an inner-party crusade against the president in an election year from her position as House conference chair.”

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The rest is behind a Substack paywall.

Rachel Maddow is Bill O’Reilly (Taibbi)

If you’d told me back in 2005, when I first met Rachel Maddow, that the lightning-quick, ultra-smooth broadcaster would someday supplant Bill O’Reilly as the #1 name in cable news, I wouldn’t have been surprised, at all. But I’d have been shocked if you told me she got to the top by being Bill O’Reilly. With Maddow in the lead role, MSNBC has become Fox, but somehow more craven, jingoistic, and shameless. If you don’t believe it, compare their narratives side by side, and see if you can spot a real difference between Bush-era Fox and Maddow’s MNSBC broadcasts from this past week. On February 16, 2001, six months before 9/11, O’Reilly said on Fox, “You know, I don’t take Saddam Hussein all that seriously anymore, as far as a world threat.” He added, “Maybe I’m wrong and naive here. Should we be very frightened of this guy?”

Within two years, O’Reilly reversed course. He launched himself into an incredible 16-year run as the #1-rated star on cable by playing Madame DeFarge for the Bush/Cheney War on Terror. His show became a nighty fireside chat in which citizens tuned in to fulminate over stories of Saddam’s boundless evil, denounce traitorous unbelievers, and engage in McCarthyite interrogations of the insufficiently patriotic. He moved the factual record by himself. On December 6, 2002, he told his audience: “I can’t, in good conscience, tell the American people that I know for sure that [Saddam] has smallpox or anthrax or he’s got nuclear or chemical and that he is ready to use that.” But two months later, on February 17, 2002, he was saying, “According to the U.N., he’s got anthrax, VX gas, ricin, and on and on.”

Two weeks after that, as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting noted, O’Reilly was saying things like, “This guy we know has anthrax and VX and all this stuff.” He furthermore announced that “Once the war against Saddam Hussein begins, we expect every American to support our military, and if you can’t do that, just shut up,” adding that “Americans, and indeed our allies, who actively work against our military once the war is underway will be considered enemies of the state by me.” By the runup to the invasion, O’Reilly was berating anyone who even tried to suggest the WMD case was not airtight, or had the temerity to suggest that Saddam Hussein was not the equal of Hitler. “Whoa, whoa. It’s not Hitler?” he snapped in one broadcast. “What’s the difference?”

Want to know how seven in ten Americans during the war came to believe that Saddam Hussein was somehow behind 9/11? In part, because people like O’Reilly regularly said things like, “Saddam Hussein… I believe is involved with this World Trade Center and Pentagon bombing,” and “I believe that you’re going to find out that money from Iraq flowed in and helped [9/11] happen.” O’Reilly eventually got around to putting his “spotlight” on anyone who didn’t publicly back the invasion effort. He even took on Pope John Paul II, saying, “And then the pope sits in Rome and says, gee, this is terrible, but does not throw his moral authority behind removing this dictator.”

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The media has more incentive.

US Corporate Media Is Guilty Of The Exact Same “Interference” As Russia (Tracey)

[..] there was nothing new about the suite of anti-Russia charges promulgated Thursday by the US federal government, and parroted as usual with maximum credulity across the US media ecosystem. The charges were again predicated on the idea that Russian “interference” and/or “influence” is an extremely foreboding test for the survival of US Democracy. Taking bold action, the Treasury Department levied sanctions against a bunch more Russians for their claimed nefarious behavior in carrying out this interference/influence — a fulfillment of Joe Biden’s oft-stated campaign pledge that under his watch, Russia would finally “pay a price” for allegedly engaging in such activities. Donald Trump, it was thought, had been appallingly lax in his resolve to confront this threat; now, a new sheriff is in town.

Leaving aside the question of whether it’s prudent to assume that Janet Yellen is suddenly in possession of a foolproof methodology for attributing the provenance of “cyber operations” to specific foreign individuals and nation-states, it’s worth emphasizing what exactly is being alleged in the statement. The Treasury Department document reads: “Outlets operated by Russian Intelligence Services focus on divisive issues in the United States, denigrate US political candidates, and disseminate false and misleading information.” Noting that these same characteristics could be just as easily applied to US corporate media outlets is so blindingly self-evident as to almost be redundant. Were there not “outlets” during the 2020 election that were “focused” on “denigrating” Donald Trump? Or for that matter, Joe Biden?

Do “divisive issues” not tend to be “focused on” by these same outlets as a basic precept of their core business model? Controversy = clicks/views, which equals revenue. Everyone knows this. Yet when scary Russian outlets are said to employ this same logic in their own content-production enterprises, it magically becomes dangerous enough to justify all manner of punitive government and corporate action. Including but not limited to: censorship purges, tighter regulation of online speech, and, as Biden announced Thursday, sanctions and expulsion of diplomats. “Disseminating false and misleading information”? The entire US media just got caught “disseminating” a fake story about Russians putting bounties on the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan. If you’re truly concerned about the dissemination of “false and misleading information” having deleterious effects on the health of US political culture, your first target should be CNN.

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“..the US has absolutely nothing to gain from continuing to antagonize Russia..”

Joe Biden’s Demonic Phase (Jim Kunstler)

The lesson there is that the US has absolutely nothing to gain from continuing to antagonize Russia, and that the mentally weak Joe Biden is merely projecting the picture of a weakened and confused USA by keeping it up. Of course, a closer read might be that these hijinks are meant to distract from the more serious and consequential breakdown in relations between the US and China, currently engineered by the blundering team of Sec’y of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who went to Alaska recently to tell the Chinese delegation that they were morally unworthy of conducting trade negotiations, thereby torpedoing the trade negotiations that they went to Alaska to conduct. Smooth move fellas.


Unlike Russia, with its eleven time zones, which actually does not want or need any more territory, China is surely making hegemonic moves all over the place, not just around Hong Kong and Taiwan but in Africa and South America, while it strives to build the world’s largest navy, exports gain-of-function viruses, replaces the US in space exploration, and excels at weaponizing computer science. China’s weaknesses are a lack of sufficient domestic oil supply and food, which its current moves aim to correct. It was on its way to turning the US into a raw materials and food-crop colony when Mr. Trump came along and tried to put a stop to that. And now Ol’ Joe has cancelled that action — after being on the receiving end of Chinese financial largesse in four years out-of-office. Nothing to see there, folks, says Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice, while in possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop, with its trove of incriminating memoranda.

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Glenn Greenwald: In this interview with @thedailybeast, this statement from Hunter Biden about his emails and laptop is a complete lie. No intelligence agency, let alone all of them, concluded it was a Russian operation, but you wouldn’t know that from the DB article:

Hunter Biden on Burisma, Don Jr., and Cooking Crack (DB)

Jong-Fast asks Biden when he realized that the former president and his son were fixated on him. “That was right around when I started to get sober and clean… It was only then did I realize the level of their obsession because long enough to look up from whatever drink or drug I was just pursuing at the moment. And it seemed like that every word out of the president’s mouth was some kind of demeaning or just horrible insult towards me,” he answers. “Do you think they did it because they wanted you to kill yourself?” Jong-Fast replies. “As a person in recovery, one of the things that I have truly tried to come to grips with is that the world actually does not revolve around me,” Biden says. “I mean, usually it doesn’t. But on this, I feel that it does,” Jong-Fast says.

“I don’t think that they thought that they would necessarily convince anyone not to vote for my dad because I’m an addict. I think there’s far, far too many people—I mean, everyone I know knows someone that they love—that suffer from addiction,” Biden says. “I think that they thought that they would be able to distract my dad enough that he wouldn’t be able to focus on the campaign… But it had the exact opposite effect… They obviously don’t know what it’s like to be a part of a family, at least this family.” Jong-Fast also asks Biden about the leaked emails that caused such a stir at the end of the campaign. He claims he had no idea what she’s talking about. The email from an executive at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, thanking Biden for “the opportunity to meet your father and spend some time with him”?

“I truly don’t know the origin of a lot of this stuff,” Biden replies. The email titled “expectations,” which involved details for how much he might get paid by China’s largest private energy company? “I literally don’t know what you’re even referring to. Is it from me?” Biden answers. “You know, I mean, there is a intelligence report from, from all of our intelligence agencies that has come to the conclusion that this was a Russian operation.”

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“This is a good time to be old. ”

Govt’s Won’t Let Bitcoin Take On State-issued Currencies – Jim Rogers (Kitco)

Money will become more and more digitized, according to Jim Rogers, investor, best-selling author, and co-founder of the Quantum Fund, but the question is whether or not non-government issued digital currencies will prevail. “If cryptocurrencies become successful, most governments will outlaw it, because they don’t want to lose their monopoly, every government in the world is working on computer money now, including the U.S. The Chinese are there already. I can’t imagine that the governments are going to say ok, this is our crypto money, or you can use their crypto money, that’s not the way governments work, historically,” Rogers told Michelle Makori, editor-in-chief of Kitco News.

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“Lai was charged, found guilty of corruption (and bigamy!) and was executed in January.”

The Echoes Of China’s Financial Crisis Are Being Heard (SMH)

In the late 1990s China experienced a massive bad debt crisis – there are estimates that more than half of its state-owned enterprises( SOEs) were insolvent in the mid-1990s – with the non-performing loans within the balance sheets of China’s four major banks thought to be between a quarter and a third of their total assets. The government reacted to the emergence of that destabilising mountain of bad debts by recapitalising the state-owned banks; carving out their non-performing loans and handing them over to four new asset management companies to manage them out of the system over time. Huarong was one of those asset managers, established to acquire and then manage the bad loans made by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

The Huarong predicament and the context of the swelling tide of SOE-related defaults highlight not just dangerously and system-threatening excessive leverage and poor allocation of capital within the heart of China’s economy but significant, indeed egregious, governance failures. Now the company set up to manage bad debts is itself apparently teetering on the verge of bankruptcy due to its own non-performing loans and will either be restructured or fail. While it is not a bank it is a substantial financial institution, with about $340 billion of assets and net assets of about $32 billion. Embarrassingly for the Chinese authorities, although it listed In Hong Kong in 2015, it is a state-controlled enterprise. The Ministry of Finance owns a majority of its shares.

The company got itself into trouble, it seems, by expanding beyond its charter as a manager of banks’ bad debts into quasi banking activities itself; lending to property developers, setting up securities trading businesses and essentially playing in the shadows of the system that the tightly-regulated banks have been forbidden to enter.It was able to do so because its former chairman, Lai Xiaomin, was by his own admission subjected to absolutely no oversight and was able to treat Huarong as his own plaything. When he was arrested in 2018 he admitted taking more than $350 million of “bribes” over the previous decade and was found to have about $50 million of cash stashed in an apartment he called “The Supermarket.” Lai was charged, found guilty of corruption (and bigamy!) and was executed in January.

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Jun 282016
 
 June 28, 2016  Posted by at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


Walker Evans Saint Charles Street. Liberty Theatre, New Orleans 1935

Stocks Halt Brexit Selloff as Pound Rebounds With Commodities (BBG)
Asian Stocks Erase Losses as Japan Shares Gain on Stimulus Bets (BBG)
Jim Rogers On Brexit: Worse Than Any Bear Market You’ve Seen In Your Life (Y!)
Greenspan Warns A Crisis Is Imminent, Urges A Return To The Gold Standard (ZH)
European Banks Crash To Worst 2-Day Loss Ever As Default Risk Soars (ZH)
Brexit Is the Sum of China’s Fears (Balding)
Brexit To ‘Drive Tectonic Plate Shifts In European Bank Investing’ (R.)
Italy Eyes €40 Billion Bank Rescue As First Brexit Domino Falls (AEP)
Preparing For Brexit, Britain May See New PM By Early September (R.)
S&P Strips UK of Last Top-Notch Credit Rating After Brexit (R.)
UK Credit Default Swap Rates Spike After Wave Of Rating Downgrades (CNBC)
The Reaction to Brexit Is the Reason Brexit Happened (Matt Taibbi)
Some Bad And Some Worse News For Stock Buybacks (ZH)

And all of your problems are solved. It was only a dream….

Stocks Halt Brexit Selloff as Pound Rebounds With Commodities (BBG)

The pound, European stocks and commodities were all headed for their first gains since Britain’s shock vote to leave the European Union, while Asian shares erased losses amid signs policy makers are taking steps to limit any economic fallout. Sterling and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index both rebounded after tumbling 11% in the last two trading sessions. A gauge of the greenback’s strength snapped its steepest rally since 2011. The Bloomberg Commodity Index climbed from a three-week low as oil rose to about $47 a barrel and industrial metals rose. Sovereign bond yields plumbed new lows in Australia, Japan and South Korea as futures indicated that the next move in U.S. interest rates is now likely to be a cut.

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What? “Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he wants his finance minister and the central bank governor to watch markets more closely.” You mean they didn’t?

Asian Stocks Erase Losses as Japan Shares Gain on Stimulus Bets (BBG)

Asian stocks erased losses and most Tokyo shares rose amid speculation policy makers will move to shore up financial markets after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was little changed as of 4 p.m. in Tokyo after being down as much as 1.2% earlier. Most Japanese shares rose after a drop in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average below 15,000 spurred buying. South Korea’s Kospi index rose 0.5%, reversing a decline of 1%. Investors are watching closely for signs that central banks and governments will help to ease the post-Brexit market turmoil.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he wants his finance minister and the central bank governor to watch markets more closely. Toshihiro Nikai, chairman of the ruling party’s general council, proposed a 20 trillion yen ($196 billion) package to Abe, the Nikkei newspaper reported. South Korea said it’s planning a fiscal stimulus package of more than 20 trillion won ($17 billion). “We are probably going to have looser policy settings than before the vote,” said Tim Schroeders at Melbourne-based Pengana Capital. “You’d have to suspect that the bias is to the downside for global growth and as a result that stimulus remains in light of increased uncertainty.”

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“The bear case is the pound disappears…” “The EU as we know it will not exist,” he said. “The euro as we know it will not exist…”

Jim Rogers On Brexit: Worse Than Any Bear Market You’ve Seen In Your Life (Y!)

The UK’s decision to leave the European Union will lead to an economic crisis more severe than what the world faced in 2008, according to legendary investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings. “This is going to be worse than any bear market you’ve seen in your lifetime,” he said. “2008 was bad because of debt. The debt all over the world is much, much higher now. Stocks in the US, for instance, have been going sideways for 18 months to 24 months. That’s called a distribution by many people. When you have distribution for a year and a half, it usually leads to bad things.” Rogers – who cofounded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in the 1970s – believes the “leave” movement’s victory last week may threaten the British union.

While any negotiated deal may help assuage the market’s Brexit fears, Rogers foresees a “bad case scenario” where Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the UK and London’s clout diminishes significantly as financial institutions move towards continental Europe. “The UK already has huge international debts and it has balance of trade problems and budget problems,” he said. “The bear case is the pound disappears. England becomes Spain or Poland or Italy or something.” While he doesn’t see an immediate collapse of England’s economy, Rogers anticipates a long-term decline in the country’s prospects.

“The deterioration will continue and make stocks go down a lot,” he warned. Brexit’s win will also embolden other countries to leave the EU and separatist movements to break up a few states, Rogers predicted. That could make the world to look significantly different in just a half a decade. “The EU as we know it will not exist,” he said. “The euro as we know it will not exist.

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But no mea culpa. he wants to die a revered oracle.

Greenspan Warns A Crisis Is Imminent, Urges A Return To The Gold Standard (ZH)

On Friday afternoon, after the shocking Brexit referendum, while being interviewed by CNBC Alan Greenspan stunned his hosts when he said that things are about as bad as he has ever seen. “This is the worst period, I recall since I’ve been in public service. There’s nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount 23%? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away. I’d love to find something positive to say.” Strangely enough, he was not refering to the British exodus but to America’s own economic troubles.

Today, Greenspan was on Bloomberg Surveillance where in an extensive, 30 minutes interview he was urged to give his take on the British referendum outcome. According to Greenspan, David Cameron miscalculated and made a “terrible mistake” in holding a referendum. That decision led to a “terrible outcome in all respects,” Greenspan said. “It didn’t have to happen.” Greenspan then noted that as a result of Brexit, “we are in very early days a crisis which has got a way to go”, and point to Scotland which he said will likely have another referendum on its own, predicting the vote would be successful, and Northern Ireland would “probably” go the same way.

His remarks then centered on the Eurozone which he defined as a truly “vulnerable institution,” primarily due to Greece’s inclusion in its structure. “Get Greece out. They’re a toxic liability sitting in the middle of a very important economic zone.” Ironically, the same Eurozone has spent countless hours doing everything in its power to show just how unbreakable the union is by preserving Greece, while it took the UK just one overnight session to break away. Luckily the UK was not part of the monetary union or else it would be game over. But speaking of crises, Greenspan warned that fundamentally it is not so much an issue of immigration, or even economics, but unsustainable welfare spending, or as Greenspan puts it, “entitlements.”

“The issue is essentially that entitlements are legal issues. They have nothing to do with economics. You reach a certain age or you are ill or something of that nature and you are entitled to certain expenditures out of the budget without any reference to how it’s going to be funded. Where the productivity levels are now, we are lucky to get something even close to two% annual growth rate. That annual growth rate of 2% is not adequate to finance the existing needs. I don’t know how it’s going to resolve, but there’s going to be a crisis. This is one of the great problems of democracy. It goes back to the founding fathers. How do you handle a situation like this? And it’s very troublesome, but eventually you get things like Margaret Thatcher showing up in Britain.”

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Enter Captain Fantastic.

European Banks Crash To Worst 2-Day Loss Ever As Default Risk Soars (ZH)

So much for George “Panic-Monger” Osborne’s calming statement this morning, European banks have collapsed this morning to close down between 20% and 30% since the Brexity vote. The last 2 days plunge in EU banks (down 23%) is the largest in history (double the size of Lehman) and pushes European bank equity market cap to its lowest (in USD terms) ever. Worst. Drop. Ever…

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Giving people a vote in their lives is not Xi’s idea of fun…

Brexit Is the Sum of China’s Fears (Balding)

In voting to leave the EU, the U.K. has confirmed many of the Chinese Communist Party’s worst fears about democracy. Now the question is whether Brexit will also impede its attempts at economic reform. At least one major target of “Leave” campaigners in the U.K. – an unaccountable bureaucracy in Brussels, enjoying the fruits of power – will certainly resonate with Chinese citizens. Despite a recent corruption crackdown, dissatisfaction with officials is simmering in many parts of China – over land grabs, unpaid wages, layoffs and more. For the Communist Party, a popular rejection of distant bureaucrats isn’t to be taken lightly. Brexit also confirms the party’s fears about the capriciousness of the people. As an editorial in the Global Times, a state-run tabloid, put it, Brexit is a “Pandora’s box,” a “lose-lose situation” and a “major setback.”

The Chinese people, it went on, “will continue to watch the consequence of Britain’s embracing of a `democratic’ referendum.” Such skepticism of the wisdom of crowds is widespread in Beijing’s halls of power – and it has real-world consequences for democracy advocates. A deeper worry for the party is instability. The political and business classes in China are extremely risk-averse. Banks lend to state-owned enterprises in the belief that the government stands behind them, students from the best schools aspire to the civil service, and changes to policy flow from on high. Party technocrats tend to see political and financial instability as intimately linked. And as Premier Li Keqiang stressed repeatedly yesterday at the World Economic Forum, Brexit has increased both.

The immediate economic consequences for China are likely to be minimal. As Bloomberg economists Tom Orlik and Fielding Chen have pointed out, only 2.6% of Chinese exports head to the U.K. But the indirect consequences could be substantial. After Britain voted out, the yuan suffered the biggest one-day drop since its devaluation last August. In the worst case, Brexit may act as a long-term drag on China’s exports, increase its spare capacity, spur capital flight, impede foreign direct investment and generally weaken the forces that have sustained its growth over the past few decades. Amid that kind of pressure, expect China’s leadership to double down on economic and financial policies intended to keep growth humming and minimize any disruption, no matter what the price.

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“The FTSE 100 ended 2.6% lower [..] ..wiping off nearly $132 billion since the referendum results early on Friday..”

Brexit To ‘Drive Tectonic Plate Shifts In European Bank Investing’ (R.)

Britain’s top share index extended the previous session’s steep losses on Monday as the country’s vote last week to leave the European Union hurled it into political and economic uncertainty, hitting banks, housebuilders and airlines hard. Some investors took refuge in firms producing gold, seen as a safe-haven asset, with Fresnillo closing up 7% after hitting a three-year high and Randgold Resources gaining 9%. The FTSE 100 ended 2.6% lower at 5,982.20 points, taking total losses to 5.6% in two sessions and wiping off nearly 100 billion pounds ($132 billion) since the referendum results early on Friday. Shares in easyJet recorded their biggest one-day percentage drop in 12 years.

The domestically-focused mid-cap index .FTMC lost nearly 7% after reaching its lowest since late 2014 following growing concerns about the country’s growth and earnings outlook after the poll outcome. “These uncertainties pose significant risks for the investment outlook,” said Larry Hatheway, chief economist and head of multi-asset portfolio solutions at GAM. “Against the backdrop of an already slowing UK economy, Brexit anxiety could precipitate a large enough reduction in consumer and business spending to tip the UK economy into recession.” British financial stocks declined the most, with the sector index ending 7.3% weaker after a seven-year low. RBS and Barclays dropped 15% and 17.3% respectively, also hit by broker downgrades and by JP Morgan’s cutting its rating on all domestic banks.

The mid-cap bank Shawbrook plummeted 30%. “The UK’s vote to leave the EU will drive tectonic plate shifts in European bank investing. We move to a slow growth/modestly recessionary scenario for UK banks,” analysts at Jefferies said in a note, downgrading RBS to “hold” and Barclays to “underperform”. Investors seemed to ignore finance minister George Osborne’s assertion on Monday that the British economy remained strong, his first public statement on the Brexit vote.

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“Italian officials are studying a direct state recapitalisation of the banks, to be funded by a special bond issue.” Remember Cyprus. Italy wants to change bail-in rules, but it can’t.

Italy Eyes €40 Billion Bank Rescue As First Brexit Domino Falls (AEP)

Italy is preparing a €40bn rescue of its financial system as bank shares collapse on the Milan bourse and the powerful after-shocks of Brexit shake European markets. An Italian government task force is watching events hour by hour, pledging all steps necessary to ensure the stability of the banks. “Italy will do everything necessary to reassure people,” said premier Matteo Renzi. “This is the moment of truth we have all been waiting for a long time. We just didn’t know it would be Brexit that set the elephant loose,” said a top Italian banker. The share price of banks crashed for a second trading day, with Intesa Sanpaolo off 12.5pc, and falls of 12pc for Banka MPS, 10.4pc for Mediobana, and 8pc for Unicredit. These lenders have lost a third of their value since Britain’s referendum.

“When Britain sneezes, Italy catches a cold. It is the weakest link in the European chain,” said Lorenzo Codogno, former director-general of the Italian treasury and now at LC Macro Advisors. The country is the first serious casualty of Brexit contagion and a reminder that the economic destinies of Britain and the rest of Europe are intimately entwined. Morgan Stanley warned in a new report that eurozone GDP would contract by almost as much as British GDP in a “high stress scenario”. Italian officials are studying a direct state recapitalisation of the banks, to be funded by a special bond issue. They also want a moratorium of so-called ‘bail-in’ rules and bondholder write-downs, but these steps are impossible under EU laws.

Mr Renzi raised the subject urgently at a meeting with Merkel and Hollande at a Brexit summit in Berlin on Monday. “There has to be a suspension of the bail-in rules and state aid rules at the highest political level in the EU, otherwise I don’t see how this can work,” said Mr Codogno. Unlike the eurozone debt crisis in 2011-2012, there is no serious trouble yet in the sovereign debt markets. The ECB is effectively capping yields under quantitative easing. The stress gauge in this episode is the health of the private banks. The Euro STOXX index of bank stocks has collapsed by half since last July, and is now probing depths seen in the white heat of the debt crisis. British bank shares have also plummeted since Brexit but this has no systemic implication so far.

It chiefly reflects recession fears, and potential loss of access to the EU market for business. Italy’s banks are the Achilles Heel of the eurozone financial system. Non-performing loans have ratcheted up to 18pc of total balance sheets as a result the country’s slide into depression after the Lehman crisis. The new bail-in reform this year has brought matters to a head, catching EU authorities off guard. It was intended to protect taxpayers by ensuring that creditors suffer major losses first if a bank gets into trouble, but was badly designed and has led to a flight from bank shares. The Bank of Italy has called for a complete overhaul of the bail-in rules. It is now almost impossible for Italian banks to raise capital.

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Lots of bitter infighting will ensue. Sort of a cross between Coronation Street and Absolutely Fabulous.

Preparing For Brexit, Britain May See New PM By Early September (R.)

Britain could have a new prime minister by early September, the ruling Conservative Party said on Monday, after David Cameron started laying the groundwork for his successor to trigger the country’s exit from the EU. The government is under pressure to fill a vacuum left when Cameron announced he would resign by October after Britain ignored his advice and voted to leave the 28-member bloc in last week’s referendum. Triggering a leadership battle that could draw in some of his closest advisers, Cameron urged ministers to work together in the meantime. But he also formed a separate unit, staffed by public servants, to help advise Britain on its departure and its options for a future outside the EU. “Although leaving the EU was not the path I recommended, I am the first to praise our incredible strengths as a country,” Cameron told parliament.

“As we proceed with implementing this decision and facing the challenges that it will undoubtedly bring, I believe we should hold fast to a vision of Britain that wants to be respected abroad, tolerant at home, engaged in the world.” Asked about the possibility of a second EU referendum, Cameron said the result of Thursday’s vote must be accepted. Graham Brady, chair of the “1922 Committee” of Conservative lawmakers, which sets the party’s ground rules in parliament, said the group had recommended that the leadership contest should begin next week and conclude no later than Sept. 2. That recommendation will almost certainly be passed. “Both the Conservatives and the country more generally really want certainty. We would like a resolution and we think it would be a good thing to conclude this process as soon as we practicably can,” Brady told Sky News.

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There are so few AAAs left that it doesn’t matter much anymore. And to label Britain AAA is of course silly to begin with.

S&P Strips UK of Last Top-Notch Credit Rating After Brexit (R.)

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s stripped Britain of its last remaining top-notch credit rating on Monday, slashing it by two notches from AAA and warning more downgrades could follow after Britons voted to leave the European Union last week. “In our opinion, this outcome is a seminal event, and will lead to a less predictable, stable, and effective policy framework in the UK,” S&P said in a statement, adding it saw a higher risk of Scotland breaking away from the United Kingdom. S&P had warned that Britain’s coveted top-notch credit rating was no longer tenable after last Thursday’s referendum result.

The loss of the last remaining “AAA” rating represents a fresh blow to Britain’s economic standing after the referendum, with sterling tanking to a 31-year low against the dollar and the country’s stock markets plunging. Rival ratings agencies Fitch and Moody’s stripped Britain of their AAA ratings long before the referendum campaign began. They too have warned of further cuts to their gradings of Britain’s creditworthiness. Protecting Britain’s credit rating was a top priority of Conservative finance minister George Osborne when he came to power in 2010.

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The kind of thing that can get very expensive very fast.

UK Credit Default Swap Rates Spike After Wave Of Rating Downgrades (CNBC)

In case you’re wondering how Brexit impacts the U.K.’s creditworthiness, the derivatives market may offer different clues than the bond market. The cost of buying protection against a default on British sovereign debt using credit default swaps rose to a three-year high on Tuesday, after rating agencies rushed to slash the U.K.’s debt rating following last week’s vote to leave the EU. It now costs $48,500 a year to protect $10 million of U.K. sovereign debt for five years, compared with levels near $32,000 before the June 23 referendum. This came despite a sharp fall in yields on U.K. government debt, or gilts. On its own, the absolute cost of insurance remains low, especially when compared with euro zone countries such as Italy and Spain.

The sharp pace of the increase, however, underscored how uncertainty over the U.K.’s position in Europe had undermined its credit-worthiness. Sterling has already plunged to more-than-30-year lows and stock markets have tumbled. On Monday Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.K.’s debt rating by two notches, from AAA to AA, citing last week’s referendum that approved a British exit from the EU, depriving the U.K. of its last triple A rating. Fitch Ratings, meanwhile, moved its rating from AA+ to AA. “In our opinion, this outcome is a seminal event, and will lead to a less predictable, stable, and effective policy framework in the U.K. We have reassessed our view of the U.K.’s institutional assessment and now no longer consider it a strength in our assessment of the rating,” S&P said in a news release.

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“It’s become perilously fashionable all over the Western world to reach for non-democratic solutions whenever society drifts in a direction people don’t like…”

The Reaction to Brexit Is the Reason Brexit Happened (Matt Taibbi)

Were I British, I’d probably have voted to Remain. But it’s not hard to understand being pissed off at being subject to unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels. Nor is it hard to imagine the post-Brexit backlash confirming every suspicion you might have about the people who run the EU. Imagine having pundits and professors suggest you should have your voting rights curtailed because you voted Leave. Now imagine these same people are calling voters like you “children,” and castigating you for being insufficiently appreciative of, say, the joys of submitting to a European Supreme Court that claims primacy over the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. The overall message in every case is the same: Let us handle things. But whatever, let’s assume that the Brexit voters, like Trump voters, are wrong, ignorant, dangerous and unjustified.

Even stipulating to that, the reaction to both Brexit and Trump reveals a problem potentially more serious than either Brexit or the Trump campaign. It’s become perilously fashionable all over the Western world to reach for non-democratic solutions whenever society drifts in a direction people don’t like. Here in America the problem is snowballing on both the right and the left. Whether it’s Andrew Sullivan calling for Republican insiders to rig the nomination process to derail Trump’s candidacy, or Democratic Party lifers like Peter Orszag arguing that Republican intransigence in Congress means we should turn more power over to “depoliticized commissions,” the instinct to act by diktat surfaces quite a lot these days. “Too much democracy” used to be an argument we reserved for foreign peoples who tried to do things like vote to demand control over their own oil supplies.

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A dead end street after all.

Some Bad And Some Worse News For Stock Buybacks (ZH)

For those 17-year-old hedge fund managers used to BTFD on hopes corporate buybacks will “have their back” and provide the bid on which momentum-chasing HFT algos will piggyback, we have some bad news and some worse news. The bad news is that we are entering yet another quiet period for buybacks. This means that for the next 45 days, the biggest – and supposedly only – buyer of stocks will be mostly out of the market, and bank buyback desks will not be able to provide much needed support during distressed (read: more sellers than buyers) times. The worse news is that even without the buyback blackout period, following months of surging stock repurchasing activity by corporate treasurers… buybacks have now ground to a virtual halt.

According to TrimTabs, stock buyback announcements by U.S. companies have fallen sharply, sending a longer-term negative signal for U.S. equities. “Corporate America announced $2.8 trillion in stock buybacks in the past five years, and these buybacks have provided a key source of fuel for the bull market,” said David Santschi, chief executive officer of TrimTabs. “Corporate actions this year suggest this support is going to diminish.” In a research note, TrimTabs reported that U.S. companies have announced a mere $11.8 billion in stock buybacks in June through Friday, June 24. This month’s pace is the lowest this year. Only four companies have announced plans to repurchase at least $1 billion this month.

“Even if some of the too-big-to-fails roll out buybacks after the release of the second part of the Fed’s stress test results, this month’s volume is likely to be among the lowest in the past three years,” noted Santschi. TrimTabs also explained that stock buyback announcements by U.S. companies have totaled $291.7 billion this year, which is 32% lower than the $432.0 billion in the same period last year. “The sharp decline in buyback announcements suggests corporate leaders are becoming more cautious, and it doesn’t bode well for the U.S. stock market,” said Santschi.

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