Leonard Cohen Archives - The Automatic Earth

The most shocking thing about the House impeachment hearings to this point is not a “smoking gun” witness providing irrefutable evidence of quid pro quo. It’s not that President Trump may or may not have asked the Ukrainians to look into business deals between then-Vice President Biden’s son and a Ukrainian oligarch. The most shocking thing to come out of the hearings thus far is confirmation that no matter who is elected President of the United States, the permanent government will not allow a change in our aggressive interventionist foreign policy, particularly when it comes to Russia. Even more shocking is that neither Republicans nor Democrats are bothered in the slightest!

Take Lt. Colonel Vindman, who earned high praise in the mainstream media. He did not come forth with first-hand evidence that President Trump had committed any “high crimes” or “misdemeanors.” He brought a complaint against the President because he was worried that Trump was shifting US policy away from providing offensive weapons to the Ukrainian government! He didn’t think the US president had the right to suspend aid to Ukraine because he supported providing aid to Ukraine. According to his testimony, Vindman’s was concerned over “influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency.” “Consensus views of the interagency” is another word for “deep state.”

Vindman continued, “While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine’s prospects, this alternative narrative undermined US government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.” Let that sink in for a moment: Vindman did not witness any crimes, he just didn’t think the elected President of the United States had any right to change US policy toward Ukraine or Russia! Likewise, his boss on the National Security Council Staff, Fiona Hill, sounded more like she had just stepped out of the 1950s with her heated Cold War rhetoric. Citing the controversial 2017 “Intelligence Community Assessment” put together by then-CIA director John Brennan’s “hand-picked” analysts, she asserted that, “President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter US foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine.”

David Stockman throws in a highly needed history lesson for free.

• Neocon Uses Impeachment To Push Russophobic Agenda (Stockman)

For want of doubt that the Poroshenko government was in the tank for Hillary Clinton, the liberal rag called Politico spilled the beans a few months later. In a January 11, 2017 story it revealed that the Ukrainian government had pulled out all the stops attempting to help Clinton, whose protégés at the State Department had been the masterminds of the coup which put them in office. Thus, Politico concluded,

“Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country. Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election.

And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. …President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race….. But Politico’s investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another’s elections. While it’s not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government.

Documents released by an independent Ukrainian government agency – and publicized by a parliamentarian – appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president, Yanukovych. The New York Times, in the August story revealing the ledgers’ existence, reported that the payments earmarked for Manafort were “a focus” of an investigation by Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, while CNN reported days later that the FBI was pursuing an overlapping inquiry.”

Yet Fiona Hill sat before a House committee and under oath insisted that all of the above was a Trumpian conspiracy theory, thereby reminding us that the neocon Russophobes are so unhinged that they are prepared to lie at the drop of a hat to keep their false narrative about the Russian Threat and Putin’s “invasion” of Ukraine alive. Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what happened in Kiev during 2014 and after.

John Solomon identifies 12 document troves that he thinks Trump should order released. Here are the first three.

• 12 Document Troves That Could Change The Ukraine Scandal (Solomon)

As House Democrats mull whether to pursue impeachment articles and the GOP-led Senate braces for a possible trial, here are 12 tranches of government documents that could benefit the public if President Trump ordered them released, and the questions these memos might answer.

1) Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship with oligarchs and other key figures. What was the CIA, FBI and U.S. Treasury Department telling Trump and other agencies about Zelensky’s ties to oligarchs like Igor Kolomoisky, the former head of Privatbank, and any concerns the International Monetary Fund might have? Did any of these concerns reach the president’s daily brief (PDB) or come up in the debate around resolving Ukraine corruption and U.S. foreign aid? CNBC, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal all have done recent reporting suggesting there might have been intelligence and IMF concerns that have not been fully considered during the impeachment proceedings.

2) State Department memos detailing conversations between former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. He says Yovanovitch raised the names of Ukrainians she did not want to see prosecuted during their first meeting in 2016. She calls Lutsenko’s account fiction. But State Department officials admit the U.S. embassy in Kiev did pressure Ukrainian prosecutors not to target certain activists. Are there contemporaneous State Department memos detailing these conversations and might they illuminate the dispute between Lutsenko and Yovanovitch that has become key to the impeachment hearings?

3) State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. There is documentary evidence that State provided funding to this group, that Ukrainian prosecutor sought to investigate whether that aid was spent properly and that the U.S. embassy pressured Ukraine to stand down on that investigation. How much total did State give to this group? Why was a federal agency giving money to a Soros-backed group? What did taxpayers get for their money and were they any audits to ensure the money was spent properly? Were any of Ukrainian prosecutors’ concerns legitimate?

“Perhaps The New York Times has hooked up to a direct line of Burisma’s product as they flood the darkened arena with eerie blue gaslight.”

• The Resistance Digs Their Hole Deeper (Kunstler)

“No, you don’t understand. It was the Russians, I tell you, the Russians!” And so, with a holiday recess for Adam Schiff’s impeachment soap opera, and news that DOJ Inspector General Horowitz will unload in early December, the media vassals of the Deep State are giving you their own turkey gristle to chew on: “The Russians did it! Yes, really, they did! Believe us!” Perhaps The New York Times has hooked up to a direct line of Burisma’s product as they flood the darkened arena with eerie blue gaslight. Friday, they featured a story — Russia Inquiry Review Is Said to Criticize F.B.I. but Rebuff Claims of Biased Acts — geared to make readers think that the entire FBI FISA warrant hair-ball came down to one lowly lawyer chump named Kevin Clinesmith messing with an email. Later, Times reporter Adam Goldman, posted this howler on Twitter.

These truthless assertions are meant to let both the CIA and the FBI off-the-hook for opening the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation on bogus evidence they furnished to the FISA judges. Both Goldman’s news story and his tweet omit the name of the company that packaged and retailed the Russia Collusion narrative: Fusion GPS — the company that Robert Mueller testified to having no knowledge of in his July House appearance. That oafish attempt to get out ahead of the IG’s report was followed by, whaddaya know, a Times op-ed penned by none other than Glenn Simpson, the impresario of Fusion GPS (and his partner Peter Fritsch), The Double-Barreled Dream World of Trump and His Enablers, aimed at re-selling their shopworn Russia collusion story to distract from any attention that voters might be paying to Ukraine’s collusion in the scheme to overthrow the 2016 US election and the Bidens’ grifting operation following the 2014 CIA / State Department sponsored overthrow of Ukraine’s government.

CBS 60-Minutes joined the gaslighting rotation Sunday night with a reality-optional Russia Hacked Our Election story. This was another obvious attempt to deflect attention from the actual story, which is how the company named Crowdstrike, owned by Ukrainian oligarch Dmitri Alperovitch, cooked up the Russian hacking story in the first place. Crowdstrike, you see, had been hired by the Democratic National Committee, and their nominee, Hillary Clinton, to interfere in the 2016 election. Crowdstrike later became the sole entity that was allowed to perform a forensic inquiry on the DNC’s server. Somehow, they persuaded the FBI to not look into the matter. In other words, the DNC’s contractor investigated its own mischief. Does anyone wonder how that worked?

I know this is too easy and too cheap for me to use, but at the same time, these folk are actually saying such things. And there is a actual US network that broadcasts this stuff. “Trump is mind-controlling the deplorables.” And people go: wow, that’s some serious sh*t…

• CNN: Trump Is Leader Of ‘Destructive Cult’ , Uses ‘Mind-Control’ (SN)

Stelter and guest say Trump supporters need ‘deprogramming’ CNN’s resident lunatic Brian Stelter went above and beyond his regular whackery Sunday, wheeling out a ‘cult expert’ on his “Reliable Sources” show, who claimed that President Trump is a “destructive cult” leader, a la Jim Jones, and that he is using “mind control” to direct supporters. Stelter introduced Steven Hassan, author of a book titled The Cult of Trump, claiming that many prominent figures (read ‘CNN talking heads’) have been suggesting recently that Trump’s America first movement is ‘cultish’. Hassan claimed that Trump supporters are “not being encouraged to really explore and look at the details and arrive at their own conclusion.”

“Much of what they’re hearing is emotionally driven, loaded words, thought-stopping, and thought-terminating-type clichés.” he added, citing “fake news,” “build the wall,” “make America great again.” Stelter then brought up mind control, asking “You say the President is using mind control, but how is that provable?” “So, we can start with the pathological lying, which is characteristic of destructive cult leaders.” Hassan claimed, again without providing any evidence.

“Saying things in a very confident way that have nothing to do with facts or truthfulness. The blaming others and never taking responsibility for his own failures and faults. Shunning and kicking out anyone who raises questions or concerns about his own behavior. His use of fearmongering, immigration is a horrible thing.” the guest continued. Stelter then chimed in with the stunning insight that “It is frightening to hear a cult expert say that you see all of these signs right now today in American politics.” The pair then remarkably suggested that Trump supporters need to be ‘deprogrammed’ by breaking them out of their ‘bubbles’.

The reason there is the Magnitsky act is not that people believed Browder, but that it’s convenient.

• Spiegel Finds Browder’s Magnitsky Narrative Is Riddled With Lies (RT)

British investor Bill Browder has made a name for himself in the West through blaming Moscow for the death of his auditor, Sergey Magnitsky. Der Spiegel has picked apart his story and uncovers it has major credibility problems. For years Browder – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s self-proclaimed “enemy number one” and head of the Hermitage Capital Management fund – has been waging what can only be described as his personal anti-Russian campaign. The passionate Kremlin critic relentlessly lobbied for sanctions against Russian officials everywhere from the US to Europe – all under the premise of seeking justice for his deceased employee, who died in Russia, while in pre-trial detention, where he’d been placed while accused of complicity in a major tax evasion scheme.

Browder, who was himself sentenced in absentia by a Russian court to nine years in prison for tax evasion, and was later found guilty of embezzlement as well, presented Magnitsky as a fearless whistleblower who exposed a grand corruption scheme within the Russian law enforcement system, and who was then mercilessly killed out of revenge. [..] the businessman, who has over the years donned the mantle of a human rights campaigner, does not plan to stop at that and is now lobbying for an EU-wide equivalent of the Magnitsky Act, which would allow the banning of Russian officials from the bloc’s countries and the freezing of their accounts.

On the tenth anniversary of the auditor’s death, the German weekly Der Spiegel has decided to take a closer look at Browder’s story about Magnitsky. And the paper found out that the narrative doesn’t quite flow as smoothly as Western politicians and the MSM would like it to.

18 long years to go before HK becomes Chinese.

• Hong Kong Part Of China and No One Can Mess It Up – Chinese FM (RT)

Beijing has said that the outcome of the municipal vote that saw opposition taking nearly 90% of the seats won’t change Hong Kong status, while warning against any attempts to disrupt the situation. Preliminary results of the election reported by local broadcaster RTHK suggest that about 390 seats out of 452 that were up for grabs in 18 district councils have been claimed by the anti-government candidates. Asked to comment while the vote count was ongoing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that regardless of the outcome, Hong Kong will remain an unalienable part of the Chinese state. “It’s not the final result yet. Let’s wait for the final result, OK? However, it is clear that no matter what happens, Hong Kong is a part of China and a special administrative region of China,” he said.

Any attempt to mess up Hong Kong, or even damage its prosperity and stability, will not succeed. Hong Kong administrator Carrie Lam, meanwhile, said that the semi-autonomous city’s government would respect the results of the district poll. “The government will certainly listen humbly to citizens’ opinions and reflect on them seriously,” Lam said, expressing hope that the peace and security would prevail, and the city won’t plunge into chaos again. The landslide victory by the opposition has been attributed to the record-high turnout of 71% (versus only 47% back in 2015) that saw many young voters taking to the polls for the first time. Speaking to SCMP, pro-Beijing lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-su, who lost his seat at the Tsuen Wan District Council, said that while he gained the same number of votes as in the previous elections, it was not enough this time – all because of the first-time voters, he suspected. “If that’s true, it means young people are no longer insensitive to politics,” he said…

China needs dollars very badly.

• Record-Breaking Dollar Bond Offering From China Imminent (ZH)

China is set to expand its bond market through a record sale of sovereign bonds in dollars, according to Bloomberg sources. The bond offering could raise up to $6 billion, would be one of the largest dollar bond offerings on record. The offering could be seen as soon as Tuesday. Sources said the Ministry of Finance is considering tenors of three years, five years, 10 years and 20 years: “It reaffirms China’s determination to develop an orderly offshore dollar bond market for Chinese issuers,” Anne Zhang, head of fixed income for JPMorgan Private Bank in Asia, told Bloomberg. “The new deal will further complete a sovereign curve,” she said. The size of the issuance would be more than double last year’s size, and triple the amount from 2017.

“The size is twice what it was last year, that just speaks to the fact that the past two years have been perceived as successful by the Ministry of Finance,” a banker working on one of the dollar bond deals told The Financial Times. He added that previous offers were “not enough to match demand.” The Chinse dollar bond market is valued at around $740 billion, according to Bloomberg data, and is an important funding source for domestic borrowers. Dollar bond issuances slid in 2018 following the escalation of the trade war. Despite the further escalation of the trade war in 2019, dollar bond issuances have increased as US treasury yields have fallen. Dollar bond demand from Chinese borrowers has been elevated in 2019, so far there has been $195 billion in recorded issuances, already surpassing levels seen in 2017 at $211 billion.

Corbyn should have spoken out loud and clear a long time ago. He’s the right wing’s toy now.

• UK Chief Rabbi Attacks Labour Party (BBC)

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

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

He writes: “The way in which the leadership of the Labour Party has dealt with anti-Jewish racism is incompatible with the British values of which we are so proud – of dignity and respect for all people. “It has left many decent Labour members and parliamentarians, both Jewish and non-Jewish, ashamed of what has transpired.” He adds that it was “not my place to tell any person how they should vote” but he urged the public to “vote with their conscience”. [..] Jenny Manson, the co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Labour group which is not officially affiliated to the party, told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight programme she was “horrified” by the Chief Rabbi’s intervention. She added that there was no threat to Jews in the Labour Party but there was a threat from the far-right.

No, really, they have secret software that blocks regulators. Just for that I would ban them forever. “But it’s never been used in the UK!” That’s not the point, is it? BTW, where did you use it?

• Uber Loses Licence To Operate In London (BBC)

Uber will not be granted a new licence to operate in London after repeated safety failures, Transport for London (TfL) has said. The regulator said the taxi app was not “fit and proper” as a licence holder, despite having made a number of positive changes to its operations. Uber initially lost its licence in 2017 but was granted two extensions, the most recent of which expired on Sunday. The firm will appeal and can continue to operate during that process. About 45,000 drivers work for Uber in London, which is one of its top five markets globally. TfL said it had identified a “pattern of failures” that placed passenger safety and security at risk. These included a change to Uber’s systems which allowed unauthorised drivers to upload their photos to other Uber driver accounts.

It meant there were at least 14,000 fraudulent trips in London in late 2018 and early 2019, TfL said. The regulator also found dismissed or suspended drivers had been able to create Uber accounts and carry passengers. [..] TfL first declined to renew Uber’s licence in September 2017, again over safety concerns. Back then it cited Uber’s approach to carrying out background checks on drivers and reporting serious criminal offences. Uber’s use of secret software, called “Greyball”, which could be used to block regulators from monitoring the app, was another factor, although Uber said it had never been used in the UK.

Dead on arrival: “It has already been backed by companies including Google and Facebook..”

• Tim Berners-Lee Wants To Stop Internet Turning Into ‘Digital Dystopia’ (Ind.)

Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the world wide web, has launched a plan to stop the world falling into a “digital dystopia”. Sir Tim unveiled a set of standards that good internet companies should abide by, in the hope of preserving the promise of the internet and stopping it being misused. It comes amid a variety of online threats that look to damage everything from elections to personal privacy. The new plan, named the Contract For The Web, was unveiled by Sir Tim’s World Wide Web Foundation in Berlin and calls on governments, companies and the public to ensure the web is a safe, free and open platform for all.

The commitment sets out nine key principles. It has already been backed by companies including Google and Facebook, both of which have been at the centre of controversies over the way the internet is used. “The power of the web to transform people’s lives, enrich society and reduce inequality is one of the defining opportunities of our time,” Sir Tim explained. “But if we don’t act now, and act together, to prevent the web being misused by those who want to exploit, divide and undermine, we are at risk of squandering that potential. “The Contract for the Web gives us a roadmap to build a better web. But it will not happen unless we all commit to the challenge.

“Governments need to strengthen laws and regulations for the digital age. Companies must do more to ensure pursuit of profit is not at the expense of human rights and democracy. “And citizens must hold those in power accountable, demand their digital rights be respected and help foster healthy conversation online. It’s up to all of us to fight for the web we want.” The plan tells governments to ensure everyone can connect to the internet, that access is not deliberately denied and to respect and protect people’s fundamental online privacy and data rights.

When will Andrew be arrested?

• Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell And Very Young Girls On ‘Pedo Island’ (ZH)

A former masseuse for Jeffrey Epstein who says he raped her on his private island, has provided photos of his secretive Caribbean compound to The Sun. Chaunte Davies says she was raped by Epstein over the course of several years before finally parting ways with him in 2005. She told the Sun that the wealthy pedophile was arrested just five days after she gave the FBI and New Mexico Assistant Attorney General evidence against him. Now 40, Chaunte says the ex-Wall Street banker performed a sex act on himself during their first massage session – and that she was “manipulated” into staying in their circle by Epstein’s alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell. “Within weeks she was jetting round the world on his private jet and on to his island of Little Saint James,” according to the report.

Davies also revealed how Epstein bragged about his friendship with Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, and how Epstein used his relationship with the Duke of York to lure young girls into his orbit – at one point, allegedly having an orgy with Andrew and several young girls. “In 2015 court testimony, she wrote: “I was around 18 at the time. Epstein, Andy, approximately eight other young girls and I had sex together.” She said the other girls seemed to be under 18 and “didn’t really speak English”. This seemed to amuse Epstein, she claimed, who said “they are the ‘easiest’ girls to get along with”. The duke has repeatedly denied the claims, which were later struck from the 2015 case. In his Newsnight interview he said he had “no recollection” of meeting Virginia and has denied any wrongdoing. -The Sun “I was very aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s friendship with Prince Andrew and Fergie right away,” she said, adding “It was one of several bragging tactics he used to further induce his power and privilege. He bragged a lot.”

And we just keep talking…

• Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Again Break Records (BBC)

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases once again reached new highs in 2018. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says the increase in CO2 was just above the average rise recorded over the last decade.vLevels of other warming gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, have also surged by above average amounts. Since 1990 there’s been an increase of 43% in the warming effect on the climate of long lived greenhouse gases. The WMO report looks at concentrations of warming gases in the atmosphere rather than just emissions. The difference between the two is that emissions refer to the amount of gases that go up into the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels, such as burning coal for electricity and from deforestation.

Concentrations are what’s left in the air after a complex series of interactions between the atmosphere, the oceans, the forests and the land. About a quarter of all carbon emissions are absorbed by the seas, and a similar amount by land and trees. Using data from monitoring stations in the Arctic and all over the world, researchers say that in 2018 concentrations of CO2 reached 407.8 parts per million (ppm), up from 405.5ppm a year previously. This increase was above the average for the last 10 years and is 147% of the “pre-industrial” level in 1750. The WMO also records concentrations of other warming gases, including methane and nitrous oxide.

About 40% of the methane emitted into the air comes from natural sources, such as wetlands, with 60% from human activities, including cattle farming, rice cultivation and landfill dumps. Methane is now at 259% of the pre-industrial level and the increase seen over the past year was higher than both the previous annual rate and the average over the past 10 years. Nitrous oxide is emitted from natural and human sources, including from the oceans and from fertiliser-use in farming. According to the WMO, it is now at 123% of the levels that existed in 1750.

Adam Cohen put together a last album of his father Leonard’s songs.

“I have tried to write Paradise/Do not move/Let the wind speak/that is Paradise”

“You were born to judge the world / Forgive me but I wasn’t.”

“When he took his hat off at the end of shows, he had this look of humility and bewilderment and gratitude – this was not an act. And he would say, ‘Thank you for keeping my songs alive’. ”

• Listen To The Hummingbird. Never Listen To Me (GTD)

Many thanks for the Dance opens with a track referred to as Transpires to the Heart and the 1st of several startling lyrics: “I was operating constant but I hardly ever termed it art/ I bought my shit together, conference Christ and reading through Marx…” It seems like a defiant statement of intent, but the mood, as on the previous album, soon turns darker. The Objective, a small, sombre spoken-term piece, starts “I simply cannot go away my house, or solution the phone” and consists of the poignant self-observation: “I sit in my chair, I glimpse at the road, the neighbour returns my smile of defeat.” The infirmities of old age are broached once again on The Hills, on which he sings, “I’m residing on products, for which I thank God”, delivering the past 3 phrases with heartfelt emphasis.

During, dying is a specified, its looming existence articulated with a attribute diploma of Buddhist acceptance. Below and there, although, there are glimpses of the sensuality that characterised several of his early tracks and poems. On The Night of Santiago he sings: “Her thighs they slipped away from me/ Like educational institutions of startled fish”. The track is basically an adaptation of a poem by Federico García Lorca, 1 of Leonard’s literary touchstones. “It’s just one of my favourite poems and I begged him to go through it,” says Adam.

Tucker Carlson on the 2018 chemical attack in #Syria: “America almost attacked a country and killed thousands of people over an attack that may never have happened in the first place.”

“We’ve been lied to. We’ve been manipulated. We knew it at the time.” pic.twitter.com/hCd87sJ3Su

— Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) November 26, 2019

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Debt Rattle November 11 2016

Nov 112016

November 11, 2016 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 11:00 am Finance Tagged with: drones, EM, end of growth, Leonard Cohen, rupee, Trump, tunnel vision, yuan 5 Responses »

Leonard Cohen 21 September 1934 – 7 November 2016

• The End of Growth and the Rise of Trump (Tyee)

• Donald Trump Is Moving To The White House, And Liberals Put Him There (Frank)

• Rupee Note Cancellation Plunges India Into Panic (G.)

• Emerging-Markets Rout Deepens as Europe Shares, Commodities Rise (BBG)

• China Household Debt/GDP More Than Doubled In Under 10 Years To 40.7% (R.)

• China’s Yuan Set for Steepest Weekly Loss Since January (BBG)

• Judge Tells Trump University Litigants They Would Be Wise To Settle (R.)

• The Unbearable Smugness Of The Press (CBS)

• Obama Asks Congress For Extra $11 Billion, Wants More Lethal Drones (BBG)

• BoE Chief Economist Andy Haldane: Economics Suffers From Tunnel Vision (BBG)

• London Property Market Is “Tanking By The Day” (BBG)

• Leonard Cohen Knew Things About Life, And If You Listened You Could Learn (G.)

Andrew Nikiforuk calls me an economist. Now we’ve heard it all… Still, good to see people are listening.

• The End of Growth and the Rise of Trump (Tyee)

The economist Raúl Ilargi Meijer wrote an interesting essay explaining why there is a Donald Trump in September. He credited Trump’s rise to “the most important global development in decades.” That development, says Meijer, is “the end of global economic growth, which will lead inexorably to the end of centralization (including globalization). It will also mean the end of the existence of most, and especially the most powerful, international institutions.” “In the same way it will be the end of — almost — all traditional political parties, which have ruled their countries for decades and are already today at or near record low support levels (if you’re not clear on what’s going on, look there, look at Europe!),” he wrote.

“This is not a matter of what anyone, or any group of people, might want or prefer, it’s a matter of ‘forces’ that are beyond our control, that are bigger and more far-reaching than our mere opinions, even though they may be man-made.” The end of growth is tied inexorably to the deplorable quality of energy now being fracked and mined in North America. Bitumen and fracked oil just can’t support rich societies because these poor resources invite debt, environmental ruin and poor returns. Meijer adds “that the politico-econo-media machine churns out positive growth messages 24/7 goes some way towards explaining the lack of acknowledgement and self-reflection, but only some way. The rest is due to who we ourselves are. We think we deserve eternal growth.”

In the end, neither candidate talked about what mattered: growing climate anarchy; unrelenting economic stagnation; declining energy returns; and the onslaught of robots and algorithms in the workplace, government and home. Trump should remind us of two things and Camus, who understood the nature of tragedy, has expressed them well. The first is that “Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.” Trump embodies that sentiment. The second is the growing absurdity of it all. “Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.”

Not too impressed with Thomas Frank’s piece overall, but he gives a reasonable expose of what the Dems did wrong.

• Donald Trump Is Moving To The White House, And Liberals Put Him There (Frank)

Start at the top. Why, oh why, did it have to be Hillary Clinton? Yes, she has an impressive resume; yes, she worked hard on the campaign trail. But she was exactly the wrong candidate for this angry, populist moment. An insider when the country was screaming for an outsider. A technocrat who offered fine-tuning when the country wanted to take a sledgehammer to the machine. She was the Democratic candidate because it was her turn and because a Clinton victory would have moved every Democrat in Washington up a notch. Whether or not she would win was always a secondary matter, something that was taken for granted. Had winning been the party’s number one concern, several more suitable candidates were ready to go.

There was Joe Biden, with his powerful plainspoken style, and there was Bernie Sanders, an inspiring and largely scandal-free figure. Each of them would probably have beaten Trump, but neither of them would really have served the interests of the party insiders. And so Democratic leaders made Hillary their candidate even though they knew about her closeness to the banks, her fondness for war, and her unique vulnerability on the trade issue – each of which Trump exploited to the fullest. They chose Hillary even though they knew about her private email server. They chose her even though some of those who studied the Clinton Foundation suspected it was a sketchy proposition. To try to put over such a nominee while screaming that the Republican is a rightwing monster is to court disbelief.

If Trump is a fascist, as liberals often said, Democrats should have put in their strongest player to stop him, not a party hack they’d chosen because it was her turn. Choosing her indicated either that Democrats didn’t mean what they said about Trump’s riskiness, that their opportunism took precedence over the country’s well-being, or maybe both. Clinton’s supporters among the media didn’t help much, either. It always struck me as strange that such an unpopular candidate enjoyed such robust and unanimous endorsements from the editorial and opinion pages of the nation’s papers, but it was the quality of the media’s enthusiasm that really harmed her. With the same arguments repeated over and over, two or three times a day, with nuance and contrary views all deleted, the act of opening the newspaper started to feel like tuning in to a Cold War propaganda station.

From email I received yesterday: “People have been wiped out overnight. He had given a tax amnesty initially, declare your black money and pay a 30% tax. Later that increased to 50% and finally this. Huge wealth confiscation. Property prices expected to collapse. Dunno why such a shock move was implemented? The economy is doing well, low levels of debt overall, banks under state control and he was doing the right things. Income tax reform and a sales tax would’ve been much better to widen the tax base. India has major issues but when I went earlier this year to Delhi the development and progress is obvious. Infrastructure is pretty good, super airport, air quality is horrid, malls springing up everywhere and housing rental is very affordable but buying is ludicrously expensive. Economy was booming. Perfect black swan event. Only 3 people knew- The PM, FM and CB governor.”

• Rupee Note Cancellation Plunges India Into Panic (G.)

Queues of angry, panicked Indians wound around bank buildings in Mumbai, the financial capital, on Thursday morning, two days after the prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced that 500- and 1,000-rupee notes, worth around £6 and £12, would be taken out of circulation. In a televised announcement on Tuesday night, Modi had urged Indians not to rush to banks, as they would have until the end of 2016 to deposit cash in their accounts. But with the high-value notes withdrawn from Wednesday in an effort to combat corruption, black-market trade and tax evasion, many were left without cash for day-to-day expenses. Banks were closed on Wednesday, and reopened on Thursday morning with a cap on cash withdrawals. ATMs remained closed, so currency was only available from the banks.

Newspapers around the country reported long queues at branches, as people scrambled to exchange their high-value banknotes for 100-rupee bills. At the Churchgate branch of the Bank of India, dozens of people queued in the midday heat, filling out deposit forms as a security guard barked instructions. “Life is completely paralysed,” said Maganbhai Solanki, who had been waiting in line for four hours. “On the news, they said banks would open at 8am today. I got here at 8.01,” he said. “Now, it’s noon, but I’m still here. Around 50 people in the queue ahead of me got tired of waiting and left but I have no choice. There’s no money in the house. We only have 500- and 1,000-rupee notes which are worth nothing. We didn’t even have enough to pay the milkman this morning.”

The dollar comes home.

• Emerging-Markets Rout Deepens as Europe Shares, Commodities Rise (BBG)

An emerging-markets selloff deepened amid concern developing economies will face capital outflows and weakening exports once Donald Trump is in The White House, while optimism surrounding his policies spurred gains in commodities and European shares rose. MSCI gauges of emerging-market equities and currencies sank to four-month lows since the election of Trump, who pledged to restrict imports and add fiscal stimulus that’s seen hastening interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. More than $1 trillion was wiped off the value of bonds this week, something that’s happened only once before in the last two decades, as Treasuries lost the most since 2009. Shanghai shares entered a bull market, while industrial metals had their best week in more than 25 years.

Developing-nation assets have been roiled since Trump’s surprise win in Tuesday’s vote and central banks in India and Indonesia were said to have intervened Friday in support of their currencies. Futures indicate an 80% chance that the Fed will raise rates next month and expectations are building for more increases. Ten-year Treasury yields have climbed above 2% for the first time since January amid speculation the president-elect’s plans to cut taxes and boost spending will widen the U.S. budget deficit and stoke inflation. “There’s been a big rotation out of emerging markets into U.S. dollar assets,” said Jeffrey Halley, a market strategist at Oanda Asia Pacific Pte in Singapore. “An emerging market is a market you can’t emerge from in an emergency. It’s one of the best lessons I’ve ever learnt in 30 years in the market. When everybody runs for the door at the same time, the door’s very small.”

Why repeat the west’s mistakes? What’s in it for Xi?

• China Household Debt/GDP More Than Doubled In Under 10 Years To 40.7% (R.)

China’s household debt as a proportion of GDP has more than doubled to 40.7% in less than 10 years. While developed nations have higher rates of household debt, Chinese families are much more leveraged because income is lower and so proportionately the costs of social welfare from pensions to healthcare are much higher. At the end of 2014, the out-of-pocket health spend in China as a%age of total expenditure was 32%, compared to 9.7% in Britain and 11% in the United States, World Health Organization data shows. “Household debt leverage is very alarming, even though the aggregate amount is controllable,” said Wan Zhe, chief economist at China National Gold Group Corporation, visiting researcher at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.

“The first issue is that household debt has risen too quickly, the second is that it has risen too quickly as a proportion” of GDP and disposable income, said Wan. Underlining these concerns, authorities are trying to calm a property rally. In the latest move, regulators told banks to limit the issuance of home loans, the Shanghai Securities Journal reported on Thursday. The balance of retail mortgages at the end of the third quarter hit 16.8 trillion yuan ($2.5 trillion), more than a third higher than a year earlier, China central bank data shows. More broadly, consumer debt financed by Chinese banks has grown sharply, from 3.8 trillion yuan at the end of 2007 to 17.4 trillion yuan at the end of last year, a compound annual growth rate of 21%, Fitch Ratings said in a report.

But the growth in income has been much more modest, rising 6.3% in January to September compared with the year-earlier period, the weakest pace since 2013 when the National Bureau of Statistics first started issuing the data. “The rapid growth in outstanding (consumer) loan balances has been accompanied by an increase in NPLs (non-performing loans) across all segments of consumer debt,” the Fitch report said.

It just keeps falling, that’s all it does anymore.

• China’s Yuan Set for Steepest Weekly Loss Since January (BBG)

China’s currency is heading for its steepest weekly drop since January, when a series of weaker fixings roiled global financial markets, as Donald Trump’s election victory boosted the dollar and raised the threat of a more protectionist America. Bonds tumbled. The yuan fell 0.06% to 6.8134 at 10:07 a.m. in Shanghai, approaching the 6.83 level at which China pegged the currency after the 2008 global financial crisis. The exchange rate has fallen 0.9% this week to a six-year low as Trump’s unexpected win spurred a tectonic shift in fund flows, with emerging-market currencies tumbling with bonds while stocks rally. The 10-year yield on government debt climbed about 10 basis points this week, the most since May 2015.

Bloomberg’s dollar index held near an eight-month high amid speculation the Federal Reserve will boost interest rates to cap inflation as a Trump-led administration steps up spending. Trump has also threatened punitive tariffs on China’s imports. Accelerating declines in the yuan are a turnaround from the August-September period, when policy makers were suspected of propping up the currency before its entry into the IMF’s reserves basket. “A rally in the dollar has driven the yuan weaker, and the PBOC won’t likely defend the currency at this point because the costs of intervention could be very high under such an environment,” said Irene Cheung at Australia & New Zealand Bank in Singapore. “But if the depreciation accelerates in the coming weeks, there’s still a chance that China could take measures to stabilize the market.”

Potentially messy if used for political purposes.

• Judge Tells Trump University Litigants They Would Be Wise To Settle (R.)

The U.S. judge overseeing a lawsuit against President-elect Donald Trump and his Trump University told both sides they would be wise to settle the case “given all else that’s involved.” Lawyers for the president-elect are squaring off against students who claim they were they were lured by false promises to pay up to $35,000 to learn Trump’s real estate investing “secrets” from his “hand-picked” instructors. Earlier on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel tentatively rejected a bid by Trump to keep a wide range of statements from the presidential campaign out of the fraud trial. Trump owned 92% of Trump University and had control over all major decisions, the students’ court papers say. The president-elect denies the allegations and has argued that he relied on others to manage the business.

Trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 28, and Curiel told lawyers he was not inclined to delay the six-year-old case further. Trump lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said he would ask to put the trial on hold until early next year, in light of the many tasks the magnate has before his inauguration. Curiel said he would allow both sides to file briefs on whether to delay the case. He also indicated they should consider making a deal. “It would be wise for the plaintiffs, for the defendants, to look closely at trying to resolve this case given all else that’s involved,” Curiel said. Petrocelli told reporters after the hearing that Trump might have to be a “little more flexible” about settling the case now that he is president-elect, although the lawyer wasn’t sure his client would was willing.

ANother thing that just continues.

• The Unbearable Smugness Of The Press (CBS)

The mood in the Washington press corps is bleak, and deservedly so. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that, with a few exceptions, we were all tacitly or explicitly #WithHer, which has led to a certain anguish in the face of Donald Trump’s victory. More than that and more importantly, we also missed the story, after having spent months mocking the people who had a better sense of what was going on. This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won, there’s be a winking “we did it” feeling in the press, a sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic. So much for that. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited.

This was particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doing when he invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and have for some time. And can you blame them? Journalists love mocking Trump supporters. We insult their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We emote on Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us feel one way or the other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid. It’s a profound failure of empathy in the service of endless posturing. There’s been some sympathy from the press, sure: the dispatches from “heroin country” that read like reports from colonial administrators checking in on the natives.

But much of that starts from the assumption that Trump voters are backward, and that it’s our duty to catalogue and ultimately reverse that backwardness. What can we do to get these people to stop worshiping their false god and accept our gospel? We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical problems with demonic possession. Journalists, at our worst, see ourselves as a priestly caste. We believe we not only have access to the indisputable facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined from an advanced understanding of justice. You’d think that Trump’s victory – the one we all discounted too far in advance – would lead to a certain newfound humility in the political press. But of course that’s not how it works.

To us, speaking broadly, our diagnosis was still basically correct. The demons were just stronger than we realized. This is all a “whitelash,” you see. Trump voters are racist and sexist, so there must be more racists and sexists than we realized. Tuesday night’s outcome was not a logic-driven rejection of a deeply flawed candidate named Clinton; no, it was a primal scream against fairness, equality, and progress. Let the new tantrums commence!

How about using the $11 billion to rebuild Syria?

• Obama Asks Congress For Extra $11 Billion, Wants More Lethal Drones (BBG)

An $11.6 billion defense request that President Barack Obama sent Congress includes funds to buy more lethal drones for U.S. commandos fighting Islamic State and other terrorists as well as networks to counter the pilotless aircraft those groups are now using. The extra war-related funding requested Thursday for the current fiscal year would provide $5.8 billion for the Pentagon to continue operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. An equal amount for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development would support counterterrorism efforts, refugee aid and improved embassy security, Obama said in a letter to lawmakers. While the amount requested for lethal drones is small, it provides a glimpse into a largely hidden phase of U.S. special operations in Iraq.

The White House requested $46.5 million to buy 535 Lethal Miniature Aerial Missile Systems and related equipment requested by the Special Operations Command Central due to “urgent operational needs.” The drone request is described as “for analytics, targeting, training, and equipment to support deployed U.S. Forces.” The only U.S. fighters in Iraq who are actively engaged in combat against Islamic State are in the highly classified Expeditionary Targeting Force set up a year ago to kill or capture militants. U.S. special operations forces also conduct raids in Afghanistan. The administration also requested, without elaboration, $150 million to develop and field within two years a network of “counter-small unmanned aerial systems at sites” in Iraq.

A rare light in the profession.

• BoE Chief Economist Andy Haldane: Economics Suffers From Tunnel Vision (BBG)

Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane says economics suffers from tunnel vision and there’s a need to bring new ideas to the profession to make it relevant again. Haldane, whose speeches and papers have analyzed policy using everything from technology to biology, said his industry remains an “insular, self-referential discipline,” and this has to change. “One of the potential failings of the economics profession is that it may have borrowed too little from other disciplines – a methodological mono-culture,” he said in a speech on Thursday in Cambridge, England. An issue that dogs current economic models is forecasting performance, he said, noting the failure to predict the financial crisis and, since then, IMF world growth projections that “consistently over-estimated” the recovery.

It’s a timely point for BOE policy makers, who last week revised their projections for growth and inflation in the wake of Brexit. Haldane said economists need to improve their understanding of the world because rapid changes in economies have social and political implications. “It has been argued that these models were not designed to explain such extreme events” as the financial crisis, he said. “For me, this is not really a defense. If our models are silent about these events, this jeopardizes the very thing that makes economics interesting and economic policy important.” In his speech, he cited economist George Shackle’s description of the economy as a “kaleidoscope, a collision of colors subject to on-going, rapid and radical change.”

Haldane said agent-based models used in physics, chemistry and other sciences could enable a “fundamental changes in model dynamics.” Using it at the BOE has helped a better understanding of the housing market and the interaction of buyers, lenders and renters. Contrasting ABM models with traditional micro-founded economic ones, Haldane said the big picture usually looks very different from the small one. “Aggregating from the microscopic to the macroscopic is very unlikely to give sensible insights into real world behavior, for the same reason the behavior of a single neuron is uninformative about the threat of nuclear winter.”

It will take a long time before people understand this is a positive thing.

• London Property Market Is “Tanking By The Day” (BBG)

London’s real estate market, hurt by the Brexit vote, is “tanking by the day,” Green Property Chairman Stephen Vernon said. The firm, which has closed its London office, is waiting for an opportunity to buy into the market at lower values, the 66-year-old said at a conference in Dublin. Vernon would consider buying a real estate company, raising a fund or buying a portfolio of assets in London, he said. “It’s absolutely fantastic what’s going on,” said Vernon, who sold most of the firm’s properties in Ireland before values there crashed in 2008. A decision to re-enter the London market would be through a venture separate from Green Property and focus on commercial real estate, a spokesman for the investor said.

Office values in the City of London financial district fell the most in at least seven years in July after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Home prices in the U.K. capital fell for a fifth month in August, the worst streak since 2009, as higher taxes and the referendum result damped demand. The referendum result, higher levies on business premises and a rise in the stamp duty sales tax have led to a reduction in London commercial property values, Derwent London Plc Chief Executive Officer John Burns said in a statement on Thursday. “The central-London office market faces a number of challenges, including heightened global uncertainty, and business activity is likely to slow,” he said.

I am the one who loves changing from nothing to one.

• Leonard Cohen Knew Things About Life, And If You Listened You Could Learn (G.)

Leonard Cohen was always the grown-up in the room. He was young once, of course, but the world never saw much of the modestly successful poet and novelist from Montreal. He was already 33 — ancient by 60s standards — when he gazed out from the sepia-tinted, photo-booth snapshot on the cover of 1967’s Songs of Leonard Cohen with his shirt, tie and smart side-parting. The face suggested that he’d been around the block a few times; the voice and words confirmed it. The man knew things about life and if, you listened closely, you might learn something. The truth was that Cohen felt as lost as anybody. What gave his work its uncommon gravitas wasn’t that he knew the answers but that he never stopped looking.

He searched for clues in bedrooms and warzones, in Jewish temples and Buddhist retreats, in Europe, Africa, Israel and Cuba. He tried to flush them out with booze and drugs and seduce them with melodies. And whenever he managed to painfully extract some nugget of wisdom, he would cut and polish it like a precious stone before resuming the search. Funny about himself but profoundly serious about his art, he liked to describe his songs as “investigations” into the hidden mechanics of love, sex, war, religion and death – the beautiful and terrifying truths of existence. A Leonard Cohen song is an anchor flung into a churning sea. It has the kind of weight that could save your life. [..] When the chief executive of Columbia Records heard that A&R man John Hammond wanted to sign Cohen in 1967, he reportedly said: “A 32-year-old poet? Are you crazy?” But Hammond, who had launched Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin, didn’t give up. During the first recording session for Songs of Leonard Cohen he shouted encouragement: “Watch out, Dylan!”

At the time, Bob Dylan was rock’n’roll’s preeminent poet. Cohen really was a poet but he wasn’t rock’n’roll. Steeped instead in literary discipline, French chanson and Jewish liturgy, his work suggested old-fashioned patience. To Dylan a song was a lump of wet clay to be moulded before it sets fast; to Cohen it was a slab of marble to be chipped into shape with immense dedication and care. Cohen never stopped being a poet or lost his reverence for words. You’ll find some erratic musical choices in his back catalogue but not a single careless line; nothing disposable. Years later, he said he had only one piece of advice for young songwriters: “If you stick with a song long enough it will yield. But long enough is beyond any reasonable duration.” When you sense that a songwriter has spent that long finding the right words, the least you can do is pay attention.