Menu Icon

Debt Rattle August 4 2024

Aug 042024
 
 August 4, 2024  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  36 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Seated woman 1903

 

• Harris Refuses Fox News Debate With Trump (RT)
• Judge Chutkan Denies Trump’s Motion to Dismiss Election Case (ET)
• Are Americans a Totally Conquered People? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Scott Ritter: Some Swapped Prisoners Were Likely ‘On CIA Payroll’ (Sp.)
• Israel Assassinates Chief Negotiator Across The Table (Cradle)
• Israel Isn’t Crazy, It’s Just MAD (Cradle)
• Europe’s Recipe for Disaster: The Von der Leyen Program (Godefridi)
• Hungary and Slovakia Consider Cutting Electricity Supply To Ukraine (RMX)
• A New Détente: Can Putin and Biden Make A Deal? (Drize)
• Venezuela Could Hand Energy Rights To BRICS – Maduro (RT)
• SpaceX May Save Stranded Boeing Starliner Crew At ISS (ZH)
• Gender-Bending Is The New Doping (Marsden)
• How Unelected Regulators Unleashed the Derivatives Monster (Ellen Brown)

 

 

 

 

Watters SS

 

 

Bidenomics

 

 

Shapiro

 

 

Lemon

 

 

Elon Matrix

 

 

Maduro

 

 

Disturbed yet?

 

 

 

 

Hahaha. What a surprise. They want control.

• Harris Refuses Fox News Debate With Trump (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris has declined former President Donald Trump’s invitation to take part in a televised debate on Fox News next month, insisting that her presidential opponent stick to a previously agreed showdown on ABC News. In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump accepted Fox’s proposal that he debate Harris on September 4 in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Trump was scheduled to debate President Joe Biden on ABC News on September 10, before Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to run in his place late last month. The ABC debate has been “terminated,” Trump explained, citing Biden’s decision to step down, and his pending litigation against ABC host George Stephanopoulos, which he claimed created “a conflict of interest.”

In a statement on Saturday, Harris’ campaign accused Trump of “running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to.” “He needs to stop playing games and show up to the debate he already committed to,” the statement continued. “The vice-president will be there one way or the other to take the opportunity to speak to a prime-time national audience. We’re happy to discuss further debates after the one both campaigns have already agreed to.” Fox News is generally seen as more sympathetic to Trump, while ABC is perceived as more sympathetic to Harris. Trump debated Biden in June, in a CNN-hosted faceoff in Atlanta, Georgia. Biden appeared frail during the debate and lost his train of thought on multiple occasions, and his lackluster performance set off a crisis within the Democratic Party that ultimately concluded with him suspending his campaign.

Trump maintains that senior Democrats staged a “coup” against Biden, and that former President Barack Obama was instrumental in forcing the president to step aside. “They all dumped him, and they said, ‘Either you get out nice or we’re going to go after you.’ And that’s what happened. And he had no choice. There’s no question about it,” he told the New York Post last month. Writing on Truth Social, Trump explained that he prefers Fox News’ chosen date of September 4, as early voting begins in some states two days later. “I spent hundreds of millions of dollars, time, and effort fighting Joe, and when I won the debate, they threw a new candidate into the ring,” he declared. “Nevertheless, different candidate or not, their bad policies are the same, and this will be strongly revealed at the September 4th debate.”

Read more …

3 months before the election, she tries to restart the whole thing. A joint status report by Aug. 9, status conference set for Aug. 13. Next she’ll demand he shows up in person?

• Judge Chutkan Denies Trump’s Motion to Dismiss Election Case (ET)

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has scheduled a mid-August status conference in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, while denying his legal team’s motion to dismiss the indictment. The status conference, set for Aug. 13 in a Washington, D.C., federal courthouse, will address procedural matters and help determine the next steps in the proceeding, reads an order signed by Chutkan on Aug. 3. Chutkan ordered both the prosecution and the defense to submit a joint status report by Aug. 9, which will update the court on the progress of the case and can include such information as any agreements or disputes between the parties, as well as completed tasks and upcoming deadlines.

In the same order, Chutkan granted a brief stay on the briefing deadlines for special counsel Jack Smith’s motion seeking to limit the evidence and arguments that Trump’s legal team can introduce during the trial, particularly those that prosecutors argue are irrelevant or prejudicial. Specifically, the government’s motion seeks to exclude evidence related to Trump’s claims of selective prosecution, alleged investigative misconduct, and speculative theories about foreign influence or undercover agents during the Jan. 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol. Smith has also asked the judge to disallow arguments meant to sway the jury with political rhetoric or potential consequences of a conviction, and to impose limits on cross-examination by the defense, including potential testimony on Trump’s state of mind or belief that the 2020 election was stolen.

Chutkan’s order also denied without prejudice Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment, which was filed on statutory grounds. Trump attorneys claim in their motion that Smith’s indictment improperly applied legal statutes, while arguing that the charges filed failed to demonstrate any acts of deceit or trickery necessary to establish conspiracy to defraud the United States, a key charge leveled against the former president in the case. Smith’s team charged Trump with four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and to obstruct an official proceeding, in a case that centers on the former president’s actions after the 2020 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty, arguing that the case is motivated by political animus against him and is designed to thwart his 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump counsel also argued in the motion to dismiss that Trump’s public comments and actions to contest the results of the 2020 election were lawful exercises of his First Amendment rights and do not amount to obstruction of a government function. They also claimed that the indictment lacked the specificity required to support claims of corrupt intent, while arguing that the legal statutes cited by Smith’s team in the indictment should be interpreted more narrowly to avoid criminalizing legitimate political activity. A request for comment sent to Trump counsel regarding Chutkan’s rejection of the motion to dismiss was not immediately returned.

The renewed activity in the case, which had been put on hold pending Trump’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on arguments he was immune from prosecution, occurred after the case was returned to Chutkan on Aug. 2, paving the way for further motions and hearings. The Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that Trump is entitled to some immunity, based on the high court’s finding that presidents have absolute immunity for actions within their “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” presumptive immunity for official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts. The Supreme Court justices sent the case back to district court, leaving it up to Chutkan to decide how to apply the ruling to the case.

Read more …

“When people see that there is no limit on the power of corrupt prosecutors, they fear to go against the system.”

• Are Americans a Totally Conquered People? (Paul Craig Roberts)

The various “investigations” of the Secret Service’s failure to protect Trump are focused on operational and communication failures. The fact that the Secret Service did hardly anything normal procedures required has not yet raised the question whether elements of the Secret Service were involved. The failure is too large to be dismissed without investigation as nothing but a result of a collection of mistakes. The investigation that is needed is one that investigates whether elements in the Secret Service were involved in an assassination attempt on Trump, who is considered to be an existential threat to the ruling establishment. The investigation cannot be conducted by the Secret Service, Homeland Security, and the FBI, because if the assassination attempt was a deep state plot, all else against Trump having failed, these three agencies are the likely ones involved in the plot. A real investigation would have to answer these questions:

1. Was the acoustic evidence examined? 2. Were the fired bullets collected? Did they all come from the same rifle and was it the rifle found 7 feet away from Crooks dead body? Why was the rifle 7 feet away from the person alleged to have shot at Trump? 3. Why was Trump allowed to go on stage when the Secret Service knew Crooks was positioned on the building? 4. Why was the urgent information sent by the Pennsylvania police on the scene to the Secret Service not acted on and shared with Trump’s security detail? 5. Do such unprecedented operational and communicative failures of this magnitude suggest Secret Service complicity in an attempt on Trump’s life? 6. Was Crooks just a patsy whose presence was ignored because the plotters needed a patsy in place? It is unclear that the investigation can be conducted by a Congressional committee as members are dependent on ruling elites for campaign contributions and are vulnerable to threats from executive branch agencies.

The Founding Fathers made Congress weak because they feared “mob democracy.” But the consequence was to leave Congress too weak to hold the executive branch accountable. A real investigation would have to be conducted by credentialed independent experts, but even here independence can be hard to find. So many people rely on government contracts that it is difficult for many to speak freely. The fact that physics departments and universities are dependent on federal money explains why academic physicists avoided taking issue with the 9/11 narrative. Money speaks, and in the corrupt America of the 21st century, money is all that speaks. To understand the difficulty of private expert examination, consider the fate of the experts who proved beyond all doubt that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. That the election was stolen is as clear as day, but those who brought forward the evidence have been ridiculed as “conspiracy theorists,” sued, prosecuted or threatened with prosecution, and some sentenced, if memory serves, to prison for “interfering with an election.”

Even those who merely protested the stolen election were arrested, indicted, and imprisoned as “insurrectionists.” Any who survived the vendetta were bankrupted by their legal bills. Some of Trump’s lawyers were indicted along with him in a RICO indictment by a corrupt black female Atlanta prosecutor, apparently put in office with George Soros’ money and currently under investigation herself for going on vacations with money she paid her lover who she paid $700,000 to prosecute Trump. When people see that there is no limit on the power of corrupt prosecutors, they fear to go against the system.

Even if somehow an objective investigation could be conducted, if the conclusion was unacceptable to the ruling elite, the media would discredit it. The proven charges would lead nowhere. Look how long the US Department of Justice has been able to protect Hunter Biden from the perfectly clear evidence he provided on his laptop. In America today the main result achieved by the enormous sums poured into universities and public schools by taxpayers, corporations, philanthropic foundations such as the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, and by ego-driven businessmen, who want their name to live on forever on a university building, is to teach guilt to white students and to teach hatred of “white racist scum,” one of the most common terms used in American university classes.

The position of white people in American Society today is such that whatever they say, even if fact-based, is dismissed as “white supremacy speaking.” In other words, as white people are “aversive racists,” nothing they say, despite the evidence, can be believed. So, the conclusion in front of our face is that the ruling elite can do whatever it wants, because any challenge to it is impotent and results in the destruction of the challenger by the media, rejection by his family and friends, and if he is a business person the withdrawal of his financing, or his financial destruction by a Democrat prosecutor bankrupting him with the cost of endless producing of documents, as the corrupt NY prosecutor did to the website Vdare. It seems that what we are confronted with is the American people are whatever the ruling elite want them to be, which is insouciant sheep, totally incapable of protecting their freedom and independence. In effect, a totally conquered people.

Read more …

“I don’t think US-Russia relations are going to be in a position where such a prisoner swap could have occurred in the next year, maybe the next two years..”

• Scott Ritter: Some Swapped Prisoners Were Likely ‘On CIA Payroll’ (Sp.)

The operation to swap 26 prisoners from seven countries took place in Ankara (Turkiye) on Thursday. As a result, eight Russian citizens, detained and imprisoned in several NATO countries, along with their minor children, were returned to their homeland. All implications are that some of the people involved in the recent prisoner swap between Moscow and several Western countries were CIA espionage assets, Scott Ritter has told Sputnik. The exchange that occurred on August 1 appears to have been “a deal hashed out between the Russian secret services and the American CIA,” noted the former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and ex-UN weapons inspector. Commenting on what is being called the biggest such swap since the Cold War, Ritter pointed out that among the 16 prisoners released by Russia was Evan Gershkovich, “caught red-handed receiving Russian secrets.” The Wall Street Journal reporter was subsequently charged with espionage, found guilty at trial, and meted out a lengthy sentence.

US Marine veteran Paul Whelan was likewise charged with espionage, while self-described Russian political figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, as it turns out, had a US green card. “This implies there was a special relationship between him [Kara-Murza] and the US government that maybe the US government doesn’t want to talk about in public,” Ritter said. Kara-Murza “appears to have been on the CIA payroll as well,” he noted. As for the Russian side, among the eight people released by the US in Thursday’s prisoner swap was Vadim Krasikov, recalled Scott Ritter. The former Russian intelligence officer was arrested in Germany in 2019 and accused by Berlin of terminating Chechen terrorist Zelimkhan Khangoshvili on German soil.

Krasikov was given a life-sentence in German prison for wiping out a warlord, “somebody who had butchered, murdered Russian prisoners of war during the Chechen conflict and, accordingly, was hunted down and killed in Berlin,” Ritter underscored. Looking ahead, the pundit suggested that the latest prisoner exchange taking place in the twilight of Joe Biden’s presidency “may be the best that US-Russian relations are gonna be for some time now.” “I don’t think US-Russia relations are going to be in a position where such a prisoner swap could have occurred in the next year, maybe the next two years. So it needed to happen now, and that’s why it did. The largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War. Who knows what the future will hold… Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend of good relations, but probably not,” Ritter concluded.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) stated on Thursday that eight Russian citizens, who were detained and imprisoned in several NATO countries, have been returned to Russia. The exchange took place at Ankara airport (Turkiye) on August 1, 2024, and also included the repatriation of minor children. The security service added that the recently returned Russians were exchanged for a group of individuals who had been acting on behalf of foreign states, compromising Russia’s security.

Read more …

“..Today, it is the unifying, pro-resistance qualities of leaders like Haniyeh and Arouri that pose a far bigger threat to Israel.”

• Israel Assassinates Chief Negotiator Across The Table (Cradle)

The assassination of Hamas Political Bureau leader Ismail Haniyeh has killed any chance for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza – on terms favorable to Palestinians – and leaves a huge political vacuum within the resistance movement. The assassination, which took place during an official visit to Tehran for the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, coincided with 300 days of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh was the chief Palestinian negotiator in indirect months-long ceasefire talks with the Israeli delegation, among them Mossad Chief David Barnea, whose organization reportedly executed the shocking kill operation. This targeting of the head of the political movement reflects Israel’s systematic policy of assassinating leaders who can unify ranks and deepen relations with regional and international powers. This also explains the reasoning behind Israel’s 2 January assassination of Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, the key Hamas figure managing relations between Tehran, Ankara, Lebanon, and Doha.

Haniyeh, too, was distinguished not only by his ability to bridge the vision gap between Hamas’ military and political wings but also by successfully liaising with various regional and international powers and playing a major role advancing the interests of the resistance group in its three target regions – Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and abroad. Haniyeh’s assassination has created an urgent need to reorganize Hamas’ internal house – particularly urgent given Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza – and reconcile the disparate views of its leaders, such as Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and Khaled Meshaal abroad. Today, nothing would suit Israel more than seeing Meshaal, in particular, regain the reins at Hamas. The former Hamas politburo chief, after all, controversially split up Tel Aviv’s biggest regional adversaries – the Resistance Axis – at the start of the Syrian war by turning his back on the only Arab state member of the Axis, Syria.

It has taken Hamas years to fully reintegrate into the Axis after that betrayal, which is often blamed on Meshaal and his cohorts who decamped from Damascus to Doha. It was only through tireless efforts by leaders like Haniyeh and Arouri that Hamas’ relations with the regional resistance were publicly mended. Meshaal has since suffered the indignity of being spurned by Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah leaders, so his return to the top would be manna to Israeli ears – even though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had, almost successfully, undertaken to kill Meshaal in 1997. Those were different times, though, and alliances and interests in the region have shifted many times since. Today, it is the unifying, pro-resistance qualities of leaders like Haniyeh and Arouri that pose a far bigger threat to Israel.

Read more …

“Today, Israel employs the full spectrum of its MAD strategy in its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and across the West Bank – rape, murder, amputations, beheadings, torture – with impunity..”

• Israel Isn’t Crazy, It’s Just MAD (Cradle)

During the night hours between 30 and 31 July, Israel targeted two top Resistance Axis officials for assassination, both unprecedented in seniority during this round of conflict. First, top Hezbollah war commander Fuad Shukr was killed in an Israeli air attack on his residential building in the densely populated Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, leaving several civilians dead and over 70 injured. The second target, at 2 am on 31 July, was Hamas political bureau leader Ismail Haniyeh – a central figure in ceasefire negotiations – who was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s incoming President Masoud Pezeshkian. Within the course of a few hours, Israel managed to strike at three Resistance Axis members: Lebanon, Palestine, and Iran. In doing so, Tel Aviv violated a whole slew of international laws, diplomatic conventions, and customary practices that prohibit political assassinations while glaringly violating the territorial integrity of two UN member states.

Since its war on Gaza, Israel has rapidly gained global pariah status, not just because of its live-streamed genocide that has killed at least 39,000 Palestinian civilians – over 16,000 of them children – but also because of the unprecedented rulings and deliberations still underway at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over Israel’s war crimes. Thus, Tel Aviv’s incendiary actions last night beg the question, is Israel just crazy? Does it not see the global censure brewing, the boycotts expanding, its alliances dwindling, the social media rage, and its growing and glaring isolation? The simple answer is no. Successive Israeli governments have been entirely rational, depending on a single overriding strategy from which the state has not veered. Recognizing its geographic, population, political, and economic shortcomings from the get-go, the Zionist project – very calculatingly – implemented something we can call the ‘MAD strategy’ to attain its objectives and then punch well above its geopolitical weight class.

A weird but effective strategy, MAD actually derives from textbook deterrence theory: Creating a threatening presence by having an aggressive reputation with the touch of madness will prevent your enemies from attacking you. They would not attack a person who takes his enemy with him if he falls. This is the essence of Israel’s strategy with friends and foes alike, and once understood, it is hard to unsee these tactics in all the state’s dealings.After the Palestinian resistance’s 7 October military operation last year – and just as US President Joe Biden was en route to Tel Aviv to lend his support to Israel – the occupation army struck Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, killing hundreds of civilians seeking shelter and medical attention. The hit was by no accident. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deliberately sought those optics. He wanted to corner the US president into displaying support for his policies, no matter how awful the atrocity.

This is a long-practiced Zionist tactic to tame and groom targets to accept and expect Israeli bad behavior. Netanyahu also played this dangerous game with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Syrian war. After every meeting with the powerful Russian head of state, the Israeli premier would launch hard strikes against Syria – again, to tame and groom the Russians to accept and expect Israeli bad behavior. Today, Israel employs the full spectrum of its MAD strategy in its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and across the West Bank – rape, murder, amputations, beheadings, torture – with impunity. Allies, foes, and global populations are expected to accept the images and data and be ready for even worse scenarios. It is untrue that Tel Aviv acts irrationally. Implementing the MAD strategy is a rational decision for a small entity that needs to impose its oversized will on not only its neighbors but on global powers and international institutions, too.

Read more …

“By refusing on principle ever to govern with real right-wing parties, the center-right guarantees that the left remains forever in power..”

• Europe’s Recipe for Disaster: The Von der Leyen Program (Godefridi)

Calculated in terms of purchasing power parity – meaning disregarding the strength of the dollar — the average GDP per capita in the EU as of 2022 is 72% of the average GDP per American. Given that economic growth is higher every year in the United States than in the EU, this gap will only widen. This backwardness is confirmed by the innovation vitality of the American economy. In just one example, compare artificial intelligence, essentially an American innovation, to the lack of creativity in the European economy. NVIDIA’s success is unthinkable in Europe.

Three factors might help to explain Europe’s economic backwardness compared to the United States: the cost of energy, which is five to ten times higher in Europe than in the US; the greater difficulty in Europe of concentrating private capital to invest in R&D and finally, the pull of the “mad legislator”, which is even worse in Europe than in the US. For example, Apple recently settled an EU investigation regarding its restriction on third-party developers accessing its payment technology, which could have led to a fine of 10% of its annual revenue for non-compliance. Apple’s total net sales in 2023 were $383.3 billion, so a 10% fine would amount to $38.3 billion. Given Apple’s operating income in Europe is $36.1 billion, non-compliance with EU regulations could result in fines exceeding its regional earnings.

How is it, when all these facts are known, that von der Leyen was reappointed to her post, while the Greens lost the European Parliament elections, and the right-wing parties of all persuasions won them by a wide margin? Perhaps this seeming paradox can be explained by the fact that the center-right, the largest party bloc in the European Parliament, is ideologically subservient to the left, on two levels: 1) by adhering to most of the dogmas of the left, starting with environmentalism, and 2) by refusing on principle any coalition with real right-wing parties such as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy or, in France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN).

This ensures that, while losing elections, the left can stay in power. The new von der Leyen majority consists of four parliamentary groups: the center-right, the socialists, the left-wing liberals and the far-left environmentalists. Of these groups, the center-right is by far the largest. It would therefore be logical for them to dominate von der Leyen’s program. But that is not what takes place. It is the demands of the smallest group — environmentalists — that dominate: continuation of the Green Deal, total decarbonization by 2050.

European power is a mirror image of its two driving forces — France and Germany — where the center-right parties behave in the same way: ideological submission to the left and a ban on the right governing. In Germany, the right-wing political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), finds itself in a position to govern several regions with the center-right. But everywhere in Germany, the center-right prefers to ally with the left, the environmentalists, sometimes even the communists, than to govern with the AfD. In France, Le Pen’s RN clearly won the European elections, then the first round of legislative elections. The center-right immediately announced that it preferred a victory for the far left and the communists to a victory for Le Pen.

The post-war European citizen has never voted so far to the right. He is harvesting a program that has never been so extremely left-wing. The von der Leyen program owes more to the Greens (53 MEPs) than to the center-right (188 MEPs). By refusing on principle ever to govern with real right-wing parties, the center-right guarantees that the left remains forever in power. When voting no longer serves any purpose, democracy dies.

Read more …

“The proportion of electricity coming through Hungary in terms of Ukrainian imports exceeded 40-42 percent during several periods..”

• Hungary and Slovakia Consider Cutting Electricity Supply To Ukraine (RMX)

Roughly 40 percent of Ukraine’s electricity imports pass through the Ukrainian-Hungarian border, which means Hungary is not entirely powerless in the face of a Ukrainian blockade on oil supplies. In fact, Hungary may be forced to cut electricity to its neighbor if push comes to shove. Olivér Hortay, head of Századvég’s climate and energy policy department, noted that Ukraine’s biggest energy problem is the electricity system. Since the start of the war, the country has lost three-quarters of its own electricity generation capacity, leading to Ukrainians having to deal with prolonged blackouts and cuts to production due to a lack of electricity. To deal with Ukraine’s faltering electricity network, the country has been importing energy from neighboring countries. “The proportion of electricity coming through Hungary in terms of Ukrainian imports exceeded 40-42 percent during several periods,” said Hortay, while speaking to Hungarian television channel M1.

As a result, Ukraine may suffer “serious consequences” due to its oil blockade. He notes that the MAVIR station in Szabolcsbáka is one of the main hubs of the European and Ukrainian electricity systems. This is the only Hungarian and EU substation with 750 kV system components. Roughly 40 percent of Ukraine’s electricity imports pass through here. Hungary and Slovakia have both sounded the alarm to Brussels about Ukraine’s action of cutting oil supplies from Russia, which flow through the Friendship pipeline. However, the EU, which is well known for its opposition to the governments in Hungary and Slovakia, has responded cooly to the complaints, saying that Ukraine does not endanger the energy supplies of the two countries. Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó has rejected the EU’s argument and called Croatia, which is supposed to increase supplies in response to the Ukrainian blockade, an unreliable transit country.

Both Hungary and Slovakia rely on Russia for up to 80 percent of their oil supply, underlining the threat to both economies. Olivér Hortay explained that Russia’s Lukoil provides a third of the oil demand of the Hungarian Száhahalombatta refinery and 45 percent of the demand of the Bratislava refinery in Slovakia. Gergely Gulyás, the minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office, called it unfair and contrary to EU agreements that Ukraine is blackmailing Hungary and Slovakia because of its pro-peace stance. Hortay points to an existing association agreement, based on which Hungary and Slovakia initiated proceedings at the European Commission , where “literally it is stated that the parties cannot limit each other’s imports, exports and transit.”

Read more …

“..theoretically we can assume that this is the beginning of the process of realigning relations between Russia and the West..”

• A New Détente: Can Putin and Biden Make A Deal? (Drize)

Russia is delighted with Thursday’s prisoner exchange in Ankara, Western media outlets report, citing sources in their countries’ respective agencies. Meanwhile, in Washington and in Western European capitals, the event is being presented as a major diplomatic breakthrough. It may even be a prelude to further talks between Moscow and Washington. It was the largest swap in modern Russian history, not only in terms of the number of people involved, but also in their status. This time, not only foreigners convicted in our country, but also Russian citizens – let’s say critics of the existing state system and its leadership – were released from prison. We don’t need to list them all again. That information is everywhere in news stories and has been repeated many times.

It’s worth repeating that the last time anything like this happened was during the Cold War. So we have yet another indication that history is repeating itself more or less: missiles being placed in Western Europe, nuclear exercises in Russia, the decline in diplomatic relations….. all the signs are there. Nevertheless, this event is positive in terms of the prospect of defusing international tensions and perhaps encouraging a detente. Incidentally, this was a buzz word in the 1970s. Top US officials were in a festive mood. Joe Biden spoke at the White House, surrounded by the families of those transferred. The Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, flew from Houston to Washington to meet them. So, they were received at the highest level.

It also seems that the Kremlin has a lot of doubts about Donald Trump’s chances of victory. That’s the first thing. And secondly, it is no big secret that it’s much easier to come to an agreement with the Democratic Party in general and the Biden-Obama-Harris faction in particular. This is what we are witnessing. We can also recall that one of Biden’s first executive orders after taking office in 2021 was to extend the START treaty. As we know, ‘dear Donald’ refused to sign the document. But ‘Bad Joe’ took it and approved it, and immediately at that. So betting on this team seems quite logical. By the way, it’s also believed that both Iran and China believe it’s better to deal with bad than “very bad,” and they also don’t want Trump to return. But let’s not get sidetracked.

Anyway, an unprecedented agreement has been reached. And often when you manage to make one, it’s followed by a second. That is to say, theoretically we can assume that this is the beginning of the process of realigning relations between Russia and the West. Of course, the main stumbling block here is Ukraine, but it’s not the only one. And this process should take place before the election in the US, i.e. in the shortest possible time frame. The reason is obvious: Trump could win and then we’ll have to start all over again. Some will say: but what about all the hopes and assumptions pinned on him, and why are they being forgotten? Yes, we should not be naive. But events are moving, and moving fast. And time is running out. So what can we do? We can hope for the best, or rather, hope for the prudence of all parties. We don’t want the planet to burn in a fiery hell. So it makes sense to try to somehow avoid that scenario.

Read more …

Do it quickly.

• Venezuela Could Hand Energy Rights To BRICS – Maduro (RT)

Venezuela could transfer the development rights to its vast oil and gas fields that are currently operated by American energy companies to entities from BRICS nations, President Nicolas Maduro warned on Friday during a press conference in Caracas. BRICS originally comprised Brazil, Russia, India, and China before subsequently adding South Africa and, at the beginning of this year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Numerous other countries, including Venezuela, have expressed interest in joining the group. “If these people up north and their partners in the world make the mistake of their lives, then those oil blocks and those gas blocks that were already signed up [for US companies] will go to our BRICS allies,” Maduro said, adding that Washington was at the forefront of plans to destabilize his country.

With an estimated 303 billion barrels, Venezuela accounts for approximately 17% of global reserves of crude oil, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which lists the Bolivarian republic as having the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Chevron, the only American energy major still operating in Venezuela, scored a license to pump oil in the country in November 2022, a month after a sanctions waiver was implemented. This came in exchange for the unblocking of some of Caracas’ oil proceeds that had been frozen by US sanctions. Chevron is currently involved in four onshore and offshore projects in Venezuela through a partnership with state-controlled oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Earlier this year, the US company announced the goal of increasing output by 35% year-on-year by bringing new wells online.

Earlier this week, the White House recognized Western-backed opposition figure Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday, despite the official results showing incumbent Maduro having won. The Venezuelan leader has urged Washington to “keep its nose out of Venezuela,” saying that the protests that erupted in the country after the results were announced were an attempted “coup.” Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Maduro earlier this week on being reelected. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Venezuela’s opposition should admit defeat and congratulate the winner. He added that it is important for Venezuela to avoid attempts at destabilization orchestrated by third countries, and to remain free of outside meddling. Earlier this week, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil Pinto confirmed that Maduro had received an invitation to take part in the BRICS summit scheduled for October in the Russian city of Kazan.

Read more …

“Boeing is not allowed to ask Elon to save them in an election year.”

“..stranded in space for 2 months, on what was supposed to be a 1 week trip. They were not allowed to take any luggage or change of clothes or personal items, since it was such a short stay.”

• SpaceX May Save Stranded Boeing Starliner Crew At ISS (ZH)

Boeing’s crewed Starliner spacecraft mission to the International Space Station was initially expected to last just a few days, but it has stretched into weeks and now two months. The two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, have been stranded on the ISS following Starliner’s helium leaks and failing thrusters in early June. NASA and Boeing have been working to resolve Starliner’s issues, but progress has been limited. The big story here is that, after two months, Boeing has yet to publicly ask Elon Musk’s SpaceX for help. Optically, this would be a major blow to Boeing’s image, especially considering the series of mid-air mishaps involving its 737Max commercial jets. Additionally, it’s an election year for the Biden administration, which has been on a crusade against Trump and his supporters, but also is very anti-Musk. Any rescue mission by SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is undesirable news flow for Democrats.

However, a new report from Ars Technica, citing various sources, indicates SpaceX could be publicly called up to save the day. Here’s more from Ars Technica: “For a long time, it seemed almost certain that the astronauts would return to Earth inside Starliner. However, there has been a lot of recent activity at NASA, Boeing, and SpaceX that suggests that Wilmore and Williams could come home aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft rather than Starliner.” The report continued: “One informed source said it was greater than a 50-50 chance that the crew would come back on Dragon. Another source said it was significantly more likely than not they would. To be clear, NASA has not made a final decision. This probably will not happen until at least next week. It is likely that Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator, will make the call.”

On Thursday evening, NASA spokesperson Josh Finch told Ars, “NASA is evaluating all options for the return of agency astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station as safely as possible. No decisions have been made and the agency will continue to provide updates on its planning.” X users are wondering why the stranded Starliner story is not huge news.

Read more …

“..there are at least two countries already – Canada and the US – that permit anyone to freely decide the gender that gets listed on their passport.|”

• Gender-Bending Is The New Doping (Marsden)

Ever since the Paris Olympics triggered culture warriors by dumping drag queens all over the opening ceremony like fleur de sel with a faulty cap, they’ve been on high alert for any perceived attempts by the organizers to further a woke, gender-bending agenda. When Algerian boxer Imane Khelif defeated Italian Angela Carini in a fight that lasted just 46 seconds, with Carini taking a punch to the head and reeling from a suspected broken nose, it didn’t take long for social media to pick up on Carini’s cry that the match wasn’t fair. Nor would it take long for a debate to emerge along the usual fault lines around Khelif’s gender and for Khelif to become a Rorschach test. Former competitive swimmer Riley Gaines tweeted that “men don’t belong in women’s sports,” to which X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk replied, “Absolutely.”

Gaines has become an activist against men competing in women’s sports as a result of having to face off against transsexual swimmer Lia Thomas in the NCAA college swimming championships. And Musk has recently expressed upset over one of his children’s own gender transitioning. “The idea that those objecting to a male punching a female in the name of sport are objecting because they believe Khelif to be ‘trans’ is a joke. We object because we saw a male punching a female,” ‘Harry Potter’ author and frequent transsexual issue commentator J.K. Rowling wrote. Yet there isn’t any credible evidence that Khelif has ever undergone any kind of gender transitioning – something that would be unheard of in Khelif’s native Algeria. “This is the purest form of evil unfolding right before our eyes,” boxer and influencer Logan Paul said. “A man was allowed to beat up a woman on a global stage, crushing her life’s dream while fighting for her deceased father. This delusion must end.”

But then Paul deleted the posts. “OOPSIES,” he wrote. “I might be guilty of spreading misinformation along with the entirety of this app.” It’s no wonder everyone’s confused. Two sports governing bodies have faced off over Khelif and another athlete competing in women’s boxing, China’s Lin Yu-Ting. According to the International Boxing Association, the worldwide match sanctioning entity which disqualified both athletes in the 2023 World Championships where they won bronze and gold respectively, “the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.” Regulations stipulate that proof could be in the form of a DNA test, but no further evidence has been provided to confirm the results – perhaps due to concerns around privacy violations.

In the other corner, the International Olympic Committee calls the IBA’s ruling “sudden and arbitrary,” which can also be true without the results themselves being illegitimate. Accusing its CEO, Chris Roberts (an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to British army boxing), of a unilateral decision, the IOC issued a statement related to the latest controversy, stipulating that “as with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport.” That’s hardly a rigorous test, particularly when there are at least two countries already – Canada and the US – that permit anyone to freely decide the gender that gets listed on their passport.

Arguably, the most levelheaded take came from transsexual former Olympic decathlon champion Caitlyn Jenner, who explained in a recent Netflix documentary about Jenner’s sporting career and life that it was Bruce Jenner who won those accolades, not Caitlyn. Bruce also had the integrity to keep the dresses at home and not show up in one to compete in the women’s decathlon – and Jenner does not now support any man who would. Jenner has described Khelif as “the Algerian competitor with XY chromosomes,” referencing the IBA test results, and has argued that the IOC has a duty to protect the integrity of women’s sports. The IOC doesn’t seem too interested in actively doing so, however, preferring instead to just take participants’ and countries’ word for it.

Read more …

“.. financial commentators have put it as high as $2.3 quadrillion or even $3.7 quadrillion, far exceeding global GDP, which was about $100 trillion in 2022..”

• How Unelected Regulators Unleashed the Derivatives Monster (Ellen Brown)

“It was not the highly visible acts of Congress but the seemingly mundane and often nontransparent actions of regulatory agencies that empowered the great transformation of the U.S. commercial banks from traditionally conservative deposit-taking and lending businesses into providers of wholesale financial risk management and intermediation services.” – Professor Saule Omarova, “The Quiet Metamorphosis, How Derivatives Changed the Business of Banking” University of Miami Law Review, 2009

While the world is absorbed in the U.S. election drama, the derivatives time bomb continues to tick menacingly backstage. No one knows the actual size of the derivatives market, since a major portion of it is traded over-the-counter, hidden in off-balance-sheet special purpose vehicles. However, when Warren Buffet famously labeled derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002, its “notional value” was estimated at $56 trillion. Twenty years later, the Bank for International Settlements estimated that value at $610 trillion. And financial commentators have put it as high as $2.3 quadrillion or even $3.7 quadrillion, far exceeding global GDP, which was about $100 trillion in 2022. A quadrillion is 1,000 trillion. Most of this casino is run through the same banks that hold our deposits for safekeeping. Derivatives are sold as “insurance” against risk, but they actually add a heavy layer of risk because the market is so interconnected that any failure can have a domino effect. Most of the banks involved are also designated “too big to fail,” which means we the people will be bailing them out if they do fail.

Derivatives are considered so risky that the Bankruptcy Act of 2005 and the Uniform Commercial Code grant them (along with repo trades) “super-priority” in bankruptcy. That means if a bank goes bankrupt, derivative and repo claims are settled first, drawing from the same pool of liquidity that holds our deposits. A derivatives crisis could easily vacuum up that pool, leaving nothing for us as depositors — or for the “secured” creditors who are junior to derivative and repo claimants in bankruptcy, including state and local governments. As detailed by Pam and Russ Martens, publisher and editor, respectively of Wall Street on Parade, as of Dec. 31, 2023, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., Citigroup’s Citibank and Bank of America held a total of $168.26 trillion in derivatives out of a total of $192.46 trillion at all U.S. banks, savings associations and trust companies. That’s four banks holding 87 percent of all derivatives at all 4,587 federally-insured institutions then in the U.S.

In June 2024, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board jointly released their findings on the eight U.S. megabanks’ “living wills” – their resolution or wind-down plans in the event of bankruptcy. The Fed and FDIC faulted all of the four largest derivative banks on shortcomings in how they planned to wind down their derivatives. Banks are not just middlemen in the derivatives market. They are active players taking speculative positions. In this century, writes Professor Omarova, the largest U.S. commercial banks have emerged “as a new breed of financial super-intermediary—a wholesale dealer in financial risk, conducting a wide variety of capital markets and derivatives activities, trading physical commodities, and even marketing electricity.” She notes that the Federal Reserve has allowed several financial holding companies to purchase and sell physical commodities (including oil, natural gas, agricultural products and electricity) in the spot market to hedge their commodity derivative activities, and to take or make delivery of those commodities to settle the transactions.

It was not Congress that authorized that expansive definition of permitted banking activities. It was the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), part of the “administrative deep state,” that permanent body of unelected regulators who carry on while politicians come and go. As Omarova explains: Through seemingly routine and often nontransparent administrative actions, the OCC effectively enabled large U.S. commercial banks to transform themselves from the traditionally conservative deposit-taking and lending institutions, whose safety and soundness were guarded through statutory and regulatory restrictions on potentially risky activities, into a new breed of financial “super-intermediaries,” or wholesale dealers in pure financial risk. … Moreover, some of the most influential of those decisions escaped public scrutiny because they were made in the subterranean world of administrative action invisible to the public, through agency interpretation and policy guidance.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Love ya, but

 

 

Baby+dog

 

 

Sport
https://twitter.com/i/status/1819484638953529696

 

 

Toy fix

 

 

Ref
https://twitter.com/i/status/1819276069972635674

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 26 2019

Mar 262019
 
 March 26, 2019  Posted by at 10:09 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  9 Responses »


Jean Metzinger The blue bird 1912-13

 

• Russiagate: The Great Tragic Comedy of Modern Journalism (Bivens)
• Mueller Madness: The Media Pundits Who Got It Most Wrong (NYPost)
• Mueller Probe Accusations Were ‘Equal To Treason’ – Sarah Sanders (MW)
• As the Mueller Probe Ends, New Russiagate Myths Begin (Taibbi)
• Apologies to President Trump (Hill)
• Democrats Refuse To Retreat On Trump Legal Issues (G.)
• Democrats Not Yet Ready To Conclude There’s No Russia Conspiracy (CNN)
• Buyer’s Remorse (Kunstler)
• Michael Avenatti Arrested On Extortion Charges (G.)
• General Election Looms As Theresa May Calls Cabinet Talks (Ind.)
• UK MPs Seize Control Of Brexit Process (G.)
• Nasa Cancels All-Female Spacewalk, Citing Lack Of Spacesuit In Right Size (G.)

 

 

Lots of Mueller report coverage today. Can’t be helped. Who’s going to apologize to Russia?

 

 

Matt Bivens is a former editor of the St. Petersburg Times and the Moscow Times who has left journalism to become an emergency room doctor.

• Russiagate: The Great Tragic Comedy of Modern Journalism (Bivens)

In its Russiagate coverage, The New York Times has repeatedly offered a graphic accusing the President’s retinue of “more than 100 contacts with Russian nationals.” This decision to question the loyalty of people who have had contact with a Russian national -so, for just knowing or meeting a Russian- has been a staple of New York Times coverage. “More than 100 contacts with Russian nationals.” It’s incredible that this can even be an allegation -in our paper of record- there in explainer graphics almost every day, for more than two years now. It smacks of the famous Senator Joseph McCarthy speeches in the 1950s: “I have in my hand a list of 205 [or 57, or 81]…” And yet no one ever seemed to mind.

After all, as former intelligence chief (and liar to Congress) James Clapper has asserted on television, “Russians are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor.” Worse, I may have already been co-opted and penetrated without even knowing it! As Clapper said recently on CNN when asked if Trump could be “a Russian asset,” it is “a possibility, and I would add to that a caveat, whether witting or unwitting.” Unwitting! So you can be an unwitting traitor? Infected with Russian mind-control, like a zombie? Yes. As mainstream media have argued repeatedly and quite explicitly. Consider the stunning set of short films on The New York Times op-ed webpages titled “Operation Infektion: How Russia Perfected the Art of War”.

[..] I was not surprised to see politicians up on their hind legs, panting mindlessly about Russians. But to see journalists at CNN, The New York Times, NPR, MSNBC, competing to be even dumber … hot on the trail of a non-story, recklessly discarding fairness and professionalism … dragging us gleefully down every rabbit hole … applauding the collateral damage to bystanders, as they indulge their collective rage against Donald Trump, their hysterical certainty that he must be a Russian asset … What can I say? It’s been heart-breaking. I know of smart, progressive-leaning journalists who politically oppose Donald Trump, but who feel like strangers in their own newsrooms, afraid to speak out against this mob psychosis. When I meet old colleagues, we have to feel each other out cautiously, until with relief we realize: Thank God, you’re not one of them – not one of the pod people from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” that might point at me and scream.

Read more …

No, I don’t like having to go to the NY Post.

• Mueller Madness: The Media Pundits Who Got It Most Wrong (NYPost)

Special counsel Robert Mueller has definitively put to rest the collusion theory of President Trump’s election. That’s not a little embarrassing for the many journalists, talking heads, celebrities and instant experts who spent more than two years furiously speculating about Moscow “pee-pee” tapes, treasonous rendezvous and the president’s imminent arrest. The president’s haters no doubt wish to memory-hole collusion and move on to the next anti-Trump theory. But not so fast: We want to laurel the punditry “champion” — the one who peddled the most nonsensical nonsense, the wildest inanities, the weirdest theories and unsubstantiated stories. That’s where your brackets come in.

Our contenders are divided into four groups (not unlike NCAA conferences): the print journalists, the cable TV talkers, the Twitterati and the network news reporters and “analysts.” And the brackets are seeded, with the most visible and influential figures contending against the lesser-known. In the Print category, the top seed is the never-Trump honcho Bill Kristol, who in August predicted that “Mueller will find there was collusion between Trump associates and Putin operatives; that Trump knew about it; and that Trump sought to cover it up and obstruct its investigation.” Or not. Pick your brackets — no, not for March Madness. This is Collusion Madness!


click to enlarge in new tab

Read more …

“They are literally — the media and the Democrats — have called the president an agent of a foreign government. That is an accusation equal to treason, which is punishable by death in this country.”
Sarah Sanders

Maybe we can stop smearing her as well.

• Mueller Probe Accusations Were ‘Equal To Treason’ – Sarah Sanders (MW)

President Donald Trump wasn’t the only one taking a victory lap a day after the Justice Department announced that the long-awaited Mueller report found no evidence that the president’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told “Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie on Monday morning that Attorney General William Barr’s four-page letter to Congress summarizing the two-year investigation was a “total exoneration” of the president. What’s more, she called on the media and Democrats to apologize for “wasting” the past two years on treasonous charges.

The exchange between Sanders and Guthrie got heated at times, with the “Today” anchor — who has a law degree and previously covered courts — arguing with Sanders that the Barr letter is not a full exoneration. “Let’s be clear about what this report, what this letter is and what it isn’t,” said Guthrie. “It is a legal exoneration with regards to conspiracy and collusion. As to whether he obstructed justice, the special counsel doesn’t say. … Would you acknowledge that it is incorrect for the president to call this is a total exoneration? “It is complete and total exoneration, and here’s why — because the special counsel couldn’t make a decision one way or another — the way the process works is they then leave that up to the attorney general,” countered Sanders.

She also referred to the two-year, $25 million investigation as something that “never should have happened,” adding that “this should never happen to another president, and we want to make sure that the institution of the president is protected.”

Read more …

“..a roughly 33-month national ordeal (the first Russigate stories date back to July 2016) in which the public was encouraged, both by officials and the press, to believe Donald Trump was a compromised foreign agent.”

• As the Mueller Probe Ends, New Russiagate Myths Begin (Taibbi)

On Sunday, Attorney General William Barr sent a letter to Congress, summarizing the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. The most telling section, quoted directly from Mueller’s report, read: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” That one sentence should end a roughly 33-month national ordeal (the first Russigate stories date back to July 2016) in which the public was encouraged, both by officials and the press, to believe Donald Trump was a compromised foreign agent. After the 2016 election, the storyline instantly became that Trump was an illegitimate president, a foreign operative who’d cheated his way into office and would therefore need to be removed ahead of schedule.

There were too many stories that dwelled on this theme to count here, but we all saw them. New York asked, Was Trump “meeting his handler” in Helsinki? The Daily Beast asked, “Is he a Russian asset?” (Note: the extravagant use of hack spy-novel language during this period is going to look particularly ridiculous in history books decades from now.) Some outlets didn’t even put their beliefs in the form of a question. “Trump Is Compromised by Russia” read a not-unusual editorial in the New York Times last November. If you tried to protest that this had not been proven, that journalists should be more careful about leveling such serious accusations, the first line of response (if it wasn’t accusing you of being in league with Putin) was usually a version of: Be quiet, you don’t know what Mueller knows.

Mueller knows became the cornerstone belief of nearly all reporters who covered the Russial investigation. Journalists reveled in the idea of being kept out of the loop, thrilled to defer to the impenetrable steward of national secrets, the interview-proof Man of State. He was no blabbermouth Donald Trump, this Mueller! He won’t tell us a thing! “What Robert Mueller knows — and Isn’t Telling Us,” proclaimed Wired in February, going on to list the many areas where Mueller “probably knows far more than he’s willing to say.” Last month’s “What we know we don’t know from Mueller’s investigation,” by the Washington Post, marveled at Mueller’s ability to keep secrets. It made note of former Trump aide George Papadopoulos: “Mueller’s team kept him under wraps for months, with barely a hint of his importance.”

Read more …

“We treated any words he spoke in his own defense as if they were automatically to be disbelieved because he had uttered them. ”

• Apologies to President Trump (Hill)

With the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe now known to a significant degree, it seems apologies are in order. However, judging by the recent past, apologies are not likely forthcoming from the responsible parties. In this context, it matters not whether one is a supporter or a critic of President Trump. Whatever his supposed flaws, the rampant accusations and speculation that shrouded Trump’s presidency, even before it began, ultimately have proven unfounded. Just as Trump said all along. Yet, each time Trump said so, some of us in the media lampooned him. We treated any words he spoke in his own defense as if they were automatically to be disbelieved because he had uttered them.

Some even declared his words to be “lies,” although they had no evidence to back up their claims. We in the media allowed unproven charges and false accusations to dominate the news landscape for more than two years, in a way that was wildly unbalanced and disproportionate to the evidence. We did a poor job of tracking down leaks of false information. We failed to reasonably weigh the motives of anonymous sources and those claiming to have secret, special evidence of Trump’s “treason.” As such, we reported a tremendous amount of false information, always to Trump’s detriment.

And when we corrected our mistakes, we often doubled down more than we apologized. We may have been technically wrong on that tiny point, we would acknowledge. But, in the same breath, we would insist that Trump was so obviously guilty of being Russian President Vladimir Putin’s puppet that the technical details hardly mattered. So, a round of apologies seem in order.

Read more …

Sure. Keep digging.

• Democrats Refuse To Retreat On Trump Legal Issues (G.)

“It’s a shame that our country has had to go through this,” a defiant Trump said Sunday. “To be honest, it’s a shame that your president has had to go through this.” Democrats nonetheless demanded the release of the full Mueller report, while suggesting Barr’s summary could not be trusted given his prior criticisms of the special counsel investigation. “The fact that Special Counsel Mueller’s report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public without any further delay,” the Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

“Given Mr Barr’s public record of bias against the special counsel’s inquiry, he is not a neutral observer and is not in a position to make objective determinations about the report.” Democrats took particular issue with the claim by Barr and Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, that Mueller’s evidence was insufficient to prove Trump had obstructed justice. The special counsel examined several actions by Trump in considering the question of obstruction, including his firing of the former FBI director James Comey, public and private attempts to pressure the former attorney general Jeff Sessions, and role in misleading the public about a meeting between his campaign and a Russian lawyer during the campaign.

In a joint statement, the Democratic chairmen of the House intelligence, judiciary and oversight committees called for the complete release of Mueller’s report and “all underlying documents”. “It is unacceptable that, after Special Counsel Mueller spent 22 months meticulously uncovering this evidence, Attorney General Barr made a decision not to charge the president in under 48 hours,” the chairmen said.

Read more …

When will they start attacking Bill Barr for real? And Mueller?

• Democrats Not Yet Ready To Conclude There’s No Russia Conspiracy (CNN)

Special counsel Robert Mueller found that no one in the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in 2016 – but Democrats are not ready to accept that finding. In interviews since Attorney General William Barr issued his four-page letter on Sunday, Democrats have refused to accept that determination, saying there’s ample evidence of Trump campaign and Russia contacts that may not have risen to the level of criminal conduct. They are demanding the full release of the Mueller report to determine what else the special counsel found, and they say they will continue investigating ties between Trump and Russia.

But that strategy risks political backlash for Democrats if they are viewed as overreaching and probing into an area that has already been exhaustively investigated by a special counsel whose investigation turned up no criminal wrongdoing. “What I accept was there was apparently no criminal conspiracy … with the Russians,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, told CNN. “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of activity with the Russians that ranges from unsavory to treacherous.” [..] House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, called for House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff’s resignation from the committee on Monday – payback after Schiff and the panel’s other Democrats pushed former Chairman Devin Nunes, a California Republican, to recuse himself from the panel’s Russia investigation in 2017.

“When you look at the claims that they’ve made, Chairman Schiff said he had more than circumstantial evidence that there was collusion. Whether he was misleading people or he was misled himself, he ought to be held accountable,” Scalise told reporters. “A lot of people, I think, should be angry today that for two years they’ve had people misleading and lying to them, saying there was collusion when there wasn’t.”

Read more …

“..the collusion that actually occurred between the Hillary campaign, the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the NSA, the UK’s MI6 intel agency, and the Obama White House, striving to prevent the election of a TV reality show star, and to disable him afterwards..”

• Buyer’s Remorse (Kunstler)

What actually happened with RussiaGate? A cabal of government officials colluded with the Hillary Clinton campaign to interfere in the 2016 election and, failing to achieve their desired outcome, engineered a two-years-plus formal inquisition to deflect attention from their own misconduct and attempt to overthrow the election result. The Cable News characters, quite a few of them lawyers, were litigating the living shit out of the story on Sunday night in their usual spirit of obdurate rank dishonesty. For instance, Jeffrey Toobin, who plays Attorney General on CNN, went off on the infamous 2016 Trump Tower Meeting in which the president’s son, Donald, Jr., met with Russian lawyer Natalia V. Veselnitskaya.

Toobin omitted to mention that Ms. Veselnitskaya was, at that very time, on the payroll of Fusion GPS, Hillary Clinton’s “oppo” research contractor. In other words, Trump Junior was set up. That was characteristic of the collusion that actually occurred between the Hillary campaign, the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the NSA, the UK’s MI6 intel agency, and the Obama White House, striving to prevent the election of a TV reality show star, and to disable him afterwards — also of the news media’s role in the whole interminable scam of RussiaGate. Their fury and despair were as vivid the night of March 24, 2019, as on November 8, 2016. And now they will attempt to spark off a sequel.

[..] My favorite college professor and mentor, David Hamilton, once put a curious question to us when we were vexing him for some reason now forgotten: “Why,” he asked, “Did Achilles drag Hector around the city of Troy three times?” We twiddled our cigarettes and pulled our chins. “Because he was just that pissed,” he said.

Read more …

Who made this guy a star? You own that.

• Michael Avenatti Arrested On Extortion Charges (G.)

The high-profile attorney Michael Avenatti was charged with trying to extort more than $20m from the sports company Nike. Avenatti, the former lawyer for Stormy Daniels and a prominent critic of Donald Trump, threatened to release damaging information about Nike unless it paid him off, according to a criminal complaint filed by federal authorities in New York. He was also charged with wire and bank fraud in a separate case in Los Angeles, where prosecutors said he embezzled money from a client. Avenatti, a California lawyer who has teased the idea of a presidential bid, rose to national fame as the lawyer for Daniels, the porn star who was paid off to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump. They parted ways this month.

He used his prominence to try to extort millions from Nike, prosecutors alleged. He threatened to publicize allegations of misconduct against Nike unless the company paid a client he represented $1.5m, and paid Avenatti and another lawyer up to $25m to conduct an internal investigation, the criminal complaint says. “A suit and tie doesn’t mask the fact that at its core, this was an old-fashioned shakedown,” said Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the southern district of New York. Avenatti was arrested in New York on Monday morning and later appeared in court. He did not enter a plea and was released on a $300,000 bond.

Berman said Avenatti, 48, acted as an attorney bringing a case on behalf of a client merely to “provide cover for [his] extortionate demands for a massive payday for himself”, adding: “When lawyers use their law licenses as weapons as a guise to extort payments for themselves, they are no longer acting as attorneys. They are acting as criminals.”

Read more …

It all comes apart.

• General Election Looms As Theresa May Calls Cabinet Talks (Ind.)

Theresa May’s Brexit strategy has been left in disarray and her leadership under threat after three of her ministers resigned and MPs dramatically voted to take control of the process from the government. A total of 30 Tory MPs defied the party whip and supported a cross-party amendment which will allow MPs to potentially dictate the business of the House of Commons. The move could pave the way for a “softer” deal that keeps Britain closer to the European Union, as ministers warned of the prospect of a third UK general election in four years.

[..] More than 80 per cent of people think the government has handled Brexit badly, a new survey has found. The NatCen Social Research poll found that just 7 per cent of voters think Theresa May’s team has done well, while 81 per cent said the opposite. The figures are significantly worse for the government those from 2017, when only 41 per cent said Brexit was being managed badly, while 29 per cent thought the government was doing well.

Read more …

But May could still try and steer the country into a no-deal.

• UK MPs Seize Control Of Brexit Process (G.)

MPs have inflicted a fresh humiliating defeat on Theresa May, voting to seize control of the parliamentary timetable to allow backbenchers to hold a series of votes on alternatives to her Brexit deal. An amendment tabled by former Tory minister Oliver Letwin passed, by 329 votes to 302 on Monday night, as MPs expressed their exasperation at the government’s failure to set out a fresh approach. The prime minister had earlier declined to say whether she would abide by the outcome of a process of “indicative votes”. The government issued a punchy statement after the amendment passed, warning that it “upends the balance between our democratic institutions and sets a dangerous, unpredictable precedent for the future”.

Three ministers resigned from government in order to back the Letwin amendment: the foreign affairs minister, Alistair Burt, the health minister Steve Brine and the business minister Richard Harrington. A total of 29 Tory MPs rebelled to vote for the amendment. Harrington, who has been outspoken in his warnings about the risk of a no-deal Brexit in recent weeks, accused the government of “playing roulette with the lives and livelihoods of the vast majority of people in this country” in his resignation letter. The amendment was drawn up by a cross-party group – led by Letwin and Labour’s Hilary Benn – and gives MPs a series of votes on the alternatives to May’s deal, such as a softer Brexit or revoking article 50.

Read more …

The pride of America. Once.

• Nasa Cancels All-Female Spacewalk, Citing Lack Of Spacesuit In Right Size (G.)

Nasa’s plans for an all-female spacewalk have fallen through – at least in part because the agency doesn’t have enough spacesuits that fit the astronauts. Early this month, Nasa announced that Christina Koch and Anne McClain would take part in the first-of-its kind mission on 29 March, walking outside the international space station (ISS) to install new batteries. In the past, missions have been all-male or male-female. But in a press release on Monday, Nasa said its plans had changed, “in part” due to a shortage of outerwear.

McClain had “learned during her first spacewalk that a medium-size hard upper torso – essentially the shirt of the spacesuit – fits her best.” Only one such top can be made by Friday, the agency said, and it will go to Koch. When McClain took part in a spacewalk last week, she became the 13th woman to do so, Nasa says; Koch will be the 14th. McClain is now “tentatively scheduled” to perform her next one on 8 April.

[..] The first woman to perform a spacewalk was the Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, 35 years ago. More than 500 people have been into space, but only 11% have been women, Reuters reported. But Koch and McClain were both part of Nasa’s 2013 class, which was half female. Fitting for spacesuits is a tricky business, according to Space.com, since microgravity makes you taller. McClain tweeted this month that she was 2in taller than when she launched.

Read more …

Debt Rattle November 26 2018

Nov 262018
 
 November 26, 2018  Posted by at 10:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  8 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh On the Outskirts of Paris 1887

 

• Russia Seizes Three Ukrainian Naval Ships In The Black Sea (AP)
• Not Remotely Possible For May’s Brexit Deal To Pass Parliament – UK MP (CNBC)
• UK High Court To Rule If Brexit Vote ‘Void’ As Early As Christmas (Ind.)
• Nineteen Months Of Brexit Wrangling – And That’s Just A Taster (BBC)
• Business Leaders Rally Behind May’s Brexit Deal Amid Fears Of Crashing Out (G.)
• Texas Is About to Create OPEC’s Worst Nightmare (BBG)
• Tesla Was Weeks From Dying Earlier This Year – Elon Musk (MW)
• Former Greek FinMin Varoufakis To Run In European Election – In Germany (R.)
• Give In To The EU, Greek PM Tsipras Counsels Italian Government (K.)
• Russia Space Agency To Check If US Moon Landings Really Happened (Ind.)

 

 

I would think Ukraine is trying to provoke things, but western politicians and media all disagree.

• Russia Seizes Three Ukrainian Naval Ships In The Black Sea (AP)

Russia seized three Ukrainian naval ships off the coast of Russia-annexed Crimea on Sunday after opening fire on them and wounding several sailors, a move that risks igniting a dangerous new crisis between the two countries. Russia’s FSB security service said early on Monday its border patrol boats had seized the Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea and used weapons to force them to stop, Russian news agencies reported. The FSB said it had been forced to act because the ships — two small Ukrainian armored artillery vessels and a tug boat — had illegally entered its territorial waters, attempted illegal actions, and ignored warnings to stop while maneuvering dangerously.

“Weapons were used with the aim of forcibly stopping the Ukrainian warships,” the FSB said in a statement circulated to Russian state media. “As a result, all three Ukrainian naval vessels were seized in the Russian Federation’s territorial waters in the Black Sea.” The FSB said three Ukrainian sailors had been wounded in the incident and were getting medical care. Their lives were not in danger, it said. Ukraine denied its ships had done anything wrong, accused Russia of military aggression, and for the international community to mobilize to punish Russia. The United Nations Security Council is due to discuss the developments on Monday at the request of Russia, said Deputy Russian U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met with his top military and security chiefs. Poroshenko said he would propose that parliament impose martial law. [..] Earlier on Sunday, Russia’s border guard service had accused Ukraine of not informing it in advance of the three ships’ journey, something Kiev denied. Russia said the Ukrainian ships had been maneuvering dangerously and ignoring its instructions with the aim of stirring up tensions. Russian politicians denounced Kiev, saying the incident looked like a calculated bid by Poroshenko to increase his popularity ahead of an election next year. In another sign of rising tensions, Russia’s state-controlled RIA news agency reported on Sunday night that Ukrainian forces had started heavy shelling of residential areas in eastern Ukraine which is controlled by pro-Moscow separatists.

Read more …

She needs 320+ votes, has 260.

• Not Remotely Possible For May’s Brexit Deal To Pass Parliament – UK MP (CNBC)

It is not “remotely possible” that U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit withdrawal agreement would pass the House of Commons, which is the lower house of Parliament, in a crucial vote that will likely take place in December, a member of Parliament said on Monday. Lawmakers on both sides of the debate over the United Kingdom’s future as part of the European Union are unhappy with the proposals set by May in a 585-page, legally-binding document that lays out the terms of the former’s exit, Sarah Wollaston, who is also a member of the prime minister’s Conservative party, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“I just don’t think it’s remotely possible that this deal would pass the Commons,” she said, adding that it will likely fall short on the numbers needed to move the agreement forward. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that we would crash out with no deal because, certainly, Parliament, British parliamentarians are very opposed to leaving with no deal at all.” [..] May needs a simple majority of the 650 lawmakers in the House of Commons, but experts have indicated it will be an uphill task for the prime minister. Her Conservative Party holds 315 seats and represents the largest party in the House, but a significant number are against the plan, including some pro-Brexit members. Meanwhile, lawmakers in the opposition have mostly indicated that they will vote against the deal.

Read more …

Was the vote fraudulent to begin with?

• UK High Court To Rule If Brexit Vote ‘Void’ As Early As Christmas (Ind.)

The High Court will rule as early as Christmas whether Brexit should be declared “void”, in a legal case given a turbo-boost by the criminal investigation into Leave funder Arron Banks. Judges are poised to fast track the potentially explosive challenge, after Theresa May’s refusal to act on the growing evidence of illegality in the 2016 referendum campaign, The Independent can reveal. Lawyers describe that failure as “absolutely extraordinary” – given the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) probe into suspicions of “multiple” criminal offences committed by Mr Banks and the Leave.EU campaign.

Now The Independent understands the case is likely to move to a full hearing and a ruling within weeks of opening on 7 December, with the clock ticking on the UK’s departure from the EU next March. Both its lawyers and a leading academic believe its chances of success have been given a big boost by the unfolding scandal and the government’s refusal to recognise the gravity of what is being exposed. The government is expected to deploy Sir James Eadie QC – the star barrister who led the unsuccessful battle for the government to trigger Article 50 without parliament’s consent – in a sign of the case’s importance.

Read more …

We haven’t even started.

• Nineteen Months Of Brexit Wrangling – And That’s Just A Taster (BBC)

There was a definite “battle of the tones” at the seal-the-deal Brexit summit with Theresa May. EU leaders were determinedly sombre, while the UK prime minister had to sound upbeat and positive about her country’s Brussels-free future. It shouldn’t be under-estimated. Sunday was a huge day for the EU, signing off on the divorce papers of a departing key member state for the first time in the history of the bloc. In the eyes of many, Brexit counts as an EU failure. At the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron reminded the press of the fragility of European Union. Which is why, time and again, EU leaders in Brussels continue to make so much of the (unusual) show of unity the Brexit process has provoked in EU ranks.

For now, of course, all European eyes turn to the UK to see if the hard-negotiated Brexit deal passes through the House of Commons. If it doesn’t, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, insists there will be no deal. “This is the deal. This is THE deal,” he told me emphatically, ruling out the possibility of renegotiating the Brexit texts. If he’s true to his word, and parliament votes down the divorce deal, then all 19 months of painful EU-UK negotiations were for naught. And both sides could find themselves staring at the cost and potential chaos of what the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier calls a non-orderly Brexit. EU leaders are hell-bent on avoiding that.

Read more …

May sure scared the money.

• Business Leaders Rally Behind May’s Brexit Deal Amid Fears Of Crashing Out (G.)

Business leaders have rallied to support Theresa May’s Brexit deal, even as an independent study showed that the prime minister’s agreement meant the UK stood to lose £100bn a year by 2030 in reduced trade and income. Executives in the City of London warned MPs to vote for the deal negotiated by the prime minister to avoid a no-deal Brexit that would harm the UK economy. TheCityUK, which represents banks and insurers in the Square Mile, said parliament had “a straight choice” between the agreement hammered out in Brussels and a no-deal Brexit, “which offers only higher risk, costs and disruption”.

Miles Celic, the organisation’s boss, said: “The focus must now be on securing the withdrawal agreement and the transition period it brings – which is critical for our industry and many others. There is much still to be negotiated to define the future relationship. The sooner that can get started, the better.” His warning echoed those of industry bodies and small business groups, which have become nervous in recent weeks that No10 would fail to overcome the hurdles towards securing a withdrawal agreement. The Institute of Directors, which has found in polls of its members that they split 50:50 over proposals for a second referendum, said they all objected to an outcome that leaves Britain with no deal.

“The deal the EU approved today provokes a wide range of reactions across the political spectrum, and indeed among business leaders, but the steer from our members is that avoiding no deal must be the main priority,” said Stephen Martin, the director general.

Read more …

Hmmm. Problem with shale is debt.

• Texas Is About to Create OPEC’s Worst Nightmare (BBG)

OPEC helped create the monster that haunts its sleep. After it flooded the market in 2014, oil prices crashed, forcing surviving U.S. shale producers to get leaner so they could thrive even with lower oil prices. As prices recovered, so did drilling. Now growth is speeding up. In Houston, the U.S. oil capital, shale executives are trying out different superlatives to describe what’s coming. “Tsunami,’’ they call it. A “flooding of Biblical proportions’’ and “onslaught of supply’’ are phrases that get tossed around. Take the hyperbolic industry talk with a pinch of salt, but certainly the American oil industry, particularly in the Permian, has raised a buzz loud enough to keep OPEC awake. “You’ve got an awful lot of production that can come in very economically,’’ said Patricia Yarrington, Chevron’s CFO.

“If you think back four or five years ago, when we didn’t really understand what shale could do, the marginal barrel was priced much higher than what we think the marginal barrel is priced today.’’ That shift makes shale resilient to a price tumble. After touching a four-year high in October, West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, has fallen by more than 20 percent. [..] August saw the largest annual increase in U.S. oil production in 98 years, according to government data. The American energy industry added, in crude and other oil liquids, nearly 3 million barrels, roughly the equivalent of what Kuwait pumps, than it did in the same month last year. Total output of 15.9 million barrels a day was more than Russia or Saudi Arabia.

[..] By the end of 2019, total U.S. oil production – including so-called natural gas liquids used in the petrochemical industry – is expected to rise to 17.4 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. At that level, American net imports of petroleum will fall in December 2019 to 320,000 barrels a day, the lowest since 1949, when Harry Truman was in the White House. In the oil-trading community, the expectation is that, perhaps for just a single week, the U.S. will become a net oil exporter, something that hasn’t happened for nearly 75 years.

Read more …

Now he tells us.

• Tesla Was Weeks From Dying Earlier This Year – Elon Musk (MW)

Tesla Inc. was “bleeding money like crazy” during its Model 3 production ramp-up and almost went under earlier this year, Elon Musk said Sunday. In an interview aired Sunday night on “Axios on HBO,” Tesla’s chief executive said the electric-car company was “within single-digit weeks” of dying. “Essentially, the company was bleeding money like crazy, and if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period of time, we would die. And it was extremely difficult to solve them,” Musk said. Earlier this year, Musk described “production hell” as Tesla ramped up production to build 5,000 Model 3 sedans a week by the end of June, and said he had been sleeping on the factory floor.

Musk admitted in Sunday’s interview that he had been stretched to the limit. “People should not work this hard,” he said of his stretch working 22-hour days, seven days a week. “This is very painful.” “It hurts my brain and my heart,” Musk said. “It hurts. It is not recommended for anyone. I just did it because if I didn’t do it… there was a good chance Tesla would die.” In late October, Tesla posted a surprise quarterly profit, and earlier this month, Musk said Tesla is not “staring death in the face” anymore, and it will likely be cash-flow positive for all quarters going forward.

Read more …

Godspeed. Politics? You sure?

• Former Greek FinMin Varoufakis To Run In European Election – In Germany (R.)

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who was outspoken in his criticism of the austerity policies championed by Berlin at the height of the euro zone’s debt crisis, is to stand in European elections next year – in Germany. The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), which he launched in 2016 to “democratize” the continent, picked him on Sunday as a candidate for the elections to the European Parliament in May 2019. “I accept [the nomination] because it epitomizes the new trans-national politics we need in Europe,” he told a news conference in Berlin where his colleagues unfurled a banner with the slogan “European Spring.” “I call on all of you to join us in this pan-European quest for democracy in Europe, democracy in Germany as a condition for prosperity and authentic democracy,” he said.

The motorbike-riding academic-economist, who rose to celebrity status in the euro crisis, once described the austerity measures forced on Greece by creditors as “fiscal waterboarding”. Varoufakis, who frequently clashed with his hardline German counterpart at the time, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said the political center in Germany was under threat because of austerity. “On paper, Germany is drowning in money…but the German people have been victims of the same austerity as the rest of Europe. The result is low levels of investment,” he said. This, he argued, boosted inequality, share prices and house prices. He said his movement wanted to pour cash, raised if necessary via bond issuance, into green policies to tackle climate change.

Read more …

‘You’d better do today what they’ll do tomorrow..’

• Give In To The EU, Greek PM Tsipras Counsels Italian Government (K.)

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has counseled the Italian government to give in to EU demands that it lower its budget deficit, according to newspaper Corriere della Sera. In an analysis piece titled “Tsipras’ advice to Italy: Give in now, then it will be worse,” Federico Fubini writes that Tsipras was sort of apologetic to the Italians for not taking their side in their conflict with the EU Commission. “I can not do anything because I would be the first to arouse suspicion,” Tsipras reportedly said. Rubini adds: “(Tsipras) no doubt remembers that Italy did nothing when he tried desperately to soften the conditions – then draconian – placed by the euro area on Greece.”

“But then Tsipras, mindful of the retreat that he improvised in July 2015 after blocking the bank accounts of the voters to avoid the collapse of the system, has offered advice to Italy. ‘You’d better do today what they’ll do tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If instead you have another idea – he added, perhaps alluding to the euro exit option that he refused – well, then, good luck.’”

Read more …

Ha!

• Russia Space Agency To Check If US Moon Landings Really Happened (Ind.)

The head of Russia‘s national space agency has proposed a mission to the moon to verify whether the American moon landings really took place. Dmitry Rogozin responded to a question about whether Nasa’s Apollo programme actually put men on the moon back in the 1960s and 1970s during a conversation with the president of Moldova, Igor Dodon. He appeared to be joking, as he smirked and shrugged while answering. But conspiracies surrounding Nasa’s moon missions are common in Russia. In a video of their interaction, posted to his 815,000 Twitter followers, Mr Rogozin says: “We have set this objective to fly and verify whether they’ve been there or not”.

Nasa’s six well-documented official manned missions to the surface of the Moon, beginning with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969 and continuing with Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt in December 1972, have been dogged with conspiracy theories. In 2015, a former spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee called for an investigation into the Nasa moon landings. Vladimir Markin said an enquiry should be launched into the disappearance of original footage from the first moon landing in 1969 and the whereabouts of lunar rock, which was brought back to Earth during several missions.

Read more …

Debt Rattle December 12 2017

Dec 122017
 
 December 12, 2017  Posted by at 10:28 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


Wassily Kandinsky Clear connection 1925

 

• How Fed Rate Hikes Impact US Debt Slaves (WS)
• Why Obamacare Is Locked In An Inescapable Death Spiral (ZH)
• Sitting Closer To The Exit (Roberts)
• Oil Producers Turning to Crypto to Solve Sanctions Problems (Luongo)
• Peak Bitcoin Media Mania Yet? (WS)
• Bitcoin – Millennials’ “Fake Gold” (Katsenelson)
• Next Bank of Japan Governor Faces a ‘Job From Hell’ (BBG)
• Sweden: More Signs The World’s Biggest Housing Bubble Is Cracking (ZH)
• Trump Tells NASA to Send Americans to the Moon (AFP)
• Exxon To Provide Details On Climate Change Impact To Its Business (R.)
• Apple Aims To Block Climate, Rights Using SEC Guidance (R.)
• EU Could ‘Scrap Refugee Quota Scheme’ (G.)
• Lesvos Authorities Block Ship With Container Homes For Refugees (AP)
• Germany Rejects Additional Winter Aid For Refugees On Greek Islands (KTG)

 

 

“If the average interest rate on this debt is 20%, credit-cart interest payments alone add $233 a month to their household expenditures.”

• How Fed Rate Hikes Impact US Debt Slaves (WS)

Revolving credit outstanding of $1 trillion, spread over 117.72 million households, would amount to $8,300 per household. But many households do not carry interest-bearing credit card debt; they pay their cards off in full every month. Finance charges are concentrated on households that use this form of debt to finance their spending and that cannot pay off their balances every month. Many of these households are already strung out and are among the least able to afford higher interest payments. Consumer credit bureau TransUnion shed some light on this in its Q3 2017 Industry Insights Report, according to which 195.9 million consumers had a revolving credit balance at the end of Q3, with total account balances of $1.35 trillion. This equals $6,892 per person with revolving credit balances.

If there are two people with balances in a household, this would amount to nearly $14,000 of this high-cost debt. If the average interest rate on this debt is 20%, credit-cart interest payments alone add $233 a month to their household expenditures. What is next for these folks? For now, the Fed has penciled in, and economists expect, three hikes next year. But recent developments – particularly the expected tax cuts and what the Fed calls “elevated asset prices” – suggest that the Fed might “surprise” the markets with its hawkishness in 2018. The Fed is currently pegging the “neutral” rate – the rate at which the federal funds rate is neither stimulating nor slowing the economy – at somewhere near 2.5% to 2.75%, so about five or six more rates hikes from today’s target range.

Interest rates on credit cards would follow in lockstep. These rate hikes to “neutral” would extract another $8 billion or so a year, on top of the additional $7.5 billion from the prior rate hikes. But that’s not all. Credit card balances continue to rise as our brave consumers are trying to prop up US consumer spending and thus the global economy by borrowing more and more. Thus, rising credit card balances combined with rising interest rates on those balances conspire to produce sharply higher interest costs. Since consumers with high-interest credit-card balances already don’t have enough money to pay off their costly debt, these additional interest payments will further curtail their efforts at making principal payments and thus inflate their credit card balances further.

Read more …

And if/when you manage to pay off your credit cards, there’s the next challenge…

• Why Obamacare Is Locked In An Inescapable Death Spiral (ZH)

Ever since it was signed into law in 2010, defenders of Obamacare have dismissed staggering surges in annual premiums by highlighting only the rates paid by those fortunate enough to receive subsidies. In fact, last year we wrote about Marjorie Connolly’s, from Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services, response to the Tennessee insurance commissioner’s fear that the exchanges in his state were “very near collapse” after a staggering 59% premium surge: “Consumers in Tennessee will continue to have affordable coverage options in 2017. Last year, the average monthly premium for people with Marketplace coverage getting tax credits increased just $2, from $102 to $104 per month, despite headlines suggesting double digit increases,” said Marjorie Connolly, HHS spokeswoman, in a statement.

We’re unsure whether Connolly’s comment was just propaganda intended to defend a failing piece of legislation or an intentional, blatant admission that the Department of Health and Human Services just doesn’t care about the majority of Americans, the so-called 1%’ers, who are facing debilitating increases in healthcare costs simply because they manage to live above the poverty line. We’ll let you decide on that one. Be that as it may, as the Miami Herald points out this morning, roughly half of all Obamacare participants, nearly 9 million people in aggregate, don’t qualify for the subsidies that Connolly praised and have been forced to absorb debilitating premium increases for the past several years.

[..] As open enrollment for Affordable Care Act coverage nears the deadline of Dec. 15, and Florida once again leads all states using the federal exchange at healthcare.gov, Heidi and Richard Reiter sit at the kitchen table at their Davie home and struggle to piece together the family’s health insurance for 2018. The Reiters buy their own coverage, but they earn too much to qualify for financial aid to lower their monthly premiums. For 2017, they bought a plan off the exchange and paid $26,000 in premiums for family coverage, including their two sons, ages 21 and 17. Keeping the same coverage for 2018 would have cost the Reiters $40,000 in premiums, a 54% increase. So they selected a lower-priced plan that covers less but costs $29,000 in premiums. “That’s more than a lot of people’s mortgage payments,” Richard Reiter said. “For me, it’s a crisis situation.”

Read more …

The odds of a correction (reversion).

• Sitting Closer To The Exit (Roberts)

While valuation risk is certainly concerning, it is the extreme deviations of other measures to which attention should be paid. When long-term indicators have previously been this overbought, further gains in the market have been hard to achieve. However, the problem comes, as identified by the vertical lines, is understanding when these indicators reverse course. The subsequent “reversions” have not been forgiving. The chart below brings this idea of reversion into a bit clearer focus. I have overlaid the real, inflation-adjusted, S&P 500 index over the cyclically-adjusted P/E ratio. Historically, we find that when both valuations and prices have extended well beyond their intrinsic long-term trendlines, subsequent reversions beyond those trend lines have ensued. Every. Single. Time.

Importantly, these reversions have wiped out a decade, or more, in investor gains. As noted, if the next correction began in 2018, and ONLY reverts back to the long-term trendline, which historically has never been the case, investors would reset portfolios back to levels not seen since 1997. Two decades of gains lost. With everyone crowded into the “ETF Theater,” the “exit” problem should be of serious concern. “Over the next several weeks, or even months, the markets can certainly extend the current deviations from long-term mean even further. But that is the nature of every bull market peak, and bubble, throughout history as the seeming impervious advance lures the last of the stock market ‘holdouts’ back into the markets.”

Read more …

“..the petrodollar is not the source of the U.S. dollar’s power around the world, but rather the U.S.’s main fulcrum by which to keep competition out of the markets..”

• Oil Producers Turning to Crypto to Solve Sanctions Problems (Luongo)

Last week, Venezuela announced it would develop a national cryptocurrency backed by its oil reserves, the Petro. Now there is a report that Russia is considering the same thing. Iran will likely follow suit. As of right now this is just a rumor, but it makes some sense. So, let’s treat this rumor as fact for the sake of argument and see where it leads us. The U.S. continues to sanction and threaten all of these countries for daring to challenge the global status quo. There is no denying this. [..] at the heart of this is the petrodollar. Contrary to what many believe, the petrodollar is not the source of the U.S. dollar’s power around the world, but rather the U.S.’s main fulcrum by which to keep competition out of the markets. It is a secondary effect of the dollar’s dominance in global finance today. But it is not the main driver.

Financial market are simply too big relative to the size any one commodity market for it to be the fulcrum on which everything hinges. It was that way in the past. But it is not now. That said, however, getting out from underneath the petrodollar gives a country independence to begin building financial architecture that can be levered up over time to threaten the institutional control it helped create. U.S. foreign policy defends the petrodollar along with other systems in place – the IMF, the World Bank, SWIFT, LIBOR and the central banks themselves – to maintain its control. The main oil producers, however, can escape this control simply by selling their oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. That’s not enough to dethrone the dollar, but, like I just said, it is where the process has to start. Therefore, any and all means must be employed to defend the dollar empire by keeping everyone inside that system.

[..] The problem with backing any currency with physical reserves is the fluctuations in value of those reserves. It’s not like oil is a low-beta commodity or anything. But, like everything else in the commodity space, price movements are supposed to be smoothed out by the futures markets helping to coordinate price with time. But the bigger problem is the estimation of those reserves the coin’s value is based on. First, how do you accurately quantify them? Can holders of Petro or Neft-coin trust the Russian or Venezuelan governments to provide accurate assessments of their reserves? Second, there is the ability of the country to pull it out of the ground and sell it into the market at anything close to a fair price. This isn’t a concern for Russia, the world’s 2nd largest supplier of oil and very stable government but Venezuela is the opposite. And, its “Petro” would probably trade at quite a discount early on to the dollar price of oil.

Read more …

I doubt it. If only because as Taleb said, you can’t actually short BTC, and they should have introduced options along with futures. They didn’t. This story is far from over.

• Peak Bitcoin Media Mania Yet? (WS)

Bitcoin mania is now everywhere. It’s hard to have a conversation with regular people without sooner or later getting into bitcoin. Some of this is just for fun. Manias breed amazement. Miracles are wonderful to behold. But some of it is pretty serious. “We’ve seen mortgages being taken out to buy bitcoin,” said Joseph Borg, president of the North American Securities Administrators Association and director of the Alabama Securities Commission, on CNBC’s Power Lunch today. “People do credit cards, equity lines,” he said. Bitcoin futures trading started Sunday night on the Cboe futures exchange. Next week, the CME will offer trading in bitcoin futures.

This way, speculators can bet with unlimited derivatives on an unregulated digital entity that is backed by nothing and whose cash trading takes place in unregulated opaque and easily hacked exchanges around the world. But Borg doesn’t think that futures contracts legitimize bitcoin. Innovation and technology always outrun regulation, he said. “You’re on this mania curve. At some point in time there’s got to be a leveling off,” he said. “Cryptocurrency is here to stay. Blockchain is here to stay. Whether it is bitcoin or not, I don’t know.” And so the media mania over bitcoin has become deafening.

Read more …

But there’s definitely a media bubble, even if there’s no BTC one yet.

• Bitcoin – Millennials’ “Fake Gold” (Katsenelson)

If you cannot value an asset you cannot be rational. With Bitcoin at $11,000 today, it is crystal clear to me, with the benefit of hindsight, that I should have bought Bitcoin at 28 cents. But you only get hindsight in hindsight. Let’s mentally (only mentally) buy Bitcoin today at $11,000. If it goes up 5% a day like a clock and gets to $110,000 – you don’t need rationality. Just buy and gloat. But what do you do if the price goes down to $8,000? You’ll probably say, “No big deal, I believe in cryptocurrencies.” What if it then goes to $5,500? Half of your hard-earned money is gone. Do you buy more? Trust me, at that point in time the celebratory articles you are reading today will have vanished. The awesome stories of a plumber becoming an overnight millionaire with the help of Bitcoin will not be gracing the social media.

The moral support – which is really peer pressure – that drives you to own Bitcoin will be gone, too. Then you’ll be reading stories about other suckers like you who bought it at what – in hindsight – turned out to be the all-time high and who got sucked into the potential for future riches. And then Bitcoin will tumble to $2,000 and then to $100. Since you have no idea what this crypto thing is worth, there is no center of gravity to guide you or anyone else to make rational decisions. With Coke or another real business that generates actual cash flows, we can at least have an intelligent conversation about what the company is worth. We can’t have one with Bitcoin. The X times Y = Z math will be reapplied by Wall Street as it moves on to something else.

People who are buying Bitcoin today are doing it for one simple reason: FOMO – fear of missing out. Yes, this behavior is so predominant in our society that we even have an acronym for it. Bitcoin is priced today at $11,000 because the fool who bought it for $11,000 is hoping that there is another, greater fool who will pay $12,000 for it tomorrow. This game of greater fools is not new. The Dutch played it with tulips in the 1600s– it did not end well. Americans took the game to a new level with dotcoms in the late 1990s – that round ended in tears, too. And now millennials and millennial-wannabes are playing it with Bitcoin and few hundred other competing cryptocurrencies.

The counterargument to everything I have said so far is that those dollar bills you have in your wallet or that digitally reside in your bank account are as fictional as Bitcoin. True. Currencies, like most things in our lives, are stories that we all have (mostly) unconsciously bought into. Of course, society and, even more importantly, governments have agreed that these fiat currencies are going to be the means of exchange. Also, taxation by the government turns the dollar bill “story” into a very physical reality: If you don’t pay taxes in dollars, you go to jail. (The US government will not accept Bitcoins, gold, chunks of granite, or even British pounds).

Read more …

Compared to Japan, all other central banks are wimps and pussies.

• Next Bank of Japan Governor Faces a ‘Job From Hell’ (BBG)

The next governor of the Bank of Japan faces a “job from hell.” That’s according to Takeshi Fujimaki, a banker-turned-lawmaker who sees any attempt by Japan’s central bank to exit its program of unprecedented easing as triggering a Greek-like debt crisis. “This is the calm before the battle,” Fujimaki, an opposition Japan Innovation Party politician who once served briefly as an adviser to George Soros, said in an interview at his Tokyo office on Monday. BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s five-year term runs out in April, with recent praise from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe strengthening expectations that the 73-year-old will stay on for a second stint. His massive easing program has weakened the yen, bolstered exports and helped stock prices to more than double. But inflation is still short of the government’s 2% target, and critics say the BOJ’s swollen balance sheet is unsustainable.

Fujimaki, 67, said he agreed with the view expressed by Kuroda’s predecessor Masaaki Shirakawa in his 2013 resignation press conference, when he said no judgment could be made on non-traditional monetary easing in Japan and in other developed economies until exits had been completed. Last week, Kuroda said the BOJ can take the appropriate steps to exit when the time comes, but talking specifics of an exit now would end up confusing markets. Even so, Fujimaki said Kuroda should stay on to oversee an exit from the policies he introduced. “Because Mr. Kuroda has taken it this far, he should carry on until the end,” Fujimaki said. “Just taking the good part and running away would be unfair.”

Read more …

“(SEB) says 63% of households in Stockholm now expect prices to decline in the coming year while only 21% expect an increase; that’s “a dramatic shift compared with only two months’ ago..”

• Sweden: More Signs The World’s Biggest Housing Bubble Is Cracking (ZH)

We like to highlight that although Sweden’s property bubble is not the longest running (that accolade goes to Australia at 55 years), it is probably the world’s biggest, even though it gets relatively little coverage in the mainstream financial media. A month ago, we noted that SEB’s housing price indicator suffered its second biggest ever drop, falling by 39 points, only lagging a steeper fall from ten years earlier. This month the indicator, which shows the balance between households forecasting rising or falling prices, fell into negative territory, dropping to -5 from +11 in November. Households expecting prices to rise has almost halved from 66% In October, to 43% in November and 36% this month. The percentage of households expecting prices to fall has risen from 16% in October, to 32% in November and 41% this month.

After the housing price indicator was published, the Swedish krona fell as much as 0.7% versus the Euro to 10.0118, its lowest level since 5 December 2017. Not surprisingly, the focal point of Sweden’s property boom has been Stockholm, where the decline in the housing price indicator in December 2017 was precipitous. According to Bloomberg. “SEB says sharp drop in home-price expectations in Stockholm was main culprit behind the decline in its Swedish home-price indicator, with the indicator falling to -42 in the Swedish capital in Dec. from -6 in Nov. That means the Stockholm indicator is now close to the record low of -47 that was reached in Dec. 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis. (SEB) says 63% of households in Stockholm now expect prices to decline in the coming year while only 21% expect an increase; that’s “a dramatic shift compared with only two months’ ago..”

Given the disproportionate rate of decline in December in Stockholm, SEB was minded to ask whether special factors are at work “rather than general drivers such as fears over rising interest rates or a weak business cycle”. Indeed, aside from south-eastern Sweden, the outlook in all other regions remains positive. With regard to Stockholm, the bank notes that a large increase in new supply of expensive residential property and what it terms “very negative media reporting” have had an impact. Whether that’s a fair assessment, or whether it’s realist reporting of a monumental asset bubble is a moot point. What is indisputable is that the number of Swedish homes for sale has surged in November 2017 compared with the same month last year.

Read more …

After talking to Musk and Bezos. Who target billions in profits from the bridges to nowhere on steroids.

• Trump Tells NASA to Send Americans to the Moon (AFP)

US President Donald Trump directed NASA on Monday to send Americans to the Moon for the first time since 1972, in order to prepare for future trips to Mars. “This time we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint,” Trump said at a White House ceremony as he signed the new space policy directive. “We will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars and perhaps someday to many worlds beyond.” The directive calls on NASA to ramp up its efforts to send people to deep space, a policy that unites politicians on both sides of the aisle in the United States. However, it steered clear of the most divisive and thorny issues in space exploration: budgets and timelines.

Space policy experts agree that any attempt to send people to Mars, which lies an average of 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) from Earth, would require immense technical prowess and a massive wallet. The last time US astronauts visited the Moon was during the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s. Trump, who signed the directive in the presence of Harrison Schmitt, one of the last Americans to walk on the Moon 45 years ago, said “today, we pledge that he will not be the last.” The better known Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon after Armstrong and a fervent advocate of future space missions, was also present at the ceremony but not mentioned by Trump during his speech.

[..] Trump vowed his new directive “will refocus the space program on human exploration and discovery,” and “marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972.” The goal of the new Moon missions would include “long-term exploration and use” of its surface. “We’re dreaming big,” Trump said. His administration has previously held several meetings with SpaceX boss Elon Musk and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, who also owns Blue Origin.

Read more …

The article has two authors, and at least one editor (Reuters), and still it says this: “world temperatures are likely to rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius (35.6°F) this century..

• Exxon To Provide Details On Climate Change Impact To Its Business (R.)

Exxon Mobil on Monday said it would publish new details about how climate change could affect its business in a move aimed at appeasing critics and forestalling another proxy fight next year. The largest U.S. oil and gas producer said in a filing to U.S. securities regulators that its board agreed to provide shareholders with information on “energy demand sensitivities, implications of two degree Celsius scenarios, and positioning for a lower-carbon future.” Scientists have warned that world temperatures are likely to rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius (35.6°F) this century, surpassing a “tipping point” that a global climate deal aims to avert. Exxon’s statement, which came three days before the deadline for its 2018 annual meeting resolution submissions, said additional information would be released in the near future, but did not provide details.

The company’s board originally opposed providing shareholders with a report outlining the potential impact of global warming on Exxon’s long-term outlook. Thomas P. DiNapoli, New York state’s comptroller, heads one the two lead sponsors of a shareholder resolution calling for Exxon to issue a climate-impact report. He called Monday’s decision “a win for shareholders and for the company’s ability to manage risk.” However, another sponsor noted the lack of specificity in the company’s statement. “This is giving no detail,” said Tim Smith, who leads shareholder engagement efforts at Walden Asset Management, a co-filer of last spring’s resolution. He said Exxon’s statement “needs to be expanded to assure shareowners that they’re responsive to last year’s request.”

Read more …

Apple, Exxon, everybody seeks to escape their own shareholders.

• Apple Aims To Block Climate, Rights Using SEC Guidance (R.)

Apple is pushing back on shareholder proposals on climate issue and human rights concerns, an effort activists worry could sharply restrict investor rights. In letters to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month, an attorney for the California computer maker argued at least four shareholder proposals relate to “ordinary business” and therefore can be left off the proxy Apple is expected to publish early next year, ahead of its annual meeting. The attorney, Gene Levoff, cited guidance issued by the SEC on Nov. 1 saying that company boards are generally best positioned to decide if a resolution raises significant policy issues worth putting to a vote.

While companies routinely seek permission to skip shareholder proposals, Apple’s application of the new SEC guidance shows how it could be used to ignore many investor proposals by claiming boards routinely review those areas, said Sanford Lewis, a Massachusetts attorney representing Apple shareholders who had filed two of the resolutions. Were the SEC to side with Apple, “this would be an incredibly dangerous precedent that would essentially say a great many proposals could be omitted,” Lewis said. [..] Often seen as distractions in the past, shareholder measures have taken on new significance as big asset managers increasingly back those on areas like climate change or board diversity.

Apple cited the SEC’s new guidance among other things in seeking to omit the shareholder measures from its proxy, according to letters Apple sent to the SEC. These include calls for Apple to take steps such as establishing a “human rights committee” to address concerns on topics like censorship, and for Apple to report on its ability to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more …

Tusk against the rest. Couldn’t be because he’s Polish, could it? And looking at big jobs back home?!

• EU Could ‘Scrap Refugee Quota Scheme’ (G.)

The EU could scrap a divisive scheme that compels member states to accept quotas of refugees, one of the bloc’s most senior leaders will say this week. The president of the European council, Donald Tusk, will tell EU leaders at a summit on Thursday that mandatory quotas have been divisive and ineffective, in a clear sign that he is ready to abandon the policy that has created bitter splits across the continent. Tusk will set a six-month deadline for EU leaders to reach unanimous agreement on reforms to the European asylum system, but will propose alternatives if there is no consensus. “If there is no solution … including on the issue of mandatory quotas, the president of the European council will present a way forward,” states a draft letter from Tusk to national capitals, seen by the Guardian.

In effect this means scrapping mandatory quotas, because Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic are fiercely opposed to the idea of dispersing refugees around the bloc based on a formula drawn up in Brussels. Tusk is likely to face opposition, however, from other EU bodies, including the European commission. EU leaders introduced compulsory quotas in 2015 at the height of the migration crisis, as thousands of people arrived daily on Europe’s shores, many of whom were refugees from Syria, Iraq and Eritrea. Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic voted against the move, but the policy was forced through by a majority vote. Hungary and Poland have defied the rest of the EU by not taking a single refugee under the scheme, which aimed to relocate about 120,000 refugees, mainly Syrians. The Czech republic has taken in only 12. All three countries were referred to the European court of justice last week for failing to implement the policy, the usual procedure for flouting EU rules.

Read more …

All refugees living on Lesbos should be evacuated.

• Lesvos Authorities Block Ship With Container Homes For Refugees (AP)

Authorities on the Greek island of Lesvos say they have blocked a ship carrying container homes for refugees and other migrants in protest at the refusal of the government and the European Union to move more people to Greece’s mainland. A government-chartered ship carrying the containers remained anchored at Mytilene, the island’s main town, on Monday after municipal vehicles were used to block port facilities. The island’s municipal board was due to meet later on Monday to decide on whether to lift the blockade following talks with the government, state-run TV ERT said. The mayors of five Greek islands facing the coast of Turkey are demanding that the government and EU end a policy of containment for migrants – introduced last year as a deterrent against illegal migration – because living facilities are severely overcrowded.

Read more …

Merkel, the story of a great and bitter failure.

• Germany Rejects Additional Winter Aid For Refugees On Greek Islands (KTG)

The German Foreign Ministry has made it clear that it will not provide additional winter assistance to refugees on the Aegean islands. In a related question from German newspapers, the foreign ministry replied that “responsibility for accommodating and feeding refugees falls under the jurisdiction of each country.” According to dpa, the Foreign Ministry recalled that Berlin recently funded the installation of 135 heated containers for a total of 800 people in two camps in the Thessaloniki region and that the EU has allocated up to now 1.4 billion euros to tackle the refugee crisis in Greece.

Meanwhile, there is media report that Greece has persuaded Turkey to accept migrant returns from the mainland in order to reduce critical overcrowding in its refugee camps. The Kathimerini daily said the agreement came during a strained two-day state visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week, during which he angered his hosts with talk of revising borders and complaints about Greece’s treatment of its Muslim minority. The deal is in addition to Turkey’s existing agreement to take back migrants from Aegean island camps, under the terms of an EU-Turkey pact.

Read more …