Jan 162016
 
 January 16, 2016  Posted by at 9:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  Comments Off on Debt Rattle January 16 2016


DPC Union Station, Worcester, Massachusetts 1906

US Stocks Post Worst 10-Day Start To A Year In History (MW)
What Goes Up, Comes Down Considerably Faster (ZH)
Wall Street Hemorrhages As Oil Tumbles And China Fears Deepen (Reuters)
Weak US Data Deluge Points To Sharply Slower Growth (Reuters)
A Recession Worse Than 2008 Is Coming (Michael Pento)
Looming Recession Shifts Fed Support From Equities To Dollar, Banks (Brodsky)
Global Earnings Downgrades Haven’t Been This Bad in Seven Years (BBG)
Retail Sales in U.S. Decrease to End Weakest Year Since 2009 (BBG)
Wal-Mart to Shut Hundreds of Stores (BBG)
A New Year Of Turmoil For China (WaPo)
Currency War Revival Seen After Yen, Euro Rally (BBG)
One Year On, ‘Franckenschock’ Still Hurts Swiss (CNBC)
America’s Student-Debt Crisis Is Only Getting Worse (MW)
MH-17’s Unnecessary Mystery (Robert Parry)
Toxic Chemicals In Scottish Waters Wiping Out Killer Whales (Scotsman)
Baby Found Dead On Greece Migrant Boat (AP)

History being written.

US Stocks Post Worst 10-Day Start To A Year In History (MW)

U.S. stocks closed sharply lower Friday, locking in the worst 10-day start to a calendar year ever, as oil prices plunged and investors worried about slowing growth in the U.S. During the course of the session, the S&P 500 broke below its Aug. 24 low—which several market strategists said would be tantamount to a major sell signal—to trade at its lowest level since October 2014. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was briefly down as much as 537 points. Oil appeared to be the main driver of concern. Both the U.S. and global benchmarks settled below $30 a barrel, as investors feared that supplies will continue to rise as Iran prepares to enter the market ad Russia continues pumping oil to help support its flagging economy.

”There’s not a lot of people willing to take their foot off the gas and prices are adjusting accordingly,” said David Meier, portfolio manager at Motley Fool Asset Management. “As a result of that you’re seeing fear just creep in.” The Dow slumped 390.97 points, or 2.4%, to 15,988.08, while the S&P 500 slid 44.85 points, or 2.3%, to 1,876.99, led lower by the financial, technology and energy sectors. The Nasdaq Composite tumbled 126.59 points, or 2.7%, to 4,488.42. All Dow components ended in negative territory, as were all 10 sectors on the S&P 500. Selling began in China after official data showed that new bank loans were lower than expected in December as lenders sharply curtailed activity amid worries about slowing growth and bad debt.

In a bid to boost liquidity, China’s central bank said it pumped $15 billion of funds into the market via a medium-term lending facility on Friday. The Shanghai Composite dropped 3.5% and is down 20% from a Dec. 22 high, which by one definition puts it in a bear market. All of this was exacerbated as options stopped trading ahead of their expiration on Saturday. Dave Lutz, head of ETFs at JonesTrading, said because of how the market was positioned, options dealers needed to sell more futures to hedge their positions as stocks fell.

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Yeah, those are real losses. Transitory is no longer a valid term.

What Goes Up, Comes Down Considerably Faster (ZH)

What goes up, comes down considerably faster. For global stocks, Bloomberg notes, the way down ($15 trillion lost in 7 months) has been much easier than the climb up ($30 trillion added in 4 years).

With markets from Asia to Europe entering bear markets this month, stocks worldwide have lost more than $14 trillion, or 20%, in value from a record last June amid worries over global growth and deepening oil declines. The pace of the drop has been so fast that it has already unraveled about half of the rally since a low in 2011. And here is a bonus chart from Bank of America, which looks at the S&P on an equal weighted basis, to avoid such aberrations as the collapsing market breadth phenomenon, also known as FANG. Spot the symmetry.

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“Initially when oil was down, the convenient line was ‘Well, it’s good for the other nine sectors’.. [..] Now, it’s contagion to Main Street and Wall Street.”

Wall Street Hemorrhages As Oil Tumbles And China Fears Deepen (Reuters)

Wall Street bled on Friday, with the S&P 500 sinking to its lowest since October 2014 as oil prices sank below $30 per barrel and fears grew about economic trouble in China. Pain was dealt widely, with the day’s trading volume unusually high and more than a fifth of S&P 500 stocks touching 52-week lows. The major S&P sectors all ended sharply lower. The Russell 2000 small-cap index dropped as much as 3.5% to its lowest since July 2013. The energy sector dropped 2.87% as oil prices fell 6.5%, in part due to fears of slow economic growth in China, where major stock indexes also slumped overnight. The energy sector has lost nearly half its value after hitting record highs in late 2014. “Initially when oil was down, the convenient line was ‘Well, it’s good for the other nine sectors’,” said Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Longbow Asset Management.

“That tune has changed. Now, it’s a contagion to the other nine sectors. It’s a contagion to Main Street and Wall Street.” The technology sector was the day’s biggest loser, sliding 3.15% as weak quarterly results from chipmaker Intel weighed heavily on chip stocks. The S&P 500 has fallen about 12% from its high in May, pushing it into what is generally considered “correction territory.” China’s major stock indexes shed over 3%, raising questions about Beijing’s ability to halt a sell-off that has now reached 18% since the start of the year. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 2.39% to end at 15,988.08 and the S&P 500 fell 2.16% to 1,880.33. The Nasdaq Composite lost 2.74% to 4,488.42. For the week, the Dow fell 2.2%, the S&P 500 lost 2.2% and the Nasdaq dropped 3.3%. U.S. stock exchanges will be closed on Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, while China’s equity markets will be open.

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And this is news to whom, exactly?

Weak US Data Deluge Points To Sharply Slower Growth (Reuters)

U.S. retail sales fell in December as unseasonably warm weather undercut purchases of winter apparel and cheaper gasoline weighed on receipts at service stations, the latest indication that economic growth braked sharply in the fourth quarter. The growth picture was further darkened by other data on Friday showing industrial production fell in December, dragged down by cutbacks in utilities and mining output. Business inventories were also weak, posting their biggest drop in just over four years in November. Signs the economy has hit a soft patch – together with weak inflation, a stock market sell-off and faltering global growth – raises doubts on whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again in March. The Fed lifted its benchmark overnight interest rate from near zero last month, the first rate hike in nearly a decade.

“The economy got hit from all sides in December. If these weak data keep going into 2016, the outlook is going to grow even dimmer given the recent financial market turbulence and the fears over what a slowdown in China means for the rest of the world,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York. The Commerce Department said retail sales slipped 0.1% after increasing 0.4% in November. For all of 2015, retail sales rose just 2.1%, the weakest reading since 2009, after advancing 3.9% in 2014. Retail sales excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services fell 0.3% after a 0.5% gain the prior month. These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product.

Though another report from the University of Michigan showed its consumer sentiment index rose to 93.3 early this month from a reading of 92.6 in December, households were less upbeat about current conditions, reflecting the recent equity market turmoil. Friday’s reports joined weak data on construction, manufacturing and export growth in suggesting that growth slowed abruptly in the final three months of 2015. They could raise fears that the malaise from manufacturing and export-oriented sectors was filtering to the rest of the economy.

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“Now that this debt bubble is unwinding, growth in China is going offline”

A Recession Worse Than 2008 Is Coming (Michael Pento)

The S&P 500 has begun 2016 with its worst performance ever. This has prompted Wall Street apologists to come out in full force and try to explain why the chaos in global currencies and equities will not be a repeat of 2008. Nor do they want investors to believe this environment is commensurate with the dot-com bubble bursting. They claim the current turmoil in China is not even comparable to the 1997 Asian debt crisis. Indeed, the unscrupulous individuals that dominate financial institutions and governments seldom predict a down-tick on Wall Street, so don’t expect them to warn of the impending global recession and market mayhem. But a recession has occurred in the U.S. about every five years, on average, since the end of WWII; and it has been seven years since the last one — we are overdue.

Most importantly, the average market drop during the peak to trough of the last 6 recessions has been 37%. That would take the S&P 500 down to 1,300; if this next recession were to be just of the average variety. But this one will be worse. A major contributor for this imminent recession is the fallout from a faltering Chinese economy. The megalomaniac communist government has increased debt 28 times since the year 2000. Taking that total north of 300% of GDP in a very short period of time for the primary purpose of building a massive unproductive fixed asset bubble that adds little to GDP. Now that this debt bubble is unwinding, growth in China is going offline.

The renminbi’s falling value, cascading Shanghai equity prices (down 40% since June 2014) and plummeting rail freight volumes (down 10.5% year over year), all clearly illustrate that China is not growing at the promulgated 7%, but rather isn’t growing at all. The problem is that China accounted for 34% of global growth, and the nation’s multiplier effect on emerging markets takes that number to over 50%. Therefore, expect more stress on multinational corporate earnings as global growth continues to slow. But the debt debacle in China is not the primary catalyst for the next recession in the United States. It is the fact that equity prices and real estate values can no longer be supported by incomes and GDP. And now that the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing and zero interest-rate policy have ended, these asset prices are succumbing to the gravitational forces of deflation. The median home price to income ratio is currently 4.1; whereas the average ratio is just 2.6.

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An inevitable development that we’ve long predicted.

Looming Recession Shifts Fed Support From Equities To Dollar, Banks (Brodsky)

Investors are blaming Fed rate hikes, and hence a strong dollar, for weakening global output, commodity prices, and global equity prices so far in 2016. The Fed knows exactly what it’s doing. Equity returns are certainly dismal thus far in 2016. Through January 14 at 14:00PM EST, the MSCI World Index had declined by 8.6%. Accordingly, “the markets” had begun to doubt the Fed’s resolve to hike rates four times in 2016. Fed funds futures implied the December Fed Funds rate at 0.70%, up only 34 basis points from the current rate (0.36%). This implies the market is betting the Fed will hike once or twice more. Clearly, investors see the equity markets as the leading indicator of Fed policy. We disagree.

The Fed no longer works implicitly for equity investors (i.e., “the Fed Put”); it is primarily working for the U.S. banking system by stabilizing and increasing its deposit base, and for the state by providing an incentive across the world to invest in Treasury debt. By raising rates, it increases the exchange value of the U.S. dollar. We have argued that global output growth would have to naturally decline given the extraordinary leverage already built into the global economy, leaving observers to acknowledge in 2016 that recession is near. We have argued further that the Fed is very aware of an imminent global slowdown, and that a logical strategy in such an environment would be for it to import global capital by keeping the dollar un-challenged as a store of value.

We would like to reiterate and refine our view: despite increasing discomfort among equity investors, we think the Fed will remain resolute in its effort to maintain or increase the interest rate differential between U.S. and foreign sovereign rates. The one thing that would change the Fed’s current policy would be if global growth shows signs of increasing – not decreasing. If the world economy were to strengthen then the Fed’s incentive to keep the dollar strong would fade. Investors should consider this meaningful shift in policy when deciding how to allocate across asset classes. As we noted in The Pain Trade last year, falling long-term Treasury yields are the last thing speculative (i.e., levered) investors expect. Following this week’s auctions, it may be time for them to cover shorts.

“Global equity markets are suffering so far in 2016 because the Fed’s primary policy has shifted from protecting asset prices to protecting the exchange value of the dollar. Buy USDs and Treasuries”

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Bubbles have limited lifespans.

Global Earnings Downgrades Haven’t Been This Bad in Seven Years (BBG)

Stocks are losing their last line of defense. Amid a selloff that erased more than two years of gains – about $14 trillion – from global stocks now on the brink of a bear market, at least earnings stood as a potential bright spot. Those hopes are fading: analyst profit downgrades outnumbered upgrades by the most since 2009 last week, according to monthly data from a Citigroup index that tracks such changes. Declines in oil and and other commodities, the withdrawal of Federal Reserve support, Europe’s fragile recovery and China slowdown fears are combining to jeopardize one of the few remaining stock catalysts after a global rally of as much as 156% since 2009. And profit growth estimates are still too high for this year and 2017, says Bankhaus Lampe’s Ralf Zimmermann.

“The momentum in the global economy is slowing down to such an extent that people are seriously talking about recession,” said Zimmermann, a strategist at Bankhaus Lampe in Dusseldorf. “This is not just China, it’s far more widespread. There are few places to hide. Even defensives will feel the pain.” Economists’ projections for worldwide expansion in 2016 have dropped steadily in the past months to just 3.3%, with estimates for China and the U.S. falling since the summer. The biggest bears are getting more bearish – DoubleLine Capital’s Jeffrey Gundlach sees global growth slowing to just 1.9% in 2016, making it the worst year since the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2009.

This earnings season may not provide much reassurance, say strategists at JPMorgan. Analysts project a 6.7% contraction in fourth-quarter profits for Standard & Poor’s 500 Index members. For peers in Europe, estimates call for growth of just 2.7% for all of 2015, about half the pace predicted four months ago. Investors are also running for the door – they pulled about $12 billion from global stock funds last week.

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No, no, no ‘socking away’, they’re paying off debt: “Americans probably preferred to sock away the savings from cheaper fuel..”

Retail Sales in U.S. Decrease to End Weakest Year Since 2009 (BBG)

Sales at U.S. retailers declined in December to wrap the weakest year since 2009, raising concern about the momentum in consumer spending heading into 2016. The 0.1% drop matched the median forecast of 84 economists surveyed by Bloomberg and followed a 0.4% gain in November, Commerce Department figures showed Friday in Washington. For all of 2015, purchases climbed 2.1%, the smallest advance of the current economic expansion.

The slowdown, including electronics stores, clothing merchants and grocers, indicates Americans probably preferred to sock away the savings from cheaper fuel instead of splurging during the holiday season. While hiring has been robust in recent months, faster wage gains remain elusive, one reason household spending may have a tougher time accelerating as the new year gets under way. “There isn’t anything encouraging in this report,” said Thomas Simons at Jefferies in New York. “It’s very disappointing. The labor market is in good shape, which suggests the outlook is probably better than this.”

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“I think they need to exit some markets totally and close a lot more than they are closing.”

Wal-Mart to Shut Hundreds of Stores (BBG)

Wal-Mart plans to shutter 269 stores, the most in at least two decades, as it abandons its experimental small-format Express outlets and looks to streamline the chain. The move by the largest private employer in the U.S. will affect about 10,000 jobs domestically at 154 locations, according to a statement Friday. Overseas, the effort will eliminate 6,000 jobs and includes the closing of 60 money-losing stores in Brazil, a country where Wal-Mart has struggled. The plan will affect less than 1% of its total square footage and revenue, the company said. CEO Doug McMillon took the step after reviewing the chain’s 11,600 stores, evaluating their financial performance and fit with its broader strategy.

The move also marks the end of its pilot Wal-Mart Express program, a bid to create a network of small corner stores to compete with dollar-store chains and drugstores. Wal-Mart will continue its larger-size Neighborhood Markets effort, though 23 poor-performing stores in that chain also will be closed. The company is still expanding its footprint in the U.S., adding 69 new stores and 6,000 jobs in January alone. “We invested considerable time assessing our stores and clubs and don’t take this lightly,” McMillon said. “We are supporting those impacted with extra pay and support, and we will take all appropriate steps to ensure they are treated well.”

Wal-Mart shares fell 1.8% to $61.93 in New York as the broader market tumbled. They have lost 29% of their value over the past 12 months, dragged down by slow growth and profit declines. Some investors may be disappointed that the cuts aren’t deeper, said Brian Yarbrough, an analyst with Edward Jones. “I don’t think this is enough to move the needle,” he said. “I think they need to exit some markets totally and close a lot more than they are closing.”

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“The endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun.”

A New Year Of Turmoil For China (WaPo)

A year ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared to be living what he called the “Chinese Dream.” China’s economy seemed strong, its military power was growing and Xi was aggressively consolidating domestic political power. But Xi is off to a bad new year. The Chinese economy is slowing sharply, with actual gross domestic product growth last year now estimated by U.S. analysts at several points below the official rate of 6.5%. The Chinese stock market has fallen 15% this year, and the value of its currency has slipped. Capital flight continues, probably at the $1 trillion annual rate estimated for the second half of last year. But China’s economic woes are manageable compared with its domestic political difficulties. Xi’s anti-corruption drive has accelerated into a full-blown purge.

The campaign has rocked the Chinese intelligence service, toppled some senior military commanders and frightened Communist Party leaders around the country. Jittery party officials are lying low, avoiding decisions that might get them in trouble; the resulting paralysis makes other problems worse. “Xi is in an unprecedentedly powerful position. But because he has dismantled the tools of collective leadership that had been built up over decades, he owns this crisis,” said Kurt Campbell, who was the Obama administration’s top Asia expert until 2013. He worries that Xi will “double down” on his nationalistic push for greater power in Asia, which is one of the few themes that can unite the country. “To scale back shows weakness, which Xi can ill afford now,” Campbell said.

Chinese sometimes use historical parables to explain current domestic political issues. The talk recently among some members of the Chinese elite has been a comparison between Xi’s tenure and that of Yongzheng, the emperor who ruled China from 1722 to 1735. Yongzheng waged a harsh campaign against bribery, but he came to be seen by many Chinese as a despot who had gained power illegitimately. “A lot of historical events of that period are repeating in China today, from power conspiracy to corruption, from a deteriorating economy to an external hostility threat,” one Chinese observer said in an email. Xi’s political troubles illustrate the difficulty of trying to reform a one-party system from within.

Much as Mikhail Gorbachev hoped in the 1980s that reforms could revitalize a decaying Soviet Communist Party, Xi began his presidency in 2013 by attacking Chinese party barons who had grown rich and comfortable on the spoils of China’s economic boom. Many of Xi’s rivals were proteges of former President Jiang Zemin, which meant that Xi made some powerful enemies. David Shambaugh, a China scholar at George Washington University, was an outlier when he argued in March that Xi’s reform campaign would backfire. “Despite appearances, China’s political system is badly broken, and nobody knows it better than the Communist Party itself,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “The endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun.”

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The USD is the only possible winner.

Currency War Revival Seen After Yen, Euro Rally (BBG)

A flare-up in the global currency war is looming, as a resurgent yen and euro threaten to give policy makers in Japan and Europe an incentive to add monetary stimulus. Japan’s currency advanced versus the dollar for the third time in four weeks, while the euro climbed versus most of its peers. Hedge funds lifted bets on yen strength to the highest in more than three years, and pared wagers against the European common currency. The greenback suffered as sentiment cooled for further currency-supportive interest-rate increases in the U.S. amid sustained market volatility and weaker-than-forecast domestic economic data.

A growing divergence in U.S. growth and monetary policy versus the rest of the world has stalled amid signs the American economy can’t wholly escape a slowdown in China and a patchy recovery elsewhere. That’s weighing on the dollar, while stymieing the economic goals of the Bank of Japan and ECB, which benefit when their currencies depreciate. Further monetary easing is on the cards if the yen strengthens beyond 115 per dollar and the euro gains toward $1.15, according to Lee Ferridge, head of macro strategy for North America at State Street Global Markets. “The currency war is still alive and well,” Ferridge said. “If the dollar starts to suffer, then the ECB or the BOJ come back into play.”

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$23 billion lost in 2015. How much worse could not acting have been?

One Year On, ‘Franckenschock’ Still Hurts Swiss (CNBC)

The Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) decision to scrap its cap on the franc against the euro a year ago today shocked markets and sent the country’s currency rocketing 30%. One year on, the franc is still high, 10% up against the euro, and export-focused Switzerland is still feeling the pain. Looking back at the SNB’s shock move James Watson, MD for UK and Europe at ADS Securities, told CNBC “a lot of people were caught in the headlights.” Hashtags such as #Francogeddon and #Franckenschock were soon trending on Twitter. The decision to impose a maximum value on the franc – the cap had been in place at 1.20 franc per euro since 2011 when investors seeking a safe haven amid the turmoil created by the euro zone debt crisis pushed the franc higher – was made to help Swiss exporters compete.

Switzerland’s goods exports grew by 3.5% in 2014, exceeding the record set in 2008. After the cap was lifted, Swiss exports weakened in the first 11 months of 2015, down 3% according to Swiss Customs Office data, although they picked up to growth of 1% in November. Swiss watch sales – the country exports iconic luxury brands such as Hublot and LVMH’s Tag Heuer – remain depressed and recorded their worst November in five years. “I don’t think the SNB really thought about what the effect would be of what they did,” Watson said. The SNB argued that recent falls in the currency meant that maintaining the peg was no longer justifiable. Analysts have also argued the SNB removed the peg for political reasons. The expected introduction of quantitative easing by the ECB at the time also meant that defending the level against an even weaker euro would have required yet more intervention.

Watson believes the central bank took the approach of stimulating the economy, but “maybe they didn’t give it as much thought as they could have”. While it has been painful for exporters, the strong franc has also made imports cheaper. Inflation for 2015 is forecast at –1.1%. Domestic demand looks set to remain robust, according to the bank, which expects growth of approximately 1.5% this year. For 2015, the SNB anticipates growth of just under 1% in Switzerland. Unemployment stood at 4.9% in the third quarter of 2015, according to the ILO, still well below the 6.3% recorded in November in neighbor Germany. The central bank has also indicated that it is prepared to take measures to curb the strength of the franc. The currency, which has weakened in recent months to trade at about 1.09 euros, is still “considerably” overvalued according to the SNB. Vice chairman Fritz Zurbrügg said in speech earlier this week “business as usual is still a long way off”.

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Servitude.

America’s Student-Debt Crisis Is Only Getting Worse (MW)

It’s getting harder and harder to graduate college without taking on student loans. Nearly 70% of bachelor’s degree recipients leave school with debt, according to the White House, and that could have major consequences for the economy. Research indicates that the $1.2 trillion in student loan debt may be preventing Americans,from making the kinds of big purchases that drive economic growth, like house and cars, and reaching other milestones, such as having the ability to save for retirement or move out of mom and dad’s basement. This student debt crisis has become so huge it’s even captured the attention of presidential candidates who are searching for ways to make college more affordable amid an environment of dwindling state funding for higher education and rising college costs. But meanwhile, the approximately 40 million Americans with student debt have to find ways to manage it.

[..] A few numbers to consider (and some that bear repeating):
• The total outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. is $1.2 trillion, that’s the second-highest level of consumer debt behind only mortgages. Most of that is loans held by the federal government.
• About 40 million Americans hold student loans and about 70% of bachelor’s degree recipients graduate with debt.
• The class of 2015 graduated with $35,051 in student debt on average, according to Edvisors, a financial aid website, the most in history.
• One in four student loan borrowers are either in delinquency or default on their student loans, according the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Over the past few decades a variety of factors coalesced to make student debt an almost-universal American experience. For one, state investment in higher education dwindled and colleges made up the difference by raising tuition. At the same time, financial aid hasn’t kept up with tuition growth. In the 1980s, the maximum Pell Grant — the money the federal money gives to low-income students to attend college — covered more than half the cost of a four-year public school, according to The Institute for College Access and Success, a think tank focused on college affordability. Now, it covers less than one-third the cost.

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18 months after MH-17 was shot down, it has become a full-tard propaganda tool for the west. There’s zero respect for the victims and their families.

MH-17’s Unnecessary Mystery (Robert Parry)

[..] despite the flimsiness of the “blame-Russia-for-MH-17” case in July 2014, the Obama administration’s rush to judgment proved critical in whipping up the European press to demonize President Vladimir Putin, who became the Continent’s bete noire accused of killing 298 innocent people. That set the stage for the EU to accede to U.S. demands for economic sanctions on Russia. The MH-17 case was deployed like a classic piece of “strategic communication” or “Stratcom,” mixing propaganda with psychological operations to put an adversary at a disadvantage. Apparently satisfied with that result, the Obama administration stopped talking publicly, leaving the impression of Russian guilt to corrode Moscow’s image in the public mind.

But the intelligence source who spoke to me several times after he received additional briefings about advances in the investigation said that as the U.S. analysts gained more insights into the MH-17 shoot-down from technical and other sources, they came to believe the attack was carried out by a rogue element of the Ukrainian military with ties to a hard-line Ukrainian oligarch. But that conclusion – if made public – would have dealt another blow to America’s already shaky credibility, which has never recovered from the false Iraq-WMD claims in 2002-03. A reversal also would embarrass Kerry, other senior U.S. officials and major Western news outlets, which had bought into the Russia-did-it narrative. Plus, the EU might reconsider its decision to sanction Russia, a key part of U.S. policy in support of the Kiev regime.

Still, as the MH-17 mystery dragged on into 2015, I inquired about the possibility of an update from the DNI’s office. But a spokeswoman told me that no update would be provided because the U.S. government did not want to say anything to prejudice the ongoing investigation. In response, I noted that Kerry and the DNI had already done that by immediately pointing the inquiry in the direction of blaming Russia and the rebels. But there was another purpose in staying mum. By refusing to say anything to contradict the initial rush to judgment, the Obama administration could let Western mainstream journalists and “citizen investigators” on the Internet keep Russia pinned down with more speculation about its guilt in the MH-17 shoot-down. So, silence became the better part of candor. After all, pretty much everyone in the West had judged Russia and Putin guilty. So, why shake that up?

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PCBs ware phased out decades ago.

Toxic Chemicals In Scottish Waters Wiping Out Killer Whales (Scotsman)

Killer whales could vanish from Scottish waters as a result of the lingering effects of toxic chemicals banned more than 30 years ago, according to new international research. Scientists say European seas are a global hotspot of contamination from man-made polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which weaken the immune systems of whales and dolphins and seriously affect their reproduction. The seas around the Hebrides are home to the UK’s only known resident killer whales, known as the West Coast Community. Only eight are left in the pod, after a female died earlier this month. But experts at the international conservation charity, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), say the group will go extinct in the future as no young have been recorded in more than 20 years.

And other killer whale and dolphin populations around Europe face the same fate. The researchers suggest a failure to breed could be down to high levels of man-made PCBs building up in the animals body fat. “The long life-expectancy and position as apex or top marine predators make species like killer whales and bottlenose dolphins particularly vulnerable to the accumulation of PCBs through marine food webs”, said Dr Paul Jepson, a wildlife vet at ZSL and lead author of the study. “Few coastal orca populations remain in western European waters. Those that do persist are very small and suffering low or zero rates of reproduction. The risk of extinction therefore appears high for these discrete and highly contaminated populations.”

“Without further measures, these chemicals will continue to suppress populations of orcas and other dolphin species for many decades to come.” Dr Jepson’s team will analyse samples taken from the West Coast killer whale known as Lulu, who died recently after entanglement in fishing gear. “This Scottish population feeds on seals, so PCB exposure through diet will be much higher than for killer whales that only eat fish”, he said. “I think the group will, very regrettably, become extinct. Like any animal population, once you stop reproducing you will eventually die out.” But killer whales are very long-lived animals -at least one adult female has lived to over 100 years old in the wild- so local extinction can still take a long time to play out.

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Why the EU must be disbanded.

Baby Found Dead On Greece Migrant Boat (AP)

Greek authorities say a baby has been found dead after a boat full of migrants reached the small eastern Aegean Sea island of Farmakonissi, while 63 people were picked up alive. The incident raises to four the number of deaths that Greek authorities recorded Friday, as migrants continue to make the short but dangerous sea crossing from nearby Turkey to Greeces Aegean islands despite the winter weather. Earlier, three children drowned and 20 people were rescued when another boat carrying migrants foundered off the islet of Agathonissi.

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