Jul 292018
 


Pablo Picasso The old guitarist 1903-4

 

What the GDP Report Won’t Tell You About the Economy (DDMB)
Julian Assange Looks For Deal To End ‘Diplomatic Isolation’ (CNN)
In Refusing To Defend Assange, Mainstream Media Exposes Its True Nature (CJ)
Round the Bend (Jim Kunstler)
David Cameron’s Welfare Cuts Led Directly To The Brexit Vote (Ind.)
An Open Letter to Bernie Sanders: ‘No Bernie, It Wasn’t the Russians’ (MPN)
Putin Calls Christianity Foundation Of Russian State (AP)
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (Star)
Nature’s Darkness-Creature Has Become Ours, Too (G.)
Migrant Arrivals Push Shelters To Breaking Point In Southern Spain (El Pais)
Number Of Fatalities In Greek Wildfires Rises To 88 (K.)

 

 

GDP may look strong, but sentiments are crumbling.

What the GDP Report Won’t Tell You About the Economy (DDMB)

Something is amiss in Corporate America. Both national and regional surveys reveal a sinking sense that the economy’s tailwinds are shifting to headwinds. The downtrodden confidence is a curiosity given many economists’ forecasts calling for second-quarter growth to have accelerated to a 4.2 percent annualized rate, the fastest since 2014. Soft though the survey data may be, the numbers don’t lie. If something doesn’t give – and fast – what follows is sure to be damaging to the real economy. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey for July revealed that the business outlook had slumped to the lowest level in over two years.

Odds are pretty good this number was dragged down by those with the highest incomes, many of whom are likely also business owners and corporate executives who’ve been on the front line of the rising costs to run their businesses. But there may be more than meets the eye among those whose incomes rank in the top third of households. While the majority of these respondents expressed concern over the tariffs, what they’re reading, hearing and seeing may be dampening their outlooks even further. As things stand, it’s as if January never happened, a month in which confidence was so high, the “news heard” among high income earners hit a 20-year high. By the beginning of July, “news heard” had slid to minus 18, the lowest in two years.

The six-month, 79-point swing is so severe it rivals August 2011, when the euro crisis shook world markets, Standard & Poor’s stripped the U.S. of its AAA credit rating and households were rattled by the debt ceiling debacle. [..] Consider the starting point for many companies. Last year’s weak dollar and natural disasters had many struggling to satisfy overseas demands and the massive needs required to rebuild. Labor and raw material costs were already on the rise to correct for the imbalances. The tariffs were the insult to injury many manufacturers could simply not afford.

“The actual economic impact will really come down to time,” cautioned Boockvar. “The longer this goes on, the more actual business activity will be negatively affected.” To Boockvar’s point, the collapse in business sentiment suggests many companies don’t foresee the ability to withstand further blows to their ability to profitably conduct business. Businesses are saying as much.

Read more …

Unbelievable garbage from CNN. That they pay attention to Assange now may be a ominous sign. They straight-faced claim that Assange fled rape allegations in Sweden. He did not. Sweden told him he was free to go to London. Only to turn around and issue a warrant for him.

Julian Assange Looks For Deal To End ‘Diplomatic Isolation’ (CNN)

Julian Assange walked into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on June 19, 2012 to claim political asylum. He has been there ever since – a total of 2,230 days – rarely seeing daylight. But multiple sources say his situation is now untenable and he may soon leave, whether he wants to or not. The question is: what will happen to Assange as and when he does walk out of his bolt-hole around the corner from Harrods? The recent indictments issued by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller imply that Assange and WikiLeaks were a conduit for Russian intelligence in distributing hacked Democratic Party emails in 2016. According to the indictment document, “The conspirators (…) discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with Organisation 1 to heighten their impact.”

Assange has always maintained that he did not receive them from the Russian government. He told Fox News in January 2017: “Our source is not the Russian government, and it is not a state party.” A member of Assange’s legal team, Jennifer Robinson, told CNN this week: “WikiLeaks has made very clear they were not engaged in any way with the Russian state with respect to that publication. There is no connection between WikiLeaks and any of those who have been indicted.” His lawyers argue that all Assange did was publish the hacked emails, as did other media, after being in contact with a hacker called Guccifer 2.0. The Special Counsel alleges that Guccifer 2.0 was a cover for Russian intelligence, saying in the indictment that on July 14th [2016], Guccifer 2.0 sent WikiLeaks an encrypted attachment that contained “instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC documents.”

Whether a sealed indictment awaits Assange in relation to the Russian hacking investigation is unknown. But according to US officials, charges have been drawn up relating to previous WikiLeaks disclosures of classified US documents. Assange would face arrest if/when he leaves the embassy because he skipped bail in 2012 – when Swedish authorities were seeking his extradition to face accusations of rape. Last year Sweden suspended the investigation, but Assange’s lawyers fear his arrest would be swiftly followed by a US extradition request. Assange maintains his innocence.

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This feels like too little too late. We know all this, we have for a long time. And it’s worse: as I wrote in May in I am Julian Assange, the Guardian engaged in an active smear campaign against Assange then. So does CNN -see above. That’s much more relevant than that they don’t defend him.

In Refusing To Defend Assange, Mainstream Media Exposes Its True Nature (CJ)

Last Tuesday a top lawyer for the New York Times named David McCraw warned a room full of judges that the prosecution of Julian Assange for WikiLeaks publications would set a very dangerous precedent which would end up hurting mainstream news media outlets like NYT, the Washington Post, and other outlets which publish secret government documents. “I think the prosecution of him would be a very, very bad precedent for publishers,” McCraw said. “From that incident, from everything I know, he’s sort of in a classic publisher’s position and I think the law would have a very hard time drawing a distinction between The New York Times and WikiLeaks.” Do you know where I read about this? Not in the New York Times.

“Curiously, as of this writing, McCraw’s words have found no mention in the Times itself,” activist Ray McGovern wrote for the alternative media outlet Consortium News. “In recent years, the newspaper has shown a marked proclivity to avoid printing anything that might risk its front row seat at the government trough.” So let’s unpack that a bit. It is now public knowledge that the Ecuadorian government is actively seeking to turn Assange over to be arrested by the British government. This was initially reported by RT, then independently confirmed by The Intercept, and is today full mainstream public knowledge being reported by mainstream outlets like CNN.

It is also public knowledge that Assange’s asylum was granted by the Ecuadorian government due to a feared attempt to extradite him to the United States and prosecute him for WikiLeaks publications. Everyone from President Donald Trump to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to now-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to ranking House Intelligence Committee member Adam Schiff to Democratic members of the US Senate have made public statements clearly indicating that there is a US government interest in getting Assange out of the shelter of political asylum and into prison.

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The state of the media is something to behold. Can it slide even further? You bet.

Round the Bend (Jim Kunstler)

Some people you just can’t reason with, especially the hell-spawned man-beast who personally directed Russian “meddling” and “interference” in our election and stole certain victory from president-designee Hillary. (I know this because The New York Times and The Washington Post said so.) Another astonishment: in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US would not recognize Crimea as part of Russia and would demand the return of the region to Ukraine. Not to put too fine a point on it, Mr. Pompeo is pissing up a rope on that one. Russia will not give up its warm-water naval bases on the Black Sea anymore than the US will return its San Diego naval installation to Mexico, and Mr. Pompeo knows it.

So do the posturing idiots on the senate committee, who apparently forgot that our own government officials fomented the 2014 Ukrainian coup that prompted Russia to annex Crimea and its military assets in the first place. How many of you feel a gnawing disgust and contempt for both sides of the US political spectrum? The news, day and night, reveals a nation unable to think, unable to discern reality from fantasy, avid to dissemble and lie about absolutely everything, eager to support any racketeering operation designed to fleece its own citizens, and utterly ignoring the genuine problems that can drive us into a new dark age.

On balance, and just for now, I’m more disturbed by the side represented by the Democratic Party, aka the “progressives” or “the Resistance,” because they are responsible for politicizing the FBI before, during, and after the 2016 election and that was a dastardly act of institutional debauchery in an agency with the power to destroy the lives and careers of American citizens. The product of that corruption is a dangerous manufactured hysteria inciting hostility and aggression against another nation that could lead to a war that humanity will not recover from.

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Austerity leads to right wing support everywhere.

David Cameron’s Welfare Cuts Led Directly To The Brexit Vote (Ind.)

As the Brexit negotiations roll on, we do see some signs of progress. Our understanding of the underlying causes of the referendum outcome has developed significantly in the last two years. Leave-supporting areas can be easily distinguished from those supporting Remain. Broadly speaking, they are more deprived, have lower levels of income, fewer high status-jobs, a weaker economic structure, and an ageing demographic with lower levels of educational attainment. Further, non-economic factors have also been highlighted as important correlates of support for Brexit . But an open question to economists, though, is what are the economic origins of the relationships between these characteristics and support for Leave?

An important cross-cutting observation that has been made over and over again is that Leave-supporting areas stand out in having an electorate that has been “left behind”, is particularly reliant on the welfare state and is thus exposed to welfare cuts. In a recent paper, I show that austerity-induced reforms, including widespread cuts to the welfare state since 2010, were an important factor behind the decision of many people to shift their political support to UKIP and, subsequently, support Leave in the EU referendum.

The austerity-induced reforms of the welfare state, implemented in the years after 2010, were broad and deep. In 2013, it was estimated that the measures included in the Welfare Reform Act of 2012 would cost every working-age Briton, on average, around £400 per year. Crucially, the impact of the cuts was far from uniform across the UK: it varied from around £900 in Blackpool to just above £100 in the City of London. Aggregate figures suggest that overall government spending for welfare and protection contracted by 16 per cent in real per capita terms, reaching levels last seen in the early 2000s.

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What is Bernie thinking?

An Open Letter to Bernie Sanders: ‘No Bernie, It Wasn’t the Russians’ (MPN)

Let me preface this open letter of sorts that I’m writing to Senator Bernie Sanders. I’m not penning this missive as though I’m a crestfallen supporter, after falling for the okie doke in 2008 and waking up to the deception of Obama, I decided to stop putting my faith in politicians. Rather, I write this article on behalf of Bernie’s legions of supporters and the millions of Americans who put their faith in someone who spoke against the iniquities that are ravaging our nation and our planet as a whole. Bernie, it was your decision to speak against this consolidated graft that is cratering society that captured the imagination of the disaffected and gave people hope that their voices could be heard above the cash extortion that dominates our government.

Instead of continuing your rebellion against the establishment and speaking against the corrosive nature of our politics, you are charting a course towards irrelevance by jumping on this cockamamie #Russiagate narrative. Here is what I don’t get about your decision to glom on to this most ridiculous assertion that 12 Russians had more impact on our elections than the billions of dollars that are spent by corporations and plutocrats to bend elected officials like pretzels. The insinuation the punditry is making is that Americans were duped to vote against their own self-interests because they refused to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Never mind that Hillary was one of the most divisive and disliked politician to run for president in modern American history. Never mind that the DNC essentially rigged the primaries to ensure her victory at your expense. Instead of focusing on the structural and systematic flaws that render our votes irrelevant, fingers are pointed at a manufactured villain halfway around the world in order to distract from the fact that our elections have been hijacked by moneyed interests and entrenched leeches who are sucking the citizenry dry. Whatever efforts Russia might have made to influence our elections were outweighed by a kleptocracy that hacked down our democracy with dark money and self-centered politicians who put their interests above that of the people they purportedly serve.

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This one’s for you, bible belt.

Putin Calls Christianity Foundation Of Russian State (AP)

Vladimir Putin says that the adoption of Christianity more than 1,000 years in territory that later became Russia marked the starting point for forming Russia itself. Putin’s comments came Saturday in a ceremony marking the 1,030th anniversary of the adoption by Christianity by Prince Vladimir, the leader of Kievan Rus, a loose federation of Slavic tribes that preceded the Russian state. Speaking to a crowd of thousands of clergy and believers at a huge statue of the prince outside the Kremlin, Putin said adopting Christianity was “the starting point for the formation and development of Russian statehood, the true spiritual birth of our ancestors, the determination of their identity. Identity, the flowering of national culture and education.” The comments underline strong ties between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church.

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Book review. Hope the book itself is better. What social media do to people’s brains and social lives is far more relevant.

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (Star)

If you’re online these days, you likely sense that something’s wrong with the internet. You probably feel weird about how many times a day you check Facebook or Instagram, and likely a little uneasy about how annoyed or envious you feel when you do. Maybe the hostility online depresses you. Maybe you worry about the next generation, and how anxious they all seem. Maybe you’ve even considered deleting your accounts. This is exactly what Jaron Lanier, a leader in the tech world, says you should do. Right away. Lanier — a pioneer in the world of internet startups, and virtual reality in particular — has long been a critic of the Silicon Valley status quo. In this slim, highly-readable manifesto, he lays out his case against social media. And it is a devastating one.

In 10 simple arguments, the tech insider paints a picture of a wide-scale behaviour modification apparatus driven by social attention — both the carrot of approval and the stick of criticism, which generates the most intensity or “engagement.” “There is no evil genius seated in a cubicle in a social media company performing calculations and deciding that making people feel bad is more ‘engaging’ and therefore more profitable than making them feel good,” he writes. “Or at least, I’ve never met or heard of such a person. The prime directive to be engaging reinforces itself, and no one even notices that negative emotions are being amplified more than positive ones.”

According to Lanier, the social media apparatus has made people into lab rats, placing them under constant surveillance. He believes the process is making people angrier, more isolated, less empathetic, less informed about the world, and less able to support themselves financially. Add to all that: Lanier says this highly tuned behaviour modification system is for rent to anyone looking to influence the public. The constant stream of data, and the algorithms that tweak subsequent efforts to sway people, aren’t just used to sell soap, he notes, but to influence politics.

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Wonderful tale. But given the demise of insect numbers, bats must be under severe threat.

Nature’s Darkness-Creature Has Become Ours, Too (G.)

Here’s a flicker in the periphery. I notice it because of the way it moves; it’s a sort of fast fidget – staccato and angular in movement and path, like a movie projected at the wrong frame rate. It doesn’t swoop like a swallow, or bumble like a moth. The bat moves like a bat, and like nothing else. I’m sitting near my home under some trees, watching the coming night deepen the navy sky. The day has been airlessly hot, and with nightfall relief creeps into the air like a balm. Animals are out – I can hear twitches in the bushes behind me. Young frogs; hedgehogs maybe. Looking for water. Then I notice this bat. Seconds after I see it, I feel it pass so close that it makes my hair move, with it a split-second rustle of papery wings. I shiver.

Bats are just flying mice, people say, except they’re not, at all. Worldwide there are two main groups: Megachiroptera, big-eyed, placid-faced, small-eared – almost anthropomorphic, a man-bat; and Microchiroptera, the opposite. Nature’s darkness-creature has over time become ours, too. Their thorny outline is so conversant with the sinister that we nearly forget why. Light never catches them. They are opaque, darkly anonymous silhouettes into which humans project all manner of eerie ideas. Unwittingly, bats reinforce these with their habits. They haunt churches. Fly by night. Sleep subversively inverted. And the one far-flung species that feeds on blood bears the name “vampire” all too neatly.

This solitary bat flies about me in rapid loops. This one is maybe a noctule, or a pipistrelle. Catching insects perhaps. I worry that it will hit me but it won’t. It sees by echoing its sounds off nearby objects like aerial sonar, and it’s an excellent way to navigate. Those sounds are too high-pitched for the human ear to detect, and so to us, other than those wings, the bat makes no sound. None at all. I watch it. Bats need to catch air under their wings to fly. They can’t lift off like birds: they must drop. Their flight is a fall, arrested again and again with each frantic flap. That’s why they don’t move like anything else. Except, perhaps, a human trying to fly.

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And so the issue keeps shifting. But it doesn’t get resolved.

Migrant Arrivals Push Shelters To Breaking Point In Southern Spain (El Pais)

Shelters in the south of Spain are struggling to deal with a huge influx of migrants, many of whom are being left without a proper place to sleep. The arrivals – 1,300 in the past three days – have stretched services to their breaking point with the strain felt particularly hard in Algeciras as well as other municipalities along the coast of Andalusia. The number of undocumented migrants arriving in Spain has doubled since last year. Spain is now the main entry point into Europe, above Italy or Greece. But shelter services have been unable to keep up with the demand, leaving many migrants to sleep in overcrowded centers.

Up to 260 migrants spent the past two nights on the deck of a Maritime Rescue ship, more than 50 huddled together on a small courtyard of a police station in Algeciras, and 90 more jostled for a spot in the port of Barbate. Many more are left to wander the streets of towns like Medina Sidonia and Chiclana after spending the maximum legal 72-hour period in police custody. Immigration officials have traveled to Cádiz to look for a solution to what the Spanish government describes as a “collapse” of services. In a press release, the government said that 400 migrants had nowhere to go and blamed the problem on the former administration of Mariano Rajoy for its “lack of foresight.” “The number of arrivals has not stopped rising since 2017 but despite this nothing was done,” said a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry.

IN NUMBERS
• The number of people arriving by sea has tripled in the past year. Since the beginning of the year, 22,711 migrants have reached Spain, 19,586 by sea.
• Spain has overtaken Greece and Italy as the country which received the highest number of migrants.
• An average of 54 people arrived in Spain by sea each day in the first five months of 2018. That average has since shot up to 220 per day.
• Since the beginning of the year, 294 people have died trying to reach Spain – almost double the figure from the same period last year.

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Your donations are now also feeding the people in Mati, where conditions are really bad. I’ll have much more on the Automatic Earth for Athens Fund soon, many new and very positive developments, after a bit of a lull. More donations of course are needed and welcome.

Number Of Fatalities In Greek Wildfires Rises To 88 (K.)

A 42-year-old woman who was in intensive care after suffering extensive burns in the deadly wildfire that ripped through the coastal town of Mati in east Attica this week died early Saturday morning, raising the number of fatalities to 88. On Friday night, authorities also identified the bodies of the nine-year-old twin girls and their grandparents that went missing after the wildfires. Their bodies were among a group of victims recovered by emergency crews on Tuesday lying close together near the top of a cliff overlooking a beach. The news was reported on broadcaster SKAI by the private investigator the family had hired to find the children. It was confirmed by a reported friend of the family on his Facebook page.

The twins’ father had provided forensic authorities with a DNA sample and appeared on several TV stations seeking help in finding them. A total of 46 adult burn victims are being treated in hospitals in Athens, with nine of them in intensive care. Two children remain in hospital but authorities said their injuries are not life-threatening. Five days after the deadly blaze, there was still confusion over the number of those missing. The Athens Medical School’s Forensics and Toxicology Lab said it has conducted autopsies on 86 bodies, of which only 25 have been identified. As sources explained to Kathimerini, in the first 48 hours after the fires, several authorities wrote up lists of missing persons, which means the same people may have been recorded twice or more.

Since there was no official information on where relatives should report missing persons, police started separate investigations, when the relevant authority in this case would have been the fire service. On Saturday, Dimitra Lambarou, the deputy mayor of Marathonas, which has administrational jurisdiction over the majority of the devastated coastal town on Mati, said she is resigning over the deadly fires. “Since no-one else did it, I will,” she told broadcaster SKAI on Saturday. “I’m really ashamed for all those people who are in positions of responsibility,” she said and accused Marathonas mayor Ilias Psinakis of “not rising to the occasion.”

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Jul 012018
 


Giuseppe Leone Ragusa Sicily 1953

 

US Dollar Hegemony Tripped Up by Chinese Renminbi? Um, No (WS)
Even Eva Peron Would Be Crying… (ZH)
No Chance Of Brexit Deal By October Says EU (Ind.)
VW CEO Says Arrest Of Audi’s Stadler Hard To Comprehend (R.)
Trump Claims Saudi Arabia Has Agreed To Boost Oil Production Amid Turmoil (G.)
Trump Ally Giuliani Says End Is Near For Iran’s Rulers (R.)
The EU Is Killing Our Democratic Spaces Using Copyright As A Trojan Horse (OD)
Angela Merkel Secures Asylum Seeker Return Deals With 14 EU Countries (Ind.)
Hungary, Poland & Czech Republic Deny Sealing Migrant Deal With Merkel (RT)
EU’s New Refugee Policy Under Fire As Children Stuck In Limbo In Niger (G.)
End Of The Bailouts And Onto A Path To A New Bankruptcy (Economides)
Deluge Of Electronic Waste Turning Thailand Into ‘World’s Rubbish Dump’ (G.)
Bayer-Monsanto Partnership Signals Death Knell for Humanity (Bridge)

 

 

Rumors about the demise of the dollar are greatly…

US Dollar Hegemony Tripped Up by Chinese Renminbi? Um, No (WS)

Global central banks are not dumping US-dollar-denominated assets from their foreign exchange reserves. They’re not dumping euro-denominated assets either. And they remain leery of the Chinese renminbi – despite China’s place as the second largest economy in the world and despite all the hoopla of turning the renminbi into a major global reserve currency. This is clear from the IMF’s just released “Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves” (COFER) data for the first quarter 2018. The IMF is very stingy with what it discloses. The COFER data for each individual country – each country’s specific holdings of reserve currencies – is “strictly confidential.” But it does disclose the global allocation of each major currency.

In Q1 2018, total global foreign exchange reserves, including all currencies, rose 6.3% year-over-year, or by $878 billion, to $11.59 trillion, within the upper range of the past three years (from $10.7 trillion in Q4 2016 to $11.8 trillion in Q3, 2014). For reporting purposes, the IMF converts all currency balances into US dollars. This data was for Q1. The dollar bottomed out in the middle of the quarter and has since been rising. US-dollar-denominated assets among foreign exchange reserves continued to dominate in Q1 at $6.5 trillion, or 62.5% of “allocated” reserves (more on this “allocated” in a moment).

[..] The RMB is the thin red sliver in the pie chart below with a share of just 1.39% of allocated foreign exchange reserves. Minuscule as it is, it is the highest share ever, up from 1.2% in Q4 2017. In other words, its inclusion in the SDR basket hasn’t exactly performed miracles as central banks seem to remain leery of it and have not yet displayed any kind of eagerness to hold RMB-denominated assets.

[..] Note the term “allocated” reserves. Not all central banks disclose to the IMF how their overall foreign exchange reserves are allocated by specific currency. But over the years, more and more central banks have disclosed their holdings to the IMF, and the mystery portion has been shrinking. Back in Q4 2014, unallocated reserves – the undisclosed mystery portion – accounted for 41% of total reserves. In Q1, only 10.3% of the reserves remained undisclosed. [..] folks who’ve been eagerly anticipating “the death of the dollar” or similar scenarios will have to be very patient.

Since 1965, the dollar’s share has fluctuated sharply, and the current share of 62.5% remains in the middle of the range. The chart below shows the dollar’s share at year-end for each of the past 52 years, plus for Q1 2018. Note its low point in 1991 with a share of 46%. And note that the Financial Crisis made no visible dent:

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Don’t cry 4-3 Argentina.

Even Eva Peron Would Be Crying… (ZH)

The last 24 hours have not been great for Argentina. First – despite endless jawboning about The IMF bailout and how it will secure the nation’s future and enable reforms, the currency collapsed to a new record low on Friday…

Second – the central bank decided to step in with their newly minted IMF funds and blew over a billion dollars to buy pesos, managing a very modest bounce (but ARS still closed down 3% on the day)

Third – IMF officials spoke with Argentina’s union leaders, warning of the social impact of the ongoing disruptions. IMF spokesman Raphael Anspach confirmed Werner and Cardarelli’s participation in the call, which “reiterated the main elements of the IMF support to the government’s economic plans, including the measures aimed at supporting the most vulnerable in Argentine society.” And union officials told the media that The IMF was not worried about the ongoing collapse: “They are betting on a virtuous behavior by private investors, with the economy falling in the third and fourth quarters of 2018, but rebounding 1.5% in the first quarter of 2019” “They were not worried about the flight of capital”

Fourth, and finally, and perhaps worst of all – Argentina is now out of The World Cup. A nation mourns.

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The British people don’t seem to have a clue what this means.

No Chance Of Brexit Deal By October Says EU (Ind.)

EU negotiators have abandoned all hope that a Brexit deal will be signed with the UK at October’s European Council summit, The Independent has learned. Brussels officials said a complete standstill in talks with Britain means securing settlements on major outstanding issues in the remaining three-and-a-half months is fanciful. They point to the political logjam in Theresa May’s government as the obstacle blocking negotiations, piling pressure on the prime minister to break the deadlock this week. She is set to meet her full cabinet on Friday at Chequers for a meeting that may go late into the night, in a bid to finally thrash out the government’s approach to post-Brexit relations with the EU.

The EU officials were speaking after last week’s European Council summit which saw the bloc focus on tackling immigration from north Africa, while warning Ms May that time to secure a deal is now running out. One Brussels insider said: “There is no hope really for October now. We don’t know exactly what she is asking for yet, so how can there be? “First the UK needs to decide what it wants, then there needs to be a discussion here and even if it is acceptable, there are processes that have to take place first before everyone agrees to move forward.” Another source close to the European Commission told The Independent: “Now we are looking at December as a more likely option, but there are questions about how much time that leaves for the deal to be ratified in time before March.”

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VW owns Audi.

VW CEO Says Arrest Of Audi’s Stadler Hard To Comprehend (R.)

The CEO of Volkswagen, Herbert Diess, told a German newspaper the arrest of Audi head Rupert Stadler was a shock and hard to comprehend. VW has suspended Stadler, head of VW’s most profitable brand, after German authorities arrested him as part of an emissions probe. “It was a massive shock for me. The arrest of a CEO of a major car brand: that’s never happened before,” Diess told Germany newspaper Bild am Sonntag. “The arrest is hard to comprehend. I knew Rupert Stadler as a problem solver,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Diess said that for him, Stadler was innocent until proven guilty. Stadler, who has not made any public comment, has not been charged and prosecutors are set to continue questioning him next week. Asked whether he could imagine Stadler returning, Diess said it depended on what facts emerge: “Should the accusations of the state prosecutors prove to be true, then it’s a clear decision.”

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2 millions barrels a day in spare capacity? Don’t think so. He may have to ask Putin to join in.

Trump Claims Saudi Arabia Has Agreed To Boost Oil Production Amid Turmoil (G.)

Donald Trump said on Saturday he had received assurances from King Salman of Saudi Arabia that the kingdom would increase oil production “maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels”, in response to turmoil in Iran and Venezuela. Saudi Arabia acknowledged the call took place, but mentioned no production targets. Trump wrote on Twitter that he had asked the king in a phone call to increase oil production “to make up the difference … Prices to [sic] high! He has agreed!” A little over an hour later, the state-run Saudi Press Agency acknowledged the call, but offered few details. “During the call, the two leaders stressed the need to make efforts to maintain the stability of oil markets and the growth of the global economy,” the statement said.

It added that there also was an understanding that oil-producing countries would need “to compensate for any potential shortage of supplies”. It did not elaborate. Oil prices have edged higher as the Trump administration has pushed US allies to end all purchases of oil from Iran. Prices have also risen given ongoing unrest in Venezuela, as well as with fighting in Libya over control of that country’s oil infrastructure. Last week, members of the OPEC cartel led by Saudi Arabia agreed to pump 1m barrels more crude oil per day, a move that should help contain the recent rise in global energy prices. However, summer months in the US usually lead to increased demand for oil, which would push up the price of gasoline in a midterm election year. A gallon of regular gasoline sold on average in the US for $2.85, up from $2.23 a gallon last year.

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But Putin.

Trump Ally Giuliani Says End Is Near For Iran’s Rulers (R.)

U.S. President Donald Trump will suffocate Iran’s “dictatorial ayatollahs”, his close ally Rudy Giuliani said on Saturday, suggesting his move to re-impose sanctions was aimed squarely at regime change. The former New York mayor who is now Trump’s personal lawyer, was addressing a conference of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella bloc of opposition groups in exile that seek an end to Shi’ite Muslim clerical rule in Iran. “I can’t speak for the president, but it sure sounds like he doesn’t think there is much of a chance of a change in behavior unless there is a change in people and philosophy,” Giuliani told Reuters in an interview.

“We are the strongest economy in the world … and if we cut you off then you collapse,” he said, pointing to protests in Iran. In May, Trump withdrew the United States from a 2015 international deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting some sanctions. Trump supporters have spoken at NCRI events in the past, including national security adviser John Bolton, who, before taking his post at the same conference last July, told the group’s members they would be ruling Iran before 2019 and their goal should be regime change. Bolton said in May that the administration’s policy was to make sure Iran never got nuclear weapons and not regime change.

In Tehran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Trump would fail in any attempt to turn the Iranian people against the ruling system. “They bring to bear economic pressure to separate the nation from the system … but six U.S. presidents before him (Trump) tried this and had to give up,” Khamenei said on his website.

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From DiEM 25 members: “..a tool to control speech, expression, criticism and increase the surveillance levels imposed on all EU citizens.

The EU Is Killing Our Democratic Spaces Using Copyright As A Trojan Horse (OD)

Europe was one of the regions that connected massively to the Internet. Not only that, it was one of the few adopting literacy and inclusion programs early enough on to unleash the power of connected citizens, showing them how to create new business models and improve education but also how to express themselves, create, organize and protest. But alarmingly, the European Parliament is on the verge of a dramatic change of direction. The EU has recently embarked on a new mission: controlling the Internet through the monopoly of copyright. This attempt to reform and control the Internet has not received half the attention it deserves.

As Julia Reda, MEP for the Pirate Party, has explained, the current project of EU legislation would impose automatic filters that control ANY content that anyone wants to upload. The reason would be the protection of copyright, a monopoly right that primarily benefits large media behemoths, without any possibility of advance verification. You read that right: the EU wants to put in place a global censorship machine, on the basis of unverifiable monopoly rights, mostly held by large media corporations. In DiEM25, we do not see this as just an outdated law, isolated from current politics. Indeed, that is precisely what is most worrying about it.

We cannot see it as unconnected to the big push in Europe by authoritarian leaders wanting to restrict, to truly shrink the spaces of civil society. Increasing censorship online will reduce the ability of citizens to say what they think, filtering content before it is published. This will not only harm speech but increase surveillance and the meting out of punishments for things we say online. This is combined with all the existing online state surveillance already endured by EU citizens, which remains as powerful as ever. With dismay, we are witnessing now an open boycott of the democratic achievement of a connected Europe. The European Parliament Legal Committee has just given the green light to a law that will be a tool to control speech, expression, criticism and increase the surveillance levels imposed on all EU citizens.

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It’s all and only about Save Angela now. Not about the refugees.

Angela Merkel Secures Asylum Seeker Return Deals With 14 EU Countries (Ind.)

Angela Merkel has reportedly secured agreements with 14 European Union countries to rapidly return some asylum seekers arriving in Germany. The chancellor is seeking to end a divide in her coalition government over a migration policy that has attracted ire from immigration hardliners. Ms Merkel has said she also wants to establish “anchor centres” to process migrants at Germany’s borders, the DPA news agency reported on Saturday. The announcements came in a letter Ms Merkel wrote to leaders of her Christian Democratic Union’s Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, as well as to her junior coalition government partner, the Social Democrats, after she attended a two-day EU summit in Brussels.

Ms Merkel on Friday came away from an EU summit with agreements from Greece and Spain to take back migrants previously registered in those countries, and an overall agreement by the 28-nation bloc to ease the pressures of migration into Europe. In the eight-page letter obtained Saturday by DPA, the chancellor said that she had also secured agreement with half of the EU nations to return migrants to them if they had first registered in those countries. The countries included Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, which have all been harsh critics of Ms Merkel’s welcoming stance to migrants, as well as Belgium, France, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.

In addition, the chancellor threw her support behind establishing large collection centres in Germany for migrants as their cases are processed. DPA reported the centres would be used for migrants who attempt to bypass border controls and for those whose cases don’t fall under bilateral return agreements.

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And so she stretches the truth a little here and there. Save Angela.

Hungary, Poland & Czech Republic Deny Sealing Migrant Deal With Merkel (RT)

Three EU countries have denied reaching any final agreement with Germany on the return of migrants to the country of entry, despite Angela Merkel’s claim she’d received “political consent” from 14 EU nations to strike such a deal. “No such deal has been reached,” spokesman for Hungary’s government Zoltan Kovacs said, adding that Budapest has repeatedly rejected German attempts to “return” migrants to their first country of entry into the EU. Similar statements have been produced by Poland and the Czech Republic, which also denied reaching any agreements on the matter. “There are no any new agreements regarding the reception of asylum seekers from EU countries, we confirm (that), like the Czech Republic and Hungary,” Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Artur Lompart said.

Earlier on Saturday, media reported that, during the EU summit, 14 European countries, including some outspoken opponents of German Chancellor’s ‘open door’ policy, had allegedly “consented on a political level” to make a deal on taking migrants back. The document on the deal has been sent by Merkel to her coalition partners, according to Reuters. “At the moment, Dublin repatriations from Germany succeed in only 15% of cases,” the document says, as quoted by Reuters. “We will sign administrative agreements with various member states… to speed the repatriation process and remove obstacles.”

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But Save Angela.

EU’s New Refugee Policy Under Fire As Children Stuck In Limbo In Niger (G.)

Stop people in Africa, before they get anywhere near the Mediterranean, and sort them into refugees and migrants there, only allowing the refugees to continue to Europe. This was the big idea that came out of last week’s EU migration summit. But campaigners say the predicament of 260 children stuck in limbo in Niger demonstrates that there is no guarantee EU countries would eventually take the refugees, even if African countries agreed to this arrangement. In November, amid horrific tales of Africans being enslaved, imprisoned and tortured in Libya, Niger agreed to act as a halfway house for refugees that UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, had identified and could get out.

Evacuated from detention camps in Libya, the unaccompanied minors are among 1,200 people waiting in Niger for resettlement. Mainly aged 14 to 17, they were all in detention, and most are deeply traumatised by the violence they experienced and witnessed there. But so far no country has agreed to take them. “In Europe we have been talking a lot about legal pathways,” said UNHCR’s representative in Niger, Alessandra Morelli. “If we want to combat trafficking, if people in need of international protection, who fit the profile of asylum seekers, get out of that flow, I have to offer an alternative. Otherwise, what are we talking about here? But when I take them out I have no alternative. You see? This is our fight.” About 54,000 refugees and asylum seekers have been identified in Libya, but no more can leave until the 1,200 in Niger have been processed.

[..] One aspect of the migration deal reached on Friday looked to fall apart before it had even begun: four European countries – Austria, France, Germany and Italy – said they would not open “controlled centres” to assess asylum claims of people who had been rescued from the Mediterranean. At the same time they are asking some of the world’s poorest and least secure countries to do what Europe will not.

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“Is there a solution for Greece? Yes, but it is in quite the opposite direction of the EU and IMF plans this far.”

End Of The Bailouts And Onto A Path To A New Bankruptcy (Economides)

Last week’s Eurogroup set up the final conditions for the end of the third Greek bailout program in August. Since 2010, Greece has borrowed 275 billion euros from European Union countries and the IMF. Greece also shed 100 billion euros of private debt in an agreement with the borrowers in 2012. However, present debt is still over 300 billion euros for an economy of officially 185 billion GDP (plus 30% unaccounted illegal income). Thus, debt to gross domestic product remains extremely high. Even though the borrowing is over, the EU and the IMF have imposed new long-term austerity conditions on the Greek economy, including additional sharp pension decreases and the requirement that Greece produces a 3.5% of GDP budget surplus.

To achieve this, the government has imposed skyrocketing taxes including a 24% value-added tax (and plans to increase taxes to those making as little as 6,000 euros a year). Taxes suck out all the extra cash businesses and people have. Investment has plummeted, and consumption is 25% lower than a few years ago. Unemployment is at 23% but this number is misleadingly low because those working only two days a week are considered employed. With huge taxes and a business-unfriendly bureaucracy, Greece is unlikely to attract investment and will not achieve fast growth. Without growth, the country will be unable to pay back its debt in full despite a 10-year postponement of maturities on one-third of its debt granted by the EU last Thursday.

[..] Is there a solution for Greece? Yes, but it is in quite the opposite direction of the EU and IMF plans this far. Greece needs to achieve fast growth, 4-5% per year, for five years, and start paying its debt after that. To achieve high growth, the country needs to abandon the multi-year 3.5% surplus target for the much more reasonable 1.5-2% target. With lower surpluses, lower taxes and less bureaucracy, Greece will be able to attract investment and realize high growth. Once it has achieved high growth and its economy has expanded, only then will Greece start paying its debt, and it will be able to pay its debt in full over time.

Instead, the EU/IMF plan forces the country to create huge surpluses when its economy is hurting, thereby driving it in a downward spiral. Imposing the requirement of large surpluses now is catastrophic and forces Greece to take a path of low or zero growth and misery. Greece will never be able to pay back its debt in full on this path.

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They seem to be waking up. But then it’ll all just go to a poorer place.

Deluge Of Electronic Waste Turning Thailand Into ‘World’s Rubbish Dump’ (G.)

At a deserted factory outside Bangkok, skyscrapers made from vast blocks of crushed printers, Xbox components and TVs tower over black rivers of smashed-up computer screens. This is a tiny fraction of the estimated 50m tonnes of electronic waste created just in the EU every year, a tide of toxic rubbish that is flooding into south-east Asia from the EU, US and Japan. Thailand, with its lax environmental laws, has become a dumping ground for this e-waste over the past six months, but authorities are clamping down, fearful that the country will become the “rubbish dump of the world”. The global implications could be enormous.

A factory visited by the Guardian in Samut Prakan province, south of Bangkok, which was recently shut down in a raid for operating illegally, illustrated the mammoth scale of the problem. Printers made by Dell and HP, Daewoo TVs and Apple computer drives were stacked sky-high next to precarious piles of compressed keyboards, routers and copy machines. Labels showed the waste had mainly come from abroad. For locals, it is unclear why Thailand should be taking this waste. The Samut Prakan factory sits in the middle of hundreds of shrimp farms and there were concerns it was poisoning the landscape, with no environmental protections or oversight in place.

Until the beginning of this year, China was a willing recipient of the world’s electronic waste, which it recycled in vast factories. According to the UN, 70% of all electronic waste was ending up in China. But in January, having calculated that the environmental impact far outweighed the short-term profit, China closed its gates to virtually all foreign rubbish. It has prompted something of a global crisis, not just for e-waste but plastic waste as well. Asian nations such as Thailand, Laos and Cambodia stepped in. Chinese businessmen have set about attempting to open about 100 plastic and e-waste recycling plants across Thailand since January.

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“Like a Hollywood villain falling into a crucible of molten steel only to turn up later in some altered state, Monsanto has been subsumed under the Orwellian-sounding ‘Bayer Crop Science’ division..”

Bayer-Monsanto Partnership Signals Death Knell for Humanity (Bridge)

On what plane of reality is it possible that two of the world’s most morally bankrupt corporations, Bayer and Monsanto, can be permitted to join forces in what promises to be the next stage in the takeover of the world’s agricultural and medicinal supplies? Warning, plot spoiler: There is no Mr. Hyde side in this horror story of epic proportions; it’s all Dr. Jekyll. Like a script from a David Lynch creeper, Bayer AG of poison gas fame has finalized its $66 billion purchase of Monsanto, the agrochemical corporation that should be pleading the Fifth in the dock on Guantanamo Bay instead of enjoying what amounts to corporate asylum and immunity from crimes against humanity. Such are the special privileges that come from being an above-the-law transnational corporation.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing Bayer did after taking on Monsanto, saddled as it is with the extra baggage of ethic improprieties, was to initiate a rebrand campaign. Like a Hollywood villain falling into a crucible of molten steel only to turn up later in some altered state, Monsanto has been subsumed under the Orwellian-sounding ‘Bayer Crop Science’ division, whose motto is: “Science for a better life.” Yet Bayer itself provides little protective cover for Monsanto considering its own patchy history of corporate malfeasance. Far beyond its widely known business of peddling pain relief for headaches, the German-based company played a significant role in the introduction of poison gas on the battlefields of World War I.

Despite a Hague Convention ban on the use of chemical weapons since 1907, Bayer CEO Carl Duisberg, who sat on a special commission set up by the German Ministry of War, knew a business opportunity when he saw one. Duisberg witnessed early tests of poison gas and had nothing but glowing reports on the horrific new weapon: “The enemy won’t even know when an area has been sprayed with it and will remain quietly in place until the consequences occur.” Bayer, which built a department specifically for the research and development of gas agents, went on to develop increasingly lethal chemical weapons, such as phosgene and mustard gas. “This phosgene is the meanest weapon I know,” Duisberg remarked with a stunning disregard for life, as if he were speaking about the latest bug spray. “I strongly recommend that we not let the opportunity of this war pass without also testing gas grenades.”

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Jun 262018
 


Juan de la Corte (1597–1660) Lot And His Daughters Escaping From The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah

 

There is no migration crisis, said an article in Toronto’s Globe and Mail a few days ago. French President Emmanuel Macron followed up over the weekend with “there is no migrant crisis”. Really? If this is not a crisis, what is? Yes, numbers of refugees landing in Europe are down from 2015. But it’s not a numbers game. It’s about people.

If Angela Merkel’s political career is forced to a close next week because the EU cannot agree on a unified refugee policy, will they call it a crisis then? Oh wait, both Macron and the G&M agree that there is a crisis, just not a migration one. No, “the crisis is political opportunism”.

But can the crisis be placed squarely on Trump and Italy’s Salvini, or is perhaps what led to their popularity partly to blame for that popularity? Salvini didn’t bomb Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, nor did Trump cause the mayhem in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, which is where most migrants come from. That was Bush, Obama, Billary, Blair, Cameron and their ilk. And before them Kissinger etc.

So who are the political opportunists exactly? “We” have exploited all of Africa, the Middle East and South and Central America for so long and so disgustingly thoroughly that it’s today the zenith of misleading arrogance to blame the consequences on Salvini, Trump and other right wingers.

You could see them coming from miles away. You created them. You literally built the space they occupy. What is happening is that the chaos we created in all these places is now boomeranging right back at us, on our own borders. And we’re not getting out of that chaos until we stop creating it in places where we don’t live. Until we allow people a future where they are born.

No, you’re right, Trump is not going to do that. His role is to disrupt the existing system that has relied on creating chaos for decades (or even longer, if you will). Salvini will play that part in Europe, by blowing up the EU. And after they’ve gone, we must find better people than them, but also better than all the rest that today fill our political classes, if we’re to turn chaos into order.

We have gathered our wealth through theft and murder. Untold millions have died and suffered for our riches. It’s time we acknowledge that. Just like it’s time that we acknowledge just how we choose our political “leaders”. Who all come from a tested model that relies on chaos and obfuscation. Because if we don’t, the chaos will continue and intensify.

Angela Merkel has created a problem for which she now has no possible solution anymore. She’s even allegedly trying to reach quid pro quo deals with Albania, Serbia and Skopje: take 100,000 or so refugees and you can become an EU member. The last gasps of Mutti. Merkel will leave behind a union about to implode. From a refugee crisis as well as a financial crisis. Thanks, Angela.

She should never have left Greece in its own double financial and refugee crisis; she should have helped to make it strong. That’s the de facto task of Europe’s leadership, even as it’s crazy that one country gets to call all the important shots for 27 others.

Too late now. Italy is very aware of how Greece has been treated, and very aware it could be next. What does Rome have to lose? They can afford to be fearless. Why not confront Brussels and Berlin? The union’s in tatters anyway.

As for Trump, he doesn’t have anyone to fear either. The Democrats, just like virtually all left wing parties in Europe, have lost their identity and therefore their voters because of Tony Blair, the Clintons stage act and Obama. The US media have become a lousy tired comedy routine, unable to see that a constant barrage of empty attacks on Trump could only ever make them irrelevant.

The New York Times, WaPo, CNN have created the space that Trump operates in. They might as well be working for him. And meanwhile the folks who actually constructed the multiple crises remain out of sight. And have their minions declare that there is no crisis. Or that it’s just a political one, brought on by opportunists.

Salvini and Trump are not the greatest specimens of the human race, but they are not to blame for what’s going on. Salvini will force Europe to either redo its Dublin accord or redo the EU altogether. Trump will water down his border policies. But the driving force behind all of it, hiding in the shadows, still remains.

And that force controls, as it has for many many years, your parliaments and governments. Want to be angry, want to be outraged? Yeah, right there. It’s not about how Trump treats the children, it’s about why they are there in the first place.

And yes, ICE and Homeland Security should be eliminated, they’re insults to America and to the Founding Fathers. But they’re not Trump’s creations. They were there for him to use. And so he did and does. But c’mon guys, take the blinders off. You can’t see a thing with them on. There is a bigger picture.

 

 

Jun 252018
 


Edward Hopper Cape Cod morning 1950

 

China’s Central Bank Frees Up $100 Billion In Funding As Trade War Looms (SCMP)
US Plans Limits On Chinese Investment In US Technology Firms (R.)
Tit-for-Tat Tariff Battle Could Spark Downturn In Global Economy – BIS (G.)
Why The Debt Deal With The EU Is Bad For Greece (AlJ)
UK Minister Urges Gov’t to Ignore BMW, Airbus Brexit Warnings (Sp.)
Some Of The Pictures Of Border Kids That Haunt Me Most Are From 2014 (PI)
Migration Is Threat To EU Free Travel Area – Italian Prime Minister (G.)
Italy Tells Rescue Ships Not To Help Refugees In Peril At Sea (Ind.)
The US, Under Obama, Created Europe’s Refugee Crisis (Zuesse)
Merkel’s Troubles Began in Syria and End in Italy (Luongo)
Erdogan To Gain Sweeping New Powers After Declaring Election Victory (Ind.)
Erdogan Says Turkey Will Continue Advancing In Syria (R.)
‘Tourists Go Home, Refugees Welcome’ – Barcelona (G.)

 

 

Bankruptcies. Nothing to do with a trade war.

China’s Central Bank Frees Up $100 Billion In Funding As Trade War Looms (SCMP)

China’s central bank said on Sunday it would unlock at least US$100 billion for the country’s lenders to bail out troubled state firms and to help small businesses, as Beijing tries to shore up growth under the shadow of a trade war with the United States. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement it would cut the reserve requirement ratio, the share of deposits lenders must put aside with the central lender, for commercial banks by half a percentage point from July 5. The cut would free up 500 billion yuan (US$76.86 billion) in funds for the big banks, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank, to finance debt-to-equity swaps, a measure often used for troubled state enterprises.

It would also free up 200 billion yuan for smaller banks to boost lending to small businesses across the country, the central bank said. The move is a “targeted operation” aimed at supporting the weak links in the economy and not a change to the country’s “neutral and prudent” monetary policy stance, the PBOC said. Although the statement did not mention China’s trade row with the United States, or its recently released weaker economic indicators, the reduction in the reserve ratio will come into effect a day before the first of US President Donald Trump’s additional tariffs on Chinese products are due to be implemented.

Deng Haiqing, a visiting scholar at Renmin University of China, wrote in a note that the PBOC’s move represented a significant shift in China’s policy, and was not just fine-tuning. “The authorities have started to see the pain inflicted on the real economy from deleveraging, and they are trying to reduce it,” he said.

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Makes sense.

US Plans Limits On Chinese Investment In US Technology Firms (R.)

The U.S. Treasury Department is drafting curbs that would block firms with at least 25 percent Chinese ownership from buying U.S. companies with “industrially significant technology,” a government official briefed on the matter said on Sunday. The official, whose comments matched a report by the Wall Street Journal, emphasized that the Chinese ownership threshold may change before the restrictions are announced on Friday. The move marks another escalation of President Donald Trump’s trade conflict with China, which threatens to roil financial markets and dent global growth.

Tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods, the first of a potential total of $450 billion, are due to take effect on July 6 over U.S. complaints that China is misappropriating U.S. technology through joint venture rules and other policies. The Treasury investment restrictions are expected to target key sectors, including several China is trying to develop as part of its “Made in China 2025” industrial plan, the U.S. official said. Among its objectives, the plan aims to upgrade China’s capabilities in advanced information technology, aerospace, marine engineering, pharmaceuticals, advanced energy vehicles, robotics and other high-technology industries. The Wall Street Journal also said the U.S. Commerce Department and National Security Council were proposing “enhanced” export controls to keep such technologies from being shipped to China.

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Give me a break: “Ten years after the start of the global crisis, central bankers should feel satisfied with the state of the global economy..”

Tit-for-Tat Tariff Battle Could Spark Downturn In Global Economy – BIS (G.)

An escalation of protectionist measures could spark a fresh downturn just as the global economy is picking itself up after the last one, the international body that represents the world’s central banks has warned. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said there were already signs that “the ratcheting up of rhetoric” was weighing on investment. It comes as Donald Trump steps up hostility with some of the US’s key trading partners and allies, raising fears of a full-blown trade war. What began with tariffs imposed on steel and aluminium imported into the US has turned into a broader trade battle with trading partners including China and the EU, as they respond with retaliatory measures.

The US president is threatening Beijing with tariffs on $200bn of goods imported from China and on Friday Trump threatened to impose tariffs on European cars after Brussels introduced levies on American goods such as Levi’s jeans, bourbon whiskey and Harley-Davidson motorbikes. Agustín Carstens, the general manager of BIS, said an increase in protectionist measures was a key vulnerability in the global economy that threatened to undermine growth and could spread to financial markets. “One possible trigger of an economic slowdown or downturn could be an escalation of protectionist measures. Its impact could be very significant, if such escalation was seen as threatening the open multilateral trading system.

“Indeed, there are signs that the rise in uncertainty associated with the first protectionist steps and the ratcheting up of rhetoric have already been inhibiting investment.” In its annual report on the challenges facing the global economy, BIS said that the ultra-low interest rates implemented by central banks as an emergency response to the financial crisis had served the global economy well but said loose monetary policy was posing a threat to stability. “Ten years after the start of the global crisis, central bankers should feel satisfied with the state of the global economy, after expansionary and unconventional monetary policies were left to bear the burden of recovery,” Carstens said. “But this has left a legacy of higher debts on public and private balance sheets. Still reliant on central bank support and with less room for manoeuvre. Central banks cannot continue be the only game in town.”

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This is where the EU started collapsing. Immigration issues will do the rest.

Why The Debt Deal With The EU Is Bad For Greece (AlJ)

[..] there is more to this deal than the arithmetic of long-term debt sustainability. At the heart of Greece’s protracted fiscal crisis was always a highly contentious social and political question about the real meaning of European solidarity: Who should be made to pay for the presumed “profligacy” of successive Greek governments, or the “excessive risk-taking” of profit-hungry private creditors in the lead-up to the crisis? The course of action that European leaders ended up settling on turned out to be very one-sided in this respect: Greece alone was to blame for its predicament, and therefore, Greece alone would be made to pay for it.

The real motivation behind the bailouts was always to safeguard the survival of a dangerously over-exposed European banking system – but this fact was quickly obscured. Instead, right-wing politicians and the tabloid media whipped up a frenzy of anti-Greek sentiment. The Greeks were widely portrayed as splurging the money on lavish pensions and long beach holidays – or on “booze and women,” as former Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem infamously put it last year. But as research by the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin has since shown, 95 percent of the bailout funds that were supposedly “given” to Greece actually went straight back to private creditors.

Meanwhile, the bailout loans themselves were added to Greece’s overall debt, and the country continued to pay interest on them over subsequent years. In other words, the Greek people never received any handouts from their European creditors. Meanwhile, the Greek government reduced the size of its public sector by 26 percent, cutting pensions and welfare spending by 70 percent and slashing the public health budget in half. As a result, incomes fell by one-third and unemployment skyrocketed to a peak of over 28 percent, unleashing a veritable humanitarian catastrophe.

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But Jeremy, they have shareholders.

UK Minister Urges Gov’t to Ignore BMW, Airbus Brexit Warnings (Sp.)

Speaking to the BBC, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that businesses sounding the alarm about post-Brexit job losses actually affect the UK’s negotiations with the European Union. According to him, the best way for companies to achieve the “clarity and certainty” they need is to support the PM in her talks with Europe. Hunt suggested that a “Brexit fudge” would be likely if Theresa May’s attempts to “deliver the best possible Brexit, a clean Brexit” were undermined. The statement comes several days after BMW, a German-based car giant which employs around 8,000 people in Britain, threatened to start preparing “contingency plans” if it doesn’t get details on the UK’s post-Brexit trading arrangements by the end of summer.

BMW echoed the warning of the French aviation giant Airbus, which announced on June 21 that a no-deal scenario would have a “catastrophic” outcome and would force it to reconsider its long-term position in the UK, putting some 14,000 UK-based jobs at risk. With the UK government failing to provide clarity on Brexit for the time being, a recent survey has found that nearly half of business leaders from the rest of Europe have cut investment in the country. The poll also shows that three quarters of big companies want the bloc to make concessions to Britain to enable a better trading relationship after London’s divorce with Brussels.

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I think it’s important that we see the big picture here. You won’t find a solution if you can’t define the problem. This has been going on for years.

Some Of The Pictures Of Border Kids That Haunt Me Most Are From 2014 (PI)

The other day, a veteran immigration lawyer named R. Andrew Free shared an anecdote that sheds some really critical light on what’s happening on America’s southern border — a tale that not surprisingly got buried amid a sandstorm of news about mothers not knowing where their kids are, audiotapes of anguished, crying children, and now the protests to end the human rights abuses that the current government is undertaking in our name. What Free described on Twitter was an opportunity that few people get: A chance to personally confront the president of the United States and question him about his immigration policies.

Free wrote that the answers he received from the so-called leader of the free world “shook me to my core.” The immigration lawyer had been to two large detention centers in Texas where U.S. officials were holding hundreds of migrant families from Central America, often for months at a time. Free said some of the conditions at these makeshift detention camps were appalling. “I remember hearing the constant, violent coughing and sickness of small children, and the worry of their mothers who stood in the sun outside the clinic all day only to be told their kids should ‘drink water,’” Free tweeted. “I remember nearly doubling over when I saw the line of strollers.”

When Free had a chance encounter with the president at a political event, he warned him that the detention centers would be “a stain on his legacy.” He said the president wanted to know if Free was an immigration lawyer — implying that everyday citizens weren’t worried about what goes on at the border — and then said, according to Free: “I’ll tell you what we can’t have, it’s these parents sending their kids here on a dangerous journey and putting their lives at risk.” The message that Free took away was that the president saw family detention as a deterrent to keep more refugees from coming. This happened in 2015. The president with the looming stain on his legacy was Barack Obama.

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There goes Merkel.

Migration Is Threat To EU Free Travel Area – Italian Prime Minister (G.)

Italy has warned the future of the EU’s border-free travel zone is at stake as it sought to ease the pressure on Mediterranean countries arising from hosting refugees and migrants. Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, was speaking at a mini-EU summit in Brussels, where he said a plan from his government presented at the summit represented a paradigm shift in dealing with migration. But his ambitious move to change what he called obsolete EU rules that govern who is responsible for asylum claimants is likely to encounter opposition from other countries.

The 10-point plan by his new populist government revives many ideas proposed by previous Italian governments, such as calling on all EU member states to share responsibility for migrants rescued at sea, and countries being docked EU funds if they refuse to take in refugees. Leaders from 16 EU countries put on a show of unity, as they left an emergency summit in Brussels on Sunday. The unorthodox meeting, boycotted by several EU countries, was called to shore up the conservative coalition government of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, which is riven by a row over migration. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the talks had been “frank and open,” although they had not resulted in “any concrete consequences or conclusions”.

Sunday’s ad-hoc meeting sets the stage for a long-planned gathering of all EU leaders on Thursday, where it will be harder to mask Europe’s deep divisions on migration. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, can be expected to repeat his fierce opposition to migrant quotas, a policy opposed by other central European countries.

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Salvini is going to Libya this week.

Italy Tells Rescue Ships Not To Help Refugees In Peril At Sea (Ind.)

Italy’s far-right government told aid ships in the Mediterranean Sea not to rescue thousands of refugees in peril on Sunday – despite receiving six separate distress calls from unseaworthy boats. Officials said the vessels – carrying people from North Africa to Europe – were all in Libyan waters and, therefore, Libyan responsibility. The Spanish aid group, Proactiva Open Arms, which had ships in the area, said it had been specifically told not to help. Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interior minister, said in a tweet: “It’s right that the Libyan authorities intervene, as they’ve been doing for days, without having the NGOs interrupt them and disturb them.”

The latest revelation follows a fortnight in which Italy has refused permission for aid ships carrying rescued refugees to dock in its ports. One, the Aquarius with 630 people on board, had to reroute to Spain. Another, Lifeline holding 240 people, remained at sea over the weekend. Mr Salvini has said such refugees would only see his country “on a postcard”. Italy has said it is seeing a constant stream of people coming illegally from Africa, and has threatened to withhold payments to the EU unless a more even way of dispersing refugees is agreed.

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Zuesse misses the role that Britain -remember Blair, Cameron?- and France have played.

The US, Under Obama, Created Europe’s Refugee Crisis (Zuesse)

The current US President, Donald Trump, claimed on June 18th, that Germany’s leadership, and the leadership in other EU nations, caused the refugee-crisis that Europe is facing: “The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!” The US Government is clearly lying about this. The US Government itself caused this crisis that Europeans are struggling to deal with.

Would the crisis even exist, at all, if the US had not invaded and tried to overthrow (and in some instances actually overthrown) the governments in Libya, Syria, and elsewhere — the places from which these refugees are escaping? The US Government, and a few of its allies in Europe (the ones who actually therefore really do share in some of the authentic blame for this crisis) caused this war and government-overthrow, etc., but Germany’s Government wasn’t among them, nor were many of the others in Europe. If the US Government had not led these invasions, probably not even France would have participated in any of them. The US Government, alone, is responsible for having caused these refugees.

The US Government itself created this enormous burden to Europe, and yet refuses to accept these refugees that it itself had produced, by its having invaded and bombed to overthrow (among others) Libya’s Government, and then Syria’s Government, and by its aiding Al Qaeda in organizing and leading and arming, jihadists from all over the world to come to Syria to overthrow Syria’s Government and to replace it with one that would be selected by the US regime’s key Middle Eastern ally, the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia, including its Government, and who are determined to take over Syria.

Trump blames Angela Merkel for — in essence — having been an ally of the US regime, a regime of aggression which goes back decades, and which Trump himself now is leading, instead of his ending, and of his restoring democracy to the United States, and, finally, thus, his restoring freedom (from America), and peace, to other nations, in Europe, and elsewhere (such as in Syria, Yemen, etc.).

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Chaos.

Merkel’s Troubles Began in Syria and End in Italy (Luongo)

It looks like we are entering the end of Merkel-ism in Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is approaching her final days in that position. Be it next week or the end of this year, we are looking at unprecedented change in European politics thanks to Merkel’s insistence on taking in millions of Syrian and North African refugees from chaos unleashed by aggressive and insane foreign policy actions by the U.S. and supported by the EU. From the destruction of Libya to the manufactured ‘civil war’ in Syria the displacement of millions of people was created from the desired to destabilize the entire region for the betterment of the U.S. and its allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Jordan, Turkey and Qatar were originally involved but have since jumped ship in the wake of Russia’s intervention there.

Merkel’s current plight politically stems from her intractability in accepting the chain of events that led us to this point. All of the problems of Europe now stem from the collision of these foreign policy disasters and the economic degradation of the euro-zone from the flawed structure of the euro itself. And the insistence of the U.S./Saudi/Israeli alliance to continue trying to manufacture a win in Syria that is clearly beyond their control at this point only tightens the noose around Merkel’s neck.

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Predictable but still scary.

Erdogan To Gain Sweeping New Powers After Declaring Election Victory (Ind.)

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been declared triumphant in Turkey’s presidential vote by the country’s electoral board, amid accusations of manipulation by his opponents. Mr Erdogan had earlier claimed he had won after state run news outlets said he was victorious. An announcement from the broadcaster TRT came soon after the Anadolu Agency, who reported that he had won 52.51 per cent of the vote with 98.4 per cent of the total counted. Independent election monitors and the opposition both maintained that less than half the votes had been counted at that point. The president’s main rival, Muharrem Ince – who state media said had won 30.72 per cent of the vote – urged observers and his supporters to stay on at counting centres, warning that vote rigging was likely to place if they left under the impression that the result had been decided.

But speaking in the early hours of Monday, the head of the Supreme Election Council Sadi Guven confirmed the result. He said that Mr Erdogan “received the absolute majority of all valid votes” and the remaining ballots would not affect the outcome. In his speech Mr Erdogan had warned: “The Turkish public has mandated me as president according to unofficial results. I hope nobody will damage democracy by casting a shadow on this election and its results to hide their failure.”

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Doesn’t waste any time.

Erdogan Says Turkey Will Continue Advancing In Syria (R.)

Turkey will continue to “liberate Syrian lands” so that refugees can return to Syria safely, President Tayyip Erdogan said in an election victory speech on Monday. Speaking to supporters from the balcony of his ruling AK Party’s headquarters in Ankara after Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections, Erdogan said Turkey would also act more decisively against terrorist organizations.

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“In 1990 the city received 1.7 million tourists; last year the figure was 32 million – roughly 20 times the resident population.”

‘Tourists Go Home, Refugees Welcome’ – Barcelona (G.)

Early last year, around 150,000 people in Barcelona marched to demand that the Spanish government allow more refugees into the country. Shortly afterwards, “Tourists go home, refugees welcome” started appearing on the city’s walls; soon the city was inundated with protestors marching behind the slogans “Barcelona is not for sale” and “We will not be driven out”. What the Spanish media dubbed turismofobia overtook several European cities last summer, with protests held and measures taken in Venice, Rome, Amsterdam, Florence, Berlin, Lisbon, Palma de Mallorca and elsewhere in Europe against the invasion of visitors. But in contrast to many, as fiercely as Barcelona has pushed back against tourists, it has campaigned to welcome more refugees.

When news broke two weeks ago that a rescue ship carrying 629 migrantswas adrift in the Mediterranean, mayor Ada Colau was among the first to offer those aboard safe haven. Is it really the case that Barcelona would prefer to receive thousands of penniless immigrants rather than the millions of tourists who last year spent around €30bn in the city? The short answer, it appears, is yes. Increasingly it is tourism, not immigration, that people see as a threat to the city’s very identity – though numbers of both have risen exponentially in recent decades. In 2000 foreigners accounted for less than 2% of the population; a mere five years later, the figure was 15% (266,000). In 2018, it is now officially 18% although, according to Lola López, the city’s integration and immigration commissioner, the true figure is closer to 30%.

The influx of new residents has radically changed the face of the city, but Barcelona has not seen a single anti-immigrant protest of any substance – nor is immigration an issue at local elections. According to research by Paolo Giaccaria, a social scientist at the University of Turin, the case of Barcelona “establishes a connection between two types of mobility that are at odds with each other: northern tourism and southern migration. It subverts the common feeling about which kind of mobility is desirable which is not.” Immigration has changed the city, but tourism is destabilising it – and even people in the industry agree that it can’t go on like this. In 1990 the city received 1.7 million tourists; last year the figure was 32 million – roughly 20 times the resident population. The sheer volume of visitors is driving up rents, pushing residents out of neighbourhoods, and overwhelming the public space.

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Jun 242018
 
 June 24, 2018  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  12 Responses »


Ivan Aivazovsky The Ninth Wave 1849

 

Mueller’s Fruit of the Poisonous Tree (WSJ)
Refugees Now Make Up 1% Of The World’s Population (Wef)
There’s No Migration Crisis – The Crisis Is Political Opportunism (G&M)
Divided EU Leaders Convene For Emergency Talks On Migration (R.)
Italy Says ‘Arrogant’ France Could Become Main Enemy On Migration (R.)
Xi Says China Must Lead Way In Reform Of Global Governance (R.)
Turkey’s Erdogan Faces Resurgent Opposition In Twin Election Test (AFP)
Huge Anti-Brexit Demonstration Throngs Central London (G.)
Airbus Warns Of Harsh Brexit Reality With 100,000 Jobs Under Threat (Ind.)
Bitcoin Drops to $5,860, Lowest since October 2017 (WS)
The Eurozone Isn’t Ready For The Next Big Shock (Pol.eu)
Shooting The Messenger: Criminalising Journalism (G.)

 

 

Two lawyers in the WSJ warning that the FBI had so tainted the process, Mueller should at a minimum pause his investigation.

Mueller’s Fruit of the Poisonous Tree (WSJ)

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation may face a serious legal obstacle: It is tainted by antecedent political bias. The June 14 report from Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, unearthed a pattern of anti-Trump bias by high-ranking officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some of their communications, the report says, were “not only indicative of a biased state of mind but imply a willingness to take action to impact a presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.” Although Mr. Horowitz could not definitively ascertain whether this bias “directly affected” specific FBI actions in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, it nonetheless affects the legality of the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry, code-named Crossfire Hurricane.

Crossfire was launched only months before the 2016 election. Its FBI progenitors—the same ones who had investigated Mrs. Clinton—deployed at least one informant to probe Trump campaign advisers, obtained Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court wiretap warrants, issued national security letters to gather records, and unmasked the identities of campaign officials who were surveilled. They also repeatedly leaked investigative information.

Mr. Horowitz is separately scrutinizing Crossfire and isn’t expected to finish for months. But the current report reveals that FBI officials displayed not merely an appearance of bias against Donald Trump, but animus bordering on hatred. Peter Strzok, who led both the Clinton and Trump investigations, confidently assuaged a colleague’s fear that Mr. Trump would become president: “No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” An unnamed FBI lawyer assigned to Crossfire told a colleague he was “devastated” and “numb” after Mr. Trump won, while declaring to another FBI attorney: “Viva le resistance.”

[..] The totality of the circumstances creates the appearance that Crossfire was politically motivated. Since an attempt by federal law enforcement to influence a presidential election “shocks the conscience,” any prosecutorial effort derived from such an outrageous abuse of power must be suppressed. The public will learn more once the inspector general finishes his investigation into Crossfire’s genesis. But given what is now known, due process demands, at a minimum, that the special counsel’s activity be paused. Those affected by Mr. Mueller’s investigation could litigate such an argument in court. One would hope, however, that given the facts either Mr. Mueller himself or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would do it first.

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War and peace.

Refugees Now Make Up 1% Of The World’s Population (Wef)

If all the world’s refugees came together as a single nation they would collectively create one of the largest countries on Earth. According to the UNHCR, there are now almost 70 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, around 1% of the world’s population – the highest number in modern history. The number of refugees has steadily increased since 1951 but has jumped dramatically in the last 10 years. That’s mostly because of the Syrian civil war which began in 2011 and has since forced millions to flee their homes and seek refuge in neighbouring countries and in Europe. The most recent Global Peace Index, an annual report produced by Australian think tank the Institute for Economics and Peace, has found that for the fourth year in a row, overall levels of peace around the world have deteriorated.

92 countries have seen declining peace, while 71 countries have improved. Increased terrorist activity, conflicts in the Middle East and rising tensions in Eastern Europe and north-east Asia have all contributed to declining levels of peace. Even the most peaceful regions in the world according to the index – Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, and South America – have all recorded declines. The rising number of refugees and heightened political tensions in Europe and the US have meant that even stable countries have seen their scores lowered. For instance, 23 out of 36 countries in Europe deteriorated last year. Now in its seventh year of civil war, Syria is the least peaceful country in the world, along with Afghanistan, South Sudan, Iraq and Somalia.

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But the article above talks about the highest number of refugees in history.

There’s No Migration Crisis – The Crisis Is Political Opportunism (G&M)

“Desperate times at our southern border call for desperate measures on the other side:” That was the very loud message from right-wing leaders in the United States and Europe this week. Their desperate measures shocked the world. The Trump administration’s policy requiring thousands of infants and children to be seized from their parents and held in detention left leaders and citizens aghast (and its most inhumane elements remain in place). On the other side of the Atlantic, we watched the new Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini order boatloads of migrant families turned back into the sea, following his call last year to deal with immigration with a “mass cleansing, street by street, quarter by quarter.”

Most reasonable people agree that these are not humane ways to deal with what these politicians call a “migration emergency.” But too many people take their word that there actually is some sort of a migration emergency. To be clear: There is no immigration crisis in 2018. Not in the United States, not in Europe, not in Canada. “It is not a migration emergency – it’s a political emergency,” William Lacy Swing, the American director-general of the International Organization for Migration, said this week. The IOM’s 8,400 staff monitor the movement of people around the world, and while they’ve identified plenty of challenges, there aren’t any overwhelming or unmanageable movements of people this year. “The overwhelming majority of migration is taking place in a regular, safe and orderly fashion,” he said.

“There is a very serious problem of communication, but what we’re seeing is that the numbers are pretty modest,” said Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The OECD, which advises 34 countries (including the United States and Canada) on immigration policy, this week released its annual report on migration levels in OECD countries. It showed a fall in numbers to ordinary, non-crisis levels. The United States has always had movement, some of it undocumented, across its southern border. The 2018 numbers are somewhat higher than the 2017 numbers – but they’re a small fraction, less than a third, of the rate experienced in the 2000s under George W. Bush, or in the 1990s under Bill Clinton, or in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. Since 2008, illegal crossings have fallen to lows not seen since the early 1970s.

What has risen, since 2014, has been the far smaller fraction of people on the Mexican border who are refugee claimants from Guatemala, Honduras and especially El Salvador. Those countries are experiencing crises of political and civic violence, and those fleeing have legitimate claims for asylum under the Refugee Convention, to which Washington subscribes. They are not illegal and they’re certainly not dangerous.

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No agreement seems possible anymore.

Divided EU Leaders Convene For Emergency Talks On Migration (R.)

European Union leaders gather in Brussels on Sunday in an attempt to bridge their deep divisions over migration, an issue that has been splitting them for years and now poses a fresh threat to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Though arrivals across the Mediterranean are only a fraction of what they were in 2015, when more than a million people reached Europe, a recent opinion poll showed migration was the top concern for the EU’s 500 million citizens. Under heavy pressure from voters at home, EU leaders have been fighting bitter battles over how to share out asylum seekers in the bloc. Unable to agree, they have become more restrictive on asylum and tightened their external borders to let fewer people in.

They have given money and aid to countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East to keep people from heading for Europe. Only 41,000 refugees and migrants have made it to the EU across the sea so far this year, U.N. figures show. But the issue has in the meantime won and lost elections for politicians across the bloc from Italy to Hungary, with voters favoring those advocating a tougher stance on migration. On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron said France favored financial sanctions for EU countries that refuse migrants with proven asylum status. Merkel is under pressure because her longtime conservative allies, Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), have threatened to start turning away at the German border all asylum seekers already registered elsewhere in the EU unless the bloc reaches an agreement on distributing them more evenly.

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Not smart Macron.

Italy Says ‘Arrogant’ France Could Become Main Enemy On Migration (R.)

Italy on Saturday said “arrogant” France risked becoming its “No.1 enemy” on migration issues, a day before European leaders convene in Brussels for a hastily arranged meeting on the divisive topic. In answer to comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, who said migration flows toward Europe had reduced compared with a few years ago, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said Macron’s words showed he was out of touch. “Italy indeed faces a migration emergency and it’s partly because France keeps pushing back people at the border. Macron risks making his country Italy’s No.1 enemy on this emergency,” Di Maio wrote on his Facebook page.

Macron said European cooperation had managed to cut migration flows by close to 80 percent and problems stemmed from “secondary” movements of migrants within Europe. “The reality is that Europe is not experiencing a migration crisis of the same magnitude as the one it experienced in 2015,” the French president said. “A country like Italy has not at all the same migratory pressure as last year. … The crisis we are experiencing today in Europe is a political crisis.” But Italy’s Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said his country had faced 650,000 arrivals by sea over the past four years, 430,000 asylum requests and the hosting of 170,000 “alleged refugees” for an overall cost of more than 5 billion euros ($5.8 billion).

“If for the arrogant President Macron this is not a problem, we invite him to stop insulting and to show instead some concrete generosity by opening up France’s many ports and letting children, men and women through at Ventimiglia,” he said in a statement, referring to the northwestern Italian town at the border with France.

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Filling a void.

Xi Says China Must Lead Way In Reform Of Global Governance (R.)

China must lead the way in reforming global governance, the foreign ministry on Saturday cited President Xi Jinping as saying, as Beijing looks to increase its world influence. China has sought a greater say in global organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF and UN, in line with its growing economic and diplomatic clout. Since taking office in late 2012, Xi has taken a more muscular approach, setting up China’s own global bodies like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and launching his landmark Belt and Road project to build a new Silk Road. Beijing has cast itself a responsible member of the international community, especially as President Donald Trump withdraws the United States from agreements on climate change and Iran, and as Europe wrestles with Brexit and other issues.

China must “uphold the protection of the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests, proactively participate in and show the way in reform of the global governance system, creating an even better web of global partnership relationships”, Xi said in comments reported at the end of a two-day high-level Communist Party meeting. This would help create conditions for building a modern, strong socialist country, the ministry cited him as saying at the meeting attended by officials from the foreign and commerce ministries, the military, the propaganda department and the Chinese embassy in the United States.

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Blocking the opposition from TV.

Turkey’s Erdogan Faces Resurgent Opposition In Twin Election Test (AFP)

Turks began voting Sunday in dual parliamentary and presidential polls seen as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s toughest election test, with the opposition revitalised and his popularity at risk from growing economic troubles. Erdogan has overseen historic change in Turkey since his Islamic-rooted ruling party first came to power in 2002 after years of secular domination. But critics accuse the Turkish strongman, 64, of trampling on civil liberties and displaying autocratic behaviour. Polling stations opened at 0500 GMT and were due to close at 1400 GMT, with the first results expected late in the evening.

Over 56 million eligible voters can for the first time cast ballots simultaneously in the parliamentary and presidential elections, with Erdogan looking for a first round knockout and an overall majority for his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). But both these goals are in doubt in the face of an energetic campaign by his rival from the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), Muharrem Ince, who has mobilised hundreds of thousands in mega rallies, and a strong opposition alliance in the legislative polls. Erdogan remains the favourite to hold on to the presidency – even if he needs a second round on July 8 – but the outcome is likely to be much tighter than he expected when calling the snap polls one-and-a-half years ahead of schedule.

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It’s going to take demos ten times that size. You need millions on the streets.

Huge Anti-Brexit Demonstration Throngs Central London (G.)

At least 100,000 people took to the streets yesterday as part of the largest ever demonstration of support for a new referendum over Britain’s final Brexit deal. With more businesses poised to issue dire Brexit warnings this week and senior Tories already drawing up plans to soften Theresa May’s exit proposals, organisers of the march on Sunday said it showed Britain’s departure from the European Union was not a “done deal”. A former aide to Margaret Thatcher, several Labour MPs and pro-EU campaigners from across Britain took part in the demonstration, marking two years since the Brexit vote. Organisers said that people from every region and walk of life were among those who took part in the march down Whitehall.

Conservative supporters marched alongside Labour voters and Liberal Democrats during the protest, which saw angry denunciations of the chaos that has ensued inside government since the Brexit vote. Labour’s leadership also came under pressure at the march for refusing to back a second public vote. There were chants of “Where’s Jeremy Corbyn” from the crowd. The Labour leader was on a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp. Anger on the streets at the prime minister’s handling of the Brexit negotiations is being accompanied by a renewed push from industry to ensure that trade with Europe is not disrupted as a result of leaving. More prominent manufacturing firms are set to issue warnings about Britain’s Brexit negotiations within days, after Airbus and BMW broke cover to say they could reconsider their UK investment plans unless a Brexit deal was reached keeping Britain closely aligned with Europe.

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Reality should dawn on the British people.

Airbus Warns Of Harsh Brexit Reality With 100,000 Jobs Under Threat (Ind.)

“The dawning of reality,” is how Tom Williams, the chief operating officer of Airbus, described it, after warning that Airbus is seriously considering pulling out of the UK in the event of a no deal Brexit. It’s worth taking a moment to consider what that would mean. The firm employs 14,000 people directly in this country. It has provided 4,000 high quality apprentices over the last decade, thus supporting a flagship policy of the Government. It contributed £1.7bn to the UK exchequer in tax last year, before you consider the economic contributions of its employees, who are in well paid, unionised jobs. It is estimated that Airbus supports another 86,000 people through its supply chain, bringing the total number of jobs at risk to 100,000.

The companies in that supply chain, and their employees, further add to the tax take, and contribute to the economy. If, when, Airbus does go, if it seeks alternatives when it comes to the production of its wings, those jobs will not be replaced. Once they are gone, they are gone. Perhaps the Brextremists expect the people who held them to pick the fruit that the soft fruit industry has been warning about rotting in the fields for months? It once again puts the shockingly mendacious talk by ministers of a “Brexit dividend” to fund the NHS – even Chancellor Philip Hammond has now descended into that pit – into context. The economic damage if Airbus goes, and if other companies; car makers, and their suppliers, for example, do the same, no one will be talking about dividends. Quite the reverse.

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Wolf Richter is no fan.

Bitcoin Drops to $5,860, Lowest since October 2017 (WS)

Bitcoin dropped to $5,860 at the moment, below $6,000 for the first time since October 29, 2017. It has plummeted 70% in six months from the peak of $19,982 on December 17. There have been many ups on the way down, repeatedly dishing out fakes hopes, based on the ancient theory that nothing goes to hell in a straight line (chart via CoinMarketCap): If you’re a True Believer and you just know that bitcoin will go to $1 million by the end of 2020, as promised by a whole slew of gurus, including John McAfee – “I will still eat my dick if wrong,” he offered helpfully on November 29 – well you probably don’t need this sort of punishment. You’re suffering enough already. And I apologize. I feel your pain.

I was a true believer too a few times, and every single time it was a huge amount of fun, and I felt invincible and indestructible until I got run over by events. With 17.11 million bitcoins circulating today, if bitcoin were at $1 million today, it would amount to a market cap of $17 trillion. But new bitcoins are constantly being created out of nothing (“mined”) by computers that suck up enormous amounts of electricity. And by the end of 2020, there will be many more bitcoins, and if the price were $1 million each, the total would amount to about the size of US GDP. This doesn’t even count all the other cryptos that would presumably boom in a similar manner, amounting perhaps to half of global GDP, or something.

People who promote this brainless crap are either totally nuts or the worst scam artists. But I feel sorry for the True Believers whose fiat money got transferred and will continue to get transferred from them to others. So OK, there’s still some time left. It’s not the end of 2020 yet. And True Believers still have room for the fake hope of a $1-million bitcoin. But at the moment, bitcoin is even worse – incredibly – than one of the worst fiat currencies in the world, the Argentine peso, which has plunged “only” 35% over the period during which bitcoin plunged 70%. That takes some doing!

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France and Germany should stop trying to dictate the future. It will backfire.

The Eurozone Isn’t Ready For The Next Big Shock (Pol.eu)

The return to economic growth in the eurozone has produced a dangerous sense of complacency on the Old Continent, especially in the richer countries of the north. But Italy’s flirtation with an exit from the euro under a populist government is a stark reminder that, if left unaddressed, the deep structural weaknesses that plague the single currency could trigger an existential crisis across the EU. It would be a mistake, therefore, to believe we can drive along in business-as-usual mode, or just take a few small steps toward more European integration. This week’s Meseberg Declaration signed by Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, although a step in the right direction, is part of a collective denial about what needs to be done.

You don’t need to be a populist to recognize that Europe’s monetary union is dysfunctional and in dire need of more substantial reforms than those proposed by Germany and France. To keep the single currency alive, it needs two major structural improvements. First, it needs to reduce the fragmentation in Europe’s banking system that has caused the Continent to experience more severe crises than other parts of the world — most notably in comparison to the U.S. Second, it has to develop a streamlined and legitimate decision-making process to respond quickly and boldly to the next major recession.

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Amen.

Shooting The Messenger: Criminalising Journalism (G.)

The fact that during the 10 years he was in office, the US president, Barack Obama, prosecuted more whistleblowers than all the presidents in US history combined is an indication of the increasing threat to journalism. In 2017 the head of the CIA questioned the first amendment rights which protect free speech, and the US attorney-general threatened that the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, would be prosecuted (for what he was not clear). Both are acts of intimidation designed to silence. It has been argued that governments are not that concerned about most of the work that journalists do so, for most, concerns about surveillance are unnecessary. But the problem there is that, generally speaking, if governments are not worried about what journalists are doing, the journalists are not doing their jobs.

Reporting local news may be a useful social function, but the issues that arise where nations go to war, or where countries are involved in breaking the law, or plundering the treasure of other nations, are of great importance and need investigating. It is in these significant areas that journalists must be protected from the vested interests of the executive state; where the very people who make the decisions, as in the Iraq war, need to be exposed and held to account before the event, not after it. What is so disturbing is that the media has often aided and abetted governments and the intelligence agencies – who always want more access to information – as they invoked the fear of terrorism as grounds for introducing tougher surveillance laws.

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Jun 212018
 


Vincent van Gogh Avenue of Poplars at Sunset 1884

 

Short-Sellers Sense An Opportunity As China Trade Tensions Brew (R.)
The Greatest Short-Squeeze In History (ZH)
Chinese Investment In The US Drops 90% Amid Political Pressure (CNBC)
China Warns Washington’s ‘Capricious’ Trade Actions Will Hurt US Workers (R.)
China Could Strike Back At Dow-Listed Firms Over Trade: Global Times (R.)
Deutsche Bank Troubles Raise Worries About The Future Of The Eurozone (Polleit)
Greece Expects Substantive Debt Relief Conditions From Eurogroup (R.)
EU Committee Approves New Rules That Could ‘Destroy The Internet As We Know It’
Trump’s Military Drops a Bomb Every 12 Minutes, and No One Talks About It (TD)
Circle Closed: Merkel, Macron Want EU Border States To Deal With Refugees (RT)
Italian Coastguard Ship Carrying 522 Migrants Docks In Sicily (AFP)
I’ve Got Some Things to Say (Romelu Lukaku)

 

 

Something’s brewing alright…

Short-Sellers Sense An Opportunity As China Trade Tensions Brew (R.)

Escalating trade tensions between Washington and Beijing may have sent tremors across the U.S. stock market but short-sellers are taking the opportunity to boost bearish bets against U.S. companies exposed to a full-blown trade war. Planemaker Boeing, automaker General Motors, casino operator Las Vegas Sands, package delivery company FedEx and agricultural trader Bunge – companies that could feel the pain from growing trade tensions with China – have drawn a noticeable pickup in shorting activity this month, according to financial analytics firm S3 Partners.

“I think the change in short interest is directly related to the increase in trade tensions,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, head of research at S3 in New York. Short-sellers aim to profit by selling borrowed shares with the hope of buying them back later at a lower price. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he was pushing ahead with hefty tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports, and Beijing immediately vowed to respond in kind. Tensions escalated further on Monday, after Trump threatened to hit $200 billion of Chinese imports with 10 percent tariffs if Beijing retaliated. Multinationals that rely on China for large parts of their business are seen as particularly at risk from a potential trade war.

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…but who’s going to come up on top, the shorts or the squeezers?

The Greatest Short-Squeeze In History (ZH)

A quick glance at the stock market – particularly big-tech – and once can quickly discern that “something’s up.” Every dip is met by a wall of buying, ramping the market ever higher, and ever more ignorant of the increasingly uncertain world around it.

Why? Simple… it’s a massive, unprecedented short-squeeze…

The “most shorted” stocks in America are up 20% in the last two months, almost incessantly.

While the chart above is ridiculous enough, it turns out that this is actually accelerating and is now the great short-squeeze in the history of the data…

The ‘Relative Strength Index’ of the “most shorted” stocks has never been higher and each time it has reached this level, stocks have fallen hard.

But as a reminder – amid all of this – The Dow is down for the 7th day in a row, its longest losing streak in 18 months.

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Xi needs to keep his foreign reserves at home.

Chinese Investment In The US Drops 90% Amid Political Pressure (CNBC)

Chinese acquisitions and investments in the U.S. fell 92 percent to just $1.8 billion in the first five months of this year, consulting and research firm Rhodium Group said Tuesday. Counting divestitures, net Chinese deal flow to the U.S. during that time was a negative $7.8 billion, the report said. The decline follows a sharp drop in the second half of last year as pressure from both Beijing and the Trump administration curbed a recent surge in cross-border investment. Completed Chinese deals in the U.S. hit a record $46 billion in 2016, and dropped to $29 billion in 2017, according to Rhodium. In a search for investment opportunities, Chinese companies went on an overseas buying spree in 2015 and 2016.

But now, China wants to limit capital flight and excessive leverage. The U.S. is worried about intellectual property protection and has increased scrutiny of deals on the basis of national security. The Trump administration has also threatened restrictions on investment based on a “Section 301” investigation, the same study that led to the latest tariff announcements. As a result, acquisitions worth more than $2 billion in the first five months of this year have fallen apart, Rhodium Group’s Thilo Hanemann said.

Read more …

Still negotiating.

China Warns Washington’s ‘Capricious’ Trade Actions Will Hurt US Workers (R.)

China’s commerce ministry on Thursday accused the United States of being “capricious” over bilateral trade issues, and warned that the interests of U.S. workers and farmers ultimately will be hurt by Washington’s penchant for brandishing “big sticks”. Previous trade negotiations with the United States had been constructive, but because the U.S. government is being unpredictable and challenging, Beijing has had to respond in a strong manner, commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng said in a regular briefing in Beijing.

President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to hit $200 billion of Chinese imports with 10 percent tariffs if Beijing retaliates against his previous announcement to target $50 billion in imports. The United States has alleged that China is stealing U.S. intellectual property, a charge denied by Beijing. Washington’s accusations of forced tech transfers are a distortion of reality, and China is fully prepared to respond with “quantitative” and “qualitative” tools if the U.S. releases a new list of tariffs, Gao said. “It is deeply regrettable that the U.S. has been capricious, escalated the tensions, and provoked a trade war,” he said. “The U.S. is accustomed to holding ‘big sticks’ for negotiations, but this approach does not apply to China.”

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China will have to move.

China Could Strike Back At Dow-Listed Firms Over Trade: Global Times (R.)

China could hit back at U.S. firms listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average if U.S. President Donald Trump keeps exacerbating tensions with China over trade, state-controlled Chinese tabloid The Global Times said on Thursday. Trump threatened on Monday to hit $200 billion of Chinese imports with 10 percent tariffs if China follows through with retaliation against his previous targeting of $50 billion in imports. The Dow, which counts Boeing, Apple and Nike among its constituents, ended down 0.17 percent on Wednesday. The 30-stock share index has declined 0.25 percent year-to-date.

“If Trump continues to escalate trade tensions with China, we cannot rule out the possibility that China will strike back by adopting a hard-line approach targeting Dow Jones index giants,” the Global Times said in a commentary. The world’s two biggest economies seemed increasingly headed towards open trade conflict after three rounds of high-level talks since early May failed to reach a compromise on U.S. complaints over Chinese trade practices and a $375 billion trade deficit with China. Despite taking steps in self-defense, China will not stray from its path of deepening reform and opening up, said the tabloid, which is run by the People’s Daily.

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Deutsche = derivatives.

Deutsche Bank Troubles Raise Worries About The Future Of The Eurozone (Polleit)

The euro banking sector is huge: In April 2018, its total balance sheet amounted to €30.9 trillion, accounting for 268% of GDP in the euro area. Unfortunately, however, many euro banks are in lousy shape. They suffer from low profitability and carry an estimated total bad loan exposure of around €759 billion, which accounts for roughly 30% of their equity capital. Share price developments suggest that investors have lost quite some confidence in the viability of euro banks’ businesses: While US bank stocks are up 24% since the beginning of 2006, the index for euro-area bank stocks is still down by around 70%. Perhaps most notably, ’Germany’s two largest banks, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, have lost 85 and 94%, respectively, of their market capitalization.

With a balance sheet of close to €1.5 trillion in March 2018, Deutsche Bank accounted for around 45% of German GDP. In international comparison, this an enormous, downright frightening dimension. It is mostly the result of the bank still having an extensive (though not profitable) footprint in the international investment banking business. The bank has already started reducing its balance sheet, though. Beware of big banks — this is what we could learn from the latest financial and economic crises 2008/2009. Big banks have the potential to take an entire economy hostage: When they get into trouble, they can drag everything down with them, especially the innocent bystanders – taxpayers and, if and when the central banks decide to bail them out, those holding fiat money and fixed income securities denominated in fiat money.

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Sure.

Greece Expects Substantive Debt Relief Conditions From Eurogroup (R.)

Greece expects eurozone finance ministers to deliver on promised debt relief this week so that it can at last plan its financial future “like any ordinary country,” the government spokesman said on Wednesday. Ministers in the Eurogroup will meet in Luxembourg on Thursday to consider plans for easing the debt burden, which at 179.8% of annual Greek GDP is proportionately the greatest in the 19-nation euro zone. “We are optimistic that we are on the verge of a solution with substance,” spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said, adding that this would “have a multiplying effect on the momentum of the Greek economy.” Shut out of debt markets in 2010, Greece is set to exit its international bailout program formally in August.

The Eurogroup will discuss debt relief to ensure Athens can return to market financing after eight years of loans from euro zone governments and the IMF. “The accepted criteria for all sides is that this solution be convincing for markets and embed the creditworthiness of our country – the final act in restoring the credibility of Greece to be able to plan for the next day like any ordinary country,” Tzanakopoulos told a news briefing. The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) holds more than half of the country’s public debt and, as its biggest creditor, is keen to see Greece regain market access sustainably. EU officials have repeatedly said the meeting will be crucial to seal Greece’s financial future.

Decisions will need to be made on the use of about €40 billion that remain unspent under its third, €86 billion bailout programme which expires on Aug. 20. Greece has already received substantial debt relief during the crisis. Private creditors cut the value of their holdings of Greek government bonds by more than half in 2012. As a result Greek debt stock was cut by about €107 billion. Official creditors do not accept such “haircuts” but have eased lending terms which reduced the net present value of the loans granted to Athens, resulting in further budget savings. European creditors will probably grant frontloaded debt relief to Greece by using the funds left over in the third bailout to buy out part of the IMF loans..

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“..a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users..”

EU Committee Approves New Rules That Could ‘Destroy The Internet As We Know It’

An EU committee has approved two new copyright rules that campaigners warn could destroy the internet as we know it. The two controversial new rules – known as Article 11 and Article 13 – introduce wide-ranging new changes to the way the web works. Article 13 has been criticised by campaigners who claim that it could force internet companies to “ban memes”. It requires that all websites check posts against a database of copyrighted work, and remove those that are flagged. That could mean memes – which often use images taken from films or TV shows – could be removed by websites. The system is also likely to go wrong, campaigners say, pointing to previous examples where automated systems at YouTube have taken down a variety of entirely innocent posts.

Smaller sites might not even be able to maintain such a complicated infrastructure for scanning through posts, and therefore might not be able to continue to function, activists claim. Some companies and sites have already had to shut down as a result of the EU’s new GDPR data rules. It has been opposed by a whole host of internet experts, many of them involved with the creation of the central technologies and services of the internet. An open letter published last week was signed by more than 70 experts, including web creator Tim Berners-Lee, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and internet pioneer Vint Cerf. “By requiring Internet platforms to perform automatic filtering all of the content that their users upload, Article 13 takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet, from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users,” that letter read.

The authors note that copyright is an important part of law, which exists to encourage creators to ensure their work is put out into the world. But the automatic systems being considered by the EU are not the right ways of controlling that, they argue. “We support the consideration of measures that would improve the ability for creators to receive fair remuneration for the use of their works online,” the letter reads. “But we cannot support Article 13, which would mandate Internet platforms to embed an automated infrastructure for monitoring and censorship deep into their networks.”

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They all do it.

Trump’s Military Drops a Bomb Every 12 Minutes, and No One Talks About It (TD)

There was basically a media blackout while Obama was president. You could count on one hand the number of mainstream media reports on the Pentagon’s daily bombing campaigns under Obama. And even when the media did mention it, the underlying sentiment was, “Yeah, but look at how suave Obama is while he’s OK’ing endless destruction. He’s like the Steve McQueen of aerial death.” And let’s take a moment to wipe away the idea that our “advanced weaponry” hits only the bad guys. As David DeGraw put it, “According to the C.I.A.’s own documents, the people on the ‘kill list,’ who were targeted for ‘death-by-drone,’ accounted for only 2% of the deaths caused by the drone strikes.”

Two percent. Really, Pentagon? You got a two on the test? You get five points just for spelling your name right. But those 70,000 bombs dropped by Bush—it was child’s play. DeGraw again: “[Obama] dropped 100,000 bombs in seven countries. He out-bombed Bush by 30,000 bombs and 2 countries.” You have to admit that’s impressively horrific. That puts Obama in a very elite group of Nobel Peace Prize winners who have killed that many innocent civilians. The reunions are mainly just him and Henry Kissinger wearing little hand-drawn name tags and munching on deviled eggs.

However, we now know that Donald Trump’s administration puts all previous presidents to shame. The Pentagon’s numbers show that during George W. Bush’s eight years he averaged 24 bombs dropped per day, which is 8,750 per year. Over the course of Obama’s time in office, his military dropped 34 bombs per day, 12,500 per year. And in Trump’s first year in office, he averaged 121 bombs dropped per day, for an annual total of 44,096. Trump’s military dropped 44,000 bombs in his first year in office. He has basically taken the gloves off the Pentagon, taken the leash off an already rabid dog.

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Why the EU should not be in the hands of people who need to win national elections. Not Brussels either, obviously. This is disastrous.

Circle Closed: Merkel, Macron Want EU Border States To Deal With Refugees (RT)

With no end in sight to the EU refugee crisis, Berlin and Paris look to put the burden of dealing with asylum seekers on the countries where they first register. The seeming return to ‘old rules’ is poised to split Europe further. During their meeting ahead of the EU summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to “jointly and resolutely tackle” what they euphemistically called “secondary movements inside the EU.” An elusive wording used in the so-called Meseberg Declaration adopted by the two leaders effectively means one thing: Macron and Merkel want all the newly arrived asylum seekers and migrants to stay in the EU countries where they were first registered while their cases are being processed.

This would leave the EU southern member states to deal with the new arrivals alone. The problem, however, is that the same rules embodied in what is known as the ill-fated EU Dublin Regulation already proved to be dysfunctional at the height of the 2015 refugee crisis. “It is a de-facto return to the Dublin Agreement, which was disavowed by Merkel herself when she opened Germany’s borders for refugees back in 2015,” Evgenia Pimenova, an expert at the International Studies Center of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), told RT. It seems, however, that the leaders of Europe’s two powerhouses do not have much of a choice in a situation when they face a growing opposition to the old migration policies both at home and at the European level.

This apparent attempt to save face and gain some political points without giving up on their principled stance on immigration issues, however, might lead Berlin and Paris to a situation in which they only sow seeds of further discord in a bloc, which is already beset with political differences. “It is not a revolution” in a field of migration policy, Alain Corvez, a former advisor to the French Defense and Interior Ministries, told RT. “It is only a tactical decision [aimed at dealing] with the current threats” and “pressure” that Merkel and Macron and facing “in their own countries.”

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5Star must be careful with continuing support for Salvini.

Italian Coastguard Ship Carrying 522 Migrants Docks In Sicily (AFP)

An Italian coastguard ship carrying more than 500 migrants, including dozens rescued by the US Navy off Libya last week, arrived Tuesday night at a port in Sicily, days after the new far-right interior minister banned NGO rescue ships from docking in Italy. “Diciotti ship finally lands in Pozzallo taking 522 people to safe port,” the UNHCR Italy tweeted. “They were rescued in multiple operations, 42 of them survived drowning and they need urgent medical care and psychological support,” the UN refugee agency said, adding that it was at the scene along with Italian authorities and humanitarian organisations.

A dozen very dehydrated migrants, including six children, three women and one man, had already been sent to Pozzallo and taken into care by the Italian Red Cross. It is not known whether they were part of the group of 41 migrants rescued from a vessel in distress off Libya last Tuesday by the USNS Trenton, which transferred them to the Diciotti. The crew of the US fast transport ship also spotted 12 bodies in the water but were unable to locate them during a search after the rescue, the US Navy said. A nearby ship from the NGO Sea Watch offered to help provided it could dock with the migrants at an Italian port, which the Italian authorities refused.

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Wonderful story from an unexpected source, the attacker from Manchester United and Belgium. Moving.

I’ve Got Some Things to Say (Romelu Lukaku)

I remember the exact moment I knew we were broke. I can still picture my mum at the refrigerator and the look on her face. I was six years old, and I came home for lunch during our break at school. My mum had the same thing on the menu every single day: Bread and milk. When you’re a kid, you don’t even think about it. But I guess that’s what we could afford. Then this one day I came home, and I walked into the kitchen, and I saw my mum at the refrigerator with the box of milk, like normal. But this time she was mixing something in with it. She was shaking it all up, you know? I didn’t understand what was going on. Then she brought my lunch over to me, and she was smiling like everything was cool. But I realized right away what was going on.

She was mixing water in with the milk. We didn’t have enough money to make it last the whole week. We were broke. Not just poor, but broke. My father had been a pro footballer, but he was at the end of his career and the money was all gone. The first thing to go was the cable TV. No more football. No more Match of the Day. No signal. Then I’d come home at night and the lights would be shut off. No electricity for two, three weeks at a time. Then I’d want to take a bath, and there would be no hot water. My mum would heat up a kettle on the stove, and I’d stand in the shower splashing the warm water on top of my head with a cup.

There were even times when my mum had to “borrow” bread from the bakery down the street. The bakers knew me and my little brother, so they’d let her take a loaf of bread on Monday and pay them back on Friday. I knew we were struggling. But when she was mixing in water with the milk, I realized it was over, you know what I mean? This was our life. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want her to stress. I just ate my lunch. But I swear to God, I made a promise to myself that day. It was like somebody snapped their fingers and woke me up. I knew exactly what I had to do, and what I was going to do. I couldn’t see my mother living like that. Nah, nah, nah. I couldn’t have that.

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Jun 202018
 


Edward Hopper New York movie 1939

 

The Smart Money Gets Ready for the Next Credit Event (WS)
Global Debt Has Hit A High – Can Financial Regulators Cope? (Davies)
Stock Markets Roiled As US-China Trade Dispute Escalates (G.)
European Firms Say China Business ‘More Difficult’ (AFP)
Canada Legalises Recreational Marijuana Nationwide (Ind.)
Smearing A Dissident Journalist Is As Good As Killing Him (CJ)
“Delete Your Account” Warns Virtual Reality Founding Father (ZH)
1 In 3 UK Primary School Teachers Provide Pupils With Toothpaste, Soap (Ind.)
Merkel, Macron Agree On Eurozone Budget (CNBC)
EU To Consider Plans For Migrant Processing Centres In North Africa (G.)
EU Rebuked For €36 Billion Refugee Pushback Gambit (G.)
34,361 And Rising: Tallying Europe’s Migrant Bodycount (G.)
The Vanishing Of The Swifts (G.)

 

 

Scary.

The Smart Money Gets Ready for the Next Credit Event (WS)

As corporate indebtedness in the US has reached precarious heights, and as risks are piling up, in an environment of rising interest rates and a hawkish Fed, the smart money is getting ready. The smart money is preparing for the moment when the air hisses out of the exuberant junk-bond market, when liquidity dries up for over-indebted companies, and when their bonds collapse. The smart money is preparing for the arrival of “distressed debt” – it’s preparing now because these preparations include raising billions of dollars for their funds, and that takes some time. “Distressed debt” is defined as junk-rated debt that sports yields that are at least 10 percentage points above equivalent US Treasury yields.

Distressed-debt investors can make a killing by buying bonds for cents on the dollar during times of economic stress, of companies that they believe will make it through the cycle without defaulting. In this scenario, a distressed bond might sell for 40 cents on the dollar, and two years later, the company is still intact and the credit squeeze is resolved, and now the bond is worth face value. For those two years, the bond paid a huge yield to investors that bought at 40 cents on the dollar – and the profit might be 200% in capital gains and interest. The thing is: The junk-bond market has been booming. There’s no credit squeeze yet. And the riskiest end is flush as the “dumb money” is still chasing yield.

And for the smart money, there’s not much to pick at the moment; but down the road, the future looks bright. S&P Global tracks distressed debt in its US High Yield Corporate Distressed Bond Index. The index peaked in early July 2014, on the eve of the oil bust. Over the next 18 months, it plunged 56% as the oil bust was wreaking havoc on oil-and-gas bonds. But on February 11, 2016, the index bottomed out. New money began flowing into the oil-and-gas sector. Banks started lending again. The surviving bonds soared. And the index skyrocketed 113% in 28 months:

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Really? The IMF?

Global Debt Has Hit A High – Can Financial Regulators Cope? (Davies)

At the end of May, the International Monetary Fund launched its global debt database. For the first time, IMF statisticians have compiled a comprehensive set of calculations of public and private debt, country by country, constructing a time series stretching back to the end of the second world war. It is an impressive piece of work. The headline figure is striking: global debt has hit a new high of 225% of world GDP, exceeding the previous record of 213% in 2009. So, as the IMF points out, there has been no deleveraging at the global level since the 2007-08 financial crisis. In some countries, the composition of debt changed, as public debt replaced private debt in the post-crisis recession, but that shift has mostly stopped.

Are these large figures alarming? In aggregate terms, perhaps not. At a time when economic growth is robust almost everywhere, financial markets are relaxed about debt sustainability. Long-term interest rates remain remarkably low. But the numbers do tend to support the hypothesis that the so-called debt intensity of growth has increased: we seem to need higher levels of debt to support a given rate of economic growth than we did before. Perhaps that is partly because the growth in income and wealth inequality in developed countries has distributed spending power to those with a propensity to spend less than their income. That trend has levelled off recently, but the implications are still with us. It also seems that productivity growth has slowed, so a given quantum of investment generates less output than it used to do.

The IMF’s recommendation to governments is that they should fix the roof while the sun is shining: accumulate a fiscal surplus, or at least reduce deficits, in good times so that they are better prepared for the next downturn, which will surely come before too long. The current upturn is now quite mature. That puts the IMF on a collision course with the tax-cutting US administration and now with Italy’s new government. If the Italians’ grandiose plans for a minimum income and more public investment are implemented, they might soon find themselves in difficult discussions with the IMF. The team that has been in Athens for the past few years might soon be booked on a flight to Rome.

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Keep negotiating.

Stock Markets Roiled As US-China Trade Dispute Escalates (G.)

The trade dispute between the US and China escalated on Tuesday, with a senior Trump official accusing China of “theft” and Beijing accusing the US of blackmail. The news roiled global stock markets as investors feared that escalating tensions could trigger an international trade war. Donald Trump threatened to impose an additional $200bn in levies on Chinese goods on Monday evening, days after the US announced $50bn in tariffs aimed at punishing what the US administration sees as unfair trade practices. China has already said it will retaliate for last week’s move and said it would escalate its response if further tariffs were imposed.

In a call with reporters Peter Navarro, White House trade adviser and a longtime critic of China’s trade practices, said China had had numerous opportunities to address Washington’s concerns but had failed to do so. “Since China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, the working men and women of America have watched as more than 70,000 factories and millions of manufacturing jobs have moved offshore,” said Navarro. He called Trump’s plans’ “courageous” and “visionary” and said they were aimed at halting China’s plans to dominate the hi-tech industries of the future – a plan, known as China 2025, that Navarro said that would mean America “will have no economic future”.

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“As its economy matures, the longstanding inefficiencies in China’s business environment are rendered all the more glaring..”

European Firms Say China Business ‘More Difficult’ (AFP)

European companies complain they still face a tough business climate in China despite Beijing’s pledges of openness, with about half saying it has become tougher in the past year, according to a survey released Wednesday. The study comes as President Xi Jinping looks to portray the world’s number two as being at the forefront of the globalisation cause just as the United States appears to be stepping back from the world stage. Among the litany of complaints were the uncertain legal environment, higher cost of labour, regulatory headaches and the “Great Firewall” that censors much of the global internet. “As its economy matures, the longstanding inefficiencies in China’s business environment are rendered all the more glaring,” according to the report by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.

Mats Harborn, the chamber’s president, echoed those concerns, telling journalists that “the regulatory environment is actually holding the economy back.” New cybersecurity regulations make it more costly to jump the firewall, requiring businesses to sign up for expensive government-approved virtual private networks that allow users to circumvent filters and access the global internet. Two-thirds of companies believe that censorship and blocking of certain sites has a negative impact on their business. This is the “great contradiction,” said Harborn. “We have China which claims itself a leader in globalisation, talking of the importance of integration, but the cybersecurity law is creating problems.”

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Unstoppable force by now. But do follow the money.

Canada Legalises Recreational Marijuana Nationwide (Ind.)

Canada has legalised the use of recreational marijuana nationwide, making it the first G7 country to do so. The Senate voted 52-29 on Tuesday to pass the Cannabis Act, which allows people over the age of 18 to grow, buy, and use the drug for recreational purposes. It also regulates the growth and sale of marijuana, putting strict limits on packaging and limiting home growth to four plants at a time. The bill passed the House of Commons earlier on Tuesday, and now goes to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – an outspoken supporter of the legalisation effort – to decide when it will take effect.

The vote makes Canada the second country to legalise recreational marijuana nationwide, after Uruguay. It is the first of the world’s seven most advanced economies – also known as the G7 – to do so. Nine US states allow for recreational use, and several other G7 nations allow it for medical purposes. Medical marijuana has been legal in Canada since 2001.

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Wonder what happened at the UN human rights commission talk yesterday in Geneva.

Smearing A Dissident Journalist Is As Good As Killing Him (CJ)

As I write this, demonstrations around the world are taking place in protest of WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange’s arbitrary detention and silencing by the US-centralized power establishment that has been actively pursuing his destruction for over a decade. The demonstrations will be well-attended, but not a fraction as well-attended as they should be. They will receive international attention, but not a fraction as much attention as they should. This is because the manipulators and smear merchants who have made their careers paving the way for oligarchic agendas have been successful in killing off sympathy for the plight of Assange. As we discussed yesterday, sympathy is key for getting narratives to take hold in public consciousness.

This is why western corporate media will circulate pictures of dead children all day long when it’s in the interests of advancing longstanding imperialist agendas, but never when those children were killed by western weapons. If you can tug at someone’s heart strings while telling them a story, the story you tell them will slide right in with minimal scrutiny. And it works the other way, too: if you can prevent someone’s heart strings from being plucked while hearing about a legitimately heartbreaking story, you can prevent that story from taking hold. Kill all sympathy for a dissident journalist and you kill all belief in his side of the story.

And Assange’s side of the story is indeed devastating to the preferred narrative of the US-centralized empire. A journalist (yes, journalist, per definition) who publishes 100 percent authentic documents exposing the inner mechanics of power structures all over the world, who was forced to seek political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in order to avoid extradition by the same government which brutalized Chelsea Manning, is on its face a highly sympathetic story. And it does tremendous damage to the narrative that America and its close network of allies are freedom-loving democracies whose systems of government are nothing like those naughty, oppressive regimes they seek to topple.

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“When you watch the television the television isn’t watching you. When you see the billboard the billboard isn’t seeing you… ”

“Delete Your Account” Warns Virtual Reality Founding Father (ZH)

In a new explosive interview, Silicon Valley tech pioneer and creator of the virtual reality ‘avatar’ Jaron Lanier tells people to delete your social media accounts due to the strong correlation between persistent social media usage and a dramatic societal rise in depression, anger, and anxiety that he says is the result of internet-induced modified forms of behavior. The warning comes in the wake of his new book which details how the creators of social media and the early engineers behind the internet “foolishly laid the foundations for global monopolies.” Jaron Lanier is best known as a founding father of the field of virtual reality and throughout his polymath career has written extensively on human-computer interaction, including most recently in his book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.

Lanier explained in a recent UK Channel 4 interview: “When you watch the television the television isn’t watching you. When you see the billboard the billboard isn’t seeing you… When you use these new designs — social media, search, YouTube — when you see these things, you’re being observed constantly and algorithms are taking that information and changing what you see next.” According to Lanier’s bio, he coined the term ‘Virtual Reality’ (VR) and in the early 1980s founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. In the late 1980s he led the team that developed the first implementations of multi-person virtual worlds using head mounted displays, as well as the first “avatars,” and developed the first widely used software platform architecture for immersive virtual reality applications.

As he defiantly asserts on his personal website, Lanier himself has “no social media accounts at all and all purported ones are fake.” He’s elsewhere said that most internet and social media pioneers in Silicon Valley “have regrets right now” after perfecting what is essentially mass human behavioral engineering and that that internet addiction is not only ruining people’s lives but the political process as well. This is what I could call almost a stealthy addiction. It’s a statistical addiction. What it says is we will get the broad population to use the services a lot, we’ll get them hooked through a scheme of rewards and punishment, and the rewards are when you’re retweeted and the punishment is when you’re treated badly by others online, and then within that we’ll very gradually start to leverage that, to change them. It’s this very kind of stealthy manipulation of the population.”

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Inglan is a bitch.

1 In 3 UK Primary School Teachers Provide Pupils With Toothpaste, Soap (Ind.)

One in three teachers are providing pupils with basic hygiene products such as toothpaste and soap amid soaring child poverty rates, a new study shows. Eight in ten primary school teachers have said they had seen a rise in the numbers of children coming to school unwashed or not looking presentable in the last five years and have found themselves intervening at an increasing rate. A survey carried out by UK charity In Kind Direct also revealed nearly one in five (18 per cent) of teachers say they have to resort to doing this every single week, with the problem starkest in London – where 50 per cent do this weekly – and in the North East, where the figure stands at 29 per cent.

It comes as child poverty rates have surged in recent years, with one million more children in working households now growing up in poverty than did so in 2010, largely because of cuts to in-work benefits and public sector pay freezes. Nicola Finney, head teacher at St Paul’s Primary School in Stoke on Trent, told The Independent around 18 per cent – or nearly one in five – of her pupils’ families were receiving products from the school, as growing numbers of households are “falling on hard times”.

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And the other 17 must follow.

Merkel, Macron Agree On Eurozone Budget (CNBC)

Chancellor Angela Merkel said she and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed on Tuesday to create a euro zone budget charged with boosting investment in the currency bloc and promoting economic convergence between its 19 member states. “We are opening a new chapter,” Merkel said after talks with Macron on European reform ahead of a June 28-29 EU summit. She said euro zone reform was the toughest issue in their talks. “We are working to make sure that the euro zone budget will be used to strengthen investment, also with the aim of strengthening convergence within the euro zone,” she added.

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Like those in Libya you mean?

EU To Consider Plans For Migrant Processing Centres In North Africa (G.)

The EU is to consider the idea of building migrant processing centres in north Africa in an attempt to deter people from making life-threatening journeys to Europe across the Mediterranean, according to a leaked document. The European council of EU leaders “supports the development of the concept of regional disembarkation platforms”, according to the draft conclusions of an EU summit due to take place next week. The EU wants to look at the feasibility of setting up such centres in north Africa, where most migrant journeys to Europe begin. “Such platforms should provide for rapid processing to distinguish between economic migrants and those in need of international protection, and reduce the incentive to embark on perilous journeys,” says the document seen by the Guardian.

Although the plan is winning influential support, it faces political and practical hurdles, with one expert saying it is not clear how the EU would get foreign countries to agree to be “vassal states”. Migration is high on the agenda of the two-day summit, which opens on 28 June. EU leaders will attempt to reach a consensus on how to manage the thousands of refugees and migrants arriving each month. The German and French leaders, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, met near Berlin on Tuesday to agree on a common approach, amid fears in their camps that the European project is unravelling. Before the meeting France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said Europe was “in a process of disintegration. We see states that are turning inward, trying to find national solutions to problems that require European solutions.”

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It’s not about money, but that’s all they can think of.

EU Rebuked For €36 Billion Refugee Pushback Gambit (G.)

The European Union is to increase its spending in Africa by more than 20% over the next seven years to a minimum of €36bn in an attempt to reduce the number of migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean. But a succession of reports funded by the EU or written by leading MEPs say European efforts to stem the flow is characterised by misdirected finances, lack of accountability and repeated breaches of basic human rights, including an inability to undermine the business model of human trafficking, an industry worth as much as £35bn a year. Special concern has been expressed that EU funds are being used to give bonuses to the Italian-trained Libyan coastguard to force boats back to Africa.

The arrival of millions of refugees in Europe – and the deaths of thousands more attempting the crossing – has become the continent’s biggest policy headache, now threatening the stability of the German government and the cohesion of the EU. The biggest challenge is Libya, where deepening political chaos has led to more than 500,000 people crossing into Italy in recent years, hastening the election of a populist government in Rome that is now threatening to form an anti-migrant “axis of the willing” with like-minded central and eastern European countries.

Politicians are scrambling for a new formula not just to distribute the people who have reached Europe but also to return those whose asylum claims are refused. The EU is also searching for a credible means to reduce the incentive for people to come to Europe. The fate of mainstream social democratic and centrist parties in next spring’s European elections may rest on the outcome. A detailed examination of EU efforts to tackle the issue finds a “mismatch between the grandiloquent declarations and the action actually implemented on the ground”.

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The real number is much higher.

34,361 And Rising: Tallying Europe’s Migrant Bodycount (G.)

The vast majority of migrants who have died trying to reach Europe have drowned. Volunteers have logged more than 27,000 deaths by drowning since 1993, often hundreds at a time when large ships capsize. These account for nearly 80% of all the entries. The list points up the marked increase in drownings that occurred after 2014, when the conflict in Syria accelerated, adding to numbers from south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In 2013, it reports more than 900 deaths by drowning. By 2017 that number had increased to around 3,500. A wave of public sympathy for the plight of refugees in Europe was quickly displaced by a backlash against the rising number of arrivals in 2015 and 2016, when almost three million people claimed asylum in Europe.

The EU responded by trying to export the problem back to Africa, with a €2bn (£1.75bn) EU-Africa trust fund designed to encourage African countries to stop people making the journey to Europe. The figures show the impact of this policy shift: in 2014, there were around 1,700 deaths recorded in and off the coast of Africa ascribed to migrants trying to get to Europe; by 2017 this had almost doubled, while deaths in Europe halved over the same period. “Some would say there are fewer deaths in Europe, and the EU’s policy is working”, says Ann Singleton, an academic specialising in migration data at the University of Bristol. “But there’s so much that’s unknown. Deaths are less likely to be reported if they occur in remote areas of Africa, and the number of people are dying inland, or in Libyan detention camps, isn’t recorded.

“If you look at maps, it looks as though the Mediterranean is the most dangerous area of the world for migrant journeys. But we can never say if that’s true, because we simply don’t know what’s happening elsewhere,” says Singleton. For those who get to Europe, the danger is not over. The List records more than 500 deaths in the asylum process, detention centres, prisons and camps. Among this group, the most common cause of death is suicide.

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Swifts eat flying insects.

The Vanishing Of The Swifts (G.)

It is the most miraculous bird, the ultimate winged messenger, exploring our globe, spending its life on the breeze. Sickle-shaped wings silhouetted against the sky, the swift is the fastest of all birds in level flight and remains entirely airborne for 10 months, or more, feeding, sleeping and mating on the wing. These long-lived creatures can clock up 4 million miles, commuting between English summers and African winters. Something has changed though. June is erupting as gloriously as it ever did: roadsides are waving with oxeye daisies and blackbirds flute during the endless evenings. But summer is a shadow of its former self. The swifts aren’t here. Well, they are. Only not as we knew them. I heard a scream just now, felt that start of wonder, and glanced up. One swift. No – three, darting through the blue. Three birds.

It’s like returning to the place where you grew up and finding your old home bulldozed. Reality does not compute with the picture you remember. I knew the swift for its screaming parties, marvellous groups of 20 or 40 or 60 or uncountable numbers of birds racing together through the sky, flicking their wings, calling in apparent glee. But this bird is in freefall. A graph produced by the British Trust for Ornithology is terrifying: the British population declined by 51% between 1995 and 2015. And the rate of decline is increasing: down 24% in the five years to 2015. The decline of globalised animals is always global, and complicated. So the disappearance of other equally charismatic long-distance migrants such as nightingales, cuckoos and swallows is bound up in habitat loss or changes in Africa, as well as Britain, and climatic changes en route.

Living in roofs, swifts have also suffered from the conversion of derelict buildings, and our desire for more energy-efficient, impermeable homes. But the biggest cause of changes in animal populations is always food supply. And guess what? Swifts feed on flying insects. We are belatedly waking up to the global calamity that is the loss of insect life. The German study showing a 76% decline in flying insects since 1989 is no anomaly. In Britain, for instance, three-quarters of butterfly species have declined over 40 years, while moth abundance has fallen by more than 40% in the southern half of the country.

Read more …

Jun 192018
 
 June 19, 2018  Posted by at 12:07 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  14 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Why are you angry? 1896

 

Yes, you have every right to be outraged at the disgraceful treatment of children on America’s borders. But that does not give you the right to NOT be outraged by what America has done and is today still doing to children in, just to name a few places, Syria, Libya and Yemen. Be outraged, but don’t make it an echo chamber issue. Because if you do, you, too, are in a cage.

So if you see the wives of former presidents speak out about the child separation policies, ask yourself where they get the moral authority to speak out on such issues, after their husbands have bombed the crap out of many countries, killing many many children in the process. And don’t let’s get started about Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.

Presently in Yemen, 20 million people depend on humanitarian aid, and the US are helping Saudi Arabia et al bomb the only port left through which that aid can reach them, to smithereens. 8.5 million Yemenis are already starving, and some 3 million of them are children. Where is your outrage over that?

Where is the outrage over the American and international treatment of Julian Assange, who has been in the Ecuador embassy in London for six years today? Where is it?

Don’t get coaxed into selective outrage by your news media, who like nothing better than to tell you what to be outraged by, and what not. If you allow that to happen, you have lost your freedom and your independence. Ask why they tell you a certain story at the moment they tell it. Ask why they tell it the way they do.

Yes, it has come to this. Every single story you read or hear needs to be scrutinized. Because there’s an agenda behind all of them, left, right or middle. And because the media have figured out that constantly driving you from one selective outrage to another is very profitable for them. Critical thought is not.

Yes, there are sociopaths in the Trump administration. But that’s nothing new. There have been sociopaths in every administration. It’s how our political systems work. Sh*t floats to the top.

Yes, US border policies have intensified. But whatever you think of that, migrants and refugees are not a new issue. Nor are the reasons why people flee their homes and communities. Whether it’s Africa or Central America, people flee because of what western governments, military and intelligence services have done to their homelands.

And until we stop doing that, they will keep coming. So much of our prosperity and power is derived directly from other people’s poverty and despair. So much of our wealth has been stolen from other people’s resources. If you want to be outraged at something or someone, start with yourself. Start thinking.

What is happening today is awful. But so many awful things happened in the past that you never showed outrage about. And yet these things are all inextricably linked. One leads to another.

America shouldn’t be outraged about Trump without being outraged about its entire political system, and all of its actors. Without that, outrage about Trump has no meaning, and will lead to nothing at all. Or rather, it will lead to a more divided country, full of people played for profit and political games.

The US invasion of Vietnam ended to a large extent because of protests in the streets. Perhaps that is what is needed once again. But the underlying issues, the ones that had led to the invasion in the first place, were not solved then. And that is what it is all about.

Nor is it an American problem per se. Europe is just as culpable. Children drowning, children in cages, what’s the difference, in the end it all comes from the same mindset. Which needs a radical reset. But what are the odds of that happening?

Our cultures are based on exploiting other peoples and nations, and then telling ourselves we deserve what we have. How are you going to change that? The only way to resolve the global refugee problem is to make sure people have a future where they are born. And the only thing we actually do is to make that impossible.

Yes, be outraged.

 

 

Jun 172018
 


George Grosz Apocalyptic landscape 1936

 

Is Merkel’s Reign Nearing A Frustrated End? (G.)
Merkel Wants to Hold Urgent Summit With EU States on Migration Issues (Sp.)
Italy Bars Two More Refugee Ships From Ports (G.)
Spain Rescues More Than 900 Boat Migrants, Finds Four Bodies (R.)
First Migrants From Aquarius Rescue Ship Arrive At Spanish Port (Sky)
Spain Says France To Take In Aquarius Ship Migrants (AFP)
Trump Keeps His Promises On Trade (AFP)
China Tariffs On US Soybeans Could Cost Iowa Farmers Up To $624 Million (DMR)
Mattis: Putin Is Trying To “Undermine America’s Moral Authority” (CJ)
Consumers Stubbornly Cling to Cash (DQ)
May To Unveil £20 Billion A Year Boost To NHS Spending (G.)
Greece, FYROM To Sign Name Change Accord Sunday (K.)

 

 

This morning Merkel’s coalition partner, Horst Seehofer, said ‘I can not work with this woman anymore’. Looks like game could be over.

Is Merkel’s Reign Nearing A Frustrated End? (G.)

For nearly 14 years as Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel has defined and personified Europe’s middle ground: pragmatic, consensual, mercantilist, petit-bourgeois, above all stable. It is little wonder the leader of Mitteleuropa’s major economic power has dominated the political centre for so long. But what if Merkel falls? Can the centre hold? These are increasingly urgent questions as the once unassailable “Mutti” struggles to hold together a fractious coalition. The immediate issue, which is likely to come to a head on Monday, is a furious row over EU immigration policy. But other problems are piling up, with unpredictable consequences for Europe’s future cohesion.

Merkel’s political obituary has been written many times, but now the final draft is nearing completion. She is under fire from the hard-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which stormed into the Bundestag last autumn. She has problems with the failing, unpopular Social Democrats on her left, on whom she depends for support. More seriously, though, Merkel is being challenged from within by her interior minister, Horst Seehofer, former chairman of Bavaria’s rightwing CSU, which is allied to Merkel’s Christian Democrats. In sum, Seehofer is demanding Germany no longer admit migrants who have first entered the EU via other member states – which is nearly all of them.

In Merkel’s view, such a bar would be illegal and would wreck her efforts – ongoing since the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, when Germany accepted 1 million migrants – to create a balanced, EU-wide policy of voluntary migrant quotas. She says Seehofer should wait for this month’s EU summit to come up with a joint plan. The problem with that approach is twofold. Seehofer’s CSU, which faces a critical electoral clash with the AfD in October, complains that the EU has been trying and failing to agree this for years. Another objection, as her critics see it, is that most Germans, recalling her 2015 “open door” policy, do not trust Merkel on this issue. Polls indicate 65% back tighter border controls.

Last week’s row between France and Italy, sparked by Rome’s decision to refuse entry to a ship, the Aquarius, carrying 629 migrants rescued off Libya, showed how improbable is the prospect of agreement at the Brussels summit. Italy’s new populist leadership, in common with an emerging axis of nationalist-minded governments in Austria, Hungary and Poland, believes it has a mandate to halt the migrant flow. Meanwhile, so-called “frontline states” such as Greece, Spain and Italy accuse “destination states” such as Germany, France and the UK of failing to accept a fair share of migrants. Divisions have been exacerbated by the failure, so far, of a key Merkel-backed initiative, the multibillion-euro EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, to reduce migration by addressing “root causes” in places such as Nigeria, Eritrea and Somalia.

Read more …

And this is of course far too late. This summit should have been held 3 years ago. And it should be a UN summit, not some talks with Greece and Italy. Give Africa a voice. And Central America. Stop inviting xenophobia.

Merkel Wants to Hold Urgent Summit With EU States on Migration Issues (Sp.)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to hold an urgent summit dedicated to the migration crisis and to discuss this issue with a group of the EU member states, local media reported. The Bild newspaper reported Saturday citing own sources in the leadership of several EU countries that Merkel would like to discuss migration-related issues with leadership of Austria, Greece, and Italy. According to the media outlet, a final decision about the date of the summit has not been made yet, however it could take place later in the month. Earlier, Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, called for reforms of EU asylum rules, proposing that the EU set up centers to process asylum claims in migrants’ countries of origin. France’s President Emanuel Macron also stressed the need to modify current migration rules and criticizing the European Union for not sharing the burden with Rome over the migrant crisis.

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This comes at a bad time given Merkel’s problems.

Italy Bars Two More Refugee Ships From Ports (G.)

Italy’s interior minister has sparked a new migration crisis in the Mediterranean by barring two rescue boats from bringing refugees to shore, a week after the Auarius was prevented from docking. “Two other ships with the flag of Netherlands, Lifeline and Seefuchs, have arrived off the coast of Libya, waiting for their load of human beings abandoned by the smugglers,” Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant party the League, wrote on his Facebook page. “These gentlemen know that Italy no longer wants to be complicit in the business of illegal immigration, and therefore will have to look for other ports [not Italian] where to go.”

Italy’s closure of its ports to the migrant rescue ship Aquarius, which was carrying 620 people, triggered warnings from aid agencies of a deadly summer at sea for people trying to cross the Mediterranean. Axel Steier, the co-founder of Mission Lifeline which operates the Lifeline ship, said his crew had rescued more than 100 migrants off Libya on Friday in an operation with a US warship, and transferred them to a Turkish merchant vessel. He said his ship was too small to make the journey from Libya to Italian ports and that he always transferred migrants to other ships, but insisted those craft should have the right to land in Italy.

“I am sure there is an obligation for Italy to take them because its closest safe harbour is Lampedusa. We hand over migrants to Europe because of the Geneva convention,” he said. Vessels chartered by an assortment of European NGOs have plied the waters off Libya for three years, rescuing migrants from leaking boats and transporting them to Sicily.

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Greece, Italy and now Spain.

Spain Rescues More Than 900 Boat Migrants, Finds Four Bodies (R.)

Spain’s coast guard rescued 933 migrants and found four dead bodies in the Mediterranean Friday and Saturday, as the country prepared for the arrival of a charity rescue ship that was denied a port by Italy and Malta. The number of people fleeing poverty and conflict by boat to Spain doubled last year and is likely to rise again in 2018, according to the EU border agency, potentially pushing migration up the national political agenda. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has already made migrant-friendly moves in his first two weeks in the job, offering to take in the rescue ship Aquarius with 629 people on board and pledging free healthcare to undocumented migrants. The coast guard said on Twitter it had rescued 507 people from 59 small dinghies in the Gibraltar strait, where it also found the four bodies.

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Kudos to Sanchez. But what comes next?

First Migrants From Aquarius Rescue Ship Arrive At Spanish Port (Sky)

The first boat of the Aquarius convoy carrying 630 people, who have become the focus of a pan-European disagreement over migration, has docked in Valencia. The Italian coast guard vessel Dattilo arrived in the Spanish port just before 7am local time on Sunday, and will be followed by the Aquarius and another Italian navy ship, the Orione. The migrants were rescued a week ago off the coast of Libya and have been at sea ever since after the Italian government refused to allow the vessel they were aboard to dock in Italy. Among those rescued are seven children aged under five, 32 children aged between five and 15 years, 61 young people aged from 15 to 17 and 80 women, seven of whom are pregnant.

They were rescued in several different operations last weekend after Italian coastguard vessels reported a group of small rubber dinghies off the coast of Libya. The Aquarius, a charity rescue vessel operated by French charities SOS Mediterranee and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), picked up more than a hundred people in a complex night-time rescue before being asked by the Italian authorities to take on board hundreds more people they had recovered. However the Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, then refused to allow the Aquarius to dock at Italian ports, fulfilling an election pledge to stop the arrival of migrants from Africa. Malta also refused to allow them to dock there, arguing that the Italians had assumed responsibility for the rescue operations.

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More kudos for Sanchez. France is moving.

Spain Says France To Take In Aquarius Ship Migrants (AFP)

Madrid said Saturday it had accepted an offer from France to take in migrants from the Aquarius rescue ship, currently en route to Spain with more than 600 people on board. “The French government will work together with the Spanish government to handle the arrival of the migrants” scheduled for Sunday, Spain’s deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo said in a statement. “France will accept migrants who express the wish to go there” once they have been processed in Valencia, the statement said. The vessel is at the heart of a major migration row between European Union member states.

Chartered by a French aid group, the vessel rescued 629 migrants including many children and pregnant women off Libya’s cost last weekend. Italy’s new populist government and Malta refused to let it dock in their ports, accusing each other of failing to meet their humanitarian and EU commitments. Spain eventually stepped in and agreed to receive the refugees. France – who had angered Rome by branding it irresponsible over the vessel rejection – offered Thursday to welcome Aquarius migrants who “meet the criteria for asylum”.

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Still negotiating.

Trump Keeps His Promises On Trade (AFP)

By inflicting tariffs on the steel and aluminum of his allies, and then on tens of billions of dollars in goods from China, US President Donald Trump has quickly moved to fulfill the tough campaign pledges he made on trade. During his first year in office, Trump and his top economic aides made repeated threats and warned that preliminary investigations were launched into whether certain imports were being unjustly subsidized. But no concrete steps were taken. That all changed in March, when the “America First” president went on the offensive. “What happened for a period of time is the president was constrained by different members” of his administration, said Edward Alden, a specialist on US economic competitiveness at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“But the president has become increasingly confident in his own judgment on these issues… He is willing to do radical things he promised during his campaign and for many years before that.” In its latest move, the White House on Friday announced stiff 25 percent tariffs on Chinese imports, sparking immediate retaliation from Beijing. The move, which Trump justified as payback for the theft of American intellectual property and technology, reignited a trade spat between the world’s two largest economies, spooking markets and worrying business leaders.

It came on top of the tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum that went into effect in late March – measures that prompted Beijing to slap punitive duties on 128 US goods, including pork, wine and certain pipes. Since June 1, steel and aluminum imports from the European Union, Canada and Mexico have been hit with tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Trump has seemingly opted to go with his gut, sometimes over the protestations of his closest aides.

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Since there is no glut of soybeans globally, this looks improbable.

China Tariffs On US Soybeans Could Cost Iowa Farmers Up To $624 Million (DMR)

Perhaps Iowa farmers’ biggest fear is becoming a harsh reality: The escalating U.S.-China trade dispute erupted Friday, with each country vowing to levy 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion in goods. U.S. and Iowa agriculture is caught in the crossfire, with farmers selling $14 billion in soybeans to China last year, its top export market. Soybeans are among hundreds of U.S. products China has singled out for tariffs. The U.S. has an equally long list that includes taxing X-ray machines and other Chinese goods. Iowa farmers could lose up to $624 million, depending on how long the tariffs are in place and the speed producers can find new markets for their soybeans, said Chad Hart, an Iowa State University economist.

U.S. soybean prices have fallen about 12 percent since March, when the U.S.-China trade dispute began. “Any tariff or tax put in place will have a significant impact, not only to the U.S. soybean market but to Iowa’s, because we’re such a large producer,” Hart said Friday. Iowa is the nation’s second-largest soybean grower, producing 562 million bushels last year worth $5.2 billion. “It will slow down the market. Even with the tariffs in place, we will ship a lot of soybeans to China,” Hart said. “It just won’t be nearly the amount we did before. “It’s likely to still be our largest market even with these tariffs in place.”

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Word.

Mattis: Putin Is Trying To “Undermine America’s Moral Authority” (CJ)

At a graduation ceremony for the US Naval War College (barf), US Secretary of Defense James Mattis asserted that Russian President Vladimir Putin “aims to diminish the appeal of the western democratic model and attempts to undermine America’s moral authority,” and that “his actions are designed not to challenge our arms at this point but to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals.” This would be the same James Mattis who’s been overseeing the war crimes committed by America’s armed forces during their illegal occupation of Syria.

This would be the same United States of America that was born of the genocide of indigenous tribes and the labor of African slaves, which slaughtered millions in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Libya and Syria for no legitimate reason, which is partnered with Ukrainian Nazis, jihadist factions in Syria and Iranian terror cultists, which supports 73 percent of the world’s dictators, which interferes constantly in the electoral processes of other countries as a matter of policy, which stages coups around the world, which has encircled the globe with military bases, whose FBI still targets black civil rights activists for persecution to this very day, which routinely enters into undeclared wars of aggression against noncompliant governments to advance plutocratic interests, which remains the only country ever to use nuclear weapons on human beings after doing so completely needlessly in Japan, and which is functionally a corporatist oligarchy with no meaningful “democratic model” in place at all.

A casual glance at facts and history makes it instantly clear that the United States has no “moral authority” of any kind whatsoever, and is arguably the hub of the most pernicious and dangerous force ever assembled in human history. But the establishment Russia narrative really is that cartoonishly ridiculous: you really do have to believe that the US government is 100 percent pure good and the Russian government is 100 percent pure evil to prevent the whole narrative from falling to pieces. If you accept the idea that the exchange is anything close to 50/50, with Russia giving back more or less what it’s getting and simply protecting its own interests from the interests of geopolitical rivals, it no longer makes any sense to view Putin as a leader who poses a unique threat to the world. If you accept the idea that the west is actually being far more aggressive and antagonistic toward Russia than Russia is being toward the west, it gets even more laughable.

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“Currency in Circulation vs. GDP is increasing on all continents..”

Consumers Stubbornly Cling to Cash (DQ)

The last month has been an unhappy time for daydreamers of a cashless nirvana. Following weeks of disruptive tech failures, payment outages, and escalating cyber fraud scams, much of it taking place in Britain, consumers have been reminded of one of the great benefits of physical cash: it is accepted just about everywhere and does not suddenly fail on you. The findings of a new study by UK-based online payments company Paysafe, partly owned by US private equity giant Blackstone, confirm that consumers on both sides of the Atlantic continue to cling to physical lucre. For its Lost in Transaction report, Paysafe surveyed over 5,000 consumers in the UK, Canada, the US, Germany, and Austria on their payment habits.

One of its main findings is that 87% of consumers used cash to make purchases in the last month, while 83% visited ATMs, and 41% are not interested in even hearing about cash alternatives. “Despite the apparent benefits of low-friction payment technologies, these findings suggest many consumers aren’t ready to lose visibility of the payment process,” says Paysafe Group Chief Marketing Officer Oscar Nieboer. “It’s clear that the benefits are not unilaterally agreed upon, with cultural and infrastructure trends at play, and it may be some time before adoption is widespread.” Although consumers continue to cling to cash, they appear to be carrying less of it: 49% overall in the survey and 55% of U.S. respondents said they carry less cash now than they did a year ago.

The average American consumer carries $42 today — that’s $8 less than in 2017. In the UK the average amount carried in 2017 was £33; that has now fallen to £21. But that does not mean that the amount of cash in circulation is dwindling. On the contrary, according to this year’s G4S cash report, the world average ratio of currency vs GDP continues to rise, reaching 9.6% in 2018. “Currency in Circulation vs. GDP is increasing on all continents, indicating a consistent, growing demand for cash across the world,” says the report. South America has by far the highest cash dependency relative to its GDP, with an average ratio of over 16%.

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First you kill it, then it needs to be revived. How much of the £20 billion goes to repairing the damage already done?

May To Unveil £20 Billion A Year Boost To NHS Spending (G.)

Taxpayers are to be asked to help fund a £20bn a year injection of extra cash into the National Health Service by 2023-24 that will pay for thousands more doctors and nurses, while cutting cancer deaths and improving mental health services, Theresa May will say today. The announcement, before the NHS’s 70th birthday next month, will represent the biggest funding boost since Gordon Brown imposed a one percentage point rise in National Insurance to pay for more NHS spending in his 2002 budget, in the face of Tory claims that Labour was slapping a “tax on ordinary families”.

Government sources said the increases, which would be paid for in part by a “Brexit dividend”, would amount to around £600m a week extra for the NHS in cash terms within six years. Health and social care secretary Jeremy Hunt said last night that the government wanted to “show the world what a cutting-edge 21st-century healthcare system can look like”. He added: “This long-term plan and historic funding boost is a fitting birthday present for our most loved institution. Like no other organisation could ever hope to be, the NHS is there for every family at the best and worst of times, from the wonder of birth to the devastation of death, living and breathing those very British values of decency, fairness and compassion.

He said the extra cash “recognises the superhuman efforts made by staff over the last few years to maintain services in the face of rapidly growing demand. But it also presents a big opportunity for the NHS to write an entirely new chapter in its history”. Details of how the public will be required to pay through tax rises, and the proportion of the funding increases they will pay for, will not be spelled out until the budget, because of ongoing arguments involving the chancellor Philip Hammond, Hunt, and No 10.

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70% of Greeks is against the deal, protests are everywhere. But he pushed it through. In Foreign Policy, someone suggested giving him a Nobal Peace Prize for it. But, but, democracy…

Greece, FYROM To Sign Name Change Accord Sunday (K.)

Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) are set to sign a historic accord to modify the latter’s name after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament Saturday. The accord is to be signed in the Prespes region, a lake district which borders Greece, FYROM and Albania, by the two countries’ foreign ministers Sunday. Tsipras and his FYROM counterpart Zoran Zaev will both attend the ceremony, along with UN mediator Matthew Nimetz and other European officials – including the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Commissioner Johannes Hahn.

Following the ceremony, members of the two delegations will hold a working lunch in the town of Otesevo, in FYROM. Security at the event is expected to be ultra-tight. A protest against the deal will be held in the nearby village of Pisoderi. On Saturday, after more than two days of vehement debate in Parliament, Greece’s SYRIZA-led government survived a no-confidence vote brought against it by the main opposition New Democracy party, but with one less MP. The motion garnered 127 votes with 153 against. The junior coalition partner Independent Greeks (ANEL) backed the government despite its opposition to the name deal with FYROM that Tsipras announced last week, bar one MP, Dimitris Kammenos, who backed the motion. He was subsequently expelled from the party, reducing the government’s majority to 153.

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Jun 162018
 
 June 16, 2018  Posted by at 9:08 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  16 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Nevermore 1897

 

Trump Sets Tariffs On $50 Billion In Chinese Goods; Beijing Strikes Back (R.)
Why The U.S.-China Trade Deficit Is So Huge (MW)
Wall Street Builds Immunity To Trade War Rhetoric (R.)
Nomi Prins: The Central Banking Heist Has Put The World At Risk (UH)
Some Of The ‘Most Systemically Important Banks’ In The World Are Tumbling (ZH)
Merger Mania (Lebowitz)
The Key Word In The Trump-Kim Show (Escobar)
Merkel’s Position As German Leader Under Threat Over Immigration Split (CNBC)
US Government Says 2,000 Child Separations At Mexico Border In 6 Weeks (R.)
French Police Cut Soles Off Migrant Children’s Shoes – Oxfam (G.)
In ‘Calais of Italy’ Tension Soars Over Migrant Crisis (AFP)
Greek Police Hunt Golden Dawn Lawmaker Faced with Charges of Treason (GR)

 

 

Negotiating.

Trump Sets Tariffs On $50 Billion In Chinese Goods; Beijing Strikes Back (R.)

U.S. President Donald Trump said he was pushing ahead with hefty tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports on Friday, and the smoldering trade war between the world’s two largest economies showed signs of igniting as Beijing immediately vowed to respond in kind. Trump laid out a list of more than 800 strategically important imports from China that would be subject to a 25 percent tariff starting on July 6, including cars, the latest hardline stance on trade by a U.S. president who has already been wrangling with allies.

China’s Commerce Ministry said it would respond with tariffs “of the same scale and strength” and that any previous trade deals with Trump were “invalid.” The official Xinhua news agency said China would impose 25 percent tariffs on 659 U.S. products, ranging from soybeans and autos to seafood. China’s retaliation list was increased more than six-fold from a version released in April, but the value was kept at $50 billion, as some high-value items such as commercial aircraft were deleted.

Read more …

Soybeans R Us.

Why The U.S.-China Trade Deficit Is So Huge (MW)

President Donald Trump will let tariffs on Chinese goods worth up to $50 billion take effect after talks between the two countries failed to appease White House demands on reducing huge U.S. trade deficits. The U.S. has run large deficits with China for years and in some cases no longer produces certain goods such as consumer electronics that are popular with Americans. It won’t be easy, and it might even be impossible, to reduce the gap much any time soon. In 2017, the U.S. posted a $375.6 billion deficit in goods with China.

Most glaring is the huge deficit in computers and electronics, but the U.S. is a net importer from China in most market segments except for agriculture. The U.S. is excluding Chinese-made cellphones and televisions from its tariffs. China has been a big buyer of American-grown soybeans and other crops. Planes made by Boeing also are a product in demand in China. What happens next? Trump has vowed to increase tariffs if China retaliates, but the Chinese promised to return the favor. A trade dispute between the two largest economies in the world could result in lasting damage to the global economy if it metastasizes.

Read more …

What happens when there is no price discovery.

Wall Street Builds Immunity To Trade War Rhetoric (R.)

Fears of tariffs and a potential global trade war have jostled U.S. stocks over the past few months, but there is a sense among investors that the market is taking the drum beat of rhetoric and statements more in stride. In the latest salvo, U.S. President Donald Trump announced hefty tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports on Friday, and Beijing threatened to respond in kind. But even as the developments threatened to ignite a trade war between the world’s two largest economies, the equity market largely shrugged it off. The benchmark S&P 500 index ended down only 0.1 percent on Friday.

That paled compared to losses earlier in the year that were sparked by fears of a U.S.-China trade war that would be detrimental to economic growth. “The market has gotten reasonably comfortably numb to this tariff stuff,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana. “They are becoming more accustomed to this being a first foray and negotiating tool.” The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is to begin collecting tariffs on an initial tranche of 818 Chinese product categories on July 6. “It’s kind of the cry-wolf syndrome,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia. “I think people fear the tariffs and the uncertainty about it, but think, ‘OK, this is just another negotiating point.’”

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“..a de facto heist that has enabled the most dominant banks and central bankers to run the world”.

Nomi Prins: The Central Banking Heist Has Put The World At Risk (UH)

Over the last decade, she tells me when we meet in London, “under the guise of QE, central bankers have massively overstepped their traditional mandates, directing the flow of epic sums of fabricated money, without any checks or balances, towards the private banking sector”. Since QE began, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, “the US Federal Reserve has produced a massive $4.5 trillion of conjured money, out of a worldwide QE total of around $21 trillion”, says Prins. The combination of ultra-low interest rates and vast monetary expansion, she explains, has caused “speculation to rage … much as a global casino would be abuzz if everyone gambled using everyone else’s money”.

Much of this new spending power, though, has remained “inside the system”, with banks shoring up their balance sheets. “So lending to ordinary firms and households has barely grown as a result of QE,” says Prins, “nor have wages or prosperity for most of the world’s population”. Instead, “the banks have gone on an asset-buying spree”, she explains, getting into her stride, “with the vast flow of QE cash from central banks to private banks ensuring endless opportunities for market manipulation and asset bubbles – driven by government support”. Prins describes “the power grab we’ve seen by the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and other central banks”.

Using QE, she argues, “these illusionists have altered the nature of the financial system and orchestrated a de facto heist that has enabled the most dominant banks and central bankers to run the world”.

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They run the world and they’re still failing. Follow the money.

Some Of The ‘Most Systemically Important Banks’ In The World Are Tumbling (ZH)

Since the Federal Reserve hiked rates, “big” US banks have dramatically underperformed “small” US banks, continuing a trend that has been going on since February… But it’s broader than that; this “big” bank blow-up is global. The stock prices of 16 of the most ‘Systemically Important Financial Institutions’ (SIFIs) in the world are now in bear market territory (down by 20% or more from their recent highs in dollar terms); and as the FT reports, this has caused Ian Hartnett, chief investment strategist at London-based Absolute Strategy Research, to issue his first “Black Swan” alert since 2009.

Of the 39 SIFIs, these are the 16 in bear market territory: Deutsche Bank, Nordea, ICBC, UniCredit, Crédit Agricole, ING, Santander, Société Générale, BNP Paribas, UBS, Agricultural Bank of China, AXA, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Bank of China, Credit Suisse and Prudential Financial. At some point, says Hartnett, central bankers will have to respond to bearish signals from almost half the global SIFIs, rather than continuing to tighten monetary policy: “The clue is in the name,” he said. “If these banks are supposed to be systemically important then policymakers ought to be watching them to see what is happening.” “The synchronised dips were a sign of global financial stress.”

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“..there has been $2 trillion in mergers in 2018, and its only June.”

Merger Mania (Lebowitz)

We have written numerous articles describing how cheap money and poorly designed executive compensation packages encourage corporate actions that may not be in the best interest of longer-term shareholders or the economy. The bottom line in the series of articles is that corporations, in particular shareholders and executives, are willing to forego longer term investment for future growth opportunities in exchange for the personal benefits of short-term share price appreciation. Buybacks and mergers, both of which are fueled by the Federal Reserve’s ultra-low interest rate policy have made these actions much easier to accomplish.

On the other hand, corporate apologists argue that buybacks are simply a return of capital to shareholders, just like dividends. There is nothing more to them. Instead of elaborating about the longer term ill-effects associated with buybacks or the true short-term motivations behind many mergers, the powerful simplicity of the following two graphs stands on their own. The first graph, courtesy Meritocracy, shows how mergers tend to run in cycles. Like clockwork, merger activity tends to peak before recessions. Not surprisingly, the peaks tend to occur after the Federal Reserve (Fed) has initiated a rate hike cycle. The graph only goes through 2015, but consider there has been $2 trillion in mergers in 2018, and its only June.

The following graph shows how corporate borrowing has accelerated over the last eight years on the back of lower interest rates. Currently, corporate debt to GDP stands at levels that accompanied the prior three recessions. There is a pattern here among corporate activities which seems similar to that which we see in investors. At the point in time when investors should be getting cautious and defensive as markets become stretched, they carelessly reach for more return. Based on the charts above, corporate executives do the same thing. The difference is that when an investor is careless, his or her net worth is at risk. A corporate executive on the other hand, loses nothing and simply walks away and frequently with a golden parachute.

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The statement does have substance.

The Key Word In The Trump-Kim Show (Escobar)

The Singapore joint statement is not a deal; it’s a statement. The absolutely key item is number 3: “Reaffirming the April 27, 2018, Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” This means that the US and North Korea will work towards denuclearization not only in what concerns the DPRK but the whole Korean Peninsula. Much more than “…the DPRK commits to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”, the keywords are in fact “reaffirming the April 27, 2018, Panmunjom Declaration…” Even before Singapore, everyone knew the DPRK would not “de-nuke” (Trump terminology) for nothing, especially when promised just some vague US “guarantees”.

Predictably, both US neocon and humanitarian imperialist factions are unanimous in their fury, blasting the absence of “meat” in the joint statement. In fact there’s plenty of meat. Singapore reaffirms the Panmunjom Declaration, which is a deal between North Korea and South Korea. By signing the Singapore joint statement, Washington has been put on notice of the Panmunjom Declaration. In law, when you take notice of a fact, you can’t ignore it later. The DPRK’s commitment to denuclearize in the Singapore statement is a reaffirmation of its commitment to denuclearize in the Panmunjom Declaration, with all of the conditions attached to it. And Trump acknowledged that by signing the Singapore statement.

The Panmunjom Declaration stresses that: “South and North Korea confirmed the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. South and North Korea shared the view that the measures being initiated by North Korea are very meaningful and crucial for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and agreed to carry out their respective roles and responsibilities in this regard. South and North Korea agreed to actively seek the support and cooperation of the international community for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

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The risk is real.

Merkel’s Position As German Leader Under Threat Over Immigration Split (CNBC)

A split over immigration between Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister Christian Social Union (CSU) party is threatening to end her 12-year spell as Germany’s leader. Germany’s grand coalition government was formed in March after five months of political deadlock since an election the previous September. It resulted in Merkel’s fourth term as German chancellor. That vote saw a big upswing in support for the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, who campaigned against Merkel’s open-door policy to refugees and migrants arriving from the Middle East and Africa.

Now the CSU, fearful of losing further support from its conservative base, is threatening to withdraw from the country’s grand coalition unless Merkel hardens her immigration stance. “My sources in Berlin say the situation is on a knife-edge right now, some are even giving it an 80 percent probability that Merkel will step down in the next two weeks,” said Nina Schick, director at political consultancy Rasmussen Global, in a telephone call to CNBC Friday. Schick, however, warned that writing Merkel off has long been a dangerous game. “The fundamental rule in German politics since 2006 is don’t underestimate Merkel,” she added.

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CUT IT OUT! Bunch of crazies.

US Government Says 2,000 Child Separations At Mexico Border In 6 Weeks (R.)

The government said on Friday that 1,995 children were separated from 1,940 adults at the U.S.-Mexico border between April 19 and May 31, as the Trump administration implements stricter border enforcement policies. The number represents a dramatic uptick from the nearly 1,800 family separations that Reuters reported had happened from October 2016 through February of this year. The official tally of separations is now nearly 4,000 children, not including March and the beginning of April 2018. In May, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in which all those apprehended entering the United States illegally would be criminally charged, which generally leads to children being separated from their parents.

The families were all separated so the parents could be criminally prosecuted, said a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, who declined to be named, on a call with reporters. “Advocates want us to ignore the law and give people with families a free pass,” said the official. “We no longer exempt entire classes of people.” The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request to provide a breakdown of the age of children separated from their parents and held in custody, but the official said they do not separate babies from adults.

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I said: CUT IT OUT!

French Police Cut Soles Off Migrant Children’s Shoes – Oxfam (G.)

French border police have been accused of detaining migrant children as young as 12 in cells without food or water, cutting the soles off their shoes and stealing sim cards from their mobile phones, before illegally sending them back to Italy. A report released on Friday by the charity Oxfam also cites the case of a “very young” Eritrean girl, who was forced to walk back to the Italian border town of Ventimiglia along a road with no pavement while carrying her 40-day-old baby. The allegations, which come from testimony gathered by Oxfam workers and partner organisations, come two months after French border police were accused of falsifying the birth dates of unaccompanied migrant children in an attempt to pass them off as adults and send them back to Italy.

“We don’t have evidence of violent physical abuse, but many [children] have recounted being pushed and shoved or shouted at in a language they don’t understand,” Giulia Capitani, the report’s author, told the Guardian. “And in other ways the border police intimidate them – for example, cutting the soles off their shoes is a way of saying, ‘Don’t try to come back’.” Daniela Zitarosa, from the Italian humanitarian agency Intersos, said: “Police [officers] yell at them, laugh at them and tell them, ‘You will never cross here’. “Some children have their mobile phone seized and sim card removed. They lose their data and phonebook. They cannot even call their parents afterwards.”

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France’s role is not pretty. Macron’s criticism of Italy unveils it.

In ‘Calais of Italy’ Tension Soars Over Migrant Crisis (AFP)

Emmanuel Macron is not a welcome guest in the Italian border town of Ventimiglia, a flashpoint in Europe’s migration crisis. Residents are furious at the French president for charging Rome with “cynicism and irresponsibility” this week after it turned away a rescue boat carrying more than 600 asylum-seekers. “It’s bad what happened to the Aquarius (ship) but how dare Macron criticise Italy!” vented retired teacher Fulvia Semeria who volunteers for the Secours Catholique charity, a key aid group for migrants. “It’s unacceptable from a country that does nothing for migrants and even rejects them,” she said, calling his remarks “insulting and totally unfair”.

The pretty northern town at the gates of the French Riviera has received tens of thousands of asylum seekers pushed back by France since the eruption of Europe’s worst migration crisis three years ago. This is in addition to scores of desperate African refugees landing on its shores after undertaking the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. The influx has seen Ventimiglia dubbed the “Calais of Italy”, in reference to the French coastal town notorious for its sprawling migrant camps. [..] At least 16 migrants have died trying to cross from France into Italy since September 2016, falling off mountains, being hit by cars or electrocuted while hiding under train carriages.

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Pretty crazy. All over a name change.

Greek Police Hunt Golden Dawn Lawmaker Faced with Charges of Treason (GR)

A Golden Dawn lawmaker is on the run after Greece’s authorities issued an arrest warrant following his call in the parliament on Friday for the arrest of the country’s prime minister and president over the provisional ‘Macedonia’ name deal. According to reports, Konstantinos Barbarousis, who could face charges of high treason, escaped a police blockade late on Friday in the western region of Aetoloakarnania where he sought refuge. A huge police operation is under way to locate him and bring him to justice. Judicial authorities do not need Parliament’s approval to lift an MP’s immunity in the case of treason-related charges.

Speaking in Parliament, Barbarousis accused the government of “not legislating in the nation’s interests but in its own.” He called for a coup d’etat and asked on the Greek armed forces to “abide by their oath” and arrest Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Defense Minister Panos Kammenos and President Prokopis Pavlopoulos. His outburst led to his expulsion form the extremist party, as the speaker of the house barred any members of Golden Dawn speaking during the debate on a no-confidence motion against the government tabled after the Greece, FYROM agreement.

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