Mar 162023
 


Pable Picasso Le Pengouin 1907

 

Credit Suisse Borrows $54BN From SNB: “Pre-emptively Strengthen Liquidity” (ZH)
EU Shrugs Off Silicon Valley Bank Collapse (Pol.eu)
Pentagon Calls Moscow Over Drone Incident (RT)
US Drones Have No Business Near Russia – Ambassador (RT)
Drone Incident Confirms US Involvement In Ukraine Conflict – Russia (RT)
Moscow Responds To Lindsey Graham Threat (RT)
Attack On Russian Plane In Neutral Airspace A Declaration Of War – Antonov (TASS)
Antonov Expressed Russia’s Concerns Over US Activities At State Dept (TASS)
China Comments On ‘Ukrainian Theory’ Of Nord Stream Sabotage (RT)
Explosive Devices Found At Russian Pipeline – Transneft (RT)
Ukraine Wants To Legalize Controversial Hacker Brigade (RT)
How Russian Identity Was Wiped Out In What Is Now Western Ukraine (Plotnikov)
The Tyrants Are Passing State Laws to Push CBDCs (Thomas Renz)
GOP Candidates: Pay Attention DC (Denninger)
Which Biden Family Member Got Cut Of $3M CCP-Linked Wire? (ZH)

 

 

 

 

 

 

RFK Haines
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635831142124339200

 

 

RFK Fauci

 

 

 

 

Tucker weapons

 

 

Bosi

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

Russian warriors

 

 

 

 

Credit Suisse is labeled systemically important, aka too big to fail. On Wall Street. But as ZH notes this loan does nothing to halt the depositor flight that made the loan necessary. What happens if someone decides to take the other side of the bet, like Soros did with the Bank of England?

Credit Suisse Borrows $54BN From SNB: “Pre-emptively Strengthen Liquidity” (ZH)

Update (21:00ET): And so, the “bailout” arrives just a few hours before the Europe open, Credit Suisse said it’s planning to borrow from the Swiss National Bank up to CHF50 billion ($54 billion) under a covered loan facility which is “fully collateralized by high quality assets”. It wasn’t immediately clear what high quality assets CS has left to pledge but in a time of BTFP, we are confident they found something. The bank also announced offers by Credit Suisse International to repurchase certain OpCo senior debt securities for cash of up to about CHF3 billion, which will help the bank pick up a few pennies in bond discount, even as it faces tens of billions in deposit flight.

So to summarize: Credit Suisse effectively just took out a priming DIP loan, pledging its last remaining assets with the SNB, to shore up some $54BN in emergency liquidity, probably how much the bank has seen in deposit outflows. It will be very interesting on what terms those assets were pledged. Another way of saying it, is that this is a last-ditch liquidity infusion, and all it does is prevent forced asset liquidations (a la SVB). Meanwhile it does nothing to halt the depositor flight because once trust is broken, it rarely returns. The news sent Euro Stoxx 50 futures 2% higher, and pushed Emini S&P futures to session highs of 3946; 2Year yields moved up by about 20bps to 4.00% before fading the move.

That said don’t hold your breath for some breathtaking surge: once the market sees though this rescue for what it is – yet another temporary stop gap measure – it will demand much more, especially after the ECB hikes rates tomorrow which this “band-aid bailout” will allow the Central Bank to do, in the process guaranteeing an even bigger bailout down the line.

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“..acting as if there’s no crisis can sometimes be all part of the game to reassure the markets..”

EU Shrugs Off Silicon Valley Bank Collapse (Pol.eu)

The failure over the weekend of America’s Silicon Valley Bank, which had assets of $200 billion, has prompted fears of wider meltdown, with share prices plummeting and U.S. agencies scrambling to contain the fallout and prevent runs on other lenders. In the European Union, it’s very definitely seen as something that’s happening to other people. “At the EU level, there is very limited presence of Silicon Valley Bank,” Valdis Dombrovskis, executive vice president of the European Commission, said Tuesday. “We are in touch with the relevant competent authorities, but we don’t expect much of a spillover effect.” His was just the latest in a series of chilled-out comments from leading EU figures as they looked on while the financial blowup raged.

“I don’t see any risk of contagion,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday. “We are monitoring the situation but there is no specific alert.” EU bank stocks slumped 5.84 percent on Monday in response to the demise of SVB — but rallied on Tuesday, closing back up 2.46 percent. Aside from the immediate risks of contagion, the big question is whether SVB is an idiosyncratic event or a sign of broader ailments at banks. European leaders are firmly playing things down, stressing the difficulties were unique. “The problems arise from the specific business model of the Silicon Valley Bank, and the picture here in Europe is very different,” said Paschal Donohoe, president of the Eurogroup, the gathering of eurozone finance ministers, after their latest meeting on Monday.

Of course, acting as if there’s no crisis can sometimes be all part of the game to reassure the markets. So when the EU says “nothing to see here,” those in the know — particularly those who lived through the financial turmoil a decade and a half ago — may wonder whether actually they’re just hoping that if they say it loudly enough it will become true.

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It’s good that they talk. They should do more of that. Much more.

Pentagon Calls Moscow Over Drone Incident (RT)

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reached out to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu, on Wednesday, for the first time in months, to discuss the incident in which an American spy drone went down in the Black Sea waters off Crimea. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Shoigu told Austin that the incident was caused by the Americans violating the airspace restriction declared by Russia, with all the proper international notifications in place. Shoigu called US drone flights off the Russian coast “provocative in nature” and risked an escalation of tensions in the Black Sea. While Russia does not desire such a development, it will “continue to respond proportionately to all provocations,” Shoigu said. He added that the two nuclear powers “must act as responsibly as possible,” which includes keeping a military channel open to discuss any crisis.

Speaking at a Pentagon press briefing, Austin confirmed that he made the call, and said it was “important that great powers be models of transparency and communication.” However, he insisted the US would “continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows.” The last time Shoigu and Austin spoke was in October 2022, according to AP. The top military officers also had a phone call about the matter, with US General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reaching out to his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov. On Tuesday, the US European Command claimed that two Russian Su-27 jets conducted an “an unsafe and unprofessional intercept” of a MQ-9 Reaper drone, which was conducting an intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR) mission in international waters over the Black Sea.

According to the US military, one of the planes struck the drone’s propeller, causing the operators to ditch the UAV into the water. The Russian Defense Ministry, however, said that at no point did any of the interceptors make contact with the drone, or use their on-board weapons. The UAV stalled and crashed after executing an abrupt maneuver, Moscow said. Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said he told the State Department that US drones have no business so close to the Russian border. The drone was reportedly just 60 kilometers off the coast of Crimea when it crashed.

The US has flown drones and other surveillance aircraft near the Russian border for over a year, providing intelligence and targeting information to the Ukrainian government – along with weapons, ammunition and money – while insisting it is not a party to the conflict. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, said on Wednesday that the drone incident was “yet another confirmation” the US was directly involved.

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Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov is the de facto spokesperson for Moscow on the issue.

US Drones Have No Business Near Russia – Ambassador (RT)

Moscow regards Tuesday’s incident in which an American drone crashed in the Black Sea as a provocation, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov said after being summoned to the State Department in Washington. Antonov met with Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried, who protested the “unsafe and unprofessional intercept” of the drone that resulted in its loss. “We consider this incident a provocation,” Antonov told reporters after the meeting. He said he told Donfried that US drones, planes and ships had no business being that close to Russian borders. “Could you imagine what the reaction of the US media or the Pentagon would be, if such a drone would appear near New York or San Francisco?” he asked.

Antonov described the talks with Donfried as “constructive” and said both sides shared their concerns. The US and Russia need to be “extremely cautious” how they act, given the current situation in Eastern Europe, he added. He also told Donfried that Moscow is seeking “pragmatic relations” and not conflict with the US. According to the US military, two Russian Su-27 interceptors flew dangerously close to the MQ-9 Reaper drone on Tuesday morning, spilling fuel on the drone and at one point damaging its propeller, causing the UAV to crash. The drone, they said, was on a peaceful surveillance mission in international waters. In response, the Russian Defense Ministry said the UAV stalled after executing drastic maneuvers, and that the interceptors “did not come into contact with the UAV.”

Antonov had pointed out that the drone was of a type that can carry multiple missiles and bombs. The MQ-9 was developed as a “hunter-killer” variant of the MQ-1 Predator. The US has flown drones and surveillance planes near the Russian border for over a year, providing intelligence and targeting information to the Ukrainian government – along with weapons, ammunition and money – while insisting it is not a party to the conflict. The exact location of the incident was not provided by either government. Russian media have reported that the Reaper’s last location was about 60 kilometers southwest of the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

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“..Russian fighters did not use any airborne weapons and did not come into contact with the drone..”

Drone Incident Confirms US Involvement In Ukraine Conflict – Russia (RT)

Moscow will attempt to recover the wreckage of the American MQ-9 Reaper drone that fell into the Black Sea on Tuesday, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, has announced. Speaking live on a Russian federal channel on Wednesday, the official admitted that he doesn’t know if it will be possible to get to the remains of the UAV but stressed that it was important to make an effort to find and study the wreckage. Patrushev also added that “Americans keep saying that they are not participating in the hostilities” in Ukraine and that this latest incident with the drone is “yet another confirmation that [the US] are directly involved” in the ongoing military conflict.

The secretary’s statement comes after Washington’s European Command (EUCOM) reported that one of its MQ-9 Reaper drones was brought down over the Black Sea on Tuesday morning as a result of “unsafe and unprofessional” actions by two Russian Su-27 fighter jets. The Pentagon insists that one of the Russian interceptors had “struck the propeller” of the drone while it was conducting a reconnaissance mission in international airspace. The Russian Defense Ministry has denied claims that its planes came into contact with the American drone, but reported that Aerospace Forces had recorded the flight of an American UAV over the Black Sea towards the Russian border and dispatched two interceptors to investigate.

The ministry noted that the aircraft was flying with transponders turned off and in violation of the temporary air borders established around the ongoing military operation area in Ukraine. At some point, “as a result of sharp maneuvers” the drone went into “uncontrolled flight” and crashed into the sea, the ministry reported, noting that Russian fighters did not use any airborne weapons and did not come into contact with the drone. US National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby has since stated that the US is taking all the necessary measures to ensure that the remains of the MQ-9 Reaper drone do not fall into anyone else’s hands.

“It’s the United States’ property. We obviously don’t want to see anybody getting their hands on it beyond us,” Kirby told CNN. However, he also admitted that he’s not sure if the US will be able to recover the aircraft, because it fell into “very very deep water” in the Black Sea. “We’re still assessing whether there can be any kind of recovery effort. There may not be.”

Lavrov
https://twitter.com/i/status/1636060425417629697

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“it is not the Russian pilots who should be called out,” but rather American politicians, “who are inciting the start of an apocalyptic conflict.”

Moscow Responds To Lindsey Graham Threat (RT)

Russia’s ambassador to the US has accused Senator Lindsey Graham of provoking “dangerous escalation” between the two countries, after the senior lawmaker urged the Pentagon to fire on Russian fighter jets. Asked about Graham’s comments on Wednesday, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov said the senator’s call to shoot down Russian aircraft went “far beyond common sense” and risked all-out war between the world’s largest nuclear powers. “This is by no means the first attempt by the notorious lawmaker to provoke a dangerous escalation in the US-Russian relations. A year ago he urged our citizens to make an assassination attempt on the president of Russia,” he said. “Does Senator Graham really believe that a direct military clash with Russia is in the interests of the voters who entrusted him with their lives and livelihood?” “Is the Capitol willing to put American citizens and the international community at risk of a full-scale nuclear war? Give us an answer, distinguished Senator!”

Graham appeared on Fox News earlier on Wednesday to discuss a recent close encounter between Russian fighter jets and a US MQ-9 Reaper drone near Crimea, calling for a tough response from President Joe Biden after the UAV was sent plunging into the Black Sea. “What would Ronald Reagan do right now? He would start shooting Russian planes down, if they were threatening our assets,” Graham told the outlet, referring to the US leader who served at the height of Cold War brinkmanship with the Soviet Union. While US officials claimed one of the Russian planes collided with the drone and caused it to crash, the Russian Defense Ministry said the unmanned vehicle went down after stalling, and never came into contact with another aircraft. Antonov went on to argue that Moscow “did everything possible to prevent this kind of incident,” including informing the international community “in good time about the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime” established in the area.

While the ambassador said it is a “shame for the Pentagon to lose an expensive piece of equipment,” he insisted “it is not the Russian pilots who should be called out,” but rather American politicians, “who are inciting the start of an apocalyptic conflict.” Washington has flown drones and surveillance craft near the Russian border on a near-constant basis over the last year, providing intelligence – along with weapons, ammunition and money – to the Ukrainian government even as it insists it is not a party to the conflict. The exact location of this week’s drone encounter was not confirmed by either government, though Russian news outlets have reported that the Reaper’s last location was about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

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“Russia did everything possible to prevent this kind of incident – it informed the international community in good time about the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation.”

Attack On Russian Plane In Neutral Airspace A Declaration Of War – Antonov (TASS)

A deliberate attack on a Russian aircraft in neutral airspace would be an open declaration of war against the largest nuclear power, Moscow is not seeking confrontation, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Wednesday. “Some lawmakers’ calls go far beyond common sense,” he said, commenting on US Senator Lindsey Graham’s (from South Karolina) threats to shoot down Russian planes approaching US aircraft in international airspace. “The Russian Ministry of Defense has explained in detail the reasons and course of actions of Russian pilots during yesterday’s incident over the Black Sea. I repeat, for those who have not gathered themselves to look at the situation objectively: our fighters did not come into contact with the American UAV,” he said, commenting on the loss of a MQ-9 American drone. “Russia did everything possible to prevent this kind of incident – it informed the international community in good time about the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation.”

“Of course, it is a shame for the Pentagon to lose expensive piece of equipment. But in this case, the US military should redirect accusations of unprofessional actions back to themselves,” he noted. “As for the aforementioned senator, this is by no means the first attempt by the notorious lawmaker to provoke a dangerous escalation in the US-Russian relations. A year ago he urged our citizens to make an assassination attempt on the president of Russia. Does Senator Graham really believe that a direct military clash with Russia is in the interests of the voters who entrusted him with their lives and livelihood?” the Russian ambassador noted. “A deliberate attack on a Russian aircraft in neutral airspace is not just a crime under international law, but an open declaration of war against the largest nuclear power. An armed conflict between Russia and the United States would be radically different from the proxy war the Americans are waging remotely against us in Ukraine,” Antonov warned. “Is the Capitol willing to put American citizens and the international community at risk of a full-scale nuclear war? Give us an answer, distinguished Senator!”

“It is not the Russian pilots who should be called out, but American politicians who are inciting the start of an apocalyptic conflict. We do not seek a conflict with a nuclear power. We continue to maintain contacts, including through the Defense Ministry, to prevent unintentional incidents. I wish US politicians had the same attitude toward relations with Russia,” the Russian diplomat stressed. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, Russian airspace control systems detected an American MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle flying near the Crimean Peninsula on Tuesday. The drone flew with its transponders turned off, violating a temporary boundary established for the special military operation, communicated to all users of international airspace, and published in accordance with international standards.

Russia’s top brass added that as a result of sharp maneuvering, the drone went into uncontrolled flight before losing altitude and crashing into the Black Sea. The ministry stressed that Russian fighter jets had not used on-board weapons, nor had they come into contact with the unmanned aerial vehicle, and returned safely to their home airfield. According to the US European Command, one of the two Russian Su-27 warplanes hit the drone’s propeller to make it crash into the Black Sea. MQ-9 Reaper is a modular reconnaissance and strike unmanned aerial vehicle engineered by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. It is equipped with a turboprop engine and can develop a speed of more than 400 kilometer per hour. The maximal flight duration is 24 hours. The drone is capable of carrying air-to-surface and air-to-air missiles, and laser-guided bombs.

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More talk. Also good.

Antonov Expressed Russia’s Concerns Over US Activities At State Dept (TASS)

Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov disclosed that he discussed Russia’s concerns regarding various aspects of Washington’s activities during the meeting in the US Department of State after the incident involving a US drone in the Black Sea. “Yesterday, I was invited to the Department of State, where I had a 30-minute conversation with Assistant Secretary of State [for European and Eurasian Affairs] Karen Donfried. Notably, we talked for 15 minutes about this particular story, and 15 more minutes – about Russia’s concerns regarding various aspects of activities of the United States of America,” he said on Russian TV Wednesday. According to Antonov, the conversation was calm. “It felt like my colleague simply read out a document that she had before her eyes,” he noted.


The envoy underscored that he categorically rejected all accusations of the American side towards the Russian Armed Forces. Previously, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the Russian Aerospace Forces detected a US MQ-9 drone flying near the Crimean Peninsula. The drone was reportedly flying with its transponder turned off and “in violation of the boundaries of the temporary airspace use area, defined in order to carry out the special military operation, which has been conveyed to all airspace users and published in accordance to the international norms.” The Defense Ministry added that the drone’s abrupt maneuvering caused it to lose control, lose altitude and crash into the water. Russian jet fighters did not use its weapons and did not collide with the drone, and successfully returned to their bases, the Ministry said.

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“We have noted that some Western media have been mysteriously quiet after Hersh reported that the US was behind the Nord Stream blast. But now these media are unusually simultaneous in making their voice heard. How would the US account for such abnormality?”

China Comments On ‘Ukrainian Theory’ Of Nord Stream Sabotage (RT)

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin found it unusual that major outlets in the West uncritically embraced the claim by unnamed US officials that a “pro-Ukrainian group” was responsible for the bombing of Nord Stream natural gas pipelines. At the press briefing on Wednesday, Wang described the pipelines as “vital cross-border infrastructure projects,” whose destruction had a “serious impact on the global energy market and ecological environment.” China wants “an objective, impartial and professional investigation” into the bombing and those responsible held to account, the sooner the better, he added.

Asked to comment on the so-called “Ukrainian theory,” first put forth by anonymous US officials in the New York Times last week, Wang noted the sudden change of behavior by Western media, after they spent a month ignoring the report by journalist Seymour Hersh that blamed the US and Norway. “We have noted that some Western media have been mysteriously quiet after Hersh reported that the US was behind the Nord Stream blast. But now these media are unusually simultaneous in making their voice heard. How would the US account for such abnormality? Is there anything hidden behind the scene?” Wang said. Nord Stream 1 and 2, pipelines built under the Baltic Sea to carry Russian natural gas to Germany and onward to Western Europe, were damaged in a series of explosions in September 2022.

In early February, Hersh published a report detailing how Washington had the pipelines destroyed, describing how US divers planted the explosives and a Norwegian airplane sent the detonation signal. The US government denied all accusations, labeling Hersh’s report “utterly false and complete fiction,” while Russia and China called for an independent and transparent investigation. The Times report quoted unnamed US officials who suggested that the saboteurs were “most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two,” citing unspecified new intelligence. The anonymous officials insisted no US or British nationals were involved, and that there was no evidence President Vladimir Zelensky or any other Ukrainian official directed the attack, either. Kiev has officially denied any responsibility for the Nord Stream blasts.

When he was shown the Times article during an interview, Hersh laughed and asked “Are they that stupid?” referring to the outlet’s anonymous sources. Nonetheless, the story was dutifully repeated by all major Western outlets. Russian president Vladimir Putin was likewise unconvinced. During an interview with Rossiya-1 on Tuesday, he dismissed as “complete nonsense” the notion that non-state actors could be behind the complex act of sabotage. The attacks could have only been “carried out by specialists, and supported by the entire power of a state possessing certain technologies,” he said.

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Not Nord Stream, but Druzhba. “..the devices were found in destroyed plastic cases of “non-industrial production” with a striking warhead in the form of steel balls..”:

Explosive Devices Found At Russian Pipeline – Transneft (RT)

Workers at the Russian oil pipeline transport company Transneft have reportedly found several explosive devices at the Novozybkov oil-pumping station of its Druzhba pipeline in the Bryansk region near Ukraine, according to company spokesperson Igor Demin. Speaking to TASS, he stated that on Tuesday evening and on Wednesday morning, the devices were found in destroyed plastic cases of “non-industrial production” with a striking warhead in the form of steel balls. “Presumably, the destruction of the cases occurred after hitting the ground when falling from drones,” Demin suggested. He added that on Wednesday afternoon another explosive device was seen being dropped from a UAV, “likely similar to the other two [devices].”

At the same time, the Transneft representative pointed out that the Novozybkov pumping station had not been in operation throughout 2023 and that its reserve tanks are empty. Demin added that, given the steel balls found in the explosives, the perpetrators of the sabotage likely did not intend to destroy the facility but instead wanted to kill members of the civilian personnel working at the Druzhba station.The spokesperson noted that an investigation is currently underway and that nobody at the Novozybkov facility had been injured. The Druzhba (Friendship) oil pipeline is one of the longest in the world and connects eastern parts of Russia to several points in Europe, including Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Germany. However, the pipeline has repeatedly come under attack from Kiev’s forces since Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine.

The last attack was reported on February 1, when Demin stated that a missile had landed on the territory of the Novozybkov station but ultimately failed to cause any damage or to injure any of the workers. On February 3, another attack was reported by media outlet Mash, but Transneft said it had no information on the alleged incident and that the pipeline was working normally. The pipeline segment that is apparently being targeted by Ukraine is located some 39 kilometers from the border with Russia and leads in the direction of Belarus, where it branches off into two sections, one going to Germany and Poland and the other to Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and the Czech Republic.

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Maybe they can take the place of the Orthodox church.

Ukraine Wants To Legalize Controversial Hacker Brigade (RT)

Ukraine is drafting a law to legalize its controversial hacker brigade, turning an international pro-Ukrainian “hacktivist” group into a “cyber-reserve” military unit, Newsweek confirmed with a state official in an article published on Tuesday. Secretary of Ukraine’s National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity Natalia Tkachuk told Newsweek that a law regulating the “creation and functioning of cyber forces” was being fast tracked at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. She added that this new law would be the “basis for building the state’s cyber defense capabilities, engaging cyber volunteers in these activities, and creating a cyber reserve.” Kiev currently has a volunteer hacker brigade called ‘the IT Army of Ukraine’, which it wants to take out of the legal gray area and incorporate into the armed forces in an official capacity.

The IT Army calls itself a “worldwide IT community” that represents President Vladimir Zelensky’s team and is “the supreme power in Ukraine, capable [of blocking] over 800 targets simultaneously.” They invite anyone with a phone to join and help launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Russian online services, where they flood the sites with internet traffic and cause an outage. The group has claimed responsibility for crashing various Russian sites, including bringing down media websites during Vladimir Putin’s State of the Nation address last month. The IT Army has also been criticized for targeting civilian facilities, including hospitals, in their attacks, according to Newsweek. The report claims that a representative of the group has welcomed the decision to legalize their efforts, even if it meant dissolving the existing IT Army to transform into an official army unit.

This comes as Russia and Belarus signed a new digital safety agreement earlier this month to “increase the protection of the information infrastructure” and “combat destructive influences on the information resources” of the two states. At the same time, many Western outlets are issuing warnings on alleged Russian cyber warfare. Most recently, CNN said on Wednesday that Russian hackers were targeting European military and transport organizations, citing a Microsoft report. Similarly, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told Funke media group last month that Moscow’s hackers were a “massive danger” to Berlin.

Orthodox

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A gruesome history piece.

How Russian Identity Was Wiped Out In What Is Now Western Ukraine (Plotnikov)

Galicia, a historical region in the West of Ukraine, is currently the center of the country’s nationalist movement. However, things were once very different. A little over a hundred years ago, representatives of opposing Russophile and pro-Ukrainian political movements competed for the loyalty of the local Ruthenian population, also known as Rusyns. Galicia’s Russophiles welcomed the beginning of the First World War as a step toward an anticipated reunion with Russia. However the Ukrainian movement remained loyal to Austria-Hungary. With the help of the latter, Vienna killed off the Rusyn intelligentsia, which it considered a “fifth column”. To accomplish this, the Hapsburgs set up concentration camps. What happened next amounted to a genocide.

By the start of the First World War, the Russophile movement in Galicia was experiencing tough times. As a result of the “divide and rule” policy implemented by the Austrians, the movement suffered a split. The oldest and most respected organizations ended up in the hands of pro-Austrian leaders who advocated Ukrainian, not Rusyn, identity. After the army of the Russian Empire crossed the border on August 18, 1914, and launched an offensive in Galicia, mass repressions swept through the region. People fell victim to the rage of the Austrian authorities over trifling matters – like possessing Russian literature, being a member of a Russian society, having a Russian education, or just sympathizing with Saint Petersburg. In some cases, people were arrested just for calling themselves Russians. Prisons were full of “enemies of the state” and “dangerous Moscow agents”, and the streets were lined with gallows.

“Those suspected of ‘Russophilia’ were hung on these trees in front of the windows. People were hung right on the trees. They would hang there for a day, then would be taken off and others would take their place… ” recounted one of the peasants in the Gorodetsky district. The repressions primarily affected the intelligentsia and Orthodox priests, most of whom completed spiritual studies in the Russian Empire. Repressions against the intelligentsia were followed by those against the general public. Anyone who was thought to sympathize with Russia or Russian culture became a suspect. This included people who had once visited Russia, read Russian newspapers, or were just known as “Russophiles.” Military courts worked around the clock and a simplified procedure of legal proceedings was introduced for cases of suspected treason.

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Renz spreads his wings beyond COVID.

The Tyrants Are Passing State Laws to Push CBDCs (Thomas Renz)

For those that are living under a rock (or that have more interesting things to do than follow monetary policy) CBDC stands for Central Bank Digital Currency and it, along with gene therapy jabs, stands as the greatest threat to freedom on the planet. Digital currency is completely trackable and completely controllable. This means that the government and any corporation with the proper access will be able to know exactly how you spend every digital penny of your money. It also means that the government (or possibly global governments or global corporations) would have the ability to control what you spend your money on. Spend too much on gas they take some of your money for emitting too many greenhouse gases. Want to buy a gun… forget it.

If you think this sounds terrible you are not alone, nearly no one wants this. That means it is quite literally politically impossible to legislate CBDC into existence at the moment. Despite that, the control available to the many tyrants at the WEF, CCP, etc. is too tempting to resist so they are doing everything possible to leverage their control over the crooks like Biden and the many ignorant elected officials in our government to make it a reality. So, the question is, how are they doing it?

If COVID taught us anything it was that an emergency, real or faked, facilitates a lot of things that would never happen otherwise. The tyrants know this and are in the process of creating financial emergencies that will allow them to argue that there is no alternative but to implement CBDCs. The Biden Administration is implementing policy after policy that devalues the American dollar by limiting Americas ability to mine its own resources or produce its own goods while printing endless money. This will (or more likely is) facilitate an economic collapse. Meanwhile, WEF/CCP partner groups like Black Rock and Vanguard are leveraging their positions as major stakeholders in small and midsized banks to force the banks to accept terrible ESG and other risky investments that will, when combined with the inflation/devalued dollar and scarce resources, result in their collapse. This is an obvious thing to anyone that truly understands the inner-workings of banking (I ran a credit union for a number of years, was a compliance expert, and was involved in a number of national-level groups/projects).

Along with the effort to collapse the dollar and our banking system, the tyrants are also pushing legislation that can allow CBDCs to exist legally and without competition. This is being done in a VERY sneaky way because of the massive political opposition to anything CBDC-related. At this point, the major focus is on passing state-level legislation – particularly in a number of key RED states. Bills are being pushed that appear innocuous but are written to create a check-mate situation when CBDCs come into play. That way these red states won’t be able to oppose it.

BBC vaxx doc

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“That’s madness, and in a world of nuclear hellfire madness can indeed lead to you glowing in the dark..”

GOP Candidates: Pay Attention DC (Denninger)

Yes, Russia may be a nation with a modest GDP that exports black goo to the world in order to stay alive but it is a nation with a modest GDP that exports black goo and happens to have many thousands of nuclear devices on the business end of missiles and torpedoes both on land and sea. If sufficiently threatened with political extinction I would expect them to use those rather than die in peace and if you don’t you’re more than a bit crazy. Those (like Pence) who think Russia is the schoolyard bully who threatens but doesn’t have a pistol under his jacket are even more-insane. He knows the weapons are real, of course, as does everyone else, and for anyone to believe that a sovereign nation will simply fold to an outside influence rather than use whatever they have when facing their own political extinction due to said outside influence is to be imbued with a God Complex that should, in a Representative Republic, be an instant and permanent disqualifier from any high office in this land.


Why? Because if you believe this then you must acquiesce under the principle of “All humans are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights” to extend to those other nations and if it is our place to tell them what is “acceptable” in a government and remove by force those who deem not to be then the exact same principle applies to those other nations. In other words if you hold this principle then you are endorsing Putin assassinating not just the present government (all of said government, including Congress, the Justices of the Supreme Court and the Executive) but also yourself ex-ante before the election! Oh this “right”, which you arrogate to yourself and the United States, does not just extend to Putin. It also extends to Xi, never mind every other leader of every other nation. That’s madness, and in a world of nuclear hellfire madness can indeed lead to you glowing in the dark. We would be wise to reject that with finality.

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I’m getting curious: just how careless did the family become? There are 5 of them, and they all like money. I would like to know more, though, about the “two individuals tied to the Chinese Communist Party”. What ties?

Which Biden Family Member Got Cut Of $3M CCP-Linked Wire? (ZH)

Washington DC is abuzz with speculation over which Biden family member got a cut of a $3 million wire transfer to Hunter Biden associate John “Rob” Walker, just weeks after Joe Biden was no longer Vice President in 2017.According to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) – who last week said that evidence of CCP money flowing to the Biden family was “as bad as we thought,” – revealed that bank records obtained via a subpoena have implicated a “new Biden family member” in the ongoing investigation into the first family’s finances. Comer told Fox News that Walker received a $3 million wire from two individuals tied to the Chinese Communist Party, which he then divvied up between Biden family members.

“The very next day after that wire was received, the Walker account started transferring money into three different Biden family members’ accounts, including a new Biden family member that’s never before been identified as someone being involved in the influence-peddling scheme,” Comer told host Sean Hannity (as part of several recent interviews on the network). According to Comer, GOP investigators are curious about what work Biden family members performed in exchange for the money Walker disbursed. Comer added that the $3 million wire transfer was “just the first wire that we’ve actually been able to obtain bank records on. There are many, many more.”

“The media says, ‘Well, this is a Hunter Biden investigation.’ This is an investigation of Joe Biden. And we’re investigating the Biden family and again, after this new batch of information, it expands,” Comer told “America’s Newsroom.” “There are more family members involved in this than just the president’s son. And what they’ve said in the media, ‘Oh, this was for business.’ We can’t identify any business. It appears it went into their personal account,” Comer continued, adding that he thinks that the Biden family was running an influence-peddling operation as unregistered foreign agents. “In his 2020 book, “Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite,” investigative journalist Peter Schweizer highlighted four Biden family members in addition to Hunter who have apparently profited off their family name, as well as the connections Joe Biden has made during his nearly 50 years in politics.

Schweizer highlighted first brother James Biden’s work with HillStone International, a subsidiary of construction management firm Hill International. James Biden, according to Schweizer, joined the firm as an executive vice president just three weeks after HillStone International president Kevin Justice visited the White House in November 2010 and met with an adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden.” -NY Post So, everything they accused the Trump family of doing?

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A little-known feature of Russia is that it has an extensive inland waterway system, known as the Unified Deep Water System of European Russia. The system links the Baltic, Black, Azov, White and Caspian seas together. Russian warships and submarines, up to a certain class (kilo-class for submarines), can theoretically access the Black Sea via this system, bypassing Turkey and the Montreux Convention.

 

 

Gates Epstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hawk

 

 

Sleepy friends
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635999489684127746

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 152018
 
 January 15, 2018  Posted by at 10:48 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  6 Responses »


Elliott Erwitt Jack Kerouac 1953

 

Nearly 40% May Default On Their Student Loans By 2023 (Brookings)
3 Years After Currency Shock, Swiss Central Bank Can’t Get Back To Normal (R.)
China Vows to Toughen Rules on $38 Trillion Banking Industry
Bitcoin Not Even In Top 10 Of Crypto World’s Best Performers (AFP)
UK’s Carillion Files for Liquidation After Failing to Get Bailout (BBG)
London Housing Woe Endures as Prices Drop to 2 1/2-Year Low (BBG)
Let’s Wrench Power Back From The Billionaires (Bernie Sanders)
Trust in News Media Takes a Hit During Trump Presidency (AP)
Outgoing EWG Chief Says Greece May Get Debt Relief With Conditions Attached (K.)
Berlin Worried EU Reform Will Boost Immigration Influx (DS)
A New Refugee Flow To Europe: Turkish Refugees (AM)
Why We’re Losing the War on Plastic (BBG)

 

 

The reality of -personal- debt.

Nearly 40% May Default On Their Student Loans By 2023 (Brookings)

The best prior estimates of overall default rates come from Looney and Yannelis (2015), who examine defaults up to five years after entering repayment, and Miller (2017), who uses the new BPS-04 data to examine default rates within 12 years of college entry. These two sources provide similar estimates: about 28 to 29% of all borrowers ultimately default. But even 12 years may not be long enough to get a complete picture of defaults. The new data also allow loan outcomes to be tracked for a full 20 years after initial college entry, though only for the 1996 entry cohort. Still, examining patterns of default over a longer period for the 1996 cohort can help us estimate what to expect in the coming years for the more recent cohort.

If we assume that the cumulative defaults grow at the same rate (in percentage terms) for the 2004 cohort as for the earlier cohort, we can project how defaults are likely to increase beyond year 12 for the 2004 cohort. To compute these projections, I first use the 1996 cohort to calculate the cumulative default rates in years 13-20 as a percentage of year 12 cumulative default rates. I then take this percentage for years 13-20 and apply it to the 12-year rate observed for the 2004 cohort. So, for example, since the 20-year rate was 41% higher than the 12-year rate for the 1996 cohort, I project the Year 20 cumulative default rate for the 2004 cohort is projected to be 41% higher than its 12-year rate.

Figure 1 plots the resulting cumulative rates of default relative to initial entry for borrowers in both cohorts, with the data points after year 12 for the 2003-04 cohort representing projections. Defaults increase by about 40% for the 1995-96 cohort between years 12 and 20 (rising from 18 to 26% of all borrowers). Even by year 20, the curve does not appear to have leveled off; it seems likely that if we could track outcomes even longer, the default rate would continue to rise. For the more recent cohort, default rates had already reached 27% of all borrowers by year 12. But based on the patterns observed for the earlier cohort, a simple projection indicates that about 38% of all borrowers from the 2003-04 cohort will have experienced a default by 2023.

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The reality of central banking.

3 Years After Currency Shock, Swiss Central Bank Can’t Get Back To Normal (R.)

Three years after the Swiss National Bank shocked currency markets by scrapping the franc’s peg to the euro, it faces the toughest task of any major central bank in normalising ultra-loose monetary policy. If it raises rates, the Swiss franc strengthens. If it sells off its massive balance sheet, the Swiss franc strengthens. If a global crisis hits, the Swiss franc strengthens. And the abrupt decision to scrap the currency peg on Jan. 15, 2015, means it still has credibility issues with financial markets. “The SNB will most probably be one of the last central banks to change course, and it will take years or even decades for monetary policy to return to ‘normal’,” said Daniel Rempfler, head of fixed income Switzerland at Swiss Life Asset Managers.

The Bank of Japan illustrated the problem of reducing expansive policy when a small cut to its regular bond purchases sent the yen and bond yields higher. The scrapping of the cap – which sought to keep the franc at 1.20 to the euro to protect exporters and ward off deflationary pressure – sent it soaring. On the day of the announcement it went to 0.86 francs buying a euro before easing in later days. Although it weakened last year, SNB Chairman Thomas Jordan said in December it was too early to talk about normalising policy. The SNB has to wait for the European Central Bank to start raising interest rates before it can start hiking its own policy rate from minus 0.75%.

If the SNB acted first, the spread between Swiss and European market rates would narrow, making Swiss investments more attractive and boosting the franc. The ECB has already scaled back its asset purchasing programme, which is expected to end this year, but more action may be someway off. Meanwhile, any attempt by the SNB to cut its balance sheet – which has ballooned to 837 billion francs ($861 billion) – will be hard because 94% of its investments are in foreign currencies, held via bonds and shares in companies such as Apple and Starbucks.

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The reality of Chinese borrowing.

China Vows to Toughen Rules on $38 Trillion Banking Industry

China’s banking regulator pledged to continue its crackdown on malpractice in the $38 trillion industry in 2018, vowing to tackle everything from poor corporate governance and violation of lending policies to cross-holdings of risky financial products. The China Banking Regulatory Commission unveiled its regulatory priorities for the year in a statement on Saturday. They include: • Inspecting the funding source of banks’ shareholders and ensuring they have obtained their stakes in a regular manner • Examining banks’ compliance with rules restricting loans to real estate developers, local governments, industries burdened by overcapacity, and some home buyers • Looking into banks’ interbank activities and wealth management businesses.

The statement comes after China’s financial regulators started 2018 with a flurry of rules to plug loopholes uncovered in last year’s deleveraging campaign, showcasing their determination to limit broader risks to the financial system. Still, analysts have warned that the moves will make it more difficult for companies to obtain financing from loans, equities and bonds and could undermine economic growth. The “CBRC’s regulatory storm continues” with the weekend announcement covering almost all aspects of banks’ daily operations, Bocom International analysts Jaclyn Wang and Hannah Han wrote in a note. “We believe challenges for smaller banks in the current regulatory environment remain high,” they wrote, noting that curbs on off-balance-sheet lending and interbank activities may drag on profitability.

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There’s no such thing as the reality of crypto.

Bitcoin Not Even In Top 10 Of Crypto World’s Best Performers (AFP)

Bitcoin may be the most famous cryptocurrency but, despite a dizzying rise, it’s not the most lucrative one and far from alone in a universe that counts 1,400 rivals, and counting. Dozens of crypto units see the light of day every week, as baffled financial experts look on, and while none can match Bitcoin’s €200 billion ($242 bilion) market capitalisation, several have left the media darling’s profitability in the dust. In fact, bitcoin is not even in the top 10 of the crypto world’s best performers. Top of the heap is Ripple which posted a jaw-dropping 36,000% rise in 2017 and early this year broke through the €100 billion capitalisation mark, matching the value of blue-chip companies such as, say, global cosmetics giant L’Oreal.

“Its value shot up when a newspaper said that around 100 financial institutions were going to adopt their system,” said Alexandre Stachtchenko, co-founder of specialist consulting group Blockchain Partners. Using Ripple’s technology framework, however, is not the same as adopting the currency itself, and so the Ripple’s rise should be considered as “purely speculative”, according to Alexandre David, founder of sector specialist Eureka Certification. Others point out that Ripple’s market penetration is paper-thin as only 15 people hold between 60 and 80% of existing Ripples, among them co-founder Chris Larsen. But it still got him a moment of fame when, according to Forbes magazine, Larsen briefly stole Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s spot as the fifth-wealthiest person in the US at the start of the year.

Ether is another rising star, based on the Ethereum protocol created in 2009 by a 19-year old programmer and seen by some specialists as a promising approach. Around 40 virtual currencies have now gone past the billion-euro mark in terms of capitalisation, up from seven just six months ago. The Cardano cryptocurrency’s combined value even hit €15 billion only three months after its creation. In efforts to stand out from the crowd, virtual currency founders often concentrate on the security of their systems, such as Cardano, which has made a major selling point of its system’s safety features.

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After having been given numerous gov’t contracts just to stay alive. Biy, that country is sick.

UK’s Carillion Files for Liquidation After Failing to Get Bailout (BBG)

Carillion, a U.K. government contractor involved in everything from hospitals to the HS2 high-speed rail project, has filed for compulsory liquidation after a last-ditch effort to shore up finances and get a government bailout failed. The company, which employs 43,000 people worldwide – 20,000 of them in the U.K. – had held talks with the government Sunday to ask for the 300 million pounds ($412 million) it needed by the end of the month to stay afloat, the Mail on Sunday reported. On Monday morning, the board of Carillion said in a statement it had “concluded that it had no choice but to take steps to enter into compulsory liquidation with immediate effect,” adding that it has obtained court approval for the move.

The challenge for liquidators and the government is now to ensure that the company’s break-up is orderly, with contracts and staff moved to rivals. For Prime Minister Theresa May, the collapse comes as opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn questions the longstanding British policy of getting private sector contractors to deliver public sector projects. “This is very worrying for a lot of groups,” Labour’s business spokeswoman Rebecca Long-Bailey told the BBC. “We expect the government to step up now and take these contracts back into government control. Where it’s possible to take those back in-house it should do.” She also questioned why the company had been awarded further government contracts despite issuing profit warnings.

[..] Carillion’s struggles posed a conundrum for May over the political cost of using public money to assist a private company, or allowing it to fail, putting public services and infrastructure projects nationwide in danger. The company has contracts with many wings of government, including building roads, managing housing for the armed services, and running facilities for schools and hospitals.

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Timber!

London Housing Woe Endures as Prices Drop to 2 1/2-Year Low (BBG)

The new year brought little cheer for London’s housing market with asking prices dropping to the lowest since August 2015. New sellers cut prices 1.4% in January to an average of 600,926 pounds ($821,500), according to a report by Rightmove on Monday. In a further concerning sign for the market, the average number of days required to sell a house jumped to the longest since January 2012, reaching 78 from 71 a month earlier. The report suggests 2018 won’t be any brighter for the capital’s housing market, which was the worst performing in the U.K. in 2017. Asking prices are down 3.5% from a year ago, according to the report, with the slowdown due to factors including an inflation squeeze, Brexit uncertainty and tax changes affecting landlords and owners of second homes.

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Now find the language that the people respond to.

Let’s Wrench Power Back From The Billionaires (Bernie Sanders)

[..] all over the world corrupt elites, oligarchs and anachronistic monarchies spend billions on the most absurd extravagances. The Sultan of Brunei owns some 500 Rolls-Royces and lives in one of the world’s largest palaces, a building with 1,788 rooms once valued at $350m. In the Middle East, which boasts five of the world’s 10 richest monarchs, young royals jet-set around the globe while the region suffers from the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, and at least 29 million children are living in poverty without access to decent housing, safe water or nutritious food. Moreover, while hundreds of millions of people live in abysmal conditions, the arms merchants of the world grow increasingly rich as governments spend trillions of dollars on weapons.

In the United States, Jeff Bezos – founder of Amazon, and currently the world’s wealthiest person – has a net worth of more than $100bn. He owns at least four mansions, together worth many tens of millions of dollars. As if that weren’t enough, he is spending $42m on the construction of a clock inside a mountain in Texas that will supposedly run for 10,000 years. But, in Amazon warehouses across the country, his employees often work long, gruelling hours and earn wages so low they rely on Medicaid, food stamps and public housing paid for by US taxpayers. Not only that, but at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, people all over the world are losing their faith in democracy – government by the people, for the people and of the people.

They increasingly recognise that the global economy has been rigged to reward those at the top at the expense of everyone else, and they are angry. Millions of people are working longer hours for lower wages than they did 40 years ago, in both the United States and many other countries. They look on, feeling helpless in the face of a powerful few who buy elections, and a political and economic elite that grows wealthier, even as their own children’s future grows dimmer. In the midst of all of this economic disparity, the world is witnessing an alarming rise in authoritarianism and rightwing extremism – which feeds off, exploits and amplifies the resentments of those left behind, and fans the flames of ethnic and racial hatred.

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Typical? Sign of the times? Laurie Kellman and Jonathan Drew for AP prove their own point by pretending to write about Americans from all stripes losing faith in news media, but then turn it into a one-sided Trump hit piece anyway.

Trust in News Media Takes a Hit During Trump Presidency (AP)

When truck driver Chris Gromek wants to know what’s really going on in Washington, he scans the internet and satellite radio. He no longer flips TV channels because networks such as Fox News and MSNBC deliver conflicting accounts tainted by politics, he says. “Where is the truth?” asks the 47-year-old North Carolina resident. Answering that question accurately is a cornerstone of any functioning democracy, according to none other than Thomas Jefferson. But a year into Donald Trump’s fact-bending, media-bashing presidency, Americans are increasingly confused about who can be trusted to tell them reliably what their government and their commander in chief are doing. Interviews across the polarized country as well as polling from Trump’s first year suggest people seek out various outlets of information, including Trump’s Twitter account, and trust none in particular.

Many say that practice is a new, Trump-era phenomenon in their lives as the president and the media he denigrates as “fake news” fight to be seen as the more credible source. “It has made me take every story with a large grain, a block of salt,” said Lori Viars, a Christian conservative activist in Lebanon, Ohio, who gets her news from Fox and CNN. “Not just from liberal sources. I’ve seen conservative ‘fake news.'” Democrat Kathy Tibbits of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, reads lots of news sources as she tries to assess the accuracy of what Trump is reported to have said. “I kind of think the whole frontier has changed,” said the 60-year-old lawyer and artist. “My degree is in political science, and they never gave us a class on such fiasco politics.”

Though Trump’s habit of warping facts has had an impact, it’s not just him. Widely shared falsehoods have snagged the attention of world leaders such as Pope Francis and former President Barack Obama. Last year, false conspiracy theories led a North Carolina man to bring a gun into a pizza parlor in the nation’s capital, convinced that the restaurant was concealing a child prostitution ring. Just last week, after the publication of an unflattering book about Trump’s presidency, a tweet claiming that he is addicted to a TV show about gorillas went viral and prompted its apparent author to clarify that it was a joke. Trump has done his part to blur the lines between real and not. During the campaign, he made a practice of singling out for ridicule reporters covering his raucous rallies.

As president, he regularly complains about his news coverage and has attacked news outlets and journalists as “failing” and “fake news.” He’s repeatedly called reporters “the enemy of the people” and recently renewed calls to make it easier to sue for defamation. About 2 in 3 American adults say fabricated news stories cause a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current affairs, according to a Pew Research Center report last month. The survey found that Republicans and Democrats are about equally likely to say that “fake news” leaves Americans deeply confused about current events. Despite the concern, more than 8 in 10 feel very or somewhat confident that they can recognize news that is fabricated, the survey found.

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Greece will be monitored till 2060. I’m going to bet that’s not going to happen.

Outgoing EWG Chief Says Greece May Get Debt Relief With Conditions Attached (K.)

Greece could receive debt relief but with terms attached when its bailout program is concluded in August, according to the outgoing chief of the Eurogroup Working Group (EWG), Thomas Wieser. In an interview in Sunday’s Greek edition of Kathimerini, Wieser said that despite there being no discussion about post-bailout arrangements, he expects that debt relief would be granted conditionally. “If there should be further debt relief after the end of the program then it’s only logical there will be some kind of additional agreements.” His comments imply there will be no clean exit from the bailout program as envisioned in the government’s narrative. Greece’s post-bailout status was raised at last week’s EWG meeting in Brussels where, according to sources, the taboo issue of Greece debt relief was raised.

It was noted in the meeting that if there is to be debt relief, then questions regarding Greece’s post-bailout framework have to be addressed. According to EU regulations, bailout countries including Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus – as well as Greece in the near future – will be monitored until 75% of their loans have been repaid. This means in Greece’s case that it will be monitored until 2060. Wieser added that one of Greece’s biggest problems, which remains unresolved despite eight years of fiscal adjustment programs, is that it doesn’t lure foreign investments like other countries. “I still have the feeling that foreign direct investment is not welcomed in Greece as it is in many other countries,” Wieser said.

While adding that he has the feeling that many domestic rules and regulations over the last eight years have indeed changed, he bemoaned the fact that investments have not picked up. “I think it’s only very recently that international and national investors trust that Greece is finally approaching the time where it can stand on its own feet again financially and that it is not a huge risk to invest in its economy,” he said, adding that one of the main reasons that investors have been reluctant to do business in Greece is its justice system.

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Unlimited?

Berlin Worried EU Reform Will Boost Immigration Influx (DS)

The European Parliament is planning to amend the Dublin Regulation, which requires asylum seekers to register in the first European Union member state they set foot on. That state would also be responsible for processing these requests. The proposed amendment, however, could possible shift that responsibility to wherever any asylum seeker claims to have family in the EU. Under such a change, “Germany would have to accommodate significantly more asylum seekers,” said an Interior Ministry memo, quoted by Der Spiegel. Furthermore, any and all caps on refugees and immigrant intakes would be nullified. This would effectively render Germany’s decision to cap immigrations influxes at around 180,000 to 220,000 as agreed upon by the working groups aiming to form a new German government.

Germany has been struggling to form a new government since the Sept. 24th elections; however, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), their sister party the CSU and Social Democrat Party leader Martin Schultz have agreed to go into official coalition talks, now made harder by the proposed EU bill. The proposed reform of the Dublin Agreement was put forth last November and now has to be approved by the European Council, which is composed of every single member states’ government leaders. Despite Germany’s worries, given the circumstances, the proposal is not expected to have much support. Between the nations of Eastern Europe, who never wanted any immigration at all, and the ever-more skeptical western nations, as well as the ones in Southern Europe, such as Greece, Italy and Spain that became the frontlines of the crisis, the proposed reform is not guaranteed to pass.

While the exact number of people that have entered Europe since 2015 is unknown, it is estimated that it is about 2 to 3 million, with the United Nations Human Rights Commission reporting that tens of millions more are on the move, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa. While Germany was probably Europe’s biggest supporter of asylum seekers and chain-migration, it now worries that it in particular will be negatively affected by what it sees as immigration on “an entirely different scale.” The German Interior Ministry noted that it was particularly worried by a section of the proposal that stated: “The mere assertion of a family connection was enough.” “As a result, a member state hosting many so-called ‘anchor persons’ will take over responsibility for far-reaching family associations.”

“If every one of the more than 1.4 million people who have applied for asylum in Germany since 2015 becomes an anchor for newcomers arriving in the EU, then we’re dealing with [numbers] on an entirely different scale compared to family reunifications,” said Ole Schröder, a parliamentary state secretary in Germany’s Interior Ministry.

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It only gets messier.

A New Refugee Flow To Europe: Turkish Refugees (AM)

This past November, three bodies were found washed ashore the Greek island of Lesbos. They were later identified as a Turkish husband and wife, Huseyin and Nur Maden, and one of their three children. The Madens were teachers in Turkey, but they were among the 150,000 civil servants dismissed from their jobs after the failed coup in July 2016. Some of those dismissed tried to flee to Greece to avoid arrest or find work. More than 12,000 Turks applied for asylum in Europe for the first time in 2017, according to Eurostat. This figure is triple what it was the year preceding the failed coup and is the highest it has been in the past decade. Since July 2016, Turkish authorities have arrested over 50,000 people, including journalists and intellectuals.

Around 150,000 Turks have both had their passports revoked and lost their jobs as police officers, soldiers, teachers and public servants. For some, the solution was to leave Turkey and find work in another country, where they could have a better life and avoid prosecution. With their passports revoked by the Turkish government, Turks prefer to go to Greece as opposed to other European countries since they can arrange transport by boat via smugglers. The journey from the Turkish coast to certain Greek islands can be short, distance-wise. “Turkish refugees [in Athens] are the most educated and intellectual segment of Turkish society,” said Murat, who fled Turkey for Greece after July 2016. “We can learn a new language or adapt to the culture in Europe really fast.”

Murat has been a member of the Gulen movement since 1994. He worked alongside his wife as a teacher in the Gulen schools in southeastern Turkey, but they were both dismissed from their jobs after the 2016 coup attempt, which the government claims was planned by the Gulen movement. Their children’s school was shut down after the coup attempt, and they were denied registration at a new school in their hometown due to their parent’s affiliation with the Gulen movement. “We tried to start over, but we were already marginalized in the community as ‘putschists,’” said Murat. “Our children were not accepted to schools, and finally, when 50 police arrived at our parent’s village to detain my wife, by chance we were not there. I sold my car within a week and with that money, we came to Greece.”

The Gulenists are not the only ones who have had to leave Turkey following the coup attempt. There are others, like Merve, 21, and her uncle Hasan. Merve was only 19 when she was arrested after the coup attempt and put in jail for a year. “I was studying philosophy in Tunceli and was part of a left-wing student organization at my university,” she said. “Now there are only two possibilities left for us Kurds in Turkey. If you don’t want to be jailed, you should either join the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] fighters or flee into exile.”

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Nope, there is no war on plastic. So we can’t be losing it either.

Why We’re Losing the War on Plastic (BBG)

T.V. naturalist Sir David Attenborough made his viewers weep last month with an exposé on how plastics are polluting the oceans, harming marine animals and fish. Last week, British prime minister Theresa May announced a slew of new measures to discourage plastics use, including plastic-free supermarket aisles and an expanded levy on plastic bags. A ban on microbeads in cosmetics came into force this year. Not to be outdone, the EU is mulling plastics taxes to cut pollution and packaging waste. Is this industry the new tobacco?It’s no wonder politicians feel compelled to act. About 60% of all the plastics produced either went to landfill or have been dumped in the natural environment. At current rates there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 by weight, much of it in the form of small particles, ingestible by wildlife and very difficult to remove.

Public awareness has increased in recent years, yet that hasn’t led to falling consumption. More than half of the total plastics production has occurred since the turn of the millennium. Producers such as DowDuPont, Exxon Mobil, LyondellBasell and Ineos, as well as packaging manufacturers like Amcor, Berry Global and RPC have been happy to meet that demand. They don’t plan on it ending suddenly. Plastic packaging is an almost $290 billion-a-year business and sales are forecast to expand by almost 4 percent a year until 2022, according to research firm Smithers Pira. Demand for polyethylene, the most used plastic, is set to rise at a similar rate, meaning total consumption will rise to 118 million metric tons in 2022, according to IHS Markit. In the U.S., the shale gas boom has encouraged the construction of new ethylene plants. Oil companies are counting too on rising plastics consumption to offset the spread of electric vehicles, as my colleague Julian Lee has explained.

The reasons for the bullishness are obvious. Growing populations, rising living standards and the march of e-commerce mean more demand. In developed countries, per capita polyethylene use is as much as 40 kg per person, whereas in poorer countries like India the figure is just one tenth of that, according to IHS Markit. Plastics are displacing materials like glass and paper because they tend to be cheap, lightweight and sturdy. That plastics don’t easily decompose is an asset – it prevents food going bad – as well as a liability for the natural environment. Cutting consumption will be difficult. While bioplastics are an alternative, they make up only about 1 percent of global plastics demand. Quality and cost issues have prevented wider adoption. “A lot of these materials aren’t really competitive in a world of low to mid oil prices,” says Sebastian Bray, analyst at Berenberg.

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Nov 302014
 
 November 30, 2014  Posted by at 11:23 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  22 Responses »


Wyland Stanley Chalmers touring car 1922

Amusing, that Swiss vote today. Or rather, the three votes. I can’t oversee why the first one, the hike in taxes for foreigners, was rejected. It would seem reasonable that everyone living in a country pays a similar amounts in taxes, but perhaps there’s another angle to the topic that I haven’t read about.

The second vote, the one on immigration limits, initiated by an eco group, looks easier to understand. In a country smack in the middle of continental Europe, which has 3 official languages and where 25% of the population are foreigners, forcing the government to limit immigration by 80% from one day to the next, from 80,000 to 16,000 people, seems to be quite simply too steep a demand.

If they would have formulated the question better, more subtle perhaps, more gradual, and chances are the initiative wouldn’t have been turned down by 74% of voters. This takes place against the background of a Europe that is being flooded with immigrants from all sides, where everyone has a hard time coming up with the right answer(s), and where the whole issue drowns in a vapor of right wing extremism. It makes sense to tread more carefully in circumstances such as that.

And in the third question, the most publicized one, about the Swiss central bank (SNB)’s gold holdings, I think something exactly like that happened. The question was poorly formulated. And communicated. The gold question itself consisted of three parts again. First, repatriating of Swiss gold stored abroad. A hot topic in many countries these days.

Second, a ban on the central bank selling any gold, ever, in perpetuity. And third, an obligation for the central bank to purchase, at today’s prices, 60-70 billion Swiss francs (about on par with the USD) worth of gold, 1500 metric tons, in five years, to have 20% of its reserves in gold.

If the question would have been only about repatriating the gold Switzerland already owns, I don’t see how it could not have been accepted. Part 2, the ban on selling until the end of time, looks once more poorly phrased. How is anyone supposed to know what that entails, ‘forever’? If you’re forced to sit on the stuff until the day you die, and your kids too, what use is it? People may have all sorts of answers to that, but it’s what the Swiss (wo)man in the street was supposed to answer today. Surely, there would have been a better way to put the question.

The biggest question was number three: buying $12-14 billion in gold every year for 5 years. From what I understand, the central bank warned about that quite strongly. And I see people calling that anti-gold propaganda, but I think there’s more to it than that. Not that these issues are ever simple. For one thing, the Swiss central bank used to have, on a regular basis, 40% of its reserves in gold until as recently as 10 years ago.

But. Things have changed over the past decade. For central banks everywhere, just look at the Fed balance sheet that exploded 5-6 fold to $4.5 trillion or so. The Swiss isolate themselves from all manner of things -and then yodel about it -, but their central bank has had to keep up with global developments, at least to an extent.

And I don’t want to pass any sort of judgment on what part of its reserves any central bank should hold in gold, but to force it into buying specific amounts while it’s trying to keep the value of the franc from exploding to infinity and beyond is, in my view, one more poorly phrased proposal.

The SNB has spent about the same amount the ‘Gold Initiative’ wanted it to spent on gold purchases, on buying euros, in an effort to keep the franc down. And we can all think about that what we want, but that’s not what the vote today was about. The SNB’s problem with that vote was that it would have forced it to let go of that ‘anti-euro’ stance. Betting everything on gold, and letting the franc surge through the roof against the currency all your neighbors use, that’s quite a dramatic reversal, no matter how you look at it.

The entire discussion, predictably, got swayed in the direction of, and taken over by, the ever present gold bugs, but with gold having dropped from $1920 a few years ago to $1167.15 today, their view obviously is not the only one that counts. Because Switzerland, as far as we know, might run into very serious economic issues if it allows the franc to rise substantially against the euro.

Plus, neither the country nor its central bank may be quite as powerful and wealthy any more as we like to think. So perhaps the question shouldn’t have been one with strict demands for purchases of gold, but one that questions the policy of buying tens of billions in euros, a policy that has lost the SNB a lot of money already now the euro is down 10-15% against the US dollar.

You can’t, if you’re Swiss, separate the two: you can’t vote on gold but not on the Swiss france vs the euro. So the question asked was the wrong one. And you can’t try and force a central bank to buy gold and hold it into perpetuity, into infinity and beyond, without addressing the problems Swiss companies would encounter if and when the franc would soar against the euro.

And the euro is sure to lose more ground vs the US dollar. So should the SNB have bought dollars instead of euros? The bank itself would have had more wealth, but the euro would have sunk further too, killing Swiss exports to its neighbors, so it’s mixed blessings all around. Note that if the initiative had been accepted, the SNB would have had – in all likelihood – to sell euros to purchase gold, thereby exacerbating everybody’s problems.

From where I’m sitting, I have the impression that the entire thing got moved way out of sync because gold is such an emotional issue for many in the economics press, and especially the blogosphere (where selling gold is very popular). Whereas the real issue, and the reason 78% of Swiss said No, was that the ‘initiatives’ were all poorly phrased. Get yourselves some hip spin doctors already!

Aside from that, there’s of course also my personal opinion that gold is not the cure-all end-all answer to every question or problem. But I know that’s often taken for some kind of heresy. Still, what we’ve always said at The Automatic Earth still stands: owning some gold is fine, but only after you’ve taken care of basic essentials; it may take years for gold to get back to its ‘historically just’ level. And most people don’t have that kind of time.

And let’s be honest, how many people really have their basic essentials down? I know that saying that will lose me readers, but I just don’t want to be part of some church. If we’re going to have a discussion, let’s at least agree to leave no stone unturned.

And yes, we can now expect increased downward pressure on gold. Maybe not as much as on oil, but still. But I don’t think that has anything to do with the value of gold, just with propped up expectations. If oil can drop 40%, what’s gold going to do?