Jun 302021
 
 June 30, 2021  Posted by at 8:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Ivan Aivazovsky The Ninth Wave 1849

 

Why COVID is like AIDS (Berenson)
Covid’s Warped Vaccines (Weisser)
Lisbon Court: Only 0.9% Of Verified Cases Died Of Covid; 152, Not 17,000 (AFD)
The BIGGE$T Lie -Perhaps Ever (Kamen)
Pseudopandemic (Iain Davis)
Ohio Lawmakers Ban Requiring Covid-19 Vaccine At Public Schools, Universities (CD)
Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines May Stand Guard Against COVID for Years (HDN)
The War on Reality (CJ Hopkins)
NYC Mayor’s Race “Plunges Into Chaos” On 130,000 ‘Test-Run’ Votes (ZH)
Toxic Corporations are Destroying the Planet’s Soil (CP)

 

 

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman found unvaxxed; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was found unvaxxed, with no mask. Now Fauci in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

He lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without fault among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And they which heard it, being convinced of their own righteousness, stoned the woman to death, plus all bystanders within 100 feet, and Jesus too, out of an abundance of caution.
– TAE Summary

 

 

Delta doesn’t look very scary.

 

 

 

 

PCR trap

 

 

“They found that in the two younger groups – including adults up to age 60 – being obese was associated with nearly ALL the risk that Covid would lead to intensive care or death “


[..] the findings suggest that for people under 60, weight loss would be the single best way to reduce the risk of Covid – probably even more than a vaccine (and with no side effects).

Original paper: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(21)00089-9/fulltext

Why COVID is like AIDS (Berenson)

SARS-COV-2 isn’t even in the same time zone as HIV as a killer. But it is like HIV in one crucial way. It plays favorites. After a year, most of us know that the elderly are at much higher risk from coronavirus (though even well-informed people may not be aware HOW much higher the risk is). But what public health authorities have gone out of their way to obscure is how much obesity – especially severe obesity – drives the risk of the coronavirus in younger people. In April, British researchers published a definitive paper on the subject in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, a peer-reviewed journal. The researchers examined the medical records of almost 7 million people in England to look at the link between obesity and severe outcomes from Covid, including hospitalization and death.

The topline findings show only a moderate link between extra weight and Covid risk. But when the researchers looked more closely, they found that’s because in older people, being overweight does NOT drive excess risk. So the researchers divided the patients into four age ranges: 20-39, 40-59, 60-79, and over 80. They found that in the two younger groups – including adults up to age 60 – being obese was associated with nearly ALL the risk that Covid would lead to intensive care or death. The findings held even after they adjusted for many different potential confounding factors, like smoking, non-weight-related illnesses, and wealth. The excess risk was extremely high even for people who weren’t morbidly obese – defined as a body-mass index of 40 or more. A person between 40 and 60 with a BMI of 35 – someone who is 230 pounds and 5’8” – had about five times the risk of dying of Covid of a person of normal weight. For younger adults, the excess risk was even higher, and for morbidly obese people even higher still.

In contrast, people of normal weight under 40 are at essentially no risk of death from Covid. The researchers found their rate to be under 1 in 10,000 per year. Even in the 40 to 59 age range, normal-weight adults had an annual risk well under 1 in 1,000. The researchers did not include those stunning findings in the main body of the paper, only its appendix. Still, they were clear in their discussion about the overall results: “Our findings from this large population-based cohort emphasise that excess weight is associated with substantially increased risks of severe COVID-19 outcomes, and one of the most important modifiable risk factors identified to date.” In fact, the findings suggest that for people under 60, weight loss would be the single best way to reduce the risk of Covid – probably even more than a vaccine (and with no side effects).

Read more …

Robert Malone: “The author apparently was unaware that Moderna was substantially funded by DARPA. and their jab engineered by NIH.”

Covid’s Warped Vaccines (Weisser)

Samuel Langley, the inventor of a catastrophically incompetent ‘flying’ machine is a striking example of governments picking losers. When his 16-metre monster was catapulted into the air in 1903, it instantly plunged into the Potomac river like an obese Icarus. Langley was the beneficiary of the sort of government largesse and boosterism that has lately been lavished on Operation Warp Speed’s Covid vaccines but at least nobody died as a result of his incompetence. The same cannot be said of the Covid vaccines. In the US, the official database for adverse reactions to all the Covid vaccines has now registered almost 6,000 deaths, just in the first five months. Compare this to 2019, when there were only 605 deathreported in the whole year, for all vaccines combined.

That’s more than an order of magnitude increase. There were also almost 330,000 reports of vaccine injury including almost 2,200 heart attacks, more than 1500 reports of blood clots combined with low platelets and more than 15,000 reports of severe allergic reactions. Yes, correlation does not prove causation but adverse events on this scale have never before been seen, in the more than 200 years since the first vaccine was invented and need to be properly investigated and explained. In the UK, Dr Tess Lawrie, a world-class evidence-based medical researcher and consultant to the World Health Organization wrote to the British Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency saying, ‘The MHRA has more than enough evidence on the Yellow Card system to declare C19 vaccines unsafe for use in humans’.

In less than five months in the UK there were over 1,250 deaths and 888,000 adverse reactions including almost 14,000 bleeding, clotting and stroke events (856 fatal) occurring in almost every vein and artery and every organ — brain (152 fatalities), lungs (103 fatalities), heart (81 fatalities), spleen, kidneys, ovaries and liver. There were also almost 55,000 reports of infection and immune disorders, strongly suggesting vaccine-induced immune-compromise and re-activation of latent viruses resulting in shingles, Bell’s palsy and Guillain-Barré syndrome. And there were 4,771 reports of visual impairment including blindness. In the UN’s global database 6,500 deaths have been reported and over a million injuries, most among individuals aged 18 to 64 and 70 per cent women.

Malone censored on LinkedIn

Read more …

Lisbon courts have some clever judges. We’ve seen it before.

Lisbon Court: Only 0.9% Of Verified Cases Died Of Covid; 152, Not 17,000 (AFD)

Following a citizen’s petition, a Lisbon court was forced to provide verified COVID-19 mortality data, reports AndreDias.net. According to the ruling, the number of verified COVID-19 deaths from January 2020 to April 2021 is only 152, not about 17,000 as claimed by government ministries. All the “others” died for various reasons, although their PCR test was positive. “We live in a fraud of unprecedented dimensions,” wrote Dias. “The data are from the Sistema de Informação dos Certificados de Óbito (Death Certificate Information System – SICO), the only such system in Portugal. The reference to 152 death certificated issued ‘under Justice Ministry supervision’ is spurious, as all death certificates are issued under Justice Ministry auspices, being the only institution that issues them.


“In response to a popular suit, a court order was required for the Ministry to respond, desperate not to denounce the fraud. “All those responsible for handling data from ‘cases’ and ‘deaths’ can, thereafter, only be tried for the crime if there is any dignity remaining in the rule of law,” he continued. “If these figures are of the same order of magnitude for other countries as well, and there is no reason to assume otherwise, then the plague is a deception of unprecedented proportions and crimes committed against humanity on a huge scale have been committed here.”

Ioannidis

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Not terribly impressed, but hey, she was censored too.

The BIGGE$T Lie -Perhaps Ever (Kamen)

The BIGGE$T Lie is this: We do not yet have a medicine that can prevent and treat every phase of COVID-19 disease — from pre-exposure to the critical stage of illness. It’s the BIGGE$T Lie because of this: We we DO have such a pill. It’s ivermectin. A 50-year-old, highly safe, inexpensive, globally available Nobel prize-winning medicine that is dropping case counts and saving lives by the tens of thousands in the countries where it is being used. So why don’t we suggest the truer statement instead. It would read something like this: “We do not have an extremely high-priced, novel pill developed by Big Pharma using billions of taxpayer dollars that can prevent and treat every phase of COVID-19 disease — from pre-exposure to the critical stage of illness. We only have ivermectin, which actually does it all, safely and quickly, but which requires $0 to develop so there are no profits in it for us. So let’s hush it up, make up stuff about it and make it go away so we can rake in billion$. What do you say?”

[..] First, Big Pharma has a greedy hand in the BIGGE$T Lie. Huh? What? Drug companies? Aren’t they in the business of making drugs that save lives and enhance human health? Well, sure they are. And they do plenty of good throughout the world. That much is undeniably true. But the pandemic has blessed Big Pharma with a multi-billion dollar payday…predominantly remuneration for the development of desperately needed vaccines. OK. So what? I’ll tell you what. The reality is that there are people who are vaccine hesitant. Then there are those for whom vaccines are medically contraindicated. Others around the world have no access to the vaccine, and may not for years. What are they supposed to do? For them, finding a medicine — or combination of medicines — that will keep them safe from a killer virus is critical.

They need a bridge, if you will, to the vaccine; or a safety net to keep them well until either the virus recedes or herd immunity is established. Enter ivermectin. The little drug that could. And could. And could.

Read more …

Pseudopandemic is the new book by Iain Davis.

Not too impressed by this either.

Pseudopandemic (Iain Davis)

COVID 19 presented virtually no risk to those of working age and none at all to the young. There was no evidence that children were either at or presented any risk. The school closures were part of the pseudopandemic psy-op. They gave the misleading impression of an emergency and provided fraudulent justification for vaccinating children. The pseudopandemic was planned to lead to the complete transformation of our culture and society. It has irrevocably changed our relationship with governments, has caused catastrophic economic disruption, shutdown global trade and saw millions become reliant on government subsidies. The pseudopandemic was the opening salvo in a global coup d’état.

The new pseudopandemic biosecurity apparatus is designed to control our behaviour as we are forced through a global transformation. Those behind the pseudopandemic intend to change the International Monetary and Financial System (IMFS) and establish global governance in the shape of technocracy. Technocracy is a neofeudal, totalitarian system based upon communitarian principles. We will be offered the illusion of participatory democracy through our required participation and belief in “civil society.” Civil society will be a “stakeholder” in the Technocracy. However, civil society will only be allowed to pursue polices set at the global level.

Applied psychology was used throughout the pseudopandemic to fix our “choice environment.” We were conditioned to believe that following the rules was the responsible and moral choice. In reality our behaviour was being deliberately altered to ensure our compliance with the diktats of the biosecurity state, preparing society for the transition to technocracy. The new global IMFS is built upon carbon trading and a $120 trillion carbon bond market is currently under construction. Assets are being defined in terms of their Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics which rate investments depending upon their environmental, social and governance (ESG) score.

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“This is about personal rights.”

Ohio Lawmakers Ban Requiring Covid-19 Vaccine At Public Schools, Universities (CD)

Ohio’s public schools and universities couldn’t require students or employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 under last-minute changes to a bill sent to Gov. Mike DeWine early Tuesday. Under the proposed changes, public schools and universities couldn’t require vaccines that haven’t received full U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. That includes the three COVID-19 vaccines distributed in America, all of which have been approved via emergency use authorization, which is a rigorous process that includes clinical trials. “Parents, in consultation with their personal doctors, have the right to make decisions about their children especially for vaccinations that are not fully approved by the FDA,” said Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Powell. “This is about personal rights.”


The bill wouldn’t apply to public hospitals, such as Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, or private schools and universities. “There was a lot of feeling that you just don’t want to force kids to do it if their parents don’t want them to,” said Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima. Another amendment offered by Sen. Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, would ask individuals coming from countries designated as the highest risk by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to quarantine for no longer than 48 hours. While quarantined, their food, transportation and accommodations would be paid for by the Ohio Department of Health.

Read more …

They will be a threat to you for the rest of your life. Take your pick.

Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines May Stand Guard Against COVID for Years (HDN)

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines trigger an immune system response that could fend off the coronavirus for years to come, new research reveals. The latest study bolsters growing evidence that most people immunized with the mRNA vaccines may not need booster shots, with one key caveat: That the virus and its variants don’t evolve too much beyond the virus’ original form. “It’s a good sign for how durable our immunity is from this vaccine,” Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study, told The New York Times. The study, published Monday in the journal Nature, did not look at the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but Ellebedy said he expected the immune response for that vaccine to be less durable than that produced by mRNA vaccines.

Last month, Ellebedy and his colleagues reported that immune cells that recognize the virus lingered in bone marrow for at least eight months after COVID-19 infection. Another team found that memory B-cells continue to mature and strengthen for at least a year after infection, the Times reported. Those findings suggested that immunity might last years, possibly a lifetime, in people who were infected and later vaccinated. But whether vaccination alone might demonstrate the same power was unclear. After an infection or a vaccination, a specialized structure called the germinal center forms in lymph nodes, the researchers explained. This structure is where B-cells are trained. After infection with the coronavirus, the germinal center forms in the lungs. But after vaccination, the cells’ education takes place in lymph nodes in the armpits, within reach of researchers.

Ellebedy’s team found that 15 weeks after the first dose of vaccine, the germinal center was still highly active in all 14 study participants, and that the number of memory cells that recognized the coronavirus had not dropped. “The fact that the reactions continued for almost four months after vaccination — that’s a very, very good sign,” Ellebedy told the Times, because terminal centers typically peak one to two weeks after immunization, and then wane.

Dr. Richard Fleming

Read more …

(perception of) Reality has changed a lot lately. But people are not aware of that, so what’s the difference?

The War on Reality (CJ Hopkins)

You could stage an apocalyptic global pandemic that only happened in certain countries, or in certain parts of certain countries, and that more or less mirrored natural mortality, and that didn’t drastically increase historical death rates, but was nonetheless totally apocalyptic. Perfectly healthy people could become “medical cases.” You could count anyone who died of anything as having died of your apocalyptic virus. You could tell people in no uncertain terms that medical-looking masks will not protect them from viruses, and then turn around and tell them that they will, and then, later, publicly admit you were lying in order to manipulate them, and then deny you ever said that, and tell them to wear masks.


You could experimentally “vaccinate” millions of people whose risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from your apocalyptic virus was minuscule or non-existent, and kill tens or hundreds of thousands in the process, and the people whose brains you had methodically broken would thank you for murdering their friends and neighbors, and then rush out to their local discount drugstore to experimentally “vaccinate” their own kids and post pictures of it on the Internet. At that point, you wouldn’t really have to worry about “populist uprisings,” or “terrorism,” or any other type of insurgent activity, because the vast majority of the global population would be scramble-headed automatons who were totally incapable of independent thought, and who had no idea what was real and what wasn’t, so just repeated whatever new script you fed them like customer-service representatives on Haldol.

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How many of these over the past 5-6 years?

NYC Mayor’s Race “Plunges Into Chaos” On 130,000 ‘Test-Run’ Votes (ZH)

With the New York City Mayoral race “plunged into chaos” (as the NYT puts it), journalist Bob Hardt now reports that the Board of Elections counted 130,000 ‘test-run’ votes, which would account for most of the ‘discrepancy’ reported earlier. Hardt added that the BoE will now head ‘back to the drawing board’ to produce corrected ranked-choice numbers tomorrow. Presumably by then the outcome of the election will have been decided and things can go smoother then…
* * *
Hours after the New York City’s Board of Elections released an updated ranked voting tally for the Democratic Primary which showed frontrunner Eric Adams’ lead shrinking considerably, BOE officials acknowledged a ‘discrepancy’ in the ballot count. At issue: on the day of the primary, the BOE reported just under 800,000 votes with 96.6% of scanners reporting. On Tuesday, however, the tally was 941,832 votes – nearly 20% higher, according to PIX11. The new figures narrows Adams’ lead over former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia to just 51.9% (368,898) to 48.9% (352,990) – while there are still 100,000 absentee ballots which need to be processed, and could tip Garcia over the top.


In response, Adams’ campaign fired off a statement questioning the count, and demanding an explanation for the “irregularities.” “The vote total just released by the Board of Elections is 100,000-plus more than the total announced on election night, raising serious questions,” reads the statement. “We have asked the Board of Elections to explain such a massive increase and other irregularities before we comment on the Ranked Choice Voting projection.” Liberals, in response, accused Adams of going ‘full Trump’ and spreading ‘the big lie’ – that the election isn’t as secure as advertised.

Read more …

People getting rid of people.

Toxic Corporations are Destroying the Planet’s Soil (CP)

A newly published analysis in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science argues that a toxic soup of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides is causing havoc beneath fields covered in corn, soybeans, wheat and other monoculture crops. The research is the most comprehensive review ever conducted on how pesticides affect soil health. The study is discussed by two of the report’s authors, Nathan Donley and Tari Gunstone, in a recent article appearing on the Scientific American website. The authors state that the findings should bring about immediate changes in how regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assess the risks posed by the nearly 850 pesticide ingredients approved for use in the USA.

Conducted by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and the University of Maryland, the research looked at almost 400 published studies that together had carried out more than 2800 experiments on how pesticides affect soil organisms. The review encompassed 275 unique species or types of soil organisms and 284 different pesticides or pesticide mixtures. Pesticides were found to harm organisms that are critical to maintaining healthy soils in over 70 per cent of cases. But Donley and Gunstone say this type of harm is not considered in the EPA’s safety reviews, which ignore pesticide harm to earthworms, springtails, beetles and thousands of other subterranean species. The EPA uses a single test species to estimate risk to all soil organisms, the European honeybee, which spends its entire life above ground in artificial boxes. But 50-100 per cent of all pesticides end up in soil.

The researchers conclude that the ongoing escalation of pesticide-intensive agriculture and pollution are major driving factors in the decline of soil organisms. By carrying out wholly inadequate reviews, the regulatory system serves to protect the pesticide industry.The study comes in the wake of other recent findings that indicate high levels of the weedkiller chemical glyphosate and its toxic breakdown product AMPA have been found in topsoil samples from no-till fields in Brazil. Writing on the GMWatch website, Claire Robinson and Jonathan Matthews note that, despite this, the agrochemical companies seeking the renewal of the authorisation of glyphosate by the European Union in 2022 are saying that one of the greatest benefits of glyphosate is its ability to foster healthier soils by reducing the need for tillage (or ploughing).

This in itself is misleading because farmers are resorting to ploughing given increasing weed resistance to glyphosate and organic agriculture also incorporates no till methods. At the same time, proponents of glyphosate conveniently ignore or deny its toxicity to soils, water, humans and wildlife. With that in mind, it is noteworthy that GMWatch also refers to another recent study which says that glyphosate is responsible for a five per cent increase in infant mortality in Brazil.

Read more …

 

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Mar 262015
 
 March 26, 2015  Posted by at 8:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


Jack Delano Residents of rooming house for rail workers, Clinton, Iowa 1943

US Economy Heads Toward Zero Growth in Q1 (WolfStreet)
US Home Prices Are Surging 13 Times Faster Than Wages (Bloomberg)
UK Household Debt Soars By 9% To Hit A Record £239bn (Independent)
ECB Bond Buying To Continue Till Inflation Reaches 2%: Draghi (WSJ)
Europe Blocks Desperate Greek Attempt To Stay Afloat (Telegraph)
Eurozone Said to Give Greece Five Days to Deliver Plan (Bloomberg)
Greek Central Bank Governor Stournaras Says Grexit Isn’t An Option (WSJ)
A Murky, Sloppy Muddle: How Greece’s Exit From Euro Could Happen (Bloomberg)
Athens Raids Public Health Coffers In Hunt For Cash (FT)
Greek Government Takes Desperate Measures In Battle To Stay Afloat (Guardian)
How Low Can Interest Rates Go? (BBC)
US Risks Epic Blunder By Treating China As An Economic Enemy (AEP)
China’s European Shopping Spree Shows No Signs Of Slowing (Ind.)
US Couldn’t Corral AIIB Due To Soaring Chinese Investments In Europe (Atimes)
Putin Security Council Slams Obama Attempts At “New World Order” (Zero Hedge)
The Central Banker Who Saved the Russian Economy From the Abyss (Bloomberg)
Banking Enclave of Andorra Shaken by US Accusations (Bloomberg)
Meet The Kagans: A Family Business Of Perpetual War (Robert Parry)
After a Twelve Year Mistake in Iraq, We Must Just March Home (Ron Paul)
We’re Treating Soil Like Dirt. It’s A Fatal Mistake (Monbiot)
No One Must Go Thirsty: Water In Public Hands Is A Right (Beppe Grillo)

Want to bet the ‘real’ number will be way above zero?

US Economy Heads Toward Zero Growth in Q1 (WolfStreet)

The consistency with which nearly every report on the US economy has deteriorated over the last few months is astonishing. Only the jobs report has been spared that sharp downdraft. So we blame the weather, which in parts of the US was truly atrocious, while in other parts, particularly in California, it was gorgeous. Too gorgeous. This is supposed to be our rainy season, but every day the sun is out as we’re heading into our fourth year of drought. Yet the drought isn’t what keeps people from shopping or companies from ordering equipment. So out here, we’re baffled when the weather gets blamed. Today’s durable goods report for February was another shot at this wobbly edifice of the US economy.

New orders for manufactured durable goods dropped by 1.4%, the Census Bureau reported. It was the third decrease in four months. Transportation equipment fell 3.5%, also the third decrease in four months. Excluding transportation, new orders – “core” durable goods – fell 0.4%, down for the fifth month in a row. And Core Capital Goods New Orders, considered an important gauge of business spending, fell 1.4%, down for the sixth month in a row. The weather is really hard to blame for this, so folks blamed the strong dollar and slack demand in the US and globally. The data was bad enough to push the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model of the US economy down another step toward zero growth in the first quarter.

The Atlanta Fed started the model in 2011 to offer a more immediate picture where the economy is headed. It takes into account economic data as released and adjusts its GDP forecast for the quarter as it goes. The model is volatile. It reacts to incoming monthly data that are themselves volatile and subject to sharp revisions. So a few strong releases for March could turn this thing around on a dime. But we’re still dealing with the reality of January and February; the data has been crummy, and the Atlanta Fed’s “nowcast” is increasingly depicting an economy that is losing its struggle with growth.

Read more …

SO what exactly did the Fed purchase $1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities for? Riddle me that.

US Home Prices Are Surging 13 Times Faster Than Wages (Bloomberg)

For most people, buying a home is no cheap venture. That’s especially the case when the growth in U.S. home prices is beating wage increases 13 to 1. Wages climbed by 1.3% from the second quarter of 2012 to the second quarter of 2014, compared to a 17% increase in home prices around that time, according to a new report from RealtyTrac. The real-estate data provider used the Labor Department’s weekly earnings data to measure wage growth, while home prices were derived from sales-deed data in December 2014 and compared to December 2012 on the hypothesis that a change in average wages would take at least six months to affect home prices.

Using localized earnings data, RealtyTrac also found that 76% of housing markets posted increases in home prices that exceeded the wage growth there during that time frame. How could this happen? Enter the investor. In many markets, the housing recovery has “largely been driven over the last two years by buyers who are not as constrained by incomes – namely the institutional investors coming in and buying up properties as rentals, and international buyers coming in and buying, often with cash,” Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac and author of the report, said in an interview.

For demand from traditional buyers to improve, “either wages are going to need to go up or prices are going to need to at least flatten out and wait for wages to catch up,” he said. “You might say the third alternative is interest rates go down so you give people more buying power with their wages, but interest rates are about as low as they can go.” The trend illustrates the limited impact of the Federal Reserve’s decision to include mortgage-backed securities in its unprecedented asset-buying program. The Fed bought more than $1 trillion of those securities to prop up the housing market after it collapsed and helped trigger the worst recession in the post-World War II era.

Read more …

How Britain fell back in love with debt.

UK Household Debt Soars By 9% To Hit A Record £239bn (Independent)

The average UK household is set to hold close to £10,000 in unsecured debt by the end of 2016, according to a leading accountancy firm. The forecast, by PricewaterhouseCoopers, was made after 2014 saw a sharp rise in unsecured debt, which bounced back to an all-time high of £239bn. The 9% rise in borrowing last year brings the average to close to £9,000, but PwC reckons that will grow. That would mean households will be closing in on the £10,000 figure if trends continue. The household debt to income ratio is projected to reach 172% by 2020, exceeding its previous peak set before the financial crisis. It includes mortgages and other debt secured on property.

Most banks all but ceased lending during the 2007/2008 shock. While mortgage lending is more strictly controlled than it was, the tap has gradually loosened when it comes to unsecured debt. PwC’s Precious Plastic: How Britons fell back in love with borrowing, published today, finds that most consumers are confident that they can manage their debt, with fewer worried about job security and pay rises as the economy improves. But the report says that despite consumers’ confidence, affordability will increasingly be called into question as the debt to income ratio steadily increases over coming years.

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To get inflation to 2%, people would need to massively raise spending. They won’t.

ECB Bond Buying To Continue Till Inflation Reaches 2%: Draghi (WSJ)

The European Central Bank will purchase large amounts of public and private debt for at least 18 months and until it is convinced that inflation will stabilise near annual rates of 2%, the bank s president Mario Draghi has said, underscoring the ECB’s willingness to flood the eurozone with freshly minted money far into the future. In testimony to European parliament, Mr Draghi also urged Greece to commit to fully honouring its debt obligations. Its government also must be specific about areas of economic and fiscal reforms where it is in agreement with its international creditors and, where there is disagreement, how (the reforms) are going to be replaced has to be specified , he said.

Referring to the ECB s bond purchase program, now entering its third week, Mr Draghi said: We intend to carry out our purchases at least until end-September 2016, and in any case until we see a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation which is consistent with our aim of achieving inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. Mr Draghi’s testimony comes two weeks after the ECB launched a program to purchase more than €1 trillion in bonds mostly government debt by September 2016. The purpose of the program, known as quantitative easing, or QE, is to raise inflation rates closer to the ECB’s target of near 2%.

The ECB has said it would buy bonds at a monthly clip of €60 billion and that the purchases could even extend beyond September of next year. The Governing Council will take a holistic perspective when assessing the path of inflation. It will evaluate the likelihood for inflation not only to converge to levels that are closer to 2%, but also to stabilise around those levels with sufficient confidence thereafter, Mr Draghi said. Consumer prices were down 0.3% from year-ago levels in February, the third-straight decline on an annual basis.

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Say uncle first!

Europe Blocks Desperate Greek Attempt To Stay Afloat (Telegraph)

The Greek government will not receive €1.2bn in European rescue funds after officials ruled the Leftist government had no legal claims on the cash. Athens requested a return of the funds it said were erroneously handed to creditors from Greece’s own bank recapitalisation fund, the Hellenic Financial Stability Facility (HFSF). The transfer was originally arranged by the previous Greek administration. But eurozone officials have blocked the claim, saying it is “legally impossible” transfer the money back to the debt-stricken country. “There was agreement that, legally, there was no over payment from the HFSF to the EFSF,” said a fund spokesman. Germany’s finance ministry was also reluctant to allow the release, claiming there was “no reason” to make the transfer.

The decision is a further blow to the Greek government’s attempts to stay afloat over the next few weeks. Athens has been scrambling to make repayments to its creditors and continue to pay wages and pensions. The government now faces another €2.4bn cash squeeze in April, including a €450m loan repayment to the IMF on April 9. As part of its efforts to stay solvent, the Leftist government has also requested a €1.9bn transfer of profits held by the European Central Bank, from the holdings of Greek government bonds. So far, the ECB has rebuffed all Greek pleas to alleviate their cash squeeze. The central bank has moved to officially ban the country’s banks from increasing their holdings of short-term government debt.

Greek banks are being kept alive through the provision of an expensive form of emergency liquidity (ELA) which is rapidly being used up as capital flees the country. The ECB decided to incrementally raise the limit on ELA to €71bn – a bigger hike than in previous weeks.
Speaking in London on Wednesday, the ECB’s chief economist Peter Praet declined to comment on the Bank’s actions, saying it was important to exercise “verbal restraint” in moments of crisis. Worsening deposit flight has placed the squeeze on Greek lenders, who are only eligible for ELA as long as they are deemed to be solvent. Mr Praet said the country’s banks remained counterparties in their operations with the ECB, suggesting they remained healthy enough to continue receiving ELA.

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One plan after another.

Eurozone Said to Give Greece Five Days to Deliver Plan (Bloomberg)

Greece has until Monday to show how it will follow through on reform commitments after the euro area ruled out speedy access to aid funds, three officials said following a conference call of finance ministry deputies. The euro zone’s other 18 members were adamant on Wednesday’s call that Greece needs to deliver specific plans to see any more bailout cash, the officials said. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras needs to show that Greece can rebuild trust in its promises, they said. Finance deputies left the door open to €1.2 billion that has been allocated to aid the banking system, as the deputies concluded that Greece can’t tap those funds on a technicality.

As a result, Greece will have to show it will move ahead with the changes its creditors are seeking to get the bank-aid money or other bailout funds. Greece won some financial breathing room Wednesday when the European Central Bank raised the ceiling for Emergency Liquidity Assistance to Greek banks by more than €1 billion to more than €71 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the decision who asked not to be named. The ECB’s move alleviates some near-term cash needs in the banking system while keeping pressure on Tsipras to find a longer-term solution. European officials have said that Greece could default on its obligations within weeks unless there’s a breakthrough.

Greece needs to act faster so its actions can be more effective, Eurogroup Chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who heads the euro-area finance ministers’ group, said in Rotterdam on Wednesday. “The main problem is the same in every country in Europe: getting things done.” Monday will be a test of whether Greece can convince its peers that it will meet their demands for an economic overhaul, the officials said. Once Greece submits its next documents, they’ll need to be reviewed by the country’s official creditors and then the finance ministry deputies in the first few days of next week, ahead of Easter holidays, one of the officials said.

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Oh, yes it is.

Greek Central Bank Governor Stournaras Says Grexit Isn’t An Option (WSJ)

Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras said Wednesday that ditching the euro and exiting the single currency union is “not an option” for Greece. Mr. Stournaras told an audience at the London School of Economics that a Greek exit–dubbed “Grexit” in financial markets–risks triggering another severe downturn in the stricken Mediterranean economy. Greece has already improved its global competitiveness by driving down wages and prices, he said, and growth is returning. “Grexit would deliver no benefit, but a lot of pain,” Mr. Stournaras said. Quitting the eurozone would probably lead to even deeper austerity than Greece already has implemented, he said, while the adoption of an alternative currency would risk fueling runaway inflation.

His remarks come a day after the ECB instructed Greece’s biggest banks to refrain from taking on anymore short-term Greek government debt, adding to the pressure on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftwing government in Athens to reach a deal with creditors over the terms of the nation’s €240 billion bailout package. Mr. Tsipras was elected in January on a pledge to reverse many of the budget cuts and other economic reforms demanded by Greece’s creditors in exchange for financial aid. But he has struggled to persuade lenders led by Germany and the IMF to back down, raising the specter of a disorderly Greek exit from the eurozone.

Greece now has just weeks to secure a deal to unlock billions of euros in badly needed funds to keep paying public-sector salaries and service the nation’s debts. Mr. Stournaras said Greece’s government has a unique opportunity to implement bold economic reforms and forge a durable recovery. “This is in my view a historical opportunity which should not be missed,” he said. He added that he’s more optimistic that Mr. Tsipras’s government is serious about reform than he was a month ago.

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Scenario’s.

A Murky, Sloppy Muddle: How Greece’s Exit From Euro Could Happen (Bloomberg)

With the fight to keep Greece in the euro now in its sixth year, everyone is running out of patience. More importantly, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government in Athens is running out of money. While bond yields suggest investors expect Greece to stay in the euro, economists such as UniCredit Bank AG’s Erik Nielsen say it may be just a matter of time before he’s forced to print a new currency. Adopting the euro was always supposed to be a one-way ticket, so there is no legal precedent or political roadmap for an exit. If you’re waiting for a formal announcement of a clear resolution, you may be waiting a long time.

Next steps for Greece range from retaining the euro to catastrophic divorce; half-measures like having multiple currencies circulate, with aid recycled to repay foreign-currency debts, are also in the cards. Equally unclear is who would tell the world – and how – that Greece has entered an economic afterlife. Possible messengers include Tsipras, the ECB, EU President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, among others.

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Strip mining.

Athens Raids Public Health Coffers In Hunt For Cash (FT)

Greece’s government has raided the coffers of its public health service and the Athens metro as it widens a hunt for funds to keep itself afloat and service debts. Athens faces a €1.7bn bill for wages and pensions at the end of the month and then a €450m loan payment to the IMF on April 9. Greek government and eurozone officials believe Athens does not have funds to cover both. In another constraint on Greece’s ability to raise cash, the ECB decided to impose stricter curbs on the issuance of short-term government debt. EU officials expressed hope that a marathon Monday night meeting between Alexis Tsipras and Angela Merkel, would spark long-stalled talks over economic reforms Greece must implement to unlock €7.2bn in frozen bailout aid.

Athens has promised to deliver a list of reforms to eurozone authorities by Monday. But officials cautioned that the list would still have to be agreed with bailout inspectors before eurozone authorities could make progress on any deal to free up new funding. Though Mr Tsipras discussed his reform plans with Ms Merkel on Monday night, there were few signs that talks in Athens with bailout inspectors had become more active following the Berlin meeting. “The big ‘if’ is that they seem to move at such a glacial pace,” said an official. Greek authorities have also been seeking €1.2bn in funding that they believe was wrongly taken out of the country’s bank recapitalisation fund by eurozone authorities.

But EU officials said a quick decision on the matter was unlikely and even if Athens was awarded the cash it could only go towards bank rescues, not general government coffers. In the absence of progress, some EU officials were accelerating their preparations in case Athens runs out of cash before it agrees a reform programme. In Brussels, European Commission officials have begun looking again at EU law governing capital controls in case the growing uncertainty, or a non-payment to the IMF, spurs a renewed run on bank deposits.

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“They are scraping the bottom of the barrel for everything they can find.”

Greek Government Takes Desperate Measures In Battle To Stay Afloat (Guardian)

The Greek government is resorting to increasingly desperate measures to keep afloat amid dire warnings the debt-stricken country could go bust within weeks. In a balancing act not seen by any European administration in recent times, the cash-strapped coalition has sequestered the reserves of public bodies, seized EU subsidies destined for farmers and postponed all payments for state supplies in the scramble to continue servicing its debt and paying salaries and pensions. Pension funds have been raided to raise money for Treasury bill auctions. “It is clear we are reaching the end and very soon won’t be able to pay,” former finance minister, Stefanos Manos, said. “They are scraping the bottom of the barrel for everything they can find.”

To cover the credit crunch, corporations in which the state has a majority stake, including the Athens Metro, have been tapped. The scheme of repo transactions – where government bonds are used for short-term borrowing requirements – is believed to have raised upwards of €600m in recent weeks. Earlier this month the leftist-led coalition suspended some €300m of EU subsidies for farmers to help pay €1.7bn in public sector wages and pensions due next week. Greek subsidiaries of multinationals have also been approached for loans.

The last-resort measures came as Deutsche Bank warned that Athens was at risk of being pushed into default on 9 April when it must meet a €450m debt repayment to the International Monetary Fund. The precarious state of Athens’ finances has been exacerbated by a precipitous decline in tax revenues – more than €1bn below target since January – said the bank’s economists. Deposit flight has also ratcheted up the pressure. More than €20bn has fled the country since the beginning of the year as savers rush to withdraw funds, worried about Greece’s ability to remain in the euro. “The risk of capital controls continues to rise,” noted the Deutsche report.

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“..the nearer Bank Rate approaches zero, the bigger the squeeze on the profits banks earn from borrowing and lending.”

How Low Can Interest Rates Go? (BBC)

The Bank of England’s website says that the “effective lower bound” for the interest rate it sets, Bank Rate, is the current rate of 0.5%. This is the level, according to the Bank, “below which it cannot be set” – the lowest practicable official interest rate. But on this important issue the website is behind the thinking of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, which sets Bank Rate as its main tool to keep inflation on target. Because just over a month ago, the Bank’s governor said that if low inflation were to begin to depress expectations of inflation and wage growth, the MPC could “cut Bank Rate further towards zero”.

And with inflation well below the 2% target at zero, the Bank’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, has said – as a personal rather than institutional view – that there is a meaningful chance that Bank Rate will be cut. So what has happened to demonstrate to the Bank that 0.5% is not the practicable minimum. Partly it is the example of central banks – the European Central Bank and those of Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark – whose official rates are negative: banks that place funds with them are having interest deducted from their deposits, rather than receiving interest. Their rates are less than zero. The other contributor to the fall in the effective lower bound is the recovery of Britain’s banks.

This matters because the nearer Bank Rate approaches zero, the bigger the squeeze on the profits banks earn from borrowing and lending. Think of it this way. Competition between banks should bring down the interest rate on loans when Bank Rate is cut towards zero. But savings rates would be kept by competition above zero. So the gap between the interest rate paid and received by banks would narrow: the profits on this most basic of banking activities would fall. Also the windfall received by banks from all those interest-free deposits the banks hold would be significantly cut.

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“China must recycle its trade surpluses and its $3.8 trillion reserves by one means or another. It can buy US Treasuries, Bunds, or Gilts, perpetuating a global bond bubble.”

US Risks Epic Blunder By Treating China As An Economic Enemy (AEP)

The United States has handled its economic diplomacy with shocking myopia. The US Treasury’s attempt to cripple the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) before it gets off the ground is clearly intended to head off China’s ascendancy as a rival financial superpower, whatever the faux-pieties from Washington about standards of “governance”. Such a policy is misguided at every level, evidence of what can go wrong when a lame-duck president defers to posturing amateurs in Congress on delicate matters of global geostrategy. Washington has enraged Britain by trying to browbeat Downing Street into boycotting the project. It has forced allies and friendly countries across the Far East to make a fatal choice between the US and China that none wished to make, and has ended up losing almost everybody. Germany, France, and Italy are joining. Australia and South Korea may follow soon.

The AIIB is exactly what the world needs. China must recycle its trade surpluses and its $3.8 trillion reserves by one means or another. It can buy US Treasuries, Bunds, or Gilts, perpetuating a global bond bubble. It can make surgical investments abroad to acquire technology for its champions and pursue a narrow national interest. Or it can recycle the money in concert with other members of the AIIB – with a start-up capital of $50bn – for sewage projects, clean energy, ports, roads, and railways in Asia, helping to plug a $700bn shortfall in infrastructure investment that the World Bank is too small to cover and which is of collective benefit to the world. Britain recycled its surpluses in the 19th Century by building the world’s railways.

America did so in the 1950s through the Marshall Plan. China must do likewise, and it is hard to see why the AIIB is considered such a villainous variant. American officials castigated Britain for breaking ranks and embracing the project, as if it were kowtowing to an enemy. “We are wary about a trend of constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage a rising power,” one US official told the Financial Times. One is left breathless at the historical folly of such a view in any case. As Henry Kissinger told Caixin magazine this week, the greater danger is that the US fails to accommodate the rise of China in an enlightened fashion, repeating errors made by the status quo powers faced with a prickly Germany before the First World War.

There are echoes of the Korean War in this Atlantic spat, though thankfully the stakes are less violent today. Britain tried to restrain General Douglas MacArthur and Washington’s hawks as they sent US forces charging through North Korea to the Yalu River and the Manchurian border in 1950, warning that it would force China to respond. MacArthur’s contemptuous riposte was to liken British reflexes to the betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich, of “desiring to appease the Chinese Communists by giving them a strip of Northern Korea.” The British experts were right. China threw four armies across the Yalu. America had arrogantly stumbled into a shooting war with the Chinese revolution, a cataclysmic mistake.

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More strip mining.

China’s European Shopping Spree Shows No Signs Of Slowing (Ind.)

A planned takeover of the Italian tyre maker Pirelli by ChemChina is the latest in a string of Chinese acquisitions in Europe, topping up total foreign investment from China worth $18 billion in 2014, double 2013. Pirelli, the world’s fifth largest tyre maker, will be in Chinese hands after ChemChina confirmed a $7.7 billion bid on Sunday. The deal will give Pirelli a slice of the Chinese tyre market and could see its global market share rise to 10%. It’s one of the biggest European acquisitions by a Chinese company yet. But that’s unlikely to be the case for long. Chinese investors have shown increasing interest in Europe as a centre for investment in the last year, spurred on by the cheap euro and the opportunity to invest in legacy brands.

“Chinese investment in Europe has become much more diverse in recent years and is now extending into all parts of Europe.” said Thomas Gilles, Chairman of the EMEA-China Group at Baker & McKenzie. “What we’re seeing is the maturing and normalization of Chinese investment processes in line with the international economy.” The UK is top of the list. Last year, Chinese investors acquired several billion-dollar British investments. Pizza Hut went for a cool £940 million ($1.4 billion), while property bought by Chinese firms includes Chiswick Park for £875 million ($1.3 billion) and 10 Upper Bank Street for £497 million ($740 million).

Last week it emerged that a Chinese company backed by billionaire Guo Guangchang is looking acquire 18 buildings in Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz square, in what could be the biggest German property sale since 2007. Last year France sold Peugeot for £740 million ($1.1 billion).

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“.. the yuan has increased in value against the Euro almost 25% in one year..”

US Couldn’t Corral AIIB Due To Soaring Chinese Investments In Europe (Atimes)

Stopping a stampede isn’t easy – as that old cowpoke Uncle Sam’s discovering as more European nations bolt to join China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The weak Euro’s drawing a conga line of Chinese investments to Europe. The money’s being plunked down not only in “typical” Chinese sectors of historic interest like resources or transportation. It’s focusing geographically across the entire European opportunity and capability spectrum. The uplifting effects of this investment hasn’t been lost on the European countries who are now eager to climb aboard China’s AIIB. Ever since Europe embarked on their QE, and China has maintained stability in the yuan.

As we have noted, this is viewed as pre-condition for the non-convertible yuan to join the IMF’s SDR currency basket later this year. And the yuan has increased in value against the Euro almost 25% in one year – a trend likely to continue through the year with the long-term policies of the respective central banks likely to stay in place for the foreseeable future. According to the EU Observer: “Even before the crisis, these flows surged, tripling from less than US$1 billion per year in 2004-8 to roughly $3 billion in 2009-10. As the Eurozone crisis kicked in, Chinese investment tripled again to $10 billion in 2011. And last year, Chinese investors doubled their money in Europe to a record $18 billion.”

Chinese capital’s typically poking around for each European country’s relative market advantages. In the UK as with many foreign investors, the Chinese have focused on prime property, while in Germany they look for advanced technology. “The UK is the top destination for Chinese investment at $5.1 billion, followed by Italy at $3.5 billion,” the Observer said. As the capital needs of Southern Europe grow, Chinese capital has focused on privatisations and distressed opportunities, from the Greek ports connecting to their new Silk Road to Europe, to Portugal’s Espirito Santo Bank and Spain’s real estate foreclosures.

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They’re on to us.

Putin Security Council Slams Obama Attempts At “New World Order” (Zero Hedge)

Moscow – which may or may not have to nuke Denmark – says the US has adopted a national security strategy that is decidedly anti-Russian. Although attempts to prove how “isolated” Putin truly is on the geopolitical stage haven’t fared very well of late (what with Russian bombers refueling at former U.S. air bases and Putin plotting Eurasian currency unions) and although Washington’s experience with China’s AIIB membership drive seems to indicate it may be the US that is in fact isolated, The Kremlin doesn’t think The White House is likely to give up on its attempts to ostracize Russia any time soon. From a Russian Security Council statement entitled “About The US National Security Strategy”:

In the long term, the United States, in cooperation with its allies will continue the policy of political and economic isolation of Russia, including limiting its ability to export energy and the displacement of all markets for military products, while making it difficult for the production of high-tech products in Russia.

Putin’s security council then proceeds to deliver a remarkably accurate description of Washington’s foreign policy aims including the desire to show off NATO military capabilities (on full display along the Russian border currently), installing puppet governments and propping them up with financial and military support (which is precisely what’s going on now in Ukraine as the US is set to provide military assistance and also financial assistance via a Ukrainian bond issue back by the full faith and credit of the US government), and preserving US hegemony by taking unilateral action across the globe at Washington’s behest (something the US does all the time):

The Strategy emphasizes the US desire to proceed with the formation of a new global economic order. A special place in this order should take a Trans-Pacific Partnership and transatlantic trade and investment partnership that will enable the US central position in the free trade zones, covering two-thirds of the world economy. The armed forces are considered as the basis of US national security and military superiority is considered a major factor in the American world leadership. While maintaining the continuity of the plans to use military force unilaterally and anywhere in the world, as well as to maintain a military presence abroad…

Significant efforts by the US and its allies will be directed to the formation of anti-Russian policy states, with which Russia has established partnership relations, as well as to reduce Russian influence in the former Soviet Union. Continue the policy of preserving the global dominance of the United States, increasing the combat capabilities of NATO, as well as to strengthen the US military presence in the Asia-Tihokeanskom region. Military force will continue to be considered as the primary means of ensuring national security and interests of the United States. Becoming more widespread to eliminate unwanted US political regimes acquire advanced technology “color revolutions” with a high probability of their application in relation to Russia.

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“Russia would no longer fight the market. Speculators needed a cold shower, she said.”

The Central Banker Who Saved the Russian Economy From the Abyss (Bloomberg)

Panic reached the inner sanctum of the Russian central bank. It was Dec. 16 – the day Russian traders would later christen Black Tuesday – and the ruble was in a freefall.“Intervene! Intervene!” a central bank official shouted. Governor Elvira Nabiullina watched the currency on her tablet screen react to her emergency rate increase. No, she said, not this time: Russia would no longer fight the market. Speculators needed a cold shower, she said. That daring decision, related by two people with knowledge of the meeting, has begun to pay off for Nabiullina, 51, and her patron, President Vladimir Putin. Despite sanctions meant to punish Russia for its foray into Ukraine a year ago, the ruble has stabilized. Since Black Tuesday, when it plunged to a record low, the ruble has rebounded 19% against the dollar, the most among 24 emerging-market currencies.

Russia still confronts a painful recession brought on by the collapse in oil, and many of its banks are hurting. But for now, at least, the economy has stepped back from the abyss. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov last week declared the worst was over. Inside the central bank, near Red Square, the lull passes for victory. Nabiullina no longer has to squander foreign-exchange reserves in vain attempts to prop up the ruble. Now she faces the equally daunting task of binding up the wounded economy. While her central bank is nominally independent, analysts agree Putin is ultimately in charge. Yet Nabiullina has emerged as a power in her own right, with a direct line to the president.

Nabiullina isn’t afraid to speak up. When aides urged Putin to impose capital controls last year, she fought against the move and pushed for a freely floating ruble, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Putin heeded her advice — and then let Nabiullina sort out the details. “It was a historic moment because she convinced Putin to accept a market solution to a problem that threatened the whole banking system,” UBS AG Russia Chairman Rair Simonyan said. Russia might well have veered into economic isolation, he said. What Nabiullina came up with turned out to be one of the biggest financial gambles of Putin’s 15-year rule. First she raised interest rates to punishingly high levels, lifting the benchmark rate to 17% from 10.5% in one stroke. Then she stepped back from intervening on the currency market.

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“..a primary money-laundering concern..”

Banking Enclave of Andorra Shaken by US Accusations (Bloomberg)

Juan Ovelar made a quick decision when he heard the U.S. government had accused his Andorran bank of money-laundering, and immediately withdrew most of his funds. “I’m worried that everyone will do the same as I did and there will be a knock-on effect that could affect other banks,” said Ovelar, 27, a computer expert from Argentina, in an interview outside the headquarters of Banca Privada d’Andorra in the capital Andorra La Vella. The U.S. Treasury named Banca Privada d’Andorra, the country’s fourth-largest bank, a “primary money-laundering concern” on March 10. That led to its seizure by Andorran authorities, the arrest of the chief executive officer and a run on customer funds at the lender’s Spanish unit.

The bank’s fate sent tremors through Andorra, a 181-square-mile (469 km2) Catalan-speaking microstate in the eastern Pyrenees with an economy based on skiing, tax-free shopping and banking. The scandal raises risks for its financial industry, which makes up almost a fifth of the €1.8 billion economy and is too big to be bailed out by the state, said Xavier Puig, a professor at Barcelona’s Universidad Pompeu Fabra. Customers lined up at the bank’s branches to take out their money after it limited cash withdrawals to 2,500 euros a week, starting March 16. The bank’s new management, appointed by local regulators, imposed the limit after international banks severed credit lines, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

Andorra’s government is trying to convince international banks to open credit lines so customers won’t be cut off from funds, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Options under consideration for the bank include the sale of assets or liquidation, the person said, adding that officials are seeking a quick solution to limit the effect on other banks. “The government is acting quickly to find a solution because the consequences can be very serious,” said Puig. “They need to amputate this part so that the gangrene doesn’t extend to the rest of the body.” Fitch Ratings put the three largest Andorran banks on watch for a possible downgrade on Monday because of “potential spill-over effects.”

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A comprehensive overview of behind the scenes US war mongering.

Meet The Kagans: A Family Business Of Perpetual War (Robert Parry)

Neoconservative pundit Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, run a remarkable family business: she has sparked a hot war in Ukraine and helped launch Cold War II with Russia – and he steps in to demand that Congress jack up military spending so America can meet these new security threats. This extraordinary husband-and-wife duo makes quite a one-two punch for the Military-Industrial Complex, an inside-outside team that creates the need for more military spending, applies political pressure to ensure higher appropriations, and watches as thankful weapons manufacturers lavish grants on like-minded hawkish Washington think tanks.

Not only does the broader community of neoconservatives stand to benefit but so do other members of the Kagan clan, including Robert’s brother Frederick at the American Enterprise Institute and his wife Kimberly, who runs her own shop called the Institute for the Study of War. Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (which doesn’t disclose details on its funders), used his prized perch on the Washington Post’s op-ed page on Friday to bait Republicans into abandoning the sequester caps limiting the Pentagon’s budget, which he calculated at about $523 billion (apparently not counting extra war spending). Kagan called on the GOP legislators to add at least $38 billion and preferably more like $54 billion to $117 billion.

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“..the greatest strategic disaster in US history.”

After a Twelve Year Mistake in Iraq, We Must Just March Home (Ron Paul)

Twelve years ago last week, the US launched its invasion of Iraq, an act the late General William Odom predicted would turn out to be “the greatest strategic disaster in US history.” Before the attack I was accused of exaggerating the potential costs of the war when I warned that it could end up costing as much as $100 billion. One trillion dollars later, with not one but two “mission accomplished” moments, we are still not done intervening in Iraq. President Obama last year ordered the US military back into Iraq for the third time. It seems the Iraq “surge” and the Sunni “Awakening,” for which General David Petraeus had been given much credit, were not as successful as was claimed at the time.

From the sectarian violence unleashed by the US invasion of Iraq emerged al-Qaeda and then its more radical spin-off, ISIS. So Obama sent the US military back. We recently gained even more evidence that the initial war was sold on lies and fabrications. The CIA finally declassified much of its 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was the chief document used by the Bush Administration to justify the US attack. According to the Estimate, the US Intelligence Community concluded that:

‘[W]e are unable to determine whether [biological weapons] agent research has resumed…’ And: ‘the information we have on Iraqi nuclear personnel does not appear consistent with a coherent effort to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program.’

But even as the US Intelligence Community had reached this conclusion, President Bush told the American people that Iraq, “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons” and “the evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.” Likewise, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “bulletproof” evidence that Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaeda was contradicted by the National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that there was no operational tie between Hussein’s government and al-Qaeda. Even National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice’s famous statement that the aluminum tubes that Iraq was purchasing “are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs,” and “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” was based on evidence she must have known at the time was false. According to the NIE, the Energy Department had already concluded that the tubes were “consistent with applications to rocket motors” and “this is the more likely end use.”

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“..soil in allotments contains a third more organic carbon than agricultural soil and 25% more nitrogen..”

We’re Treating Soil Like Dirt. It’s A Fatal Mistake (Monbiot)

Imagine a wonderful world, a planet on which there was no threat of climate breakdown, no loss of freshwater, no antibiotic resistance, no obesity crisis, no terrorism, no war. Surely, then, we would be out of major danger? Sorry. Even if everything else were miraculously fixed, we’re finished if we don’t address an issue considered so marginal and irrelevant that you can go for months without seeing it in a newspaper. It’s literally and – it seems – metaphorically, beneath us. To judge by its absence from the media, most journalists consider it unworthy of consideration. But all human life depends on it. We knew this long ago, but somehow it has been forgotten. As a Sanskrit text written in about 1500BC noted: “Upon this handful of soil our survival depends. Husband it and it will grow our food, our fuel and our shelter and surround us with beauty. Abuse it and the soil will collapse and die, taking humanity with it.”

The issue hasn’t changed, but we have. Landowners around the world are now engaged in an orgy of soil destruction so intense that, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the world on average has just 60 more years of growing crops. Even in Britain, which is spared the tropical downpours that so quickly strip exposed soil from the land, Farmers Weekly reports, we have “only 100 harvests left”. To keep up with global food demand, the UN estimates, 6m hectares (14.8m acres) of new farmland will be needed every year. Instead, 12m hectares a year are lost through soil degradation. We wreck it, then move on, trashing rainforests and other precious habitats as we go. Soil is an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters, making them available to plants.

That handful the Vedic master showed his disciples contains more micro-organisms than all the people who have ever lived on Earth. Yet we treat it like, well, dirt. The techniques that were supposed to feed the world threaten us with starvation. A paper just published in the journal Anthropocene analyses the undisturbed sediments in an 11th-century French lake. It reveals that the intensification of farming over the past century has increased the rate of soil erosion sixtyfold. Another paper, by researchers in the UK, shows that soil in allotments – the small patches in towns and cities that people cultivate by hand – contains a third more organic carbon than agricultural soil and 25% more nitrogen. This is one of the reasons why allotment holders produce between four and 11 times more food per hectare than do farmers.

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Bravo.

No One Must Go Thirsty: Water In Public Hands Is A Right (Beppe Grillo)

“Why is the water bill so high? In the last few years, have you ever tried to understand why something that should be a right is now something that makes a big hole in your savings? Someone would like to ruin the results of the 2011 referendum, in which a massive majority of the Italian people said “no” to every law that could place the handling of public water into private hands. However, in Italy, strange things are happening: water is cut off indiscriminately and without warning on a regular basis, the price of water has gone up by 95.8% in the last few years, the profits of the municipal companies are no longer being reinvested to reduce leakage but to maximise profits. Basically, those who are now managing water resources are today thinking more about making profits, rather than about providing a service.

The money we are paying in water bills is going to enrich the shareholders with generous dividends. This is a camouflaged privatisation and it is going against what was expressed as the will of the people. The 5 Star MoVement is taking to the European Parliament one of its historical battles: that of defending one of its five stars, keeping water in public hands. The proposal is simple: NO ONE MUST GO THIRSTY The World Health Organization has done the calculations: for an individual’s minimum needs between 50 and 100 litres of water a day are required. This amount must be guaranteed for all. This is why the 5 Star MoVement is proposing a service that provides a guaranteed minimum water supply for each person. It’s not acceptable to get rich by trading in water. That’s the message from the European citizens that have signed a petition asking European institutions NOT to privatise water.

1 million 800 thousand signatures for the first example of direct democracy in Europe. The Commission’s response has been disappointing because it hasn’t put forward any new legislative proposal. The principles contained in its communication are sacred but these need to be reinforced with laws, not just words. Furthermore, as regards the dreaded liberalization of public water, the Commission has underlined that it is up to the member States to make the laws. in particular, it has emphasised that the supply of water is the responsibility of the local authorities within the member State, and it is up to them to make the decisions as to whether to manage the supply directly, indirectly or by using private suppliers.

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