May 292023
 


Paul Gauguin Apatarao 1893

 

 

Russia Ready For Ukraine Peace Talks, But On Its Conditions – Envoy (Tass)
Russia Outlines Conditions For Ukraine Peace Deal (RT)
Lavrov: West’s Plans To Send F-16s To Kiev Unacceptable Escalation (TASS)
West Waging Its War Against Russia ‘On All Fronts’ – Kremlin (TASS)
Moscow Warns West Against ‘Playing With Fire’ (RT)
F-16s For Ukraine Won’t Be A Game Changer – Bloomberg (RT)
State Department Won’t Say If It’s Working to Free Gonzalo Lira (Antiwar)
DeSantis Superpac Plans To Spend $200 Million In 4 States (CTH)
DeSantis Says He Would Sign Legislation to Defund ‘Corrupt’ IRS (ET)
Russia Condemns Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Comments on Dead Russians (Antiwar)
Europe’s Largest Air Force Drills Start In Finland, Norway, Sweden (Az.)
Kosovo PM Dreams Of Becoming New Zelensky – Serbian President (RT)
Saudi Arabia Calls Russia Out Over Oil Output – WSJ (RT)
EU Commissioner Reprimands Elon Musk Over Disinfo (RT)
Kissinger vs. ‘The Most Dangerous Man in America’ (Gosztola)

 

 

 

 

Mind control

 

 

Very remarkable

 

 

Hunter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two different voices on the same topic, the Ambassador to Great Britain and the Deputy Foreign Minister.

“He dismissed thinking that Ukraine may prevail as “a big idealistic mistake.”

Russia Ready For Ukraine Peace Talks, But On Its Conditions – Envoy (Tass)

Russia is ready for peace talks with Ukraine but it will not give up its conditions, Russian Ambassador to Great Britain Andrey Kelin said in an interview with the BBC on Sunday.”We want peace, but on certain conditions, of course. For us, two things are important. That there will be no threat from Ukraine to Russia – this is one thing. And second, that Russians in Ukraine will be treated like all other nations in the world. Like French people are being treated in Belgium, or like Italians and Germans are being treated in Switzerland, not differently. <…> That’s a grave violation of the Human Rights Declaration and of all documentation,” Kelin said, as he described the developments in Ukraine in recent years as “extreme nationalism.”


According to Kelin, Russia’s current military purpose is to liberate the Donbass from the occupation. He dismissed thinking that Ukraine may prevail as “a big idealistic mistake.” “We can make peace tomorrow, if the Ukrainian side is prepared to negotiate, but at the moment there are no preconditions for that, I am afraid, because the president of Ukraine has prohibited any negotiations,” the Russian diplomat maintained, adding that he didn’t believe that simply freezing the conflict was a good idea. “It will not make a platform for a stable and long-term peace in Europe,” Kelin explained. The envoy reiterated the Russian nuclear doctrine does not envisage using nukes in the conflict in Ukraine. However, Kelin said that he was worried about a continued escalation of the conflict as he referred to weapons supplies to Kiev currently being ramped up.

Maersheimer

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“Ukraine “must return to a neutral non-aligned status” and “refuse to join NATO and the EU..”

Russia Outlines Conditions For Ukraine Peace Deal (RT)

The Ukraine conflict could be settled if Kiev were to re-commit to its neutral status, recognize “new territorial realities,” and declare Russian as a state language, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said in an interview released on Saturday. Speaking to TASS news agency, the diplomat said Moscow “is convinced that a peace settlement will be possible only if the Ukrainian armed forces cease hostilities, and Western weapons shipments are stopped.” He also stressed that to achieve a durable peace, Ukraine “must return to a neutral non-aligned status” and “refuse to join NATO and the EU,” adding that Kiev should recognize the “new territorial realities” that emerged after people exercised their right to self-determination.

The diplomat was referring to four former Ukrainian regions that overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in public referendums last autumn, as well as Crimea. Galuzin noted that another crucial element of any peace settlement is Kiev’s commitment to respect the rights of the country’s Russian-speaking population and other minorities. “Russian should be designated as a state language at the legislative level. It is necessary to ensure that basic human rights, including freedom of faith, are observed in Ukraine,” he stressed.

On Saturday, Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, dismissed Moscow’s conditions, issuing Kiev’s own list of demands. Those include the immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops from territory Kiev claims as its own, the “extradition of war criminals,” the creation of a “buffer zone” on Russian territory, as well as “voluntary renunciation of Russian assets seized in other countries in favor of Ukraine”. Earlier this week, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that while Moscow does not want the Ukraine conflict to be frozen, there are no prerequisites for a peace settlement yet, pointing out that Kiev has prohibited any talks with the current Russian leadership.

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“I hope reasonable people will step away from unconditional support for the neo-Nazi regime that the West itself created..”

Lavrov: West’s Plans To Send F-16s To Kiev Unacceptable Escalation (TASS)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed plans by Western countries to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as an unacceptable escalation. “Certainly, this is an unacceptable escalation. I hope there are sensible people in the West who understand that,” Lavrov told the “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” TV show, an excerpt of which was posted by reporter Pavel Zarubin on Telegram on Sunday. According to Lavrov, “Western political analysts have been discussing how to decolonize Russia.” “They mean dividing our country. I hope sensible people will abandon their reckless support for the neo-Nazi regime which was created by the West itself,” Russia’s top diplomat added. On May 21, US President Joe Biden said at a news conference following the G7 summit in Hiroshima that the West will start training Ukrainian pilots on F-16s and other fourth-generation Western combat aircraft.

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“..be tough but open to what could help us clearly communicate our concerns..”

West Waging Its War Against Russia ‘On All Fronts’ – Kremlin (TASS)

Western countries are waging their war against Russia in all domains, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” TV show on Sunday. “War is being waged in a broader sense. A war is being waged against us on all fronts, be it the economy, international relations, or in terms of ownership,” he explained. Peskov urged Russia not to succumb to emotions and keep a sober mind in these circumstances. “We should remain focused and strong, and do <…> what best suits our interests, be tough but open to what could help us clearly communicate our concerns, and what we find unacceptable for ourselves, what will be fighting against,” he maintained.

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“..it is Poland and the Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia – that are “executing on the ground the aim set by the US to weaken Russia, deliver it a strategic defeat.”

Moscow Warns West Against ‘Playing With Fire’ (RT)

The US and its allies are “playing with fire” by doubling down on their support for Kiev amid the conflict with Moscow, including by planning to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. “Of course, it’s an unacceptable escalation” Lavrov said regarding potential deliveries of American-made warplanes to Kiev in an interview with Russia 1 TV on Sunday. “I think there are reasonable people in the West who understand this. But everything is being dictated by Washington, London, and their satellites inside the EU.” According to the minister, it is Poland and the Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia – that are “executing on the ground the aim set by the US to weaken Russia, deliver it a strategic defeat.”

Some in the West “are already discussing ‘decolonization’ of Russia, meaning the dismembering of our country,” Lavrov said, warning that “this is playing with fire. There can be no doubts about that.” “I hope reasonable people will step away from unconditional support for the neo-Nazi regime that the West itself created,” he added. The foreign minister suggested that the words of the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, who acknowledged earlier this week that “in the near term,” Ukraine will not be able to recapture the territories it lost to Russia, were a “step forward to understanding the reality on the ground.” Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been pressing his Western backers for F-16 warplanes for months, arguing they are crucial for defending Ukrainian airspace amid Russia’s missile campaign targeting military facilities and energy infrastructure.

At the G20 summit last week, US President Biden Joe Biden said that Washington would support efforts by the UK, the Netherlands, and other European countries to train Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated at the event that the US “will work with our allies to determine when planes will be delivered, who will be delivering them, and how many.” Several outlets reported that the jets will not be provided by the US, but that the Biden administration would instead allow its allies to transfer their F-16s to Kiev. Moscow has repeatedly warned that deliveries of more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine by the US and its allies could cross its ‘red lines’, leading to a major spike in the hostilities. Russia has said that the provision of arms, intelligence sharing, and training to Kiev’s troops makes Western nations de facto parties to the conflict.

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They will get maybe 50. Russia has 1,000 better jets.

F-16s For Ukraine Won’t Be A Game Changer – Bloomberg (RT)

While potential Western deliveries of US-designed F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will help enhance Kiev’s combat capabilities, they won’t be a “game changer” in its conflict with Russia, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, citing several pilots who had flown the aircraft. According to the agency, the F-16s that could be sent to Ukraine “will still have inferior radar and shorter range missiles” than many of Russia’s modern aircraft and air defense systems. This means that those planes will either be deployed defensively, or used as part of high-risk operations, the report says. Brynn Tannehill, who designed simulators for the planes, told the outlet that for Ukrainian pilots switching from Soviet-era aircraft over to F-16s would be as if “they pushed the easy button.” However, “you can’t overcome the laws of physics,” she added.

According to John Venable, a former F-16 pilot with the US Air Force, should Ukrainians fly close to the front line, they would receive a signal that they had been detected by Russian radars long before they would be in position to fire on their targets. He added that Ukrainian pilots may use hilly terrain to sidestep detection – and thus destruction – while approaching their targets, but they would have to quickly climb at a steep angle, shoot, and then duck for cover again. However, such tactics mean that the F-16s “aren’t going to be hitting anything,” Venable said. Moreover, according to Dan Hampton, another veteran combat pilot, it would also be impractical to use F-16s to shoot down Russian cruise missiles, as there would only be a small window after the projectile is fired and detected but before it reaches its target.

Deployment of F-16s in this capacity would require them to stay in the air for hours while waiting for the right moment, he explained. The pilots’ assessment echoes a statement by US Air Force chief Frank Kendall, who said earlier this month that F-16 deliveries would not mark a turning point in the Ukraine conflict, given that air power has not played a crucial role in the hostilities. However, Yury Ignat, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force Command, has insisted that Kiev “will win this war” if it were to receive modern Western jets. Commenting on potential F-16s deliveries to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that such a move would lead to “an unacceptable escalation” of the conflict.

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The value of a US passport.

State Department Won’t Say If It’s Working to Free Gonzalo Lira (Antiwar)

The State Department has refused to say if it’s engaging with the Ukrainian government over American citizen Gonzalo Lira, who was detained by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) due to his political views on the conflict with Russia.Lira has a popular YouTube channel and a large following on Twitter and Telegram. He is also a writer who has contributed to several media outlets, including Business Insider. Lira was born in California and is a dual citizen of the US and Chile and had been living in Kharkiv, Ukraine, throughout the war.Lira is a critic of the Ukrainian government and was arrested by the SBU on charges of justifying the Russian invasion. “After the start of the full-scale invasion, the blogger was one of the first to support the Russian invaders and glorify their war crimes,” the SBU said in a press release referring to Lira.

The SBU also accused Lira of “discrediting the top military and political leadership and the Defense Forces of our state.” He was charged under sections 2 and 3 of Article 436-2 of Ukraine’s criminal code, which outlaws the “distribution of materials” that justify Russia’s actions going back to 2014. Epoch Times reporter Liam Cosgrove asked State Department spokesman Matthew Miller if the administration was aware of Lira’s detainment and how the US feels about Ukraine arresting an American for speech.“So I will say in general that we’re aware of the report. We obviously support the exercise of freedom of speech anywhere in the world, and I’ll leave it at that,” Miller said.When asked if the administration was working to secure Lira’s release, Miller said, “I’m going to leave my comments where I just left them.”

Cosgrove also asked Reps. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) about Lira’s detainment. Lieu said that he wasn’t aware of the case but said US citizens should “have the ability to express their thoughts and views” and that he would look into the arrest. Responding to the news, Greene told Cosgrove: “America is providing weapons, equipment for the defense of their country, but the Ukrainian government is not going to defend any American’s freedom of speech, and that’s a real problem.” Lira’s arrest received virtually no attention in Western media. One of the few outlets to cover it was the Daily Beast, which smeared the American instead of questioning the charges. According to the Beast, Lira is facing five to eight years in prison.

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“..it plans to knock on the door of every possible DeSantis voter at least four times in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and five times in the kickoff Iowa caucuses..”

DeSantis Superpac Plans To Spend $200 Million In 4 States (CTH)

2,600 people at $15/hr is $39,000 per hour. Anticipating 1,000 hrs per campaign worker, that’s $39 million. At $25/hr that’s $65 million. At $40/hr that’s $104 million. This is the scale of spending that Ken Cuccinelli and Jeff Roe have for the Never Back Down SuperPAC to support Governor Ron DeSantis in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada on behalf of the Sea Island billionaires who want to manipulate the 2024 election. That’s just payroll for new hires. Overall, the New York Times is reporting a campaign support spending plan of more than $200 million. Essentially, these are payments from the billionaire Wall Street donors and multinationals, funneled through the SuperPAC, to influence the ’24 election. The context of the New York Times report sounds accurate.

NYT – “A key political group supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential run is preparing a $100 million voter-outreach push so big it plans to knock on the door of every possible DeSantis voter at least four times in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and five times in the kickoff Iowa caucuses. The effort is part of an on-the-ground organizing operation that intends to hire more than 2,600 field organizers by Labor Day, an extraordinary number of people for even the best-funded campaigns. Top officials with the pro-DeSantis group, a super PAC called Never Back Down, provided their most detailed account yet of their battle plan to aid Mr. DeSantis, whom they believe they can sell as the only candidate to take on — and win — the cultural fights that are definitional for the Republican Party in 2024.

The group said it expected to have an overall budget of at least $200 million, including more than $80 million to be transferred from an old DeSantis state political account, for the daunting task of vaulting the Florida governor past former President Donald J. Trump, who has established himself as the dominant early front-runner. […] “No one has ever contemplated the scale of this organization or operation, let alone done it,” said Chris Jankowski, the group’s chief executive. “This has just never even been dreamed up.” […] At the helm of the DeSantis super PAC is Jeff Roe, a veteran Republican strategist who was Mr. Cruz’s campaign manager in 2016. In an interview, Mr. Roe described an ambitious political apparatus whose 2,600 field organizers by the fall would be roughly double the peak of Senator Bernie Sanders’s entire 2020 primary campaign staff.

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“I think it was basically just a middle finger to the American public that this is what they think of you.”

DeSantis Says He Would Sign Legislation to Defund ‘Corrupt’ IRS (ET)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called IRS a “corrupt organization” and said he would welcome a bill abolishing the agency if elected president in 2024. DeSantis made the comments during an interview with conservative radio host Dana Loesch on May 25, a day after the governor announced his White House bid on Twitter. “If Congress defunded the IRS and sent such a bill like that to your desk, number one, would you sign it?” Loesch asked. “And then what would you replace the system with? Are you for like a fair tax? A flat tax? Where do you stand on that?” “So, the answer’s yes,” DeSantis said in response. “I think the IRS is a corrupt organization and I think it’s not a friend to the average citizen or taxpayer. And so we need something totally different.”

“I’ve supported all of the single rate proposals, I think they would be a huge improvement over the current system,” the governor added. “And I would be welcoming to take this tax system, chunk it out the window, and do something that’s more favorable to the average folks.” The governor has long spoken favorably of a flat tax system. In a Q&A published by Palm Coast Observer in 2012, months before DeSantis won his first term as a House lawmaker from Florida, DeSantis said he believed the federal tax code should be overhauled. “I think the federal tax code is an affront to a free society in the sense that it’s 70,000 pages,” DeSantis stated. “I am in favor of a complete overhaul; my principle is that consumed income should be taxed one time at a low, single, flat rate.He added, “Now whether that’s at the point of after savings and investment income on a flat tax, or on the point of consumption which people talked about a fair tax, I think you need to repeal the 16th Amendment for that because I don’t think you want a sales and an income tax.”

Last year, DeSantis criticized the Biden administration’s nearly $80 billion in funding for the IRS, which Republicans argue would pave the way for the hiring of 87,000 tax agents, as giving a “middle finger to the American public.” The funding to the IRS was part of the Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed into law in August 2022. “I think of all the things that have come out of Washington that have been outrageous, this has got to be pretty close to the top,” DeSantis said at the time. “I think it was basically just a middle finger to the American public that this is what they think of you.” He continued, “All these problems we have to deal with, and they think the way is to do 87,000 IRS agents. There’s going to be more people in the IRS than in a lot of these other agencies combined now.”

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“Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “It is difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators.”

Russia put Graham on a wanted list this morning.

Russia Condemns Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Comments on Dead Russians (Antiwar)

Russian officials have condemned Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for calling the US funding of Ukraine the “best money we’ve ever spent” after noting Russians are dying in the conflict. Graham made the comments during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Friday. A video released by the head of Ukraine’s presidential office showed Graham say the “Russians are dying” and then cut to a different angle where the senator said it’s the “best money we’ve ever spent.” It’s not clear from the video if Graham said anything between the two quotes, but the senator has made extremely provocative statements throughout the war. He has called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has said the US should start shooting down Russian planes, an action that could spark World War III.


Responding to Graham’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “It is difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators.” Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council and former president, called Graham an “old fool.” Graham was asked by Reuters to reply to Medvedev’s comments. “Mr. Medvedev, if you want Russians to stop dying in Ukraine, withdraw. Stop the invasion. Stop the war crimes. The truth is that you and Putin could care less about Russian soldiers,” he said. Graham also appeared on Fox News on Sunday and called for the US to send Ukraine whatever it wants, including longer-range weapons and widely-banned cluster munitions.

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What a joke.

Europe’s Largest Air Force Drills Start In Finland, Norway, Sweden (Az.)

Finland, Norway, and Partner Sweden will host the multinational Arctic Challenge Exercise 2023 from May 29 to June 9, 2023, Report informs referring to the NATO website. This year’s Arctic Challenge Exercise (ACE 23) is the sixth of its kind which Finland, Norway, and Sweden have hosted together. The Finnish Air Force is responsible for planning and directing the training event that is conducted every second year since 2013. About 3,000 military and 150 aircraft from the armed forces of 14 countries will take part in the exercises. The Arctic Challenge Exercises is part of the NORDEFCO cooperation between Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Their Air Forces regularly carry out combined air combat-related Cross Border Training operated from their home bases.

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Useful for NATO: a powder keg.

Kosovo PM Dreams Of Becoming New Zelensky – Serbian President (RT)

Tensions in Serbia’s breakaway province of Kosovo may spiral out of control because of the actions of its prime minister, Albin Kurti, warned Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in an interview released on Sunday amid violent clashes between local police and Serb protesters. Speaking to the Serbian TV channel Pink, Vucic said that “the most difficult situation in Kosovo and Metohija is yet to follow. Something we have not seen until now, all thanks to the provocative actions and terribly irresponsible behavior of Albin Kurti.” The Serbian leader went on to say that he was “afraid of general insecurity, instability” and of “big conflicts” in the breakaway province. “I know that this other one [Kurti], who caused everything, doesn’t want to retire for a living, because he longs and dreams of being a [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky,” he added.

Vucic noted that he had been contacted by several European envoys who voiced concern over the ongoing situation in Kosovo, which has been marked by violent clashes between local police and ethnic Serbs, who make up the majority in the northern part of the region. Law enforcement officers fired tear gas in one of the municipalities to disperse protesters who had tried to prevent a newly elected ethnic Albanian mayor from entering his office, resulting in several people being injured. The unrest came after local Serbs mostly boycotted elections in four northern municipalities, which saw a total turnout of just 3.47%, arguing that they would not work with new mayors from ethnic Albanian parties who do not represent their interests.

Amid the clashes, Serbia placed its army on high alert, moving some units closer to the region’s border. Defense Minister Milos Vucevic said that “it is clear that terror against the Serb community in Kosovo is happening.”Meanwhile, a number of Western countries, including the US, France, Italy, Germany, and Britain, issued an unexpectedly harsh public rebuke of Kosovo, condemning the use of force and calling on the local authorities “to immediately step back and de-escalate.” Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 with the support of the US and many of its allies. The breakaway region is not recognized by several countries, including Russia, China, and Serbia itself.

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Trying to drive a wedge in between new found friends?

Saudi Arabia Calls Russia Out Over Oil Output – WSJ (RT)

Saudi Arabia has accused Russia of not entirely fulfilling its pledge to curb oil production in response to Western sanctions, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. Riyadh has reportedly complained to senior Russian officials about the matter and asked Moscow to honor the output cuts of 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) that the two biggest oil producers in the OPEC+ group agreed in April to make.The curbs, which took effect in May and are set to last until the end of 2023, were aimed at supporting global oil prices. The total volume of oil taken off the market was expected to be 1.66 million barrels per day. The decision came as an additional step following the OPEC+ agreement to collectively reduce oil output by 2 million bpd that came into effect in November 2022.

In February, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said that Russia would voluntarily reduce oil production in March by 500,000 barrels per day as the nation halted sales to buyers that complied with a Western-imposed price cap. The measure was then extended until June, and later until the end of the current year. Since then, the official has reportedly said that Moscow is abiding by its voluntary pledge to cut oil output by 500,000 barrels a day from March until the end of 2023. “Taking into account the unfounded speculation in the press regarding oil production levels, Russia reaffirms its full commitment to and implementation of voluntary oil production cut levels,” Novak said in a statement earlier this month.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency had previously reported that Russian oil exports reached a 14-month high in April, with the lion’s share going to Asian markets amid Western sanctions. The report also suggested that Russia hadn’t fully implemented the planned production cuts. The agency estimates that the country’s oil trade revenues amounted to $15 billion in April, an increase of $1.7 billion on the month.

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Civil servants with small minds.

EU Commissioner Reprimands Elon Musk Over Disinfo (RT)

European Commissioner Thierry Breton threatened Twitter CEO Elon Musk with “enforcement” in a tweet on Friday after Musk announced he was pulling Twitter out of the EU’s voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation, warning he was not getting away so easily. Confirming Twitter had left the anti-disinformation body, Breton tweeted, “You can run but you can’t hide,” promising “our teams will be ready for enforcement.” “Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under [the Digital Service Act] as of August 25,” the official reminded Musk, referring to incoming legislation that will require Twitter and seven other social media platforms to “fight disinformation” in the EU or face massive fines as high as 6% of the company’s annual revenue.

Twitter joined the CPD in 2018 under former CEO Jack Dorsey. The DSA incorporates the (voluntary) Code of Practice into a mandatory code of conduct for very large online platforms, arguing they must take responsibility for keeping the internet safe for democracy or face ruinous financial consequences. Twitter has three months to comply with its obligations. While Musk and Breton reportedly saw eye-to-eye regarding Twitter’s implementation of the DSA ahead of the billionaire’s purchase of the platform last year, Breton warned the Tesla tycoon that Twitter faced “huge work ahead” to comply with EU regulations after the deal was completed in November, demanding he significantly beef up content moderation and “tackle disinformation with resolve.”

As of February, Twitter was still falling short of Breton’s expectations, reportedly receiving a warning from EU officials following a poor performance evaluation on the CPD accompanied by complaints that the platform “didn’t take it seriously enough.” Musk has struggled to convince Twitter users of the sincerity of his free speech absolutism since hiring NBCUniversal ad maven and World Economic Forum member Linda Yaccarino as the platform’s new CEO earlier this month. This comes despite his taking a gratuitous swipe at liberal bogeyman and fellow billionaire George Soros and hosting Republican presidential candidate and anti-woke crusader Ron DeSantis’ announcement of entry into the 2024 race. Twitter has complied with 80% of all government takedown requests in the first six months since Musk took over as CEO, a significant increase from the 50% rate that characterized the pre-Musk era.

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“He couldn’t be counted on not to carry out a threat to do something crazy, mutually destructive..”

Kissinger vs. ‘The Most Dangerous Man in America’ (Gosztola)

In 1970, before whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg shared copies of the Pentagon Papers with several newspapers in the United States, Ellsberg was invited by his friend Lloyd Shearer, who was the editor of Parade magazine, to attend a lunch with President Richard Nixon’s national security adviser Henry Kissinger. Ellsberg recounted the lunch in his book, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. Kissinger knew Ellsberg from his work at the RAND Corporation, and what Ellsberg recounted is vital to understanding the festering and unrepentant diplomat as the world marks his 100th birthday. The contrast between the two could not be more stark. Ellsberg has spent the past 50-plus years constantly atoning for the part he played in the Vietnam War while Kissinger has shirked accountability for the vast amount of bloodshed that he enabled.

Kissinger’s reaction to Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers exposed more about who he was deep down than his philosophy or any advice he ever offered on U.S. foreign policy. On a small patio, Kissinger was seated with General Alexander Haig, his aide. Kissinger said hello to Ellsberg and Shearer, and he told Shearer, “You know, I have learned more from Dan Ellsberg than from any other person—” Ellsberg believed Kissinger would say “Vietnam,” but Kissinger said “—about bargaining.” That did not make a whole lot of sense to Ellsberg until he remembered the talks that he gave to Kissinger’s seminar at Harvard in 1959. They were part of a lecture series called “The Art of Coercion.” Since that was eleven years ago, Ellsberg responded, “You have a very good memory.”

With a “guttural drawl,” Kissinger added, “They were very good lectures.” “Nice. Except that when I thought about it later, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” Ellsberg shared. “The lectures I had given to his class had had to do with Hitler’s blackmail of Austria and Czechoslovakia in the late thirties that had allowed him to take over those countries just by threatening their destruction.” “One of the talks was titled, “The Theory and Practice of Blackmail,” and the other was “The Political Use of Madness.” Hitler had deliberately cultivated among his adversaries the impression of his own irrational unpredictability.”

Ellsberg continued, “He couldn’t be counted on not to carry out a threat to do something crazy, mutually destructive. It worked for him, up to a point, because he was crazy, madly aggressive, and reckless. But after a certain point it brought the world down around him.” “It wasn’t a tactic I was recommending for the United States, or anyone else, for that matter. Far from it. For someone to imitate Hitler in this respect was to cultivate madness and court disaster,” Ellsberg contended.

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Octopus hiding

 

 

Drawing

 

 

Peacocks
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662823884209397760

 

 

Trap
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662828333715931136

 

 


In 1958, in Palisades, New Jersey, a performer named Jimmy Armstrong, known as The Dwarf Clown, entertained the audience at Clyde Beatty Circus. This moment was captured by photographer Bruce Davidson as part of his renowned ‘Circus’ series. “He was standing alone outside the tent, smoking a cigarette,” Davidson said upon seeing Armstrong for the first time. Dressed in a tuxedo and a top hat, he held a small bouquet of paper flowers and stood there pensively, immersed in the privacy of his inner thoughts.”

“He seemed to know that it was the inner moment I was drawn to and not his clown face or physical appearance. We became friends, although we seldom spoke to one another.” “I found something in Jimmy that was more than loneliness, it was a story about surviving” – Bruce Davidson.

 

 

 

 

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Apr 282015
 


NPC National Service Co. front, 1610 14th Street N.W., Washington DC 1920

The New Nothingness (Steen Jakobsen)
The Real War On The Middle Class (Ron Paul)
Over Half Of Americans Killed By Police Each Year Are Mentally Ill (Economist)
Who Is Really Choosing America’s Next President? (ProPublica)
If Greece Falls, No One Wants Their Prints On The Murder Weapon (Reuters)
Greece Shakes Up EU-IMF Talks Team But Keeps Varoufakis (AFP)
Greece PM Leaves Referendum Option Open, Rules Out Elections (Reuters)
Grexit, Grimbo, now Grexhaustion, Acropolis Now?
Greek President Promises Repayment of all Debt (Spiegel)
The Limits Of Propaganda (Dmitry Orlov)
Leaking CIA Secrets Leads To Severe Punishment, Unless You Are The Boss (RT)
Maryland Governor Declares State of Emergency, Activates National Guard (CBS)
The Hidden Lives Of Chernobyl’s Wildlife (BBC)
Norway’s Shift From Oil Starts With Two Left Feet (Bloomberg)
BP Oil Hunt Off Australia Coast Causes Fear of Another Deepwater Horizon (BBG)
East Australia 1 Of 11 Areas Good For 80% Of World Forest Loss (Guardian)
Is The Universe Really A 2-D Hologram? (Science Daily)

Best line in a while: “..I am normally introduced as someone who has predicted five of the last two crises.”

The New Nothingness (Steen Jakobsen)

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” – Churchill

I have noticed a very troubling trend recently – everywhere I go, I’m the optimist. This concerns me and should concern you as well as I am normally introduced as someone who has predicted five of the last two crises. I write this on the Copenhagen-bound plane that brings me back from a visit to Slovenia and Croatia, where everyone has given up on the future. I found the same on a recent trip to Hong Kong and Australia, and on another occasion in Turkey before that. We have zero growth, zero inflation and zero hope. That combination has left the countries of this circumstance in total apathy as zero rates are being interpreted as meaning that no reforms are needed. No inflation means no new margins as well as no new wage bargaining, and zero hope means politics and elections may change the affiliation of countries’ leaders, but not their politics and certainly not their vision for the future.

This is one of the unintended consequences of zero-bound economies and policies. This apathy has, however, reached a zenith-point that needs to be addressed. Media and policymakers continue to talk about what we can’t do, leaving no room for talk of we can do and characterising dreams as mere fantasies, things best left to children. This new nothingness is creating a youth, a political system and an economic outlook which is based more in peoples’ heads and minds than it is in reality. Every country I visit has terrible macro policies, and features a political class who are mainly interested in maintaining the status quo (as well as a dynamic micro economy). There are always business people and students who are willing to do more and better – to go higher, longer and further – but they are drowned in this “nothingness reality”.

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“These politicians also disregard the harm US foreign policy inflicts on Americans.”

The Real War On The Middle Class (Ron Paul)

One of the great ironies of American politics is that most politicians who talk about helping the middle class support policies that, by expanding the welfare-warfare state, are harmful to middle-class Americans. Eliminating the welfare-warfare state would benefit middle-class Americans by freeing them from exorbitant federal taxes, including the Federal Reserve’s inflation tax. Politicians serious about helping middle-class Americans should allow individuals to opt out of Social Security and Medicare by not having to pay payroll taxes if they agree to never accept federal retirement or health care benefits. Individuals are quite capable of meeting their own unique retirement and health care needs if the government stops forcing them into one-size-fits-all plans.

Middle-class families with college-age children would benefit if government got out of the student loan business. Government involvement in higher education is the main reason tuition is skyrocketing and so many Americans are graduating with huge student loan debts. College graduates entering the job market would certainly benefit if Congress stopped imposing destructive regulations and taxes on the economy. Politicians who support an interventionist foreign policy are obviously not concerned with the harm inflicted on the middle-class populations of countries targeted for regime change. These politicians also disregard the harm US foreign policy inflicts on Americans. Middle- and working-class Americans, and their families, who join the military certainly suffer when they are maimed or killed fighting in unjust and unconstitutional wars.

Our interventionist foreign policy also contributes to the high tax burden imposed on middle-class Americans. Middle-class Americans also suffer from intrusions on their liberty and privacy, such as not being able to board an airplane unless they submit to invasive and humiliating searches. Even children and the physically disabled are not safe from the Transposition Security Administration. These assaults are justified by the threat of terrorism, a direct result of our interventionist foreign policy that fosters hatred and resentment of Americans.

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So are their killers.

Over Half Of Americans Killed By Police Each Year Are Mentally Ill (Economist)

To the sound of electric guitars, heavily armed police officers fire assault rifles, drive squad cars fast and pull their guns on fleeing crooks. “Are you qualified to join the thin blue line?” asks a narrator, in the sort of breathless voice you might expect in a trailer for “Fast & Furious 7”. The advert’s aim is not to sell movie tickets, however, but to recruit police officers in Gainesville, a city of 127,000 in Florida. Would-be cops who take this video seriously are likely to be disappointed. The reality of the job, as one officer from a large west-coast agency explains, is far less glamorous. “The public want us to come up and deal with a neighbour who is mowing their lawn at 3am. They want us to deal with their disruptive child. They want us to deal with the crazy person who is walking down the street shouting.”

As crime has fallen across America since the 1990s, policing has shifted more towards social work than the drama seen on TV. Police culture, however, has not caught up. The gap may help to explain why American police are so embattled. The latest controversy is the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man from Baltimore who died on April 19th after being arrested (six officers have since been suspended). That followed the killing on April 4th in South Carolina of a 50-year-old man, Walter Scott, who was shot in the back by a police officer after running away from his car (the officer was charged with murder after a video of the killing emerged). In another case in Tulsa on April 2nd, a 73-year-old reserve police officer killed a man when he accidentally fired his gun instead of his taser. All three victims were black.

No one knows how many people die in contact with America’s roughly 18,000 law-enforcement agencies. The FBI publishes reports, but police forces are not required to submit data. The incomplete FBI figures show that at least 461 people died in “justifiable homicides” in 2013, an increase of 33% since 2005. Other sources suggest the true number could be as high as twice that. In Britain, by contrast, police shot and killed precisely no one in 2013. American police resort to violence more partly because they meet it more. “We’ve never had a population who are so well-armed,” points out Ron Teachman, the chief of police in South Bend, Indiana. Twenty-six police officers were killed with guns in the line of duty in 2013, far more than in any other rich country.

“When you go to a police academy, the first thing they say to you is that it’s dangerous and you could get killed out there,” says Jim Bueermann, a retired police chief and the head of the Police Foundation, a think-tank. Yet fewer police officers are killed now than in the past, and the number who are shot is less than the number who die in traffic accidents. Over time, suggests Mr Bueermann, a justified alertness to danger may have warped into a belief that the swift use of force is the only thing keeping cops safe. At its worst, this manifests itself in a fiercely defensive culture. For example, in Seattle last year more than 100 cops sued the Department of Justice to protest against a revised use-of-force policy, arguing that it would cripple morale and endanger cops (the case, which was not supported by the city’s police union, was thrown out).

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The amounts are stunning. Democracy?

Who Is Really Choosing America’s Next President? (ProPublica)

Super PACS that get nearly all of their money from one donor quadrupled their share of overall fund-raising in 2014. The wealthiest Americans can fly on their own jets, live in gated compounds and watch movies in their own theaters. More of them also are walling off their political contributions from other big and small players. A growing number of political committees known as super PACs have become instruments of single donors, according to a ProPublica analysis of federal records. During the 2014 election cycle, $113 million – 16% of money raised by all super PACs – went to committees dominated by one donor. That was quadruple their 2012 share. The rise of single-donor groups is a new example of how changes in campaign finance law are giving outsized influence to a handful of funders.

The trend may continue into 2016. Last week, National Review reported that Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination would be boosted not by one anointed super PAC but four, each controlled by a single donor or donor family. The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling helped usher in the era of super PACs. Unlike traditional political action committees, the independent groups can accept donations of any dollar size as long as they don’t coordinate with the campaign of any candidate. Previously, much of the focus in big-money fundraising was on “bundlers” – volunteers who tap friends and associates for maximum individual contributions of $5,400 to a candidate, then deliver big lump sums directly to the campaigns. Former president George W. Bush awarded his most prolific bundlers special titles such as “Ranger” and “Pioneer.”

While bundling intensified the impact of wealthy donors on campaigns, the dollar limits and the need to join with others diluted the influence of any one person. With a super PAC, a donor can single-handedly push a narrower agenda. Last year, National Journal profiled one such donor – a California vineyard owner who helped start the trend by launching his own super PAC and becoming a power player in a Senate race across the country. Beyond the single-donor groups, big donations are dominant across all kinds of super PACs, according to the analysis. Six-figure contributions from individuals or organizations accounted for almost 50% of all super PAC money raised during the last two cycles. “We are anointing an aristocracy that’s getting a stronger and stronger grip on democracy,” said Miles Rapoport, president of Common Cause, an advocacy group that seeks to reduce the influence of money on politics.

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They can’t escape it.

If Greece Falls, No One Wants Their Prints On The Murder Weapon (Reuters)

While Greece’s leaders insist Europe must heed and respect the democratic will of the Greek people, its creditors reply that they too have democratic mandates from their voters. In Varoufakis’ narrative, euro zone countries did not lend all that money to save Greece in the first place but to protect their own banks, which had imprudently lent Athens billions. Nonsense, say euro zone officials. Those banks took losses in 2012 when Greek debt to private bondholders was restructured. Varoufakis has widened the circle of blame to the ECB, accusing it of «asphyxiating» Greece by starving its banks of liquidity and severely limiting their short-term lending to the government.

That prompted an indignant response from ECB President Mario Draghi, who told the European Parliament the central bank’s support for Greece amounted to some €110 billion, but it was barred by treaty from monetary funding of governments. For weeks Greek officials have been telling their euro zone counterparts they have run out of money, only to find spare cash to make the next debt payment. “They have cried wolf so often that when they are really going bust, no one will believe them,” one EU negotiator said on condition of anonymity. Insiders say the ECB is determined that the central bank will not be the institution that pulls the plug. If it considers support for Greek banks is no longer tenable, it will seek a political decision by European Union governments. “This is not something unelected central bankers should decide,» a source in the Eurosystem of central banks said.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is eager to hold Tsipras’ hand until the last minute in the hope that he will impose an unpalatable economic reform deal on left-wingers in his Syriza party before it is too late. For Juncker, one of the fathers of Europe’s single currency, the departure of a single member from the 19-nation euro zone would be a grievous blow to the bloc’s global standing and could set a dangerous precedent, encouraging investors to speculate against other member states in future crises. Even if it stayed in the euro zone, a Greek default on other European governments or the ECB would be one of the most acrimonious moments in the history of the EU. Amid mutual recrimination over ruined Greek savers and cheated European taxpayers, some fear demonstrations by Greek pensioners or hospital patients and violence in Athens. If it happens, there will be plenty of blame to go around, but no one to take responsibility.

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Lot of goal-seeked mis-reporting on this.

Greece Shakes Up EU-IMF Talks Team But Keeps Varoufakis (AFP)

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras shook up the team handling crucial talks with its creditors Monday after relations between his embattled finance minister and the EU hit a new low. A government statement said a “political negotiation team” would be formed under junior foreign minister Euclid Tsakalotos, a 55-year-old Dutch-born economics professor, to assist the troubled talks after months of fruitless discussions on Athens’ new loan deal. While some see the move as an attempt to sideline Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, whose negotiating style has infuriated Brussels, the radical left government insisted that it would continue to support the maverick economics professor against “manipulated” media attacks.

A government source claimed that the changes did not affect Varoufakis, who will be in charge of Tsakalotos’ “political team”. “This changes nothing as far as Varoufakis is concerned,” the official told AFP. “He will continue to represent Greece at Eurogroup meetings.” The move on Monday came after a stormy Eurogroup meeting in Riga last week where Varoufakis was reportedly “isolated” by his fellow finance European ministers. He reacted by quoting former American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), who spurred major reforms in the United States after the Great Depression. “FDR, 1936: ‘They are unanimous in their hate for me; and I welcome their hatred,'” Varoufakis tweeted on Sunday.

Analysts saw Greece’s reshuffling of its negotiators, with another co-ordinating team to be formed to support talks with EU-IMF officials in Athens, as a bid to placate its creditors. “To bypass Varoufakis and make clear the seriousness of the situation to the Prime Minister directly following the Riga shouting match between finance ministers, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem reportedly phoned Tsipras after the meeting,” Christian Schulz, a senior economist at Berenberg said. “Tsipras called German chancellor Merkel on Sunday, with German sources describing the tone of the talk as ‘positive’. However, as long as the institutions and Eurozone finance minister can’t certify that Greece is doing the requested reforms, Greece can’t get fresh money,” he added.

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Neutral.

Greece PM Leaves Referendum Option Open, Rules Out Elections (Reuters)

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Tuesday said he would have to resort to a popular referendum if lenders insist on demands that the government deems unacceptable but was confident of striking a deal to avoid such a scenario. Athens is weeks away from running out of cash, but talks with EU and IMF lenders on more aid have been deadlocked over reform measures including pension cuts and labour market liberalisation that Greece must implement. Speculation has grown that Tsipras could call elections or a referendum to break the impasse. In his first major television interview since being elected in January, Tsipras said he expected a deal with creditors by May 9, three days before a debt payment to the IMF of about €750 million falls due.

He ruled out a default but stressed that the government’s priority was to pay wages and pensions. Pressed on what the government’s options were if no deal was found, Tsipras ruled out snap elections, saying it had only been a few months since the government had been voted in. But he said the government did not have the right to accept demands from lenders that fell outside the limits of its mandate to end austerity cuts and would have to ask Greeks to decide. “If the solution falls outside our mandate, I will not have the right to violate it, so the solution to which we will come to will have to be approved by the Greek people,” Tsipras told Star television in the interview. “But I am certain we will not reach that point. Despite the difficulties, the possibilities to win in the negotiations are large. We should not give in to panic moves. Whoever gets scared in this game loses.” [..]

Some of his sharpest comments were reserved for the previous government and certain unnamed quarters in Europe, which he accused of laying a “trap” for his government when it took power in the hope of tripping it up. “They derive pleasure from the prospect of a failure in the talks,” he said, saying his government took over a “minefield” when it came to power in January. “We received a country that was in a situation of financial asphyxiation.” He also hit out at the ECB, calling its decision to place a cap on Treasury bill purchases by banks – which prevented banks from financing the government – a “politically and ethically unorthodox” decision.

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“I’m sure it’ll get worse as the days go by..”

Grexit, Grimbo, now Grexhaustion, Acropolis Now?

The standoff between Greece and its creditors has spawned another bit of rivalry: the battle among analysts to coin the latest buzzword for the painfully protracted drama. “There’s definitely an element of who can come up with the best word to fit the scenario,” said Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG. Word play on Greece has been picking up this month. Last week brought the word “Grimbo,” or Greece in limbo, coined by a group of Citigroup economists – led by Chief Economist Willem Buiter. They are the same people responsible for the now widely-used “Grexit” term in February 2012, when the idea Greece might leave the euro zone first became a possibility. On Friday, economists at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch decided they wanted in on the game as well, coining “Grexhaustion.”

“There is always a deadline after the final deadline (contributing to the Grexhaustion),” economists Gilles Moec and Ruben Segura-Cayuela wrote, noting that the continual confrontation between Greece and its creditors has had one major casualty: the country’s economy. “Traders have gotten fairly comfortable with the idea of where Greece is, so there’s a bit of mocking and complacency,” said Weston, who suggested “Gretch” as a potential entrant. “Outside of the pain clearly evident in Greece, the rest of the world is quite happy to coin these great phrases as long as it doesn’t see a pickup in [market] volatility.” The Greece situation remains a Sisyphean mire. Over the weekend, media reports said the country’s colorful finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, faced a tough crowd and numerous snubs at a Latvian meeting with his euro zone counterparts.

The country is running out of cash and it needs a last tranche of bailout aid in order to meet debt repayments and to pay its domestic wages and pension bill this month. On Monday, Greece revamped its negotiating team, taking Varoufakis off the field and tapping Deputy Foreign Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, an economist well liked by officials representing creditors, as coordinator. Fresh entrants to the Greek vocabulary one-upsmanship are likely already lurking in the wings. “I’m sure it’ll get worse as the days go by,” said Richard Jerram, chief economist at Bank of Singapore, noting that the first two letters of the country’s name lend themselves well to word play. “A lot of countries couldn’t really do that,” Jerram noted, although he added that he finds other vocabulary plays more amusing than the ones that involve just “shoving ‘Gr’ in front,” such as “Acropolis Now,” a play on the movie title “Apocalypse Now.”

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And next up, we have….

Greek President Promises Repayment of all Debt (Spiegel)

Time is running out for Greece and its international creditors. If an agreement isn’t found by June, the country will face insolvency. The new Greek president, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, has now told SPIEGEL ONLINE his views on the conflict: He rules out the possibility of a Grexit and promises that all the loans made to Greece will be paid back, but he is also critical of past austerity programs. “Some of the measures imposed on us go beyond EU law,” Pavlopoulos said to SPIEGEL ONLINE at his official residence in Athens. “We want to be equal members of Europe. Among other things, the law professor feels that international lenders’ criticisms of the minimum wage and other labor rights in his country are problematic.

Pavlopoulos pointed out that in Germany, too, there is a minimum standard of living. “We are not asking for anything more than for the Greek people to enjoy what Germany’s Constitutional Court considers as an established social right for the German people,” Pavlopoulos said. He also claimed that parts of the austerity programs “were not at all growth friendly, but rather would lead the Greek economy to a recessionary course.” Pavlopoulos is a member of the conservative Nea Dimokratia party and has been in office since March. Earlier in his career, he served as an advisor to former Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis, who led Greece as it transitioned from a military dictatorship to a European democracy. The comments mark the first time the new president has expressed his views on the euro debt dispute to any German media organization.

“Greece in the late 1970s fought a great battle to join Europe,” the president noted. For him, he said, it was “not conceivable to see Greece outside of Europe.” He also said that he views a Grexit, Greek’s possible exit from the euro zone, as unthinkable. “The thought of Grexit does not even enter my mind,” he said. Although Greece is under tremendous financial stress, with the government now forcing hospitals, universities and public agencies to hand over their savings to the central bank. Pavlopoulos stated that his country would fulfill all of its obligations. “We pay everything we owe to the last euro,” he said. “We need to keep a balanced budget and gradually decrease our debt.” The president also expressed optimism that the dispute over Greece’s debt can still be resolved. Pavlopoulos said negotiations for a new bailout program are “entering the home stretch.”

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“..their only option is to try to squelch every voice except their own.”

The Limits Of Propaganda (Dmitry Orlov)

As Paul Craig Roberts has recently reported, the US government is in the process of launching an all-out war on truth. Those who express views contrary to the party line out of Washington will be labeled a threat. Eventually they may find themselves carted to one of the concentration camps which Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s old company) has constructed for $385 million. But that may take a while. In the meantime, we can expect lots of other, less dramatic developments.

Indeed, some of these are already happening. Here they are, listed in order of severity.

1. Self-censorship. Those who have previously tried to get the truth out no matter out become more reticent and prone to equivocation when reporting on “hot” issues.

2. Topic-avoidance. They start avoiding certain “hot” issues that they feel are most likely to get them into trouble.

3. Response to harassment. A few incidents of mild official harassment cause certain blogs to start watering down their content, or pulling down content in response to harassment.

4. Blacklisting. The officials start censoring content on a case-by-case basis, blocking or shutting down certain internet sites that they consider seditious.

5. Blocking communications. The officials start dealing with the “hard cases” of uncooperative individuals who remain, shutting down their communications by disabling their cell phones, shutting down internet access, and by imposing travel restrictions so that the “hard cases” are forced to remain in places where they can be watched.

6. Detention. Those found to be truly uncooperative, who try to circumvent the restrictions, are rounded up and shipped off to the above-mentioned camps.

This may seem like a dire prognosis, but actually I just want to present a relatively complete list of public measures for your consideration. Yes, there will be a few “hard cases” who will insist on getting right in the face of Washington officialdom in futile hopes of somehow affecting the political process or winning over a few of their compatriots. But at some point such individuals become indistinguishable from people with mental problems. That is because if you live in the US, actually know how the political system there operates, and still think that the US is a democracy, then you DO have a mental problem. You can’t have it both ways: either you buy into the official propaganda, or you don’t.

Also, it bears pointing out that the vast majority of people in the US are quite happy listening to Washington’s propaganda, be it from Fox or NPR, don’t consider it propaganda, and have been conditioned to consider anyone who attempts to tell them the truth to be tin hat-wearing conspiracy theorist nut case. And that means that tin hat-wearing conspiracy theorist nut cases have a role to play. They are important to have, in the same way that a village idiot is important to have, so that children can learn what idiocy looks and sounds like. So, why bother sending them to a concentration camp? And so it seems likely that the village idiots… ahem, truth-tellers will remain free-range for the time being, unless they really lose it and start tilting at windmills. But then that becomes a bona fide mental health issue.

Unless, of course, full-on war hysteria breaks out. In that case, while the external goons are busy pretending to be “not winning, not losing” but somehow “keeping America safe” in yet another wretched part of the world, the internal goons have to be kept busy. Rounding up undesirables would give them something to do. That’s the state of affairs in the United States and its subservient territories: Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand and a few others. But Washington’s propaganda isn’t working at all well in the rest of the world, be it Russia or China or Latin America.

In all of these places, Washington’s message control has more or less failed. This is why the people in Washington are in a bit of a panic, and labeling internal dissidents as a “threat” is just them flailing in search of an answer. They can’t stop lying, and they can’t even pretend to rule the world if everyone knows that they are lying, so their only option is to try to squelch every voice except their own. They may succeed at this within the US (some would say they already have) but as far as the rest of the world—good luck!

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Aint’ that the truth.

Leaking CIA Secrets Leads To Severe Punishment, Unless You Are The Boss (RT)

The problem with the lenient treatment of former CIA Director, David Petraeus, isn’t that he was lightly punished for his leaks. It is that other whistleblowers are punished at all. It’s a tale of two CIA employees. The first, Jeffrey Sterling, has just been convicted of leaking information about a bungled agency sortie to James Risen, a reporter. The operation took place almost 20 years ago, around the time everyone was doing the Macarena and Tom Cruise’s first Mission Impossible movie was released. Federal prosecutors are calling for a 24-year prison sentence for Sterling. The second, David Petraeus, has already learned his fate. He received a $100,000 fine and two-years probation. The six-figure sum may seem like a lot to you, but it’s less than the former 4-star general earns for a single speech.

Petraeus was the boss, Sterling an underling. However, Sterling’s so-called misdemeanor pales into insignificance when compared to Petraeus’ actions. The latter handed his lover, Paula Broadwell, information on the identities of covert officers, diplomatic discussions, war strategy and even private chats with the current US President, Barack Obama. This is about as top-level as it gets. Petraeus’ apologists emphasize that the difference between the two cases is that the public never learned the information that Broadwell was given. They use this to justify the leniency shown to the almost four-decade military veteran. Nevertheless, the case of John Kiriakou rather knocks this defense on the head. In 2007, Kiriakou admitted that the CIA had a secret torture program.

The following year, authorities issued criminal charges against him for slipping a journalist the name of a covert agent. As in Petraeus’ case, this name wasn’t published. Regardless, in 2012 Kiriakou was handed a 30-month federal prison sentence. He was partially released in February. Kiriakou freely admitted to his mistakes and those of the CIA. It’s pretty certain that his honesty was his downfall. On the contrary, Petraeus initially lied to FBI officials when they quizzed him about his, probably inadvertent, whistleblowing activities. Lying to federal agents is a felony that carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. For reasons unknown, the former CIA Director wasn’t charged with lying.

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Long time coming.

Maryland Governor Declares State of Emergency, Activates National Guard (CBS)

Governor Larry Hogan has declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard to address the growing violence and unrest in Baltimore City. “I have not made this decision lightly. The National Guard represents a last resort in order to restore order,” Hogan said during a news conference Monday night. “People have the right to protest and express their frustration, but Baltimore City families deserve peace and safety in their communities and these acts of violence and destruction of property cannot and will not be tolerated.” Hogan said he executed the request 30 seconds after it was made by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. “When the mayor called me, which quite frankly we were glad that she finally did, we signed the executive order,” he said.

“It’s obviously very disappointing to us as Marylanders and people who love the city of Baltimore. What started out as a peaceful protest … I would say 95% of the people involved were conducting themselves in a very peaceful manner, it was well under control. We had a lot of outside agitators come in from around the country, and we had some rogue gangs and young people that were just out looking to cause problems.” Major General Linda Singh, the adjutant general of the Maryland Army National Guard, said during the news conference that the guard would be out in activation beginning Monday night. Up to 5,000 troops were available to patrol the streets and protect property. Hogan said he spoke to President Obama at length about the violence.

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Curious phenomenon. You’d need to check disease rates, though.

The Hidden Lives Of Chernobyl’s Wildlife (BBC)

Automatic cameras in the Ukrainian side of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone have provided an insight into the previously unseen secret lives of wildlife that have made the contaminated landscape their home Throughout 2015, the cameras will be positioned at 84 locations, allowing a team of scientists to record the type of animals passing through the area and where they make their home. In the first four months since the cameras were deployed, the team has “trapped” more than 10,000 images of animals, suggesting the 30km zone, established shortly after the April 1986 disaster when a nuclear reactor exploded, ejecting radioactive material across the surrounding terrain and high into the atmosphere, is now home to a rich diversity of wildlife.

The network of cameras is gathering data that will help scientists choose the most appropriate species to fit with collars that will then record the level of radioactive exposure the animal receives as it travels across the zone. “We want an animal that moves over areas of different contamination – that’s the key thing we need,” explained project leader Mike Wood from the University of Salford, UK. “So we would consider some of the larger animals, such as wolves, because they would be ideal because the way the animal moves through the areas actually affects its contamination levels.” Commenting on the herds of Przewalski’s horses, Dr Wood observed: “They seem to have adapted quite well to life within the zone. “From the images from our cameras, they are clearly moving around in quite large groups,” he told BBC News.

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“This is hardly a good starting point for a major transition.”

Norway’s Shift From Oil Starts With Two Left Feet (Bloomberg)

Norway’s prime minister is fond of saying the nation is facing a “new normal” as a decade-long boom in its petroleum industry starts to fade. Erna Solberg has given little explanation of what that means, except to say that “knowledge is the next oil” and “fish will be Norway’s Ikea,” ideas she echoed in a speech on Friday at her party’s annual convention in Oslo. It’s no wonder then that economists are scratching their heads as to what will fill the gap in the economy once oil takes up less space. The biggest element crippling the oil and non-oil industry is the exorbitant price of labor. Average hourly wage costs in Norway were 47% higher than those in the European Union last year, according to government statistics.

“And that’s after taking into account the considerable weakening of the krone through 2013 and 2014,” said Kari Due-Andresen, chief economist at Svenska Handelsbanken. “This is hardly a good starting point for a major transition.” Rising oil and gas prices over the last 15 years kept Norway afloat, even during the financial crisis when the rest of the world was suffering. As western Europe’s biggest crude producer, the country relies on oil and gas for more than one-fifth of its gross domestic product. With oil investments set to drop and Brent crude stuck around $65 per barrel, politicians, economists and the central banker agree the nation’s economy needs some remodeling. So if the oil economy is slowing, what’s Norway left with?

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There’ll be many.

BP Oil Hunt Off Australia Coast Causes Fear of Another Deepwater Horizon (BBG)

Five years after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill poured millions of barrels of crude into the sea, BP Plc is being challenged over its hunt for oil in the pristine waters off southern Australia. Just over a year before the U.K.-based company has said it expects to start drilling, environmentalists say the company hasn’t yet disclosed its full emergency-response plans for a potential spill in the Great Australian Bight, home to about 18 threatened species from whales to turtles. BP’s initial models show a less than 10% chance that a worst-case incident would lead to oil threatening areas where whales are likely to feed. It’s clear the project will face significant scrutiny before drilling begins.

“The Gulf of Mexico scenario was an absolute disaster, but the stakes are much higher out here,” said Peter Owen, the Wilderness Society’s South Australia director. “This is an undeveloped, non-industrialized part of the world, and the risks are high. It’s very deep, very rough and very remote.” BP said that it has “the technological capability and expertise to safely explore the Great Australian Bight,” according to an e-mailed statement. The company had initially planned to begin drilling in early 2016 and pushed that out because of potential delays with the rig.

More than 85% of species in the Bight aren’t found anywhere else, according to Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization. Species in the Bight include the southern right, sperm and blue whales as well as sea lions and sharks. BP estimated last year it would spend more than A$1 billion ($785 million) to drill 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Port Lincoln, in a region it describes as “pretty much the last big unexplored basin in the whole world.” About 250 kilometers to the north, endangered southern right whales gather to give birth, drawing visitors to cliff-top lookouts on the nearby coast.

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Let’s get to number 1!

East Australia 1 Of 11 Areas Good For 80% Of World Forest Loss (Guardian)

Eastern Australia is one of the world’s 11 deforestation hotspots that together will account for 80% of global forest loss by 2030, a new report has warned. Between 3m hectares and 6m hectares of rainforest and temperate forest, mainly stretching across New South Wales and Queensland, could be lost between 2010 and 2030 on current trends, according to the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Forests report. This deforestation is part of a wider loss that could reach 170m hectares of forest worldwide by 2030 in 11 key areas, including the Amazon, Borneo, Sumatra, the Congo Basin and East Africa. Ten of the 11 areas are found in the tropics and contain some of the greatest biodiversity in the world, including animals such as tigers, orangutans and gorillas, as well as Indigenous communities.

About 70% of the eastern forests of Australia have already been cleared or disturbed, with just 18% of the area under any sort of protection, the WWF report states. Australia’s forestry loss has primarily been caused by land clearing for livestock, with unsustainable logging and mining also blamed for tree felling. WWF said the watering down of environmental protections by the previous LNP government in Queensland led to a sharp rise in land clearing, with 275,000ha torn down in the past financial year – a tripling of vegetation loss rates since 2010.

While the new Labor state government has promised to reverse this loss, the New South Wales government is set to amend land-clearing protections, despite pledging $100m to protect the state’s threatened plants and animals. “We are deeply concerned about NSW,” said Dermot O’Gorman, chief executive of WWF Australia. “These are laws that have been shown to have been effective in saving hundreds of thousands of animals, so it’s important that biodiversity continues to be protected. “Maintaining forest protections is vital at state level. We’ve lost the large majority of the eastern Australian forest, which means the remaining forests are even more important to maintain. “If business as usual continues, we will see more Australian species disappear, as well as the continuing decline of our water, topsoil and local and regional climate.”

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“Our universe, in contrast, is quite flat – and on astronomic distances, it has positive curvature..”

Is The Universe Really A 2-D Hologram? (Science Daily)

At first glance, there is not the slightest doubt: to us, the universe looks three dimensional. But one of the most fruitful theories of theoretical physics in the last two decades is challenging this assumption. The “holographic principle” asserts that a mathematical description of the universe actually requires one fewer dimension than it seems. What we perceive as three dimensional may just be the image of two dimensional processes on a huge cosmic horizon. Up until now, this principle has only been studied in exotic spaces with negative curvature. This is interesting from a theoretical point of view, but such spaces are quite different from the space in our own universe. Results obtained by scientists at TU Wien (Vienna) now suggest that the holographic principle even holds in a flat spacetime.

Everybody knows holograms from credit cards or banknotes. They are two dimensional, but to us they appear three dimensional. Our universe could behave quite similarly: “In 1997, the physicist Juan Maldacena proposed the idea that there is a correspondence between gravitational theories in curved anti-de-sitter spaces on the one hand and quantum field theories in spaces with one fewer dimension on the other,” says Daniel Grumiller (TU Wien). Gravitational phenomena are described in a theory with three spatial dimensions, the behaviour of quantum particles is calculated in a theory with just two spatial dimensions – and the results of both calculations can be mapped onto each other.

Such a correspondence is quite surprising. It is like finding out that equations from an astronomy textbook can also be used to repair a CD-player. But this method has proven to be very successful. More than ten thousand scientific papers about Maldacena’s “AdS-CFT-correspondence” have been published to date. For theoretical physics, this is extremely important, but it does not seem to have much to do with our own universe. Apparently, we do not live in such an anti-de-sitter-space. These spaces have quite peculiar properties. They are negatively curved, any object thrown away on a straight line will eventually return. “Our universe, in contrast, is quite flat – and on astronomic distances, it has positive curvature,” says Daniel Grumiller.

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Apr 222015
 
 April 22, 2015  Posted by at 9:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  Comments Off on Debt Rattle April 22 2015


Jack Delano Engineer at AT&SF railroad yard, Clovis, NM 1943

Europe’s Debt Mountain Just Got A Whole Lot Bigger (Telegraph)
$5.3 Trillion Of Government Bonds Now Have Negative Yields (David Stockman)
IMF Needs To Correct Its Big Fat Greek Bailout Mistake (Ashoka Mody)
Mythology That Blocks Progress In Greece (Martin Wolf)
Why the Real Deadline for Greece Is July 20 (Bloomberg)
Greece Buys Six Weeks’ Space With Transfer of City Funds (Bloomberg)
Varoufakis Sees ‘Clear Convergence’ in Greek Creditor Talks (Bloomberg)
Greece Hopes To Strike A Deal With Gazprom Soon (DW)
China Sees First Bond Default by State Firm (Bloomberg)
China Will Keep Growing Because It Has To (Bloomberg)
Hank Paulson Tells China to Be Wary (Sorkin)
Europe Should Protect People, Not Borders (Spiegel)
The Next Era of Campaign-Finance Craziness Is Already Underway (NY Times)
British Regulator Challenges US Over Scrutiny of Buffett’s Berkshire (FT)
‘Pipelines Blow Up And People Die’ (Politico)
Who Is Saudi Arabia Really Targeting In Its Price War? (Berman)
How to Avert a Nuclear War (James E. Cartwright and Vladimir Dvorkin)
UK Financial Trader Arrested Over 2010 Global Markets ‘Flash Crash’ (Guardian)
Metro Vancouver Is Swept Up In A Real Estate Frenzy (Vancouver Sun)
Decisions: Life and Death on Wall Street, by Janet M. Tavakoli (Nomi Prins)
The Food Production System is Criminal (Beppe Grillo’s blog)

“Despite attempts by governments across the bloc to rein in spending..”

Europe’s Debt Mountain Just Got A Whole Lot Bigger (Telegraph)

It’s official. The eurozone is drowning in debt. According to the latest figures from the bloc’s official statistical authority, government debt in the eurozone reached nearly 92pc of GDP last year – the highest level since the single currency was introduced in 1999. Unsurprisingly, debt-stricken Greece is the worst offender, with its public debt topping 177pc of national economic output. Italy is not far behind at 132pc of GDP, with bailed-out Cyprus at 107pc. The figures also show that only four of the eurozone’s 19 countries are below the Maastricht Treaty’s 60pc debt limit. Across Europe as a whole, 16 of out the 26 member states are officially in breach of the debt criteria.

Despite attempts by governments across the bloc to rein in spending, stagnant growth and insipid demand has seen debt ratios on the continent soar. Coupled with the ominous threat of deflation, the advanced world’s debt burden is now the foremost threat facing the global economy, according to the likes of the IMF. Total public and private debt levels have reached a record 275pc of GDP in rich countries, and 175pc in emerging markets. Both are up 30 points since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. But as the woes of Greece have shown, the prospect of mass debt write-offs is not on the cards. In the words of Margaret Atwood and beloved of the IMF: “And then the revenge that comes when they are not paid back.”

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Part of the game.

$5.3 Trillion Of Government Bonds Now Have Negative Yields (David Stockman)

The level of complacency in world financial markets is downright astounding – even stupid. Today there are two more signs of extreme mania – a brokerage firm calculation that there are now $5.3 trillion of government bonds trading at negative yields and the cross-over of eurolibor into the neither world of negative yields, as well. These deformations cannot be explained with reference to macroeconomic conditions – such as weak growth or a temporary spot of minimal CPI gains. Instead, they are the destructive work of central banks and a few hundred monetary mandarins who have literally usurped control of the entire world economy. And they have done it through a deft maneuver.

That is, by disabling the pricing system in financial markets entirely and displacing market forces with central command and control in the form of pegged money market rates, manipulated yield curves, invitations to speculators to front-run massive central bank bond buying programs and both implied and explicit promises that rising risk asset prices will be favored and facilitated at all hazards. All of this monetary mayhem is being done in the name of an astoundingly primitive Keynesian premise. Namely, that there is insufficient “aggregate demand” in the world and too little inflation in consumer goods and services as measured by the CPI and other consumption deflators; and that these insufficiencies can be magically remedied by ZIRP, massive government debt monetization and the rest of the easy money tool kit .

How? Why, by inducing businesses and households to borrow more and spend more when they are otherwise not inclined to spend income they don’t have; and to rid them of a reluctance to spend even what they can afford because the price of toilet paper, tonic water, TVs and trips to the mall may be going down tomorrow. Here’s the thing. Both of these alleged barriers to spending are postulates of Keynesian economic models, not conditions extant in the real world. Upwards of 85% of US households, for example, are not borrowing because they are already tapped out and trapped in “peak debt”. Even the borrowing rebound that has happened since the 2008 crisis has occurred for reasons that are irrelevant to the central bankers’ Keynesian predicate.

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Restructuring.

IMF Needs To Correct Its Big Greek Bailout Mistake (Ashoka Mody)

The Greek government’s mounting financial woes are leading it to contemplate the unthinkable: defaulting on a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Instead of demanding repayment and further austerity, the IMF should recognize its responsibility for the country’s predicament and forgive much of the debt. Greece’s onerous obligations to the IMF, the European Central Bank and European governments can be traced back to April 2010, when they made a fateful mistake. Instead of allowing Greece to default on its insurmountable debts to private creditors, they chose to lend it the money to pay in full. At the time, many called for immediately restructuring privately held debt, thus imposing losses on the banks and investors who had lent money to Greece.

Among them were several members of the IMF’s board and Karl Otto Pohl, a former president of the Bundesbank and a key architect of the euro. The IMF and European authorities responded that restructuring would cause global financial mayhem. As Pohl candidly noted, that was merely a cover for bailing out German and French banks, which had been among the largest enablers of Greek profligacy. Ultimately, the authorities’ approach merely replaced one problem with another: IMF and official European loans were used to repay private creditors. Thus, despite a belated restructuring in 2012, Greece’s obligations remain unbearable – only now they are owed almost entirely to official creditors. Five years after the crisis started, government debt has jumped from 130% of gross domestic product to almost 180%.

Meanwhile, a deep economic slump and deflation have severely impaired the government’s ability to repay. Almost everyone now agrees that pushing Greece to pay its private creditors was a bad idea. The required fiscal austerity was simply too great, causing the economy to collapse. The IMF acknowledged the error in a 2013 report on Greece. In a recent staff paper, the fund said that when a crisis threatens to spread, it should seek a collective global solution rather than forcing the distressed economy to bear the entire burden. The IMF’s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, has warned that more austerity will crush growth. Oddly, the IMF’s proposed way forward for Greece remains unchanged: Borrow more money (this time from the European authorities) to repay one group of creditors (the IMF) and stay focused on austerity. [..]

Five years from now, the country’s economic and social stress could well be even more acute. The question will be: Why was more debt not forgiven earlier? No one is willing to confront that unpleasant arithmetic, and wishful thinking prevails. Having failed its first Greek test, the IMF risks doing so again. It remains trapped by the priorities of shareholders, including in recent years the U.K. and Germany. To reassert its independence and redeem its lost credibility, it should write off a big chunk of Greece’s debt and force its wealthy shareholders to bear the losses.

(Mody is a former IMF mission chief)

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I like this: “Forgiveness is inevitable.”

Mythology That Blocks Progress In Greece (Martin Wolf)

The Greek epic continues. It will not end well if the people involved do not recognise they are clinging on to myths. Here are six, each of which poses intellectual and emotional obstacles to reaching a solution.

A Greek exit would help the eurozone. “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” This is the question Henry II is supposed to have asked about Archbishop Thomas Becket. Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, must think much the same of his Greek partners. For the English king, however, the gratification of his wish was a disaster. A similar thing is likely to be true if Greece leaves. Yes, if Greece suffered a calamitous aftermath, populist campaigns elsewhere would be less effective. But euro membership would cease to be irrevocable. Each crisis could trigger destabilising speculation.

A Greek exit would help Greece. Many believe a weak new drachma offers a painless path to prosperity. But this is only likely to be true if the economy can easily expand its production of internationally competitive goods and services. Greece cannot. And the immediate consequences are likely to include exchange controls, defaults, a halt to foreign credit, and more political turbulence. Stable money counts for something, particularly in a mismanaged country. Ditching it carries a cost.

It is Greece’s fault. Nobody was forced to lend to Greece. Initially, private lenders were happy to lend to the Greek government on much the same terms as to the German government. Yet the nature of Greek politics, tellingly described in The 13th Labour of Hercules by Yannis Palaiologos , was no secret. Then, in 2010, it became clear the money would not be repaid. Rather than agree to the write-off that was needed, governments (and the IMF) decided to bail out the private creditors by refinancing Greece. Thus, began the game of “extend and pretend”. Stupid lenders lose money. That has always been the case. It is still the case today.

Greece has done nothing. Greece has undergone a huge adjustment of its fiscal and external positions. Between 2009 and 2014, the primary fiscal balance (before interest) tightened by 12% of gross domestic product, the structural fiscal deficit by 20% of GDP and the current account balance by 12% of GDP. Between the first quarter of 2008 and the last of 2013, real spending in the Greek economy fell by 35% and GDP by 27%, while unemployment peaked at 28% of the labour force. These are huge adjustments. Indeed, one of the tragedies of the impasse over the conditions for support is that the adjustment has happened. Greece does not need additional resources.

The Greeks will repay. This myth derives partly from the refusal to recognise sunk costs. The bad lending and the adjustment to the cessation of that lending both lie in the past. What is open is whether the Greeks will devote the next few decades to repaying a mountain of loans that should never have been made. What makes this far worse is that the debt burden has doubled, relative to GDP, despite a restructuring, since the crisis. Forgiveness is inevitable. Indeed, a report from the Centre for Economic Policy Research notes that excessive debt hangs over the entire eurozone, not just Greece.

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Is it in Greece’s interest to wait that long?

Why the Real Deadline for Greece Is July 20 (Bloomberg)

Greece probably has until late July to come to an agreement with its creditors. Possible delays in payments to the IMF shouldn’t prompt the European Central Bank to shut off vital liquidity to Greek banks. By contrast, a default on marketable debt, specifically the failure of the Greek government to pay €3.5 billion due to the ECB on July 20, would probably force the central bank’s hand. The Greek government and its creditors are still likely to reach a deal on a list of reforms before that crucial date. Greek banks are relying on liquidity from the ECB to avoid financial collapse. That support is currently provided by the Emergency Liquidity Assistance scheme from the monetary authorities in Frankfurt.

In the event of a sovereign default, the banks, which are large holders of Greek debt, would probably be ruled insolvent because the value of the assets on their balance sheets would fall sharply. Under the rules of the ELA, the ECB would be unlikely to be able to continue providing liquidity to lenders in the beleaguered country – users of the scheme must be solvent. Rolling over Treasury bills of about €11 billion between now and July 20 is unlikely to create a problem, as long as ECB liquidity remains available. The debt management office will probably be able to complete those operations because Greek banks have continued to be loyal buyers of those assets. A more pressing concern is a payment to the IMF. Greece must pay about €774 million on May 12.

Still, a failure to make that payment would be unlikely to cause the ECB to cut off liquidity to the country’s banks. Since the ability to pay depends on the ability to reach an agreement on reforms, that might be considered a matter of liquidity rather than solvency, allowing the ECB to keep funding Greek banks. In addition, the IMF wouldn’t even have to make a public announcement about the country being in arrears until three months have passed since the missed payment, though the country is immediately shut off from the Fund’s resources.

The IMF could still sign off on a “successful conclusion of the review” that would officially end Greece’s second bailout even if the country were in arrears. The four-month extension granted in February stipulates that this must be done by the end of June, though it’s a soft deadline. The “successful conclusion” would release the outstanding tranche of the current European Financial Stability Facility program – €1.8 billion – and the profits from the ECB’s Securities Markets Programme – €1.9 billion%. Those funds from Greece’s euro-area creditors, which sum to €3.7 billion, would be sufficient to repay the IMF about €3 billion that are due between now and July 13.

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Yeah, but those just make Syriza new enemies.

Greece Buys Six Weeks’ Space With Transfer of City Funds (Bloomberg)

Greek officials expect an order that local governments transfer funds to the central bank will keep the country afloat until the end of May as European policy makers turn up the heat on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Municipalities’ reserves are estimated at about €1.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Officials in Athens ruled out also seizing pension funds and the cash reserves of state companies because there wasn’t a need and the move would unnecessarily fuel anxiety, the person said. With bailout talks stalled, access to cash is becoming increasingly critical. Resistance at the ECB to further aiding the country’s stricken lenders is growing and the ECB is studying measures to rein in emergency funding for Greek banks.

“A bigger effort by the Greek side is needed so that we can close the topic in the interest of both sides,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in Vienna. “The intensity of the talks has increased in the past 4-5 days but not to the extent that they are ripe enough to come to a quick conclusion.” Tsipras may meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Brussels on April 23, a Greek government official said Tuesday. Although a final accord is unlikely at a meeting of euro-area finance ministers in Latvia on Friday, another extraordinary meeting could be called at the end of April if needed.

“The sooner they come up with some kind of an agreement the better, but so far Europe has never missed the opportunity to miss an opportunity,” Standard Chartered Bank Global Chief Economist Marios Maratheftis said in a Bloomberg TV interview. Since Tsipras assumed office in January, Greece has been using up its cash reserves to meet its obligations. Greek lenders are mostly locked out of regular ECB cash tenders and instead have access to about €74 billion of emergency liquidity assistance from their own central bank – an amount that has been reviewed weekly by the ECB.

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Right.

Varoufakis Sees ‘Clear Convergence’ in Greek Creditor Talks (Bloomberg)

Greece and its creditors are narrowing their differences as officials on both sides recognize that the best chance for success is an accord that leaves them all a bit unsatisfied, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said. “The convergence is absolutely clear, and the institutions are admitting that now,” Varoufakis told reporters in Athens late on Tuesday. Both sides “have invested a huge amount in achieving an agreement, and neither they nor we will let the opportunity slip to arrive at an agreement that’s clearly to the benefit of everyone.” Failure to do so would be “catastrophic,” he added. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday ordered local governments to move their funds to the central bank after failing to make sufficient progress in talks with European and IMF officials to release further bailout aid.

His government needs the cash for salaries, pensions and a payment to the IMF, and is running out of options to stay solvent. Municipalities’ reserves are estimated at about €1.5 billion, which will keep the country afloat until the end of May, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Greece is unlikely to meet the end-April target for it to submit a list of measures to revamp its economy, a European Union official said Tuesday. The euro area now views the end of June to be Greece’s main deadline to unlock aid payments, he added. While an April 24 meeting of euro area finance ministers in Latvia is probably too soon to seal an agreement, “an agreement will come,” Varoufakis said.

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“The proposed pipeline, which has not been approved by the European Union..”

Greece Hopes To Strike A Deal With Gazprom Soon (DW)

The Greek prime minister and Gazprom chief Alexei Miller held talks in Athens on Tuesday over a multibillion dollar gas pipeline project. Reports said both sides would work towards setting up a “road map” detailing the responsibilities the two parties would commit to in the coming months. Government sources said Athens hoped an agreement would be signed shortly. The proposed pipeline, which has not been approved by the European Union, could deliver Russian gas through Turkey and Greece to Europe. The visit by Miller came after Tsipras met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow at the beginning of April and expressed his country’s interest in taking part in the so-called Turkish Stream gas pipeline project.

The pipeline is expected to transport Russian gas though Turkey and then in to Europe by 2017. Some observers, however, doubt the pipeline will be built on time, or even at all. “The pipeline is of big interest to our country and is among our priorities,” said Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis. “We are continuing talks with the Russian side and we hope to reach an agreement very soon,” he added, terming the talks as constructive. According to the Greek Kathimerini newspaper, Athens stands to earn several billion dollars in advance of the deal.

However, Lafazanis declined to comment when asked by reporters about any advance payments. Talking to reporters after meeting Tsipras, Gazprom’s Chief Executive Alexei Miller also did not make any reference to any advance payments to Greece from the pipeline. Greece is heavily dependent on Russian energy imports and is looking to negotiate a deal with Moscow for the reduction of the price of gas that it imports from Russia. Furthermore, Athens has indicated its interest in becoming a European hub for the natural gas pipeline project.

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Nothing is safe anymore?

China Sees First Bond Default by State Firm (Bloomberg)

A Chinese power-transformer maker became the country’s first state-owned company to default on an onshore bond, signaling the government’s willingness to let market forces decide an enterprise’s fate. Baoding Tianwei, the unit of central government-owned China South Industries Group Corp., said it will fail to pay 85.5 million yuan ($13.8 million) of bond interest due Tuesday. Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. became the first Chinese developer to default on its U.S. currency debt Monday. Until now, only private-sector companies have defaulted in China’s domestic bond market even as state-owned enterprises have sold the vast majority of debt.

Tianwei’s default highlights a shifting attitude toward financial risk, underscored by Premier Li Keqiang’s pledge to open a cooling economy to market forces and strip power from the government. “It’s probably a start of more defaults in China,” said Qu Qing, a bond analyst at Huachuang Securities Co. in Beijing. “The economic slowdown has given a huge blow to some industries.” Baoding Tianwei’s 1.5 billion yuan of 5.7% April 2016 notes have dropped 7.1% since March 31 to 85.3% of par as of Monday, set for the sharpest monthly decline since they were issued in 2011.

The company will continue to raise payment funds via various means including asset disposal, according to today’s statement posted to Chinamoney.com.cn, the China Foreign Exchange Trade System website. The bonds’ rating is now B versus AA+ at issuance. “Our company suffered huge losses in 2014 and the debt to asset ratio surged quickly,” Baoding Tianwei said in today’s statement. “Our company has lost financing ability and suffered from a capital shortage. We can’t raise enough money to repay interest, despite all the efforts we have made.”

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There’s irony in that headline somewhere.

China Will Keep Growing Because It Has To (Bloomberg)

Can China’s economic policy makers maneuver their way out of this one? Let’s see: there’s a property bubble that’s beginning to deflate, a construction boom that’s now going in reverse and a financial system that’s riddled with bad debts. Oh, and the air is still really dirty. On the bright side, though, Cirque du Soleil and Segway are coming to China. With the success of the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the country has established itself as a global economic leader. And the Shanghai Composite Index has more than doubled during the past nine months. The outside world has a hard time fitting all this evidence together into a coherent picture. Is the stock boom a sign of hope, or a policy-driven bubble?

How about that bond default today by state-owned Baoding Tianwei – is it an indication of new financial maturity or the beginning of a great unraveling? Is the slowdown in construction, however scary for the world’s metal producers, a welcome signal that the economy is moving away from its dependence on exports and infrastructure to more sustainable consumer-driven growth? The common thread here is the Chinese government using every tool it has to keep its long growth run going. As the U.S. and the U.K. grew into industrial powers in the 19th century, they were tripped up every 10 to 20 years by financial crises and economic depressions. Measuring from December 1978, when the Chinese Communist Party “shifted its center of gravity from propagandizing class struggle and organizing political campaigns to economic construction,” China is now in its 37th straight year of economic expansion.

That quote is from a new biography of Deng Xiaoping by historians Alexander V. Pantsov and Steven I. Levine. I’ve just been reading the chapter about Deng’s 1977-78 battle with the charmingly named but otherwise not so great Whateverists, which set the course that China more or less still follows. In the months after founding father Mao Zedong’s death in September 1976, the Whateverist motto was:

We will resolutely defend whatever political decisions were taken by Chairman Mao; we will unwaveringly follow whatever directives were issued by Chairman Mao.

Mao’s handpicked successor, Hua Guofeng, defended these “two whatevers” even as he tried to tweak some of Mao’s decisions and directives. Deng, just rehabilitated after a year on the political outs, saw this as a disastrous approach to governing, given how often Mao had changed his mind and contradicted himself. He dug up an old Mao slogan to back himself up: “Seek truth from facts.” He then endorsed a polemic by several party intellectuals titled “Practice is the Sole Criterion of Truth” that pushed the two whatevers aside as the party’s guiding line.

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I know, I know, Paulson and Sorkin…

Hank Paulson Tells China to Be Wary (Sorkin)

About 340 pages into Henry M. Paulson’s new book on China, a sentence comes almost out of nowhere that stops readers in their tracks. “Frankly, it’s not a question of if, but when, China’s financial system,” he writes, “will face a reckoning and have to contend with a wave of credit losses and debt restructurings.” Mr. Paulson, the former Treasury secretary, knows a thing or two about financial crises, having been the lead firefighter during the 2008 financial collapse, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Mr. Paulson also knows more about China, its politics and the players behind it than most Westerners, having been the former chief executive of Goldman Sachs and one of the first businessmen to seek to establish ties with China more than two decades ago, regularly making trips to the country and befriending top officials.

A crisis in China, even a small one, would be contagious, especially in the United States. Already, fears of a slowdown in China in recent months have led to jitters about the trajectory of the American economy. Mr. Paulson stresses that he’s not saying a crisis is inevitable, and he believes that one can be averted if officials make the right policy decisions. But Mr. Paulson’s anxieties about China have an unnerving similarity to the financial crisis in the United States, and his warnings demand attention. Like the United States crisis in 2008, Mr. Paulson worries that in China “the trigger would be a collapse in the real estate market,” and he declared in an interview that China is experiencing a real estate bubble. He noted that debt as a %age of GDP in China rose to 204% in June 2104 from 130% in 2008.

“Slowing economic growth and rapidly rising debt levels are rarely a happy combination, and China’s borrowing spree seems certain to lead to trouble,” he wrote. Mr. Paulson’s analysis in his book, “Dealing With China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower,” are all the more remarkable because he has long been a bull on China and has deep friendships with its senior leaders, who could frown upon his straightforward comments. Mr. Paulson is hopeful that the book, an eye-opening account that praises China while acknowledging the challenges, will be published there and that the government won’t seek to press him to remove his critique. “I have just begun discussions with a Chinese publisher,” he said. “I will only authorize publication if it is published completely and accurately. I am unwavering on that.”

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Or banks.

Europe Should Protect People, Not Borders (Spiegel)

Workers at the Warsaw headquarters of Frontex, the European border protection agency, track every single irregular boat crossing and every vessel filled with refugees. Since December 2013, the authority has spent hundreds of millions of euros deploying drones and satellites to surveil the borders. The EU registers everything that happens near its borders. In contrast to the claims that are often made, they do not look away when refugees die. They are watching very closely. And what is happening here is not negligent behavior. They are deliberately killing refugees. People have been perishing as they sought to flee to Europe for years now. They drown in the Mediterranean, bleed to death on the border fences of the Spanish North African conclaves of Ceuta and Melilla or freeze to death in the mountains between Hungary and Ukraine.

But the European public still doesn’t appear to be entirely aware of the dimensions of this humanitarian catastrophe. We have become accomplices to one of the biggest crimes to take place in European postwar history. It’s possible that 20 years from now, courts or historians will be addressing this dark chapter. When that happens, it won’t just be politicians in Brussels, Berlin and Paris who come under pressure. We the people will also have to answer uncomfortable questions about what we did to try to stop this barbarism that was committed in all our names. The mass deaths of refugees at Europe’s external borders are no accidents — they are the direct result of European Union policies.

The German constitution and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights promise protection for people seeking flight from war or political persecution. But the EU member states have long been torpedoing this right. Those wishing to seek asylum in Europe must first reach European territory. But Europe’s policy of shielding itself off from refugees is making that next to impossible. The EU has erected meters-high fences at its periphery, soldiers have been ordered to the borders and war ships are dispatched in order to keep refugees from reaching Europe. For those seeking protection, regardless whether they come from Syria or Eritrea, there is no legal and safe way to get to Europe. Refugees are forced to travel into the EU as “illegal” immigrants, using dangerous and even fatal routes. Like the one across the Mediterranean.

A Darwinist situation has emerged on Europe’s external borders. The only people who stand a chance of applying for asylum in Europe are those with enough money to pay the human-traffickers, those who are tenacious enough to try over and over again to scale fences made of steel and barbed wire. The poor, sick, elderly, families or children are largely left to their fates. The European asylum system itself is perverting the right to asylum.

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One dollar one vote.

The Next Era of Campaign-Finance Craziness Is Already Underway (NY Times)

There may be no political adviser closer to Rand Paul than Jesse Benton. Benton was integral to Paul’s Senate run in 2010 and was a top strategist for both of Ron Paul’s Republican presidential campaigns. When a fellow Kentuckian, Senator Mitch McConnell, needed help with his re-election campaign last year, Rand Paul lent him Benton. Benton also happens to be married to Paul’s niece. So it would have been natural to expect Benton to move into Paul’s campaign headquarters as soon as he declared his candidacy for president. Not going to happen.

On April 6, the day before Paul made his formal announcement, National Journal reported that instead, Benton will be running America’s Liberty PAC, the principal Paul-supporting super PAC — the class of technically independent campaign organization that is free to spend as many millions of dollars as it can raise, without all those nettlesome regulations that limit donations to formal presidential campaigns to $5,400 a person. Then there is the longtime Jeb Bush adviser Mike Murphy. Murphy guided Bush through the rocky shallows of early-stage presidential politics and helped manage Bush’s successful push to lock down most of the Republican Party’s top donors for the 2016 race, effectively sidelining Mitt Romney and hobbling Chris Christie.

Not long ago, it would have been taken as a given that Murphy would join Bush’s formal campaign once it was announced — but people close to the campaign expect he will join Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise, instead. And Gov. Scott Walker’s former campaign manager and chief of staff, Keith Gilkes, announced late last week that he would not be joining Walker’s formal campaign but rather Walker’s super PAC, Unintimidated PAC — this in spite of legal investigations into Walker’s aides’ interactions with outside conservative groups. All these moves point to the next stage in the great unraveling of the presidential campaign-finance system. And they make the few remaining prohibitions against coordination between these “independent” groups and campaigns look trifling, if not absurd.

Outside groups have played influential roles in presidential races for decades. Forerunners of the super PAC include groups like the National Security Political Action Committee, which produced the “Willie Horton” ads against Michael Dukakis in 1988, and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which in 2004 brought false charges that John Kerry lied about his Vietnam War record. That same year, the Democratic-aligned groups America Coming Together and the Media Fund tried to help Kerry with get-out-the-vote operations and campaign ads attacking President George W. Bush.

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Nobody stateside dares touch Warren.

British Regulator Challenges US Over Scrutiny of Buffett’s Berkshire (FT)

British regulators have challenged their US peers over their apparent reluctance to subject Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway to tougher scrutiny as part of a worldwide push to make the financial system safer. The Bank of England has written to the US Treasury asking why Berkshire’s reinsurance operation — among the world’s most powerful — was left off a provisional list of “too big to fail” institutions drawn up by the Financial Stability Board. Regulators have already deemed nine primary insurance companies — including AIG of the US, Germany’s Allianz and UK-based Prudential — globally “systemically important”, a designation that could lead to higher capital requirements. But they have put off saying which reinsurers — groups such as Swiss Re, Munich Re and Berkshire, which provide insurance for insurers — should be included.

The failure to designate reinsurers has angered insurance companies, which argue reinsurers are more important to the financial system. In a separate move that underscores concern about the increased scrutiny brought by designation, MetLife has sued the US government to try to escape being deemed systemically important by Washington. Insurers deemed systemically important on a global level may need to hold more capital to cover unexpected losses and could face a requirement to draw up “living wills” to make them easier to wind down in a crisis. Yet regulators have yet to quantify the scale of the HLA requirements and the consequences of designation remain unclear. The Basel-based FSB was expected to make the reinsurance list public last year. But in November, following consultation with national authorities, it postponed the decision “pending further development of the methodology”.

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“Tens of thousands of miles of pipeline go completely unregulated by federal officials..”

‘Pipelines Blow Up And People Die’ (Politico)

Oil and gas companies like to assure the public that pipelines are a safer way to ship their products than railroads or trucks. But government data makes clear there is hardly reason to celebrate. Last year, more than 700 pipeline failures killed 19 people, injured 97 and caused more than $300 million in damage. Two of the past five years have been the worst for combined pipeline-related deaths and injuries since 2000. To understand the failure revealed by these numbers, POLITICO talked to more than 15 former and current federal pipeline officials and advisers, as well as dozens of safety experts, engineers and state regulators. We reviewed more than a decade of government data on fatalities, injuries, property damage, incident locations, inspections, damages and penalties.

The picture that emerges is of an agency that lacks the manpower to inspect the nation’s 2.6 million miles of oil and gas lines, that grants the industry it regulates significant power to influence the rule-making process, and that has stubbornly failed to take a more aggressive regulatory role, even when ordered by Congress to do so. This is a particularly bad time for a front-line safety agency to take a backseat. The current boom in fossil fuel production has created intense pressure for massive new pipelines like Keystone XL. Many of the pipes already in the ground are more than half a century old. Tens of thousands of miles of pipeline go completely unregulated by federal officials, who have abandoned the increasingly high-pressure lines to the states.

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“Stupid money”.

Who Is Saudi Arabia Really Targeting In Its Price War? (Berman)

Saudi Arabia is not trying to crush U.S. shale plays. Its oil-price war is with the investment banks and the stupid money they directed to fund the plays. It is also with the zero-interest rate economic conditions that made this possible. Saudi Arabia intends to keep oil prices low for as long as possible. Its oil production increased to 10.3 million barrels per day in March 2015. That is 700,000 barrels per day more than in December 2014 and the highest level since the Joint Organizations Data Initiative began compiling production data in 2002. And Saudi Arabia’s rig count has never been higher. Market share is an important part of the motive but Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali al-Naimi recently emphasized that “The challenge is to restore the supply-demand balance and reach price stability.”

Saudi Arabia’s need for market share and long-term demand is best met with a growing global economy and lower oil prices. That means ending the over-production from tight oil and other expensive plays (oil sands and ultra-deep water) and reviving global demand by keeping oil prices low for some extended period of time. Demand has been weak since the run-up in debt and oil prices that culminated in the Financial Collapse of 2008. Since 2008, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and the central banks of other countries have further increased debt, devalued their currencies and kept interest rates at the lowest sustained levels ever.

These measures have not resulted in economic recovery and have helped produce the highest sustained oil prices in history. They also led to investments that are not particularly productive but promise higher yields that can [not] be found otherwise in a zero-interest rate world. The quest for yield led investment banks to direct capital to U.S. E&P companies to fund tight oil plays. Capital flowed in unprecedented volumes with no performance expectation other than payment of the coupon attached to that investment. This is stupid money. These capital providers are indifferent to the fundamentals of the companies they invest in or in the profitability of the plays. All that matters is yield. The financial performance of most companies involved in tight oil plays has been characterized by chronic negative cash flow and ever-increasing debt.

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2 generals, one of each.

How to Avert a Nuclear War (James E. Cartwright and Vladimir Dvorkin)

We find ourselves in an increasingly risky strategic environment. The Ukrainian crisis has threatened the stability of relations between Russia and the West, including the nuclear dimension — as became apparent last month when it was reported that Russian defense officials had advised President Vladimir V. Putin to consider placing Russia’s nuclear arsenal on alert during last year’s crisis in Crimea. Diplomatic efforts have done little to ease the new nuclear tension. This makes it all the more critical for Russia and the United States to talk, to relieve the pressures to “use or lose” nuclear forces during a crisis and minimize the risk of a mistaken launch. The fact is that we are still living with the nuclear-strike doctrine of the Cold War, which dictated three strategic options: first strike, launch on warning and post-attack retaliation.

There is no reason to believe that Russia and the United States have discarded these options, as long as the architecture of “mutually assured destruction” remains intact. For either side, the decision to launch on warning — in an attempt to fire one’s nuclear missiles before they are destroyed — would be made on the basis of information from early-warning satellites and ground radar. Given the 15- to 30-minute flight times of strategic missiles, a decision to launch after an alert of an apparent attack must be made in minutes. This is therefore the riskiest scenario, since provocations or malfunctions can trigger a global catastrophe. Since computer-based information systems have been in place, the likelihood of such errors has been minimized. But the emergence of cyberwarfare threats has increased the potential for false alerts in early-warning systems.

The possibility of an error cannot be ruled out. American officials have usually played down the launch-on-warning option. They have argued instead for the advantages of post-attack retaliation, which would allow more time to analyze the situation and make an intelligent decision. Neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ever stated explicitly that it would pursue a similar strategy, but an emphasis on mobile missile launchers and strategic submarines continues to imply a similar reliance on an ability to absorb an attack and carry out retaliatory strikes. Today, however, Russia’s early warning system is compromised. The last of the satellites that would have detected missile launches from American territory and submarines in the past stopped functioning last fall. This has raised questions about Russia’s very ability to carry out launch-on-warning attacks.

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Fishy narrative. 2 questions: 1) if he’s so smart, how come he only made $40 million? 2) why let him continue for another 5 years if they were on to him even before the flash crash?

UK Financial Trader Arrested Over 2010 Global Markets ‘Flash Crash’ (Guardian)

A financial trader who played the world’s futures markets from a small suburban house in Hounslow, west London, has been arrested and faces extradition to the US after supposedly making $40m (£27m) for his alleged role in the so-called “flash crash” of 2010. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said on Tuesday that it was seeking the extradition of Navinder Singh Sarao, 37, who it claims “spoofed” financial markets using commercially available trading software to place $200m of false trades from his home in Hounslow. The US agency added that Sarao’s supposed manipulation contributed to the flash crash on 6 May 2010, when the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 600 points in five minutes and created havoc on Wall Street.

Sarao is expected to appear in custody at Westminster magistrates court on Wednesday. He is accused of duping the market into believing there were a lot more sellers than there really were and profiting from the market movement. He is said to have changed his orders more than 19,000 times before cancelling them. The episode, although not attributed to him, formed the backdrop for the Robert Harris novel The Fear Index. A DoJ spokesman would not speculate on how one person, using widely available commercial software, might have been able to crash the world’s financial markets. Nor would he comment on how an individual, who appears to live in a street populated by unremarkable three-bedroom semi-detached houses, seemed to make such huge rewards from his alleged scheme.

However, the US regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said Sarao and his company had profited by more than $40m. The DoJ detailed a series of supposed coups, including episodes where Sarao is said to have made profits of more than $820,000 during a day’s trading. In an affidavit published by the DoJ in support of its complaint, FBI special agent Gregory LaBerta said Sarao was “a futures trader who operated from his residence in the United Kingdom and who primarily traded through his company, Nav Sarao Futures Limited.

“On numerous occasions between at least in or about April 2010 and in or about April 2014, Sarao spoofed the market and manipulated the intra-day price for … S&P 500 futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, including on or about 6 May 2010, when the US stock markets plunged dramatically in a matter of minutes in an event that came to be known as the ‘Flash Crash’.”

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Hongcouver has been crazy for years.

Metro Vancouver Is Swept Up In A Real Estate Frenzy (Vancouver Sun)

It is no exaggeration to use an F-word to describe Vancouver’s current real estate scene. As in, the market is in a Frenzy. Observers describe a perfect storm of forces coming together to create a tempestuous result: A 5.8-per-cent jobless rate in B.C., low interest rates, a devalued Canadian dollar attracting more foreign buyers, and panic over prices going even higher if buying is delayed. Even the particularly vicious winters of recent years in Eastern Canada may be having an impact. Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada warned last Wednesday about the risk of correction in three Canadian property markets — Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary. For the moment, few are heeding the caution.

A press release sent out last week by WestStone Properties, regarding its Evolve condominium project in Surrey, reported sales in a single day (April 11) of 300 condo units, worth $70 million. And get this — project completion is still three years into the future. The release described the purchasers’ enthusiasm: “Excited early buyers who stood in line for hours, grappled for position and swarmed the buying counter in a frenzy that hasn’t been seen in recent years.” Who was buying? Everyone. “Today’s buyers included first-time homeowners, parents purchasing for children and a large number of buyers from throughout Canada, the U.S. and overseas.” The Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board reported earlier this month, bidding wars are taking place with greater frequency.

And Royal Lepage last week cited a rush on Vancouver’s detached homes, resulting from a scarcity of product and high demand to live here. It seems that real estate enthusiasm is not limited to the Lower Mainland. The B.C. Real Estate Association has just reported: “B.C. home sales post the strongest March in eight years. … More homes traded hands last month than any March since 2007.” Property sales jumped 37.6% over March 2014 and sales dollar volume was up 57.1%. In Greater Vancouver, activity was even more robust, with year-over-year sales jumping 53.2%. Association chief economist Cameron Muir says: “Many board areas are now exhibiting sellers’ market conditions, with home prices advancing well above the overall rate of inflation.” The average sale price in March for all types of Vancouver-area housing was $891,000 — up from $801,000 12 months earlier.

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Sounds like a book.

Decisions: Life and Death on Wall Street, by Janet M. Tavakoli (Nomi Prins)

Janet Tavakoli is a born storyteller with an incredible tale to tell. In her captivating memoir, Decisions: Life and Death on Wall Street, she takes us on a brisk journey from the depravity of 1980s Wall Street to the ramifications of the systemic recklessness that crushed the global economy. Her compelling narrative sweeps through her warnings about the dangers of certain bank products in her path-breaking books, speeches before the Federal Reserve, and in talks with Jaime Dimon. She probes the moral complexity behind the lives, suicides and murders of international bankers mired in greed and inner conflict. Some of the people that touched her Wall Street career reflect broken elements of humanity. The burden of choosing money and power over values and humility translates to a loss for us all.

To truly understand the stakes of the global financial game, you must know its building blocks; the characters, testosterone, and egos, as well as the esoteric products designed to squeeze investors, manipulate rules, and favor power-players. You had to be there, and you had to be paying attention. Janet was. That’s what makes her memoir so scary. In Decisions, she breaks the hard stuff down with humor and requisite anger. As a side note, her international banking life eerily paralleled my own – from New York to London to New York to alerting the public about the risky nature of the political-financial complex. Her six chapters flow along various decisions, as the title suggests. In Chapter 1 “Decisions, Decisions”, Janet opens with an account of the laddish trading floor mentality of 1980s Wall Street.

In 1988, she was Head of Mortgage Backed Securities Marketing for Merrill Lynch. Those types of securities would be at the epicenter of the financial crisis thirty years later. Each morning she would broadcast a trade idea over the ‘squawk box.‘ Then came the stripper booked for a “final-on-the-job-stag party.” That incident, one repeated on many trading floors during those days, spurred Janet to squawk, not about mortgage spreads, but about decorum. Merrill ended trading floor nudity and her bosses ended her time in their department. Her bold stand would catapult her to “a front row seat during the biggest financial crisis in world history.” Reading Decisions, you’ll see why this latest financial crisis was decades in the making.

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“Making a vegetable garden is a political statement”.

The Food Production System is Criminal (Beppe Grillo’s blog)

Italian foodstuffs are subject to strict controls in order to guarantee the quality of the end product and the health of the consumer. Thanks to the strictness of these controls and the hard work of small Italian livestock and vegetable farmers and fishermen, the food in our Country is considered to be a source of excellence worldwide. One of the few things that we have left but that we will soon lose even that as soon as the TTIP is approved, a treaty that will allow cheap, low quality US products to find their way onto our tables.

As the crisis deepens, Italian consumers will lower their expectations and purchase chlorine flavoured chickens , beef and pork grown and nourished on hormones and fruit and vegetables with pesticides. Their health will undoubtedly suffer, farmers breeders and fishermen will close up shop and “Made in Italy” foods will become little more than a distant memory. We simply cannot allow this crime against our health! My friend Carlo Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food movement, explains how each and every one of us can sink this Criminal Foodstuff System by supporting our small Italian producers through their purchasing choices.

Blog – Slow Food is at the Expo with this slogan: “SAVE OUR BIODIVERSITY. SAVE THE PLANET. Can you explain to us why biodiversity is such an important asset?

Carlo Petrini – Biodiversity is the real driving force behind human understanding so we have to respect it. If we continue sticking to this foodstuff production model, with this criminal foodstuff system that destroys biodiversity by virtue of the fact that we must favour strong and more productive breeds and cultivars because we are only interested in the bottom line and never in Mother Earth or nature, all we will hand down to future generations is a far, far weaker genetic legacy.

Blog – Let’s talk about the TTIP: you have often mentioned your concern about the effect that this treaty will have on the European food industry. Why is there such a rush to get it approved very quickly? Who will profit from the TTIP? Who will the losers be? What will the long term effects be for Italy and for the consumer? And what about the planet’s equilibrium?

Carlo Petrini – I think that it is dishonest and improper to come up with these treaties in total and absolute secrecy and without involving the community at all. When things are done in secret it usually means that those involved are being dishonest! We must not allow these treaties to be introduced on the backs of millions of farmers, fishermen and food producers that are working all around the world and must be protected like now when they are facing this fetish called the free market, which is anything but free and often destroys the lives of these communities. Now, by virtue of the free market, I am allowed to bring in products made from meat that is not subject to the strict requirements that our breeders have to comply with and is full of chemicals, antibiotics, anabolic steroids and growth hormones, all of which are banned in Italy and in Europe but not banned in the United States.

It is unfair on our breeders because the law should be the same for everyone. We citizens can become co-producers because our choices can lead to certain agricultural choices. If I eat products that come from local small-scale farmers who don’t use pesticides, in other words who farm cleanly, then I’m helping that kind of farming along. If instead I buy and eat products produced by the multinationals, products that perhaps come from elsewhere in the world without any of the rules that our farmers have to adhere to, and perhaps obtained by means of slave labour, then equally I am helping that kind of farming.

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