Sep 052021
 
 September 5, 2021  Posted by at 8:42 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler 1910

 

UK Care Workers Leave En Masse After Being Told To Get Vax Or Quit (RT)
Israel Virus Czar Calls To Begin Readying For 4th Vaccine Dose (ToI)
Give Pupils Covid Jab To Prevent Virus Running Through UK, Expert Says (G.)
The Virus That Stole Christmas (Sky)
Slowly But Surely, The Stupid Is Failing (Denninger)
Vaccine Voodoo (Rickards)
Rolling Stone ‘Horse Dewormer’ Hit-Piece Debunked (ZH)
I Have Not Been Silenced (Malcolm Kendrick)
The Road to Totalitarianism (CJ Hopkins)
China’s Marxist “Profound Revolution” Is Here (Every)

 

 

Good morning from Athens.

 

 

I hear you can deworm your horse with it too.

 

 

Natural Immunity (compiled)
https://twitter.com/i/status/1432342656642867207

 

 

They make £9.30 an hour and then the gov’t comes in demanding they obey or else.

UK Care Workers Leave En Masse After Being Told To Get Vax Or Quit (RT)

Many care workers in the UK who were told to get vaccinated against Covid-19 or lose their jobs have left the industry en masse for better paid positions at companies such as Amazon, creating massive staffing shortages. According to the Guardian, which spoke to several care home industry officials, “three-quarters of care home operators are reporting an increase in staff quitting since April,” with the reasons being “a desire for less stress and for higher pay” and “to avoid mandatory vaccination, which comes into effect on 11 November.” The newspaper reported that many care workers are leaving for other positions in the NHS, where vaccination has not yet been made compulsory, and for unrelated jobs at companies such as Amazon where they have been offered a 30% increase in pay and other incentives.

One care worker left their £9.30 an hour job to work as an Amazon warehouse picker, which pays £13.50 per hour and also offers a £1,000 joining bonus, according to the report. In response to the mass exodus, the industry is now desperately calling on the government to end its mandatory vaccination policy for care workers, warning that a “catastrophe” is on the horizon. National Care Association executive chairman Nadra Ahmed told the Guardian that the National Health Service (NHS) will ultimately “have to pick up this mess” and called on the government to reconsider its policy, while public service union Unison declared that ministers “must immediately repeal ‘no jab, no job’ laws for care home staff in England to avert a staffing crisis that threatens to overwhelm the sector.”

Unison warned that the “draconian” mandatory vaccination policy is “pushing thousands to the brink of quitting care work” and said the government is “sleepwalking into a disaster” by ensuring a massive shortage of staff during a pandemic. The union also revealed that many care workers – who are already underpaid and overworked – “feel totally undervalued” and that “being bullied” into taking a vaccine they didn’t want was “the last straw” for many in the industry.

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How many people still get how idiotic this is?

Israel Virus Czar Calls To Begin Readying For 4th Vaccine Dose (ToI)

Israel’s national coronavirus czar on Saturday called for the country to begin making preparations to eventually administer fourth doses of the coronavirus vaccine. “Given that that the virus is here and will continue to be here, we also need to prepare for a fourth injection,” Salman Zarka told Kan public radio. He did not specify when fourth vaccine shots could eventually be administered. Zarka also said that the next booster shot may be modified to better protect against new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, such as the highly infectious Delta strain. “This is our life from now on, in waves,” he said. Zarka made similar comments in an interview with The Times of Israel last month. “It seems that if we learn the lessons from the fourth wave, we must consider the [possibility of subsequent] waves with the new variants, such as the new one from South America,” he said at the time.


“And thinking about this and the waning of the vaccines and the antibodies, it seems every few months — it could be once a year or five or six months — we’ll need another shot.” Zarka said that he expects that by late 2021 or early 2022, Israel will be giving shots that are especially adapted to cope better with variants. Israel — the first country to officially offer a third dose — began its COVID booster campaign on August 1, rolling it out to all those over the age of 60. It then gradually dropped the eligibility age, expanding it last week to everyone age 12 and up who received the second shot at least five months ago. As of Friday, over 2.5 million Israelis had received the third dose.

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When the JCVI, the experts, say something we don’t like, well, we have other experts. This is full-on Groucho.

Give Pupils Covid Jab To Prevent Virus Running Through UK, Expert Says (G.)

Schoolchildren should be given the Covid vaccine to avoid allowing the virus to “run through the population”, a leading scientific expert has said, after official vaccine advisers concluded the net health benefit in vaccinating 12- to 15-year-olds was too small. On Friday, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) stopped short of a recommending vaccinating healthy 12- to 15-year-olds against Covid, saying “the margin of benefit is considered too small” to support universal vaccination. Ministers could now for the first time defy the advice of the scientific watchdog and push ahead, in a move that highlights a growing divide between government and scientific advisers over the next phase of the vaccination programme.

Prof John Edmunds, a member of the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies, said ministers must consider the “wider effect Covid might have” on unvaccinated children. “It’s a very difficult one, they’re going to take a wider perspective than the JCVI took, I think that’s right,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday. “I think we have to take into consideration the wider effect Covid might have on children and their education and developmental achievements. “In the UK now, it’s difficult to say how many children haven’t been infected but it’s probably about half of them, that’s about 6 million children, so that’s a long way to go if we allow infection just to run through the population, that’s a lot of children who will be infected and that will be a lot of disruption to schools in the coming months.”

The chief medical officers of the UK’s four nations will now weigh up whether or not to give the vaccine to younger schoolchildren, with a decision due within days. The JCVI recommended an expansion to an existing programme of vaccinations for older children with health conditions, including heart disease, type 1 diabetes and severe asthma, increasing the eligible group to about 200,000. But the decision came as a blow to the government, which has in recent days both quietly agitated for a decision from the JCVI, given most schools in England have returned this week, and pointed to existing mass vaccination programmes for such children in places including Israel, the US and Germany.

Immediately after the announcement, Sajid Javid, the health secretary, and his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, wrote to the chief medical officers in their countries, asking them to “consider the matter from a broader perspective”. Prof Anthony Harnden, the deputy chair of the JVCI, said on Saturday that while past decisions had been “fairly clear cut”, it was “quite reasonable for the government to seek further advice about other aspects” and “go ahead and have a look at it from an educational point of view”. When asked about the possibility of extending the vaccine rollout to younger children, he told BBC Breakfast: “Parents need to understand what the risks are, what the benefits are, and make up their own mind about whether they offer consent or not.”

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Famous last words.

The Virus That Stole Christmas (Sky)

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says by the end of the year, Australians should be able to reunite with family across the country, enjoy a proper summer holiday, and New Year’s Eve celebrations where friends can “hug and kiss” at midnight. Under the national plan, interstate travel will occur once 80 per cent of eligible Australians are double jabbed, Scott Morrison tells Sunday Herald Sun. “We don’t have to fear the virus, but we do have to live with it,” he says. “Holding onto COVID zero will only hold Australians back as the world moves forward.” Mr Morrison described the freedoms once 70 per cent and 80 per cent of eligible Australians roll up their sleeves for the jab.


“Grandparents in the east can hold their new grandchild in the west for the first time,” he tells Sunday Herald Sun. “Kids in the south can be excited for holidays up north, long days on the beach and rollercoasters. “Friends can make plans for New Year’s Eve where they can hug and kiss at midnight. “And everyone can make plans for a family Christmas, with all our loved ones at the dinner table, cracking bon-bons and bad jokes together. “Nobody wants COVID to be the virus that stole Christmas, and we have a plan and the vaccinations available to ensure that’s not the case.” “This means that in coming months, lockdown states can look forward to a return to backyard barbecues, kids’ birthday parties with all of their friends, gathering with the whole family for important moments like christenings, weddings and funerals.”

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“I have a right to be unvaccinated against this virus since neither being not-fat or vaccinated confers a health benefit to others..”

Slowly But Surely, The Stupid Is Failing (Denninger)

As for those who have not been infected the data on personal risk allocation is less-clear. Certainly, Covid-19 can seriously injure or kill you. But, since we now know the vaccines neither prevent infection or passing the virus on to others, and have a wildly higher hazard rate than any of the other commonly-used vaccines the equation is now entirely personal. That is, there is no social or employment and customer-related benefit to be had and thus we are now talking about the same classification of personal choice as is packing on that extra 100lbs or choosing to engage in anal sex, both of which are personally dangerous but do not impact other, non-consenting people except, perhaps, by consuming medical system resources someone else might want or need.

Indeed, the data is that being morbidly obese puts 60% or more on your risk of hospitalization or death from Covid-19. Since every single person who is morbidly obese willingly put every item of food and beverage down their own throat should we not hold them accountable for the load they are now placing on the medical system, especially since we knew this in early 2020 and they willingly and intentionally remained obese rather than lose the weight in the intervening 18 months? If I have a right to be fat (and not be discriminated against on the basis of being fat) then I have a right to be unvaccinated against this virus since neither being not-fat or vaccinated confers a health benefit to others; any benefit, such as may exist, is mine and mine alone.

If you think this is some sort of esoteric argument it is not. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that bodily autonomy is sacrosanct. As just one example you have every right to screw another man in the ass so long as you both are adults and consent, which is why the laws related to such sexual practices across the United States in any public accommodation, housing, employment and similar have been progressively, over the last decades, struck down as unconstitutional. Indeed just last year firing someone for being gay become formally illegal. In short the USSC has, on a consistent basis over the last hundred years, ruled that what you choose in terms of personal risk as a consenting adult is nobody else’s damned business and absent hard, scientific proof that someone else is harmed you are on extremely thin ice legally with an attempt to discriminate on any such basis. The legal record is very clear in this regard; that which used to be able to be proscribed 100 years ago as “immoral” or “dangerous” for a particular person has been repeatedly and almost without exception greatly narrowed as the USSC has considered various cases before it.

I remind you that at the time of Jacobson the Court saw such things very differently and personal choice was much less-respected than it is today. Around the same time as Jacobson, for example, the state legislature of Oregon passed a law allowing forced sterilization of “sexual perverts” — aimed straight at homosexuals and the feeble-minded. Oregon was not alone in passing and enforcing these laws. Do you really think jabbing people was a big deal to the Supremes while the State of Oregon was cutting off people’s balls due to their sexual preference?

Do you think the Judge in Chicago did not take all of this into consideration when he reversed his former ruling that an unvaccinated mother by virtue of refusal lost her rights as a parent? I’d like to see the history on exactly why he originally thought that was a good idea, and if perhaps a little off-the-record urging was involved. Family courts are known for hair-raising rulings and such off-the-record games but this one got reversed awfully-quickly, didn’t it? Perhaps the light went on in his head — since the jabs do not produce sterilizing immunity to the virus and do not interrupt transmission his ruling was that one can be dispossessed of their civil rights for a personal medical, social or political decision with the boundary of impact encompassing nobody but herself. It was likely wise to walk away from that voluntarily before he got slapped in the face on appeal.

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“How many people died because they were denied access to these therapies, especially early on in the disease cycle when treatment is more effective? It’s impossible to say, but they could potentially run into the hundreds of thousands.”

Vaccine Voodoo (Rickards)

The data indicate that the most vaccinated countries have the most cases and deaths per million people, while the least vaccinated countries have the fewest cases and deaths per million people. Israel is providing a useful case study in the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of vaccines. Israel is one of the most heavily vaxxed countries in the world, with over 60% of the population fully vaccinated and almost 100% of the elderly. But now Israel is experiencing a massive increase in infections, including cases among the fully vaxxed. The government has also determined that the vaccines wear off after six months or less and is recommending a third shot for everyone. The problem, of course, is that the third dose will wear off too, so a fourth, fifth or sixth dose will be needed.

And with every new dose comes a new risk of dangerous side effects, including the small but real possibility of death. The vaccinated will be getting boosters for the rest of their lives, and the virus still won’t go away. Meanwhile, effective treatments, including ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamin D, zinc and other inexpensive measures, are being suppressed by the medical establishment. How many people died because they were denied access to these therapies, especially early on in the disease cycle when treatment is more effective? It’s impossible to say, but they could potentially run into the hundreds of thousands.

A new study by the U.K.’s National Health Service and a Canadian biotech company revealed that a nitric oxide nasal spray slashed SARS-CoV-2 viral load by 95% within 24 hours and 99% within 72 hours. If further trials pan out, early treatment with a similar cheap therapeutic could cut serious cases down to almost nothing. But it doesn’t matter. The medical establishment will continue pushing the narrative that only universal vaccination will stop the virus. The media continue to hyperventilate about “cases” but ignore the fact that death rates have declined since January. When one accounts for the 38 million Americans who have survived COVID and already have antibodies, then herd immunity is already here. Data indicate that people who had COVID between January and February of 2021 and recovered have 13 times more immunity to the Delta variant than vaccines provide.

We’re at the stage where we can learn to live with COVID as we do with many other endemic diseases such as the seasonal flu. There’s no reason for fear. But the public health authorities insist that these people with natural immunity must also be vaccinated. It’s not “science.” The zero-COVID policies many governments have pursued are completely unrealistic. The virus goes where it wants. The only real solutions are patience, herd immunity and effective therapies. The time has come to stop living in fear and start treating COVID as an endemic disease that will be with us for a long time, like the seasonal flu or diabetes. Unfortunately, government authorities continue to insist they can control the situation with orders and mandates.

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All it took to find out was one phone call. But nobody at Rolling Stone had a spare dime.

Rolling Stone ‘Horse Dewormer’ Hit-Piece Debunked (ZH)

After Joe Rogan announced that he’d kicked Covid in just a few days using a cocktail of drugs, including Ivermectin – an anti-parasitic prescribed for humans for over 35 years, with over 4 billion doses administered (and most recently as a Covid-19 treatment), the left quickly started mocking Rogan for having taken a ‘horse dewormer’ due to its dual use in livestock. [..] On Friday, Rolling Stone’s Peter Wade took another stab – publishing a hit piece claiming that Oklahoma ERs were overflowing with people ‘overdosing on horse dewormer.’ It was suspect from the beginning. The report, sourced to local Oaklahoma outlet KFOR’s Katelyn Ogle, cites Oklahoma ER doctor Dr. Jason McElyea – claimed that people overdosing on ivermectin horse dewormer are causing emergency rooms to be “so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting” access to health facilities.

“As people take the drug, McElyea said patients have arrived at hospitals with negative reactions like nausea, vomiting, muscle aches, and cramping — or even loss of sight. “The scariest one that I’ve heard of and seen is people coming in with vision loss,” the doctor said.” -Rolling Stone. Except, the article provided zero evidence for McElyea’s claims, causing people to start asking questions. And while neither KFOR or Rolling Stone mention the hospital McElyea worked for, NHS Sequoyah, located in Sallisaw, Oklahoma – just issued a statement disavowing McElyea’s claims, which pops up when you visit their website. It reads:

“Although Dr. Jason McElyea is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room. With that said, Dr. McElyea has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months. NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin. This includes not treating any patients for ivermectin overdose. All patients who have visited our emergency room have received medical attention as appropriate. Our hospital has not had to turn away any patients seeking emergency care. We want to reassure our community that our staff is working hard to provide quality healthcare to all patients. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify this issue and as always, we value our community’s support.”

[..] McElyea is also listed as working at Integris Grove Hospital in Grove, OK as a general family practitioner – not in the ER. A phone call to them provided no insight as to any ivermectin overdoses, however the gentleman who answered the phone sounded quite amused. What’s more, Grove, OK – with a population of 7,129, had just 14 aggravated assaults in all of 2019 according to the FBI’s latest data. We somehow doubt that ‘gunshot victims were lining up outside the ER,’ while just 11 ivermectin related hospital cases have been reported in the entire state since the beginning of May.

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“Very little is referenced, because I can very easily find a contradictory reference to any reference I provide. For each fact, there is an equal and opposite fact.”

I Have Not Been Silenced (Malcolm Kendrick)

Thank you to the many people who have e-mailed me recently and asked if I have been silenced. I have not. I have had letters from Public Health England and the General Medical Council, informing me that I was under investigation for daring to question anything about COVID19, particularly vaccines. The good news is the investigations ended up nowhere, and were closed down. I have also had irate phone calls from doctors, telling me that I must not question vaccination and suchlike. This has been somewhat wearing and has caused me to remain silent for a while and think about things. However, I do know how to play the medical regulations game. Don’t make a statement you cannot reference from a peer-reviewed journal.

Don’t give direct advice to people over the internet. Provide facts, and do not make statements such as ‘vaccines are killing thousands of people.’ Or suchlike. Not that I ever would. My self-appointed role within the COVID19 mayhem, was to search for the truth – as far as it could be found – and to attempt to provide useful information for those who wish to read my blog. The main reason for prolonged silence, and introspection, is that I am not sure I can find the truth. I do not know if it can be found anymore. Today I am unsure what represents a fact, and what has simply been made up. A sad and scary state of affairs. This is not just true of the mainstream and the mainstream media, which has simply decided to parrot all Government and WHO statements without any critical engagement…or thought.

For example, the BBC intones that ‘In the last day, fifty people died within twenty-eight days of a positive COVID19 test…’ Or a hundred, or six. What the hell is this supposed to mean? It means nothing, it is the very definition of scientific meaninglessness. Especially when it seems that very nearly a half of those admitted to hospital with COVID19 were not admitted to hospital with COVID19. They were admitted with something else entirely, then had a positive test whilst in hospital. In short, they were not admitted to hospital with COVID19, and almost certainly did not die of COVID19. They died with a positive COVID19 test. With, not of. But the misinformation is equally a problem for those on the other side. Claims are made for the benefits of Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine that simply do not stand up to scrutiny.

Yes, I believe both drugs may provide some benefit, but not the claimed 90% reduction in deaths that I have seen trumpeted. So, I have given up on COVID19. It is a complete mess, and I feel that, without being certain of the ground under my feet, I have nothing to contribute. I too am in danger of starting to make statements that are not true. However, before leaving the area entirely, I would like to make clear some of the things I currently believe to be true, and what I do not believe to be true. If this is of any assistance to anyone. Very little is referenced, because I can very easily find a contradictory reference to any reference I provide. For each fact, there is an equal and opposite fact.

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“And that, my friends, is where we are. We didn’t get here overnight.”

The Road to Totalitarianism (CJ Hopkins)

The time for people to “wake up” is over. At this point, you either join the fight to preserve what is left of those rights, and that sovereignty, or you surrender to the “New Normal,” to global-capitalist totalitarianism. I couldn’t care less what you believe about the virus, or its mutant variants, or the experimental “vaccines.” This isn’t an abstract argument over “the science.” It is a fight … a political, ideological fight. On one side is democracy, on the other is totalitarianism. Pick a fucking side, and live with it. Anyway, here’s where we are at the moment, and how we got here, just the broad strokes. It’s August 2021, and Germany has officially banned demonstrations against the “New Normal” official ideology. Other public assemblies, like the Christopher Street Day demo, one week ago, are still allowed.

The outlawing of political opposition is a classic hallmark of totalitarian systems. It’s also a classic move by the German authorities, which will give them the pretext they need to unleash the New Normal goon squads on the demonstrators tomorrow. In Australia, the military has been deployed to enforce total compliance with government decrees … lockdowns, mandatory public obedience rituals, etc. In other words, it is de facto martial law. This is another classic hallmark of totalitarian systems. In France, restaurant and other business owners who serve “the Unvaccinated” will now be imprisoned, as will, of course, “the Unvaccinated.” The scapegoating, demonizing, and segregating of “the Unvaccinated” is happening in countries all over the world. France is just an extreme example. The scapegoating, dehumanizing, and segregating of minorities — particularly the regime’s political opponents — is another classic hallmark of totalitarian systems.

In the UK, Italy, Greece, and numerous other countries throughout the world, this pseudo-medical social-segregation system is also being introduced, in order to divide societies into “good people” (i.e., compliant) and “bad” (i.e., non-compliant). The “good people” are being given license and encouraged by the authorities and the corporate media to unleash their rage on the “the Unvaccinated,” to demand our segregation in internment camps, to openly threaten to viciously murder us. This is also a hallmark of totalitarian systems. And that, my friends, is where we are. We didn’t get here overnight. Here are just a few of the unmistakable signs along the road to totalitarianism that I have pointed out over the last 17 months.

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Xi is getting bold.

China’s Marxist “Profound Revolution” Is Here (Every)

Political developments in China have been front page news in the financial press over the past few months. Beijing’s crackdown on Ant Financial, largely dismissed by Wall Street, then spread to Didi and on to the broader sectors these championed, fin- and transport-tech; then it grew to encompass swathes of the economy, from tech to health to education to property to private equity to gaming. In terms of tech, there are now sharp limits on IPOs in the US (mirrored from the US side) and new algo/pricing and data regulations that require Beijing to hold on to it; the private tuition field was made non-profit; there has been a sharp reduction in credit to property developers along with the official message that “houses are for living in, not speculation”, and rental increase caps of 5% annually; under-18s have been limited to just 3 hours of computer gaming a week, in allotted slots; and private equity has been cut off from residential investment.

Beijing has also called for curbs on “excessive” income, and for the wealthy and profitable firms “to give back more to society.” (Tencent already pledged $15bn.) This is also matched by: a social campaign against excessive business drinking, “unpatriotic” karaoke songs, and celebrity culture; ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ made obligatory at all schools and universities; and, as Bloomberg puts it, controls on social media financial commentary – “China to Cleanse Online Content that ‘Bad Mouths’ its Economy”. This has all taken place under the slogan of “Common Prosperity”. Going further, commentary reposted by Chinese state media on 30 August stressed these changes are a “profound revolution” sweeping the country, warning anyone who resisted would face punishment.

It added: “This is a return from the capital group to the masses of the people, and this is a transformation from capital-centred to people-centred,” marking a return to the original intention of the Communist Party, and “Therefore, this is a political change, and the people are becoming the main body of this change again, and all those who block this people-centred change will be discarded.” Notably, a WeChat blogger originally made the post, but it was then reposted by major state-run media outlets such as the People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, PLA Daily, CCTV, China Youth Daily, and China News Service. The author also wrote that high housing prices and medical costs will become the next targets of the campaign –which was backed by an official announcement on 1 September– and that the government needed to “combat the chaos of big capital,” adding “The capital market will no longer become a paradise for capitalists to get rich overnight… and public opinion will no longer be in a position worshiping Western culture.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Dave Collum: “Yeah. It had nothing to do with those last 2,000 Whoppers and 2,500 bags of Funions…”

Do read the story below the photo.

 

 

God

 

 

 

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Jul 072016
 
 July 7, 2016  Posted by at 9:59 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  Comments Off on Debt Rattle July 7 2016


Harris&Ewing Childs Restaurant, Washington, DC 1918

The Eurozone Is Ersatz Deutschland (David McWilliams)
I’m in Awe at How Fast Deutsche Bank is Coming Unglued (WS)
“When Deutsche Bank Goes To Single Digits People Will Start To Panic” (ZH)
To Save Italian Banks, The EU Will Have To Bend Some Rules (BBG Ed.)
Populist Politicians Take On Italy’s Massive Debt Pile (BBG)
Italy May Spur Systemic Bank Crisis: SocGen (BBG)
Italy’s Bad Loan Woes Tiny Compared To Europe’s Derivative Problem – Renzi (R.)
From Brexit to the Future (Stiglitz)
Finance Insiders: The UK Won’t Really Go (Pol.)
China’s Innovation Economy A Real Estate Bubble In Disguise? (R.)
Bill Gross Calls Sovereign Bonds Too Risky (BBG)
Voodoo Central Banking Is A Bad Idea (BBG)
US June Truck Orders Down 34% vs Year Ago (R.)
The Rock Movie Plot ‘May Have Inspired MI6 Source’s Iraqi Weapons Claim’ (G.)
Putin Warns of War: ‘I Don’t Know How to Get Through to You People’ (RI)
Crazy – A Story Of Debt (Grant WIlliams)

 

 

Williams points out what I have many times: the EU’s problem -and the one that will undo it- is that Germany gets to call the shots every time and all of the time, and “the rest of the countries are little more than policy eunuchs..”

The Eurozone Is Ersatz Deutschland (David McWilliams)

Of course, the main player in all this will be Germany. Germany calls the shots. Over the past five years, the pretence of a European Germany has given way to the reality of a German Europe. This is the new deal. As a result of this, the Eurozone is Ersatz Deutschland, where the rest of the countries are little more than policy eunuchs, emasculated by German fiscal straightjackets and German creditor obsessions. Again, if you doubt this, watch the ongoing implosion of the Italian banking system, which will dwarf even the great Irish banking crisis. Italy wants to recapitalise its banks using government money because it fears a complete collapse of its crippled economy. Germany is saying no. As always, German decisions reflect the interest of German industry.

This is entirely understandable. It means that the interests of German carmakers that sell tens of thousands of cars to the UK every year will influence the attitude of German politicians towards the deal that Britain gets. Already Angela Merkel is urging the Commission to back off and give the British time to sort themselves out. So because of German industrial interests, Italy, the friend with the broken banking system, will be treated harshly by Germany, while the UK, now the putative political enemy, will be treated more favourably. In short, the anti-EU Brits will get a better hearing from the Germans than the pro-EU Italians. It is this apparent mistreatment of so-called allies that initially drove Brexit and is driving Marine Le Pen’s support in France and will determine the background noise to the Italian general election later this year.

All this also puts Germany on a collision course with the EU institutions that are seeking to punish the UK for the temerity of Brexit. Germany will look to get the Brits the most access to EU market in the same way as Germany shouted loudly about Vladimir Putin’s annexation of bits of Ukraine but still took Russia’s oil and gas. This is Realpolitik – and the Commission had better get used to it.

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Will Germany prop up Deutsche even when it won’t allow Italy to prop up its banks?

I’m in Awe at How Fast Deutsche Bank is Coming Unglued (WS)

Deutsche Bank – “the most important net contributor to systemic risks,” as the IMF put it last week after a lag of several years – is having a rough time. Shares dropped 4.2% today to close at a new three-decade low of €11.63, down 48% since July 31 last year, lower even than the low during the doom-and-gloom days of the euro debt crisis and the Global Financial Crisis. It’s not the only European bank in trouble. Credit Suisse dropped 1.7% today to CHF 9.92, another multi-decade low, down 63% since July 31. Other European banks are getting mauled too. The European Stoxx 600 banking index dropped 3% today to 117.69, approaching the Financial Crisis low of March 2009.

If July 31, 2015, keeps showing up, it’s because this was the propitious day when Draghi’s harebrained experiment with negative interest rates and massive QE came unglued, when European stocks, and particularly European bank stocks began to crash. Deutsche Bank is so shaky that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble found it necessary to stick his neck out and explain to Bloomberg in February that he has “no concerns about Deutsche Bank.” Finance ministers don’t say this sort of thing about healthy banks. At the time, CEO John Cryan – whose main job these days is propping up Deutsche Bank with his rhetoric – explained ostensibly to frazzled employees that the bank’s position was “absolutely rock-solid, given our strong capital and risk position.”

Days later, he followed up his rhetoric with a stunning ruse: On February 12, the bank announced that it would buy back $5.4 billion of its own bonds, including some issued only a month earlier. “The bank is using market conditions to buy back these bonds at attractive prices and to cut debt,” CFO Marcus Schenck said at the time. “By buying them back below their issuance value, the bank is making a profit. The bank is also using its financial strength to provide liquidity to bond investors in a difficult market environment.” Shares soared 12% on the spot! Its bonds rocketed higher. Even its contingent convertible bonds, the infamous CoCo bonds, though they weren’t part of the buyback plan, bounced.

For example, its €1.75 billion of 6% CoCo notes soared from a record low of 70 cents on the euro on February 9 to 87 cents by March – a 24% move! The ruse had worked! During the miracle rally, short sellers got their heads handed to them. But it was one of the silliest, most desperate ways to prop up shares and bonds. And now the bond-buyback miracle-nonsense rally has collapsed, with shares at a new multi-decade low, and with bonds swooning. This is what these 6% CoCo notes did: they plunged 5.7% today to 75 cents on the euro. Nearly the entire bond-buy-back miracle-nonsense rally has re-collapsed…

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“..you’ll see someone say, ‘Someone is going to have to do something’.”

“When Deutsche Bank Goes To Single Digits People Will Start To Panic” (ZH)

Following today’s Fed minutes release, Jeff Gundlach had a far less “uncertain” message: “Things are shaky and feeling dangerous,” Gundlach told Reuters in a telephone interview. It’s not just stocks that Gundlach was not too excited about, he also had some choice words about buying Treasuries here. “You’re seeing people who hated the ‘2%’ 10-year suddenly loving it at a 1.38-1.39% revisit of the all-time low closing yield,” Gundlach said. “If you buy 10-year Treasuries now, I would say, it is a terrible trade location. In fact, it is the worst trade location in the history of the 10-year Treasury.”

True, just like buying stocks less than 2% from all time highs, however what Gundlach failed to mention is that those who are buying Treasurys here are not doing it for the yield (or lack thereof on more than $11 trillion in notional), they are simply doing so to frontrun even more central bank purchases now that the monetary spigots have once again been activated as “confused” central banks around the world have just one trick left up their sleeve – to monetize even more debt in hopes of pushing every last investor into risk assets. The DoubleLine bond king also had some choice words about Europe’s banking crisis: “Banks are dying and policymakers don’t know what to do,” Gundlach said. “Watch Deutsche Bank shares go to single digits and people will start to panic… you’ll see someone say, ‘Someone is going to have to do something’.”

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But it can’t bend rules only for Italy, that’s another Pandora’s box.

To Save Italian Banks, The EU Will Have To Bend Some Rules (BBG Ed.)

Italy’s slow-motion banking crisis is getting worse, and if it isn’t stopped, it could cause system-wide damage across the euro area and beyond. To contain this danger, the European Union must be willing to bend some rules. Shares in Italy’s third-largest lender, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, are down about 75% this year and trading at one-tenth of book value. A ban on short-selling the bank’s stock was imposed on Wednesday. Monte dei Paschi is only one of a group of Italian banks beset with 360 billion euros ($398 billion) of nonperforming loans; that’s some 20% of Italy’s GDP. Banking crises in Spain and Ireland were rooted in real-estate bubbles, but Italy’s stems from a culture of cronyism, poor governance and shoddy lending.

The banks’ sickness has hurt the broader economy, too: As borrowers defaulted, banks withheld credit, dragging down growth. Reforming Italy’s banking culture is the job of years, but short-term action is needed right now to halt the panic. The simplest approach would be to sequester impaired loans in a state-supported “bad bank” – along the lines of the ones used by Spain and Ireland. A stabilized banking industry could then resume its vital economic function of supporting investment. After Greece’s financial debacle, though, the EU adopted rules requiring a failing bank’s shareholders and creditors to shoulder much of the cost of any rescue – to be “bailed in,” as it’s called. That’s a good idea in principle. In Italy, it’s close to impossible politically, because a third of bank bonds are held by households.

The result has been a characteristic EU muddle of half-baked answers and hoping for the best. A scheme to attract private capital and securitize bad loans has been tried but hasn’t worked. Confidence kept on deteriorating. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is doubtless looking to save his political skin, but he’s right that Italy needs more freedom of action than EU rules allow. Renzi has staked his job on an October referendum on constitutional reform, one that polls show he could lose. If that happens, the euroskeptic, populist Five Star Movement might take the country in a new direction not to Europe’s liking – least of all now, coming on the heels of Brexit.

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The use of the word ‘populist‘ is up there with ‘migrant’ in trying to paint a picture that is not real. Beppe Grillo has nothing to do with Farage or Le Pen or any of these people, other than he wants Italy out of the eurozone (and EU). Populist could simply mean: for normal people, but that’s not the connotation it gets, it’s utilized in a much more sinister way. On purpose.

Populist Politicians Take On Italy’s Massive Debt Pile (BBG)

The Rome Olympics of 1960 marked the rebound of the Italian capital after years of war and reconstruction, an affirmation of the country’s renaissance and the city’s emergence as a symbol of dolce vita insouciance. Rome is still paying the bill, and the new mayor, Virginia Raggi, is sick of it. The city has roughly €13.6 billion ($15.2 billion) in debt and more than 12,000 creditors—though the pile is so complex no one really knows how much is owed to whom. Rome faces outstanding bills for operating its 61-year-old metro system, hauling trash, and running a network of unprofitable pharmacies that compete with private shops. The courts are grappling with hundreds of lawsuits over unpaid debts going back 50 years for land expropriated to build hospitals, streets, and other city projects—including some debts connected to the 1960 games, former Mayor Ignazio Marino has said.

The average interest rate: 5%, at a time when the Italian government is issuing 10-year bonds at 1.5% annually. “We can’t keep paying such high interest just because nobody bothered to renegotiate the debt,” Raggi, who was elected on June 19, told the RAI television network. Raggi, a 37-year-old lawyer and Rome’s first female mayor, has ridden a wave of frustration with Italy’s old guard—especially its handling of the economy—to one of the country’s most powerful political jobs. Her rise mirrors the growing strength of her party, the Five Star Movement, founded in 2009 by Beppe Grillo. Five Star (the stars are meant to represent water, environment, transport, development, and energy, though the party mostly focuses on fighting corruption and cutting regulations) has grown into a formidable rival to the Democratic Party of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

[..] Few would argue that Italy doesn’t desperately need a solution to its debt woes. The country owes creditors €2.2 trillion, or more than 130% of GDP—a ratio higher than any EU country’s other than Greece. High taxes aimed at paying down the debt stifle growth, which reduces the government’s ability to fund new programs. At the same time, Italy’s banks hold more of their country’s sovereign debt than lenders in any other euro area nation, and they’re burdened with €360 billion in bad loans, more than a quarter of the total held by euro area financial institutions. Government attempts to load these assets into a “bad bank” have foundered because of European rules against state aid to banks. As a result some institutions could face insolvency.

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No, no no, I kid you not: in this Bloomberg video, the reporter asks SocGen Chairman Bini Smaghi: “Do you get a sense that markets are orderly, that markets are rational at the moment?” And he responds: “I mean, you have uncertainty, you don’t know what’s going to happen…”

Orderly and rational? You f**king kidding me? There are no markets, you bleeding doodles. And you’re not supposed to know beforehand what’s going to happen either. But you f**king do anyway, because central banks keep on feeding losers like you and there is no price discovery anywhere to be found. It’s insane to see how fast the new normal becomes normal. But these wankers make their present profits at the cost of you and me. Let’s put a halt to that. These people have no connection to us. But they should.

Italy May Spur Systemic Bank Crisis: SocGen (BBG)

Italy’s banking crisis could spread to the rest of Europe, and rules limiting state aid to lenders should be reconsidered to prevent greater upheaval, Societe Generale SA Chairman Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said. “The whole banking market is under pressure,” the former ECB executive board member said. “We adopted rules on public money; these rules must be assessed in a market that has a potential crisis to decide whether some suspension needs to be applied.” With Italian banks weighed down by about €360 billion in soured loans, the government has been sounding out regulators on ways to shore up lenders amid a renewed selloff in the wake of the British vote to leave the EU.

The government would invoke an EU rule allowing temporary state aid if regulatory stress tests uncover a shortfall at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, a person with knowledge of the discussions said Tuesday. European banking stocks resumed their descent as policy makers disagreed and sometimes issued contradictory statements about what may come next. Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, slid 6.1% to its lowest level since at least 1989. Societe Generale, France’s second-biggest bank, which Bini Smaghi has chaired for just over a year, fell 1.8% as of 2 p.m. in Paris. Italian Finance Undersecretary Pier Paolo Baretta said in an interview on RAI radio Wednesday morning that a “technical solution” on Monte Paschi could be hours away, before issuing a statement an hour later that said “no intervention is expected in the next few hours.”

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, speaking at a news conference in Berlin hours later, said his Italian counterpart Pier Carlo Padoan told him that Italy intends to stick to the banking-union rules.

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He’s talking about Deutsche. Renzi’s desperate to save his skin. And he WILL challenge Berlin to do it. They will respond by making Italy Greece Redux.

Italy’s Bad Loan Woes Tiny Compared To Europe’s Derivative Problem – Renzi (R.)

The difficulties facing Italian banks over their bad loans are miniscule by comparison with the problems some European banks face over their derivatives, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on Wednesday. Italian bank shares have tumbled in recent days and are the worst performers among European lenders this year on investor concerns over how they will handle some €360 billion of bad and non-performing loans. Speaking at a joint news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, Renzi said other European banks had much bigger problems than their Italian counterparts. “If this non-performing loan problem is worth one, the question of derivatives at other banks, at big banks, is worth one hundred. This is the ratio: one to one hundred,” Renzi said.

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Stiglitz doesn’t have much. Disappointing?!

From Brexit to the Future (Stiglitz)

Digesting the full implications of the United Kingdom’s “Brexit” referendum will take Britain, Europe, and the world a long time. The most profound consequences will, of course, depend on the European Union’s response to the UK’s withdrawal. Most people initially assumed that the EU would not “cut off its nose to spite its face”: after all, an amicable divorce seems to be in everyone’s interest. But the divorce – as many do – could become messy. The benefits of trade and economic integration between the UK and EU are mutual, and if the EU took seriously its belief that closer economic integration is better, its leaders would seek to ensure the closest ties possible under the circumstances.

But Jean-Claude Juncker, the architect of Luxembourg’s massive corporate tax avoidance schemes and now President of the European Commission, is taking a hard line: “Out means out,” he says. That kneejerk reaction is perhaps understandable, given that Juncker may be remembered as the person who presided over the EU’s initial stage of dissolution. He argues that, to deter other countries from leaving, the EU must be uncompromising, offering the UK little more than what it is guaranteed under World Trade Organization agreements. In other words, Europe is not to be held together by its benefits, which far exceed the costs. Economic prosperity, the sense of solidarity, and the pride of being a European are not enough, according to Juncker.

No, Europe is to be held together by threats, intimidation, and fear. That position ignores a lesson seen in both the Brexit vote and America’s Republican Party primary: large portions of the population have not been doing well. The neoliberal agenda of the last four decades may have been good for the top 1%, but not for the rest. I had long predicted that this stagnation would eventually have political consequences. That day is now upon us.

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Hey, their jobs depend on it…

Finance Insiders: The UK Won’t Really Go (Pol.)

Finance industry insiders still don’t think a full Brexit will actually happen. Only 37% of participants in POLITICO’s Economic Caucus, which surveyed an elite group of 63 business and economic leaders, said that Britain will exit the European Union following the June 23 referendum. An overwhelming majority said the U.K. won’t cut its ties altogether — a finding that reflects the finance community’s optimism, delusion or a little of both. Britain will suffer much more than the rest of the Continent and will fall into recession following the referendum, said the caucus, which includes EU ambassadors, European Commission Vice President Kristalina Georgieva, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, and OECD and European Central Bank economists.

More than three-quarters of those surveyed said the U.K. should brace itself for a major economic slowdown as uncertainty hits “confidence, consumer spending and investment,” whereas they predicted the wider European economy will fare much better. Britain scored “an astonishingly avoidable own goal,” said one member of the caucus, all of whom spoke on condition their remarks not be individually attributed. “The uncertainty [while exit negotiations take place] will particularly hit the British services market, which is the strong point of the U.K. economy at the moment,” said one caucus member, adding that “anti-foreigner sentiment, if not kept in check, might persuade many skilled workers to leave the U.K.” Reports of hate crime in London are up by more than 50% since Britons voted by a margin of 52-48% to leave the EU, police figures show.

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Bubbles are all China has left. Nothing new there.

China’s Innovation Economy A Real Estate Bubble In Disguise? (R.)

The Chinese government’s call to the nation to build an innovation-driven economy from the top down has sparked a rush by local governments to construct new buildings in the name of supporting creativity. Innovation centers have been popping up around the country and are set to more than double to nearly 5,000 in the next five years, according to internet research firm iiMedia. The only problem for local governments; entrepreneurs are not moving in. Many centers are in small Chinese cities or towns, not ideal locations for attracting startups. There is no local market for their product, no local ecosystem of suppliers and fellow entrepreneurs and centers generally provide only basic amenities, such as a desk and a telephone. They lack the financial, technical or marketing expertise that many startups need.

Most incubators have occupancy rates of no more than 40%, iiMedia says. The result: like steel mills, theme parks and housing before them, the country now faces a glut of innovation centers as another top-down policy backfires to leave white-elephant projects and a further buildup of debt. “The risk of a bubble is extremely large,” said Shi Jiqiang, a partner at Leilai Management, which runs day-to-day operations at a startup base in the city of Tianjin, near Beijing. “This is both a test for government and for the managers of startup spaces … there aren’t enough entrepreneurs.” [..] Beijing argues its development model that worked so well for infrastructure and real estate, powering the country through the global financial crisis, can build successful, high-tech startups.

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Supernova revisited.

Bill Gross Calls Sovereign Bonds Too Risky (BBG)

Bill Gross said sovereign bond yields at record lows aren’t worth the risk. “The sovereign bonds are not up my alley,” Gross, who built the world’s biggest bond fund at PIMCO and is now at Denver-based Janus Capital, said on Bloomberg Television Wednesday. “It’s too risky.” Low yields mean bonds are especially vulnerable because a small increase can bring a large decline in price, he said. Yields in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia pushed to all-time lows Wednesday, while those in Germany and Japan dropped to unprecedented levels below zero. The average yield on the bonds in Bank of America’s World Sovereign Bond Index this week dropped below 1% for the first time, based on data going back to 2006.

Bonds are rallying on speculation the British vote to leave the European Union will damp global economic growth, driving demand for the safest assets. The Federal Reserve is losing confidence in its need to raise interest rates as officials face rising uncertainty about the outlook for growth at home and abroad, the minutes of its most recent meeting issued Wednesday indicate. [..] Gross warned almost a month ago central bank policies that pushed trillions of dollars into bonds with negative interest rates will eventually backfire violently. “This is a supernova that will explode one day,” he wrote on Twitter.

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But it’s all they have left.

Voodoo Central Banking Is A Bad Idea (BBG)

Desperate times, we’re told, demand desperate measures, and there may be no more desperate country anywhere in the world than Japan. Even as policymakers struggle to boost growth and inflation, post-Brexit turmoil has caused the yen to strengthen, slamming Japanese exporters. BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda is coming under more and more pressure to expand his already crazy-loose monetary policy. With few options available, he might be forced to push key interest rates even deeper into negative territory when the BOJ meets later this month. Proponents of Kuroda’s negative-rate policy, introduced in January, contend that the strategy is transferring profits from big banks to needy households, lowering borrowing costs for companies, encouraging more risk-taking in investment and propping up real estate values.

Kuroda in June proclaimed that negative rates were “having a positive impact on the real economy.” Yet there are already ample indications that negative rates are failing to achieve their main goals of spurring growth and inflation. And more broadly, the fact that central bankers have resorted to negative rates at all is a signal of just how narrow-minded and counterproductive the approach to restoring global growth has become. Contrary to Kuroda’s optimistic words, Japan sunk even deeper into deflation in May. The IMF has slashed its 2016 forecast for Japan’s GDP growth to 0.5%. Perhaps Japan’s negative-rate policy needs more time to work its magic. Maybe Japanese companies and consumers, knowing how desperate Kuroda is, are holding out for even lower borrowing costs in coming months.

Yet Europe’s experience suggests otherwise. Even though the ECB introduced negative rates two years ago, growth in the euro zone looked to be slowing even before Brexit. Inflation is barely expected to inch back into positive territory in June, at 0.1%. It’s at least as likely that the entire strategy is flawed. The purpose of loose monetary policy is to stimulate economies by encouraging greater borrowing. That, however, assumes that investors see sound economic opportunities that make taking on debt worthwhile. Apparently, not many Japanese feel that way. [..] In the first quarter, according to a recent report by Capital Economics, bank lending to Japan’s private sector grew at the slowest pace since 2014, while the amount of corporate bonds outstanding actually shrank.

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But we’ll bury that under blubber like: “”The Class 8 market is stuck in a holding pattern, at the bottom end of this cycle…”

US June Truck Orders Down 34% vs Year Ago (R.)

U.S. orders for heavy duty trucks in June were down 34% from the same month last year to a four-year low as trucking firms were holding off on buying new 18-wheelers amid a weak freight environment, according to preliminary data released by a freight transportation forecaster on Wednesday. “The Class 8 market is stuck in a holding pattern, at the bottom end of this cycle,” Don Ake, vice president for commercial vehicles at FTR said in a statement. “Fleets are cautious as freight demand has cooled off this year,” he said. Preliminary data showed 13,000 units ordered in June, the lowest monthly total since July 2012 and the worst June since 2009. FTR said that all truck manufacturers were equally affected by the month’s weak order numbers.

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Your first reaction is ‘you can’t make this up’. But then you realize that’s exactly what somebody did. And MI6 actually discussed the movie and its plot in 2002, but Britain went on to help kill 600,000 Iraqi’s anyway.

The Rock Movie Plot ‘May Have Inspired MI6 Source’s Iraqi Weapons Claim’ (G.)

An allegation in an MI6 report about Iraq’s supposed chemical weapons capability before the 2003 war to remove Saddam Hussein appeared to have been lifted from a Hollywood film, according to the Chilcot report. A section of the inquiry’s findings about the build-up to the conflict in the autumn of 2002 found that MI6, formally known as the Secret Intelligence Service or SIS, feared a source might have taken inspiration from The Rock, a 1996 thriller starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. The report details how MI6 sent information to “a small number of very senior readers”, including Tony Blair and the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, on 11 and 23 September 2002. Based on what MI6 called “a new source on trial with direct access”, this alleged that Saddam’s government had accelerated the production of chemical and biological agents, and in particular that chemical agents might be carried in glass containers.

After some discussion on the reliability of the new source, in early October MI6 was questioned directly about this idea. The report says: “It was pointed out that glass containers were not typically used in chemical munitions; and that a popular movie [The Rock] has inaccurately depicted nerve agents being carried in glass beads or spheres.” MI6 accepted this possible flaw to the intelligence, the report adds: “The questions about the use of glass containers for chemical agents and the similarity of the description to those portrayed in The Rock had been recognised by SIS. There were some precedents for the use of glass containers but the points would be pursued when further material became available.”

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“The World Is Being Pulled In An Irreversible Direction..”

Putin Warns of War: ‘I Don’t Know How to Get Through to You People’ (RI)

Vladimir Putin has finally taken the kid gloves off. The Russian president was meeting with foreign journalists at the conclusion of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 17th, when he left no one in any doubt that the world is headed down a course which could lead to nuclear war. Putin railed against the journalists for their “tall tales” in blindly repeating lies and misinformation provided to them by the United States on its anti-ballistic missile systems being constructed in Eastern Europe. He pointed out that since the Iran nuclear deal, the claim the system is to protect against Iranian missiles has been exposed as a lie. The journalists were informed that within a few years, Russia predicted the US would be able to extend the range of the system to 1000 km.

At that point, Russia’s nuclear potential, and thus the nuclear balance between the US and Russia, would be placed in jeopardy. Putin completely lost patience with the journalists, berating them for lazily helping to accelerate a nuclear confrontation by repeating US propaganda. He virtually pleaded with the western media, for the sake of the world, to change their line: We know year by year what’s going to happen, and they know that we know. It’s only you that they tell tall tales to, and you buy it, and spread it to the citizens of your countries. You people in turn do not feel a sense of the impending danger – this is what worries me. How do you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction? While they pretend that nothing is going on. I don’t know how to get through to you anymore.

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Must watch.

Crazy – A Story Of Debt (Grant WIlliams)

This is a story about debt – 2008 was the crystallization of that, the years since have been the denial of it, and the years to come will be the resolution. Grant Williams, founder & publisher of the ‘Things That Make You Go Hmmm…’ research service, and co-founder of Real Vision TV, brings us an eye-opening presentation titled Crazy, where he puts into perspective the extraordinary levels of global debt and unprecedented monetary policy, and reminds us that the many factors that led to the ‘08 crisis are still very much present.

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