Month: June 2016

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

In the end, the elites will be overthrown and a power vacuum will form.  The transition period will be extremely difficult as the elites will fight their demise to the end.  For you see, they care nothing for you they care about their power and control.  Nevertheless, rulers have always only ruled by the will (or apathy) of the people and when the people become overly taxed and abused they always rebel.  The main thing to think about is what kind of society do we want to rebuild from the ashes.  I am of the view that it must be a return to the Constitution and an elimination of central banking power and secrecy.  Let’s not fall for a demagogue or be pushed into a war when things are at their worst.

 

– From my 2010 post: The Elites Have Lost The Right to Rule

While the Trump and Brexit movements are indisputably fascinating merely as public indictments against the greedy and criminal status quo, they are equally meaningful from another perspective.

The reaction from many in the media to both Trump and Brexit have betrayed their ulterior motives by exposing dangerous, antidemocratic biases. Now this has nothing to do with whether or not you are in favor of either Trump or Brexit. Personally, I think Trump is a very unwelcome reaction to the destructive trends going on around us. He’s extraordinary divisive (even amongst people who hate the establishment), has no regard for civil liberties, and displays obvious authoritarian tendencies. Despite this point of view, I don’t focus obsessively on all the negative aspects of Trump in my posts, because I acknowledge that Trump is a symptom of a much larger problem, not the root cause of it. Dealing with symptoms can keep things settled for a time, but the problem will invariably return in far worse form should the underlying causes remain unresolved. People are acting as if it can’t possibly get worse than Trump. Believe me, it can get a lot worse.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about root causes. Donald Trump and Brexit are direct responses to a horribly rigged, parasitic and phony global economy. I’ve been writing about this dangerous reality and warning about its unpleasant inevitable outcomes for over half a decade. It’s not just me of course. Countless people have been doing it, including self-aware individuals from the 0.01%. Recall Nick Hanaeur’s article which I highlighted in the 2014 post: The Pitchforks are Coming…– A Dire Warning from a Member of the 0.01%.

He warned:

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

Nick, I and the millions of others who are angry about this destructive system aren’t crazy. Nor are we racists or ignoramuses. We’re merely people who pay attention and are willing to admit the obvious. The system is rigged and the current crop of “elites” rigged it. Take for example some data from a recent Market-Edison Research poll:

The latest Marketplace-Edison Research poll shows Americans’ stress over their personal financial situation building even before Brexit.  We asked basic questions about, for example, household budgets, family vacations and paying bills. Americans’ responses showed that, in May, our country’s anxiety level climbed to its highest point since the beginning of our poll.

Here are a couple of things Americans told us:

• More of them are losing sleep over their financial situation: 32 percent now compared with 28 percent in September 2015.

• They are less confident that they could find a new job within six months if they were to lose their current job: 41 percent are very confident about finding a new job now compared with 46 percent in September 2015.

On questions about trade and economic fairness — issues that British voters debated in the U.K. before Brexit — and that are resonating in the U.S. 2016 presidential campaign:

• A majority of Americans — 55 percent — think the decline of manufacturing jobs is more due to trade deals than natural changes in the economy.

• Americans from across the economic and political spectrum — 71 percent of them — think the U.S. economic system is “rigged” in favor of certain groups.

Go ahead and read that again. 71% of Americans from across the economic and political spectrum think the U.S. economy is rigged. The truth is they don’t think the economy is rigged, they know it is. This knowledge coupled with an understanding that the status quo will do everything it can to keep it that way, is precisely why so many people are grasping for something, anything to potentially blow up the status quo irrespective of any negative consequences. The people aren’t to blame for this situation, the elites are.

So Trump and Brexit represent the sorts of outcomes that anyone paying the slightest amount of attention should not be surprised by. The volcano that is the average citizenry was bound to erupt, and erupt it has in 2016. As such, you’d hope those trusted media pundits and journalists who are anti-Trump and anti-Brexit would spend a little time reflecting upon what exactly got us to this point. Incredibly, many of them are doing absolutely nothing of the sort. It’s just like all the people who said after the 2008 financial crisis hit that “nobody could have seen it coming.” Well a lot of people saw it coming, just like a lot of people predicted the burgeoning political mayhem.

Therein lies the rub. This is all about power and stature, and the current status quo and their henchmen/henchwomen know that they can never admit they were wrong about anything. To admit they were wrong would mean to ultimately lose their positions and influence. They would do anything to preserve it, which is precisely why so many of these so-called “thought leaders” are panicking now. They are used to getting away with anything, including propagandizing an entire country to war, torture and countless crimes against humanity. Some of them are rightly terrified that their days of unaccountable punditry could be coming to an end. Thus, they lash out against the public for rejecting their “expert” wisdom.

I think it’s once again important to take a look back at the immediate post-financial crisis period. How many of the people who saw the crisis coming were put into prominent positions of power within the Obama administration? I can’t think of one. On the other hand, I very vividly recall the day Obama announced that Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner would be brought into prominent government positions. His team assembled, Obama went to work by bellowing propaganda, throwing money at the financial companies that blew up the planet, and pretending the crisis was an act of God. As as result, the status quo maintained its position.

The exact same thing is happening again right now, but this time members of the media/punditry feel personally under attack. Most of them are incapable of admitting that their careers exist solely as a condition of constantly glorifying and promoting the agenda of the rich and powerful, while pretending the rest of the country doesn’t exist. Perhaps if the media had done its job all these years, the citizenry would’ve been far more informed and halted some of these trends before they reached the terminal stage. But the media as whole didn’t do that, and here we are.

As such, many journalists and pundits are furiously scrambling to put the blame somewhere else. It’s all Trump’s fault. Or it’s the crazy racists, the poor, the uneducated, as if all these populist movements spontaneously emerged out of some magical revolutionary vacuum just like they told us the financial crisis did. One thing these people never, ever do is reflect upon how we actually got to this place.

Of course, I don’t want to overly generalize. There have been many excellent and introspective articles written in the wake of Trump and Brexit, as there should be. We shouldn’t be in a position where we have to applaud the good ones simply because there are so many bad ones, yet that’s the world we live in.

In this regard, I want to highlight two very distinct articles contemplating Brexit which I read today. One demonstrates media at its best, while the other perfectly characterizes all that is wrong with the status quo and its sycophantic minions.

First, the good. Ellie Mae O’Hagan wrote an article for the Guardian titled, When Political Leaders are Selected via Elitism Not Talent, You Get Chaos. Here are a few excerpts:

This total incompetence, this craven self-interest, this embarrassing fecklessness is what you get when you live in a country where political leaders are mainly selected via elitism rather than talent: 33% of MPs went to private school, and nearly a quarter went to Oxbridge. This doesn’t just end with members of parliament either: 43% of newspaper columnists and 26% of BBC executives were all educated privately. Oxbridge graduates make up 57% of permanent secretaries, 50% of diplomats, 47% of newspaper columnists, 44% of public body chairs and 33% of BBC executives.

 

It’s no surprise that people feel alienated by politics and locked out of democracy, and view the people who represent them as out of touch. Indeed, Brexit should be seen as an expression of that as much as anything else. But there is less discussion about what this elitism means for the quality of people who actually end up leading us and formulating political discourse. And this seismic crisis should change that, because it reveals that a lot of these people are basically defunct – obsolete in this new era of crisis.

 

Think of what has been happening in this country since 2008. In mainstream politics there has been virtually no analysis of what caused the financial crisis, no attempts to address the underlying structural problems in the economy, no retribution for the people that caused it, no serious attempt to stem widening inequality, no support for the people who lost their jobs during the recession, no viable solution to a worsening housing crisis, no hope for a generation of young people entering into an unstable, precarious economy. 

 

This is not about individual politicians. Indeed, there are many who are talented – Ruth Davidson, Nicola Sturgeon, Caroline Lucas to name a few. But the political class as a whole, and how it functions alongside its outer circle of pundits, lobbyists, policymakers and so on, has proven itself to be woefully unqualified to cope with crisis as well as being utterly unable to comprehend the country it is supposed to be governing.

Now compare that to the title of an article written by James Traub at Foreign Policy. His piece, published yesterday, comes with a headline so mind-bogglingly detached and clownish you’d think it came from the The Onion. It’s called: It’s Time for the Elites to Rise Up Against the Ignorant Masses.

Unfortunately, that’s not a joke, and it gets even better. Check out the caption below the headline, which I’m sure Mr. Traub was especially proud of.

In writing this, Mr. Traub is explicitly saying that the 71% of Americans who think the economic system is rigged are merely “mindlessly angry.” What Mr. Traub is doing is merely spewing propaganda to achieve what Aldous Huxley explained in the following quote: “the propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that other certain sets of people are human.”

By calling the masses “mindless,” he is dehumanizing them and therefore providing intellectual justification for continued status quo abuse of the general public. It’s a downright evil strategy to protect himself and secure his position going forward. His attitude perfectly reflects exactly why society needs to relegate people like him to the fringes, as opposed to positions of prominence and influence. Nevertheless, for some perspective about who’s actually “mindless,” let’s examine a few of his pearls of wisdom. Mr Traub writes:

One of the most brazen features of the Brexit vote was the utter repudiation of the bankers and economists and Western heads of state who warned voters against the dangers of a split with the European Union. British Prime Minister David Cameron thought that voters would defer to the near-universal opinion of experts; that only shows how utterly he misjudged his own people.

 

Both the Conservative and the Labour parties in Britain are now in crisis. The British have had their day of reckoning; the American one looms. If Donald Trump loses, and loses badly (forgive me my reckless optimism, but I believe he will) the Republican Party may endure a historic split between its know-nothing base and its K Street/Chamber of Commerce leadership class.

 

The schism we see opening before us is not just about policies, but about reality. The Brexit forces won because cynical leaders were prepared to cater to voters’ paranoia, lying to them about the dangers of immigration and the costs of membership in the EU. Some of those leaders have already begun to admit that they were lying. Donald Trump has, of course, set a new standard for disingenuousness and catering to voters’ fears, whether over immigration or foreign trade or anything else he can think of. The Republican Party, already rife with science-deniers and economic reality-deniers, has thrown itself into the embrace of a man who fabricates realities that ignorant people like to inhabit.

 

Did I say “ignorant”? Yes, I did. It is necessary to say that people are deluded and that the task of leadership is to un-delude them. Is that “elitist”? Maybe it is; maybe we have become so inclined to celebrate the authenticity of all personal conviction that it is now elitist to believe in reason, expertise, and the lessons of history. If so, the party of accepting reality must be prepared to take on the party of denying reality, and its enablers among those who know better. If that is the coming realignment, we should embrace it.

What’s so incredible about this piece is his instinctual and self-important condemnation of the “ignorant masses” for a variety of offenses, while failing to recognize the gigantic elephant-like ignoramus in the room: himself. After all, he’s basically saying everything would be fine and dandy if it weren’t for these mindless citizens meddling with elitist plans. He believes this nonsense so strongly, the headline of his article is essentially a call to arms for the elites against the pubic.

Moreover, I have to ask: Did Mr. Traub see all of these emergent trends back in 2010? If not, why not? I sure as heck did, and I’m nobody special. Recall what I wrote in, The Elites Have Lost The Right to Rule:

In the end, the elites will be overthrown and a power vacuum will form.  The transition period will be extremely difficult as the elites will fight their demise to the end.  For you see, they care nothing for you they care about their power and control.  Nevertheless, rulers have always only ruled by the will (or apathy) of the people and when the people become overly taxed and abused they always rebel.  The main thing to think about is what kind of society do we want to rebuild from the ashes.  I am of the view that it must be a return to the Constitution and an elimination of central banking power and secrecy.  Let’s not fall for a demagogue or be pushed into a war when things are at their worst.

So how was I able to see all of this so far ahead of time? The answer is it was obvious if you were willing to pay attention, think critically and admit unpleasant realities. Yet here we are in 2016, with pundits, “thought leaders,” and experts alike screaming about Trump and Brexit as if these movements came from nowhere, while we all know they came from somewhere.

They came from the dark, corrupt and hopelessly deranged policies of the status quo. The same status quo that remains in power to this very day. The sooner we rid ourselves of this societally cancerous tumor the better, because the longer it takes to move on to something else, the more negative that something else is likely to be.

via http://ift.tt/29eLtia Tyler Durden

If anyone needed another indicator that global trade is collapsing, look no further than the latest Port Authority of New York and New Jersey report on loaded imports for May.

On Tuesday the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reported that May loaded imports fell to 268,861 twenty-foot equivalent units, down 4.7% y/y. The total volume of containers passing through the port fell by 6.1% in May as well.  Additionally, other major ports saw y/y declines as well. As the WSJ reports, loaded import volumes fell 2.3% y/y in May at the Port of Virginia, and total volumes were down 4.7%. At the port of Savannah, the East Coast's second largest port of entry for goods after New York, loaded imports fell 5% y/y, while total throughput was down 7.3% the Georgia Ports Authority said.

With imports imploding, ocean shipping lines have been reducing the number of regular service calls in recent months, a clear indicator that they believe demand will remain weak for the foreseeable future until the new school year begins, which is typically when imports peak. However, that may not be the case this year says Ben Hackett, CEO of Hackett Associates, LLC, a research firm.

"The peak season has disappeared. Carriers have already taken out capacity, and if there was a strong peak season coming, they wouldn't do that. It's partly overall trade declining, but it's also that importers simply bought too much." Hackett said.

Said otherwise, demand has slumped and companies have too much inventory as it is – which is precisely what we showed earlier this month when we reported that wholesale inventories had the biggest monthly jump in 10 months, with sales disappointing.

The absolute spread between inventory and sales continues to remain wide

And although the inventory-to-sales ratio did drop modestly in April, the only time this ratio was higher was in the immediate aftermath of Lehman

* * *

Just when the "everything is fine" narrative was on its last legs…

via http://ift.tt/2949SSm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog,

Coercion is inseparable from corruption. When a group coerces with impunity, it steals from, lies to, defrauds, and enslaves the subjugated. The dominant group invariably develops a morally comforting ideology of its superiority and the subjugated’s inferiority. Such relationships are the essence of corruption.

Every square inch on the planet is subject to the jurisdiction of one or more coercive regimes, with their attendant corruption and fraud. Trillions of dollars, euros, pounds, and yen, et al., are extracted from the productive and diverted to governments, who buy political support. Trillions more are borrowed. Central banks issue fiat debt units backed only by laws mandating their acceptance and extract funding for governments via the hidden tax of debt depreciation and the hidden theft of debt monetization and interest rate suppression. Regulation allows governments to reward cronies and extort and terrorize the unfavored. Perpetual wars benefit militaries and those who supply the armaments, with part of their profits recycled to those championing war. This is pervasive, legal corruption. One can only guess at the extent of sub rosa criminality, which may dwarf it.

Last week’s Brexit vote, in particular financial markets’ reaction, underscore the corruption and fraud, and the inevitability of its failure. Brexit is a victory for Britain’s honest producers; those who work in districts far removed from The City, London’s financial precinct. They will be freed from onerous European Union mismanagement, bureaucracy, regulations, and taxes that have contributed to Europe’s economic stagnation, dearth of innovation, and persistently high unemployment, especially among its youth. The European Central Bank’s debt monetization and negative interest rates, while obscuring the sorry state of the European economy, have only made it sorrier. Chronic debt issuance has left many European governments, and their banks, which own much of that debt, one economic or financial crisis away from insolvency.

British voters chose to free themselves from the EU albatross, although they will still be plagued by numerous home-grown albatrosses. The pound, euro, equity markets, and oil plunged, while perceived safe havens gold, the dollar, yen, and US Treasury debt rose. (The yen is not really a safe haven, but much of the world’s “carry” trades—borrowing to fund nominally higher yielding, but risky speculations—are funded at low Japanese interest rates. When those highly leveraged trades go south, margin calls create a demand for yen to repay the underlying loans.) There were telling details amidst the carnage. Continental equity markets, particularly those of Spain and Italy and their banks, suffered far larger percentage drops than the British stock market. The British, were they to remain in the EU, would be expected to help support the Europe’s southern tier.

When the high and mighty sing the same tune—Great Britain needs the EU more than the EU needs the British—the opposite is assuredly true. The British economy has outperformed most of Europe’s sluggards. Trying to get a fix on large banks is always a crap shoot—their financial statements are usually next to useless—but it appears that British banks and their regulators took more steps to address the problems exposed by the last financial crisis than their continental counterparts and may better withstand the coming stresses. Then again, British banks were hit just as hard as continental ones in the two days after the vote.

Never underestimate the petulance of humiliated Eurocrats, or other poobahs for that matter. What terrifies the Eurocrats is the virtual certainty that the British economy will outperform Europe’s after the Brexit. They may cut off their constituents’ noses to spite their own faces, erecting trade barriers against British goods and services, for which Europe’s consumers will pay the price. However, trade barriers are a two-way street. Britain is an important export market, especially for the de facto leader of the EU, Germany, so cooler heads may prevail, a hope expressed by Nigel Farage in a remarkable speech to the European Parliament.

Can anything be more corrupt than the desire to gratuitously harm another to preserve one’s power? Such corruption is the rotten core of the global economic and financial system. Its pilots are determined to fly it into a mountain, but will fight to the death any attempt to wrest away the controls. The financial markets’ reaction to Brexit has been appropriate, but anyone expecting asset prices to take one-way rides down or up in the directions they were pushed by Brexit will be disappointed.

Global finance and global statism are Siamese twins joined at the brain, a fact made abundantly clear during the last financial crisis. Heavily indebted governments depend on the machinations of central banks and the acquiescence of markets to perpetuate their economic misrule. Governments, in turn, coddle and succor their indispensable allies. Too big to fail, bail outs, and deposit insurance are their backstops for the inherent risks of fractional reserve banking, turning it into a heads-we-win, tails-the-taxpayers-lose proposition. Central banks provide emergency fiat liquidity on preferential terms—financial market “puts”; promote cartelization, and serve the constituent banks they were meant to regulate, acting as the banks’ agents within governments.

Brexit is a shot across the bow, but it is only a shot across the bow. Financial asset prices will continue to be supported or suppressed as the powers see fit. There is not one price in the entire firmament of markets and finance that is not pegged to continuing regimes of corruption and fraud. To transact based on such prices is a bet that a rigged game will stay rigged.

The belief that it will is understandable, but a house of cards must fall. Political winds—Brexit and what’s sure to follow—may blow this one over; it may collapse due to its structural deficiencies, or, most likely, some combination of the two will render it rubble. The important point is that rotten-to-the-core economies and finances, resting on foundations of coercion, corruption, and fraud, have to be rendered rubble before freer, more honest, and more durable structures can be erected.

via http://ift.tt/291V4mN Tyler Durden

A new poll by Marketplace-Edison finds that 71% of Americans – including “Americans from across the economic and political spectrum” – think the economy is rigged.

They’re right …

They’re also right about how broken and totally corrupt our political system has become …

via http://ift.tt/291NwAy George Washington

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

In our time to be truthful is to be provocative. To write provocatively leaves little room for error or mistatement as today’s euphemism terms it. I could shill for the establishment and be wrong 98% of the time and nothing ever would be said about it. But there is no forgiveness for a provocative truth-teller.

You have open inquiring minds and you want to know. Your motives are not to protect your illusions and delusions or to reinforce your emotional needs. This is why I write for you.

If no one knows or respects truth, the world is lost. But it only takes a few to change the world. The cultural anthopologist Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Change can be for better or worse. President Reagan and a committed few overcame the resistance of the CIA and military-security complex and reduced tensions among nuclear powers by negotiating the end of the Cold War with Soviet leader Gorbachev. During the reign of the last three US presidents, a few neoconservatives resurrected the nuclear tensions and took them to a higher level than at the peak of the Cold War.

There are hopeful signs that the neoconservative drive to World War III can be derailed. It seems that finally the Russians have caught on that America is not the Holy Grail but a government reminiscent in its aggression of Nazi Germany. Hopefully, Russian countermeasures will make even the crazed neocons think twice.

The British people, or rather a majority of those who voted, surprised the Establishment, which was confident of the success of its propaganda, by voting to save their ancient and distinguished country, the font of liberty, from disappearing into the EU, a dictatorship ruled by unaccountable appointees. The British had enough of that with kings and decided that the future did not lie in going backward. The British vote to exit the EU could bring the unintended consequence of unravelling the EU and NATO, thus reducing Washington’s ability to foment war.

Americans need to decide that they, like the British, do not appreciate being led backward to worse times.

The Clintons and the Republican Senator from Texas, Phil Gramm, led America back to Robber Baron days by deregulating the financial system. http://ift.tt/1RlbJnc

The senator was rewarded with a multi-million dollar banking job for overturning Great Depression era legislation that made financial capitalism workable. Americans need to understand that capitalists do not care if capitalism works for you as long as it works for them.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, due to the arrest of Gorbachev by hardline elements in the Communist Party, gave rise to the American Neoconservatives, a double handful of people closely tied to the Israeli government. These few people have involved America, for Israel’s benefit, in 15 years of warfare that has destroyed seven counries, with the cost to Americans of approximately $7 trillion dollars, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes.

The obviously false excuse for this destruction of peoples and resources is the myth of “terrorism.” Most “terrorist events” in the US have been sting operations organized by the FBI in order to collect the multi-billion dollar bounty that Congress gives for preventing terrorist events. How best to keep this bounty flowing than to organize a terrorist event and prevent it? It is debatable whether such events as 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing, Sandy Hook, San Bernandino, and Orlando are false flag events or drills staged by crisis actors and presented to the public as real.

The debt associated with 15 years of Washington’s wars is now being used to attack Social Security and Medicare. The One Percent and their “free market” apologists are determined that the elderly will pay for the wars that enabled Israel to reduce Palestine to a ghetto and for the wars that enriched the profits and power of the military-secutity complex, while inflicting a massive refugee problem on Europe.

If the British, or enough of them, woke up, perhaps something similar can happen in America.

From many of you I hear your frustrations with family, friends, and associates who are content with what they hear from the BBC, Fox “News,” CNN, and the New York Times. Obviously, if everyone was intelligent and could think for themselves or even had time to consider what they are told, we would not be in the state that we are in.

Our job is to get enough people into the habit of thinking for themselves that we have the few required to change the world. (“Few” is relative. In a country of 300 million people, “few” is probably several million.)

Arguing with friends doesn’t work. Arguments generate hostility and competitiveness. Avoid arguing. Your friends and family do not know anything. They sit in front of Fox “News” and CNN. They are brainwashed.

Perhaps one way to approach friends and family is to ask questions. For example, how can there be 103 casualties in Orlando and no visible evidence of the massive number of ambulances and EMT personnel necessary to deal with such a massive number of casualties? I asked my readers to help me prove the official story line, and no one could come up with convincing visible evidence. How can there be such a massive event without abundant evidence?

How can powerfully constructed skyscrapers, built to withstand airplane collisions, suddenly explode allegedly as a result of minor asymmetrical damage and scattered low temperature office fires? How can the entire contents of the towers be pulverized when there is insufficient gravational energy to accomplish such pulverization?

How is it possible that WTC 7 came down in free fall acceleration in the absence of controlled demolition? Why doubt that there was controlled demolition when the owner of the WTC said on TV (still available online) that “the decision was made to pull the building?”

In case you have forgotten, you “pull” a building with controlled demolition. It takes a long time to wire a building for demolition. Obviously, Building 7 was not wired on September 11, 2001.

We are constantly informed by the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, numerous senators and representatives, by NATO commanders, by EU politicians, by presstitutes, and others, that “Russia has invaded Ukraine.”

Take a minute and think about this extraordinary lie. Clearly, evidence is no longer a factor in determining what is occuring. Assertion only rules. Take a second to look outside The Matrix. Is it really possible that Ukraine would still exist if Russia invaded? I would bet my life that within 60 hours of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine would again be part of Russia.

Remember August 2008 when the US and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army invaded the peacekeeping realm of South Ossetia, killing Russian peace-keeping troops and Ossetian civilians. Putin was at the Beijing Olympics, but Russian armed forces quickly smashed the American/Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army. Putin held Geogia in his palm.

What did Putin do after delivering this lesson in the superiority of Russian arms? He released Georgia and returned home.

So how is it that Putin, according to the entirely of the Western political establishment and media whores, is determined to rebuild the Soviet Empire? Putin held Georgia. No power on earth could have forced him to release Georgia. But Putin withdrew Russia’s forces and released the country. The former Georgian president is now an American operative in Ukraine.

If you consider the number of outsiders, including US citizens and the former president of Georgia, who serve in the Ukrainian government, it raises questions about the so-called “Maidan Revolution” in February 2014. If this really was a popular uprising, and not a Washington orchestrated coup, why is there such a shortage of Ukrainians to form the new government that foreign citizens have to be brought in to rule the country?

Do not believe any official explanation of anything. Things are not true just because the government and presstitutes say so. Keep in mind that official explanations can be cover for hidden agendas. If Washington and the media have their way, we will live in a world constructed out of lies designed to hide from us the real interests being served.

That is not the kind of world that any of us want to live in.

via http://ift.tt/296vRxK Tyler Durden

Earlier this month the mainstream media was wondering how it was going to be possible for Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, especially given all of the well known political figures that Clinton was going to be able to trot out throughout the campaign.Trump is now beginning to answer that question.

In contrast to the Clinton political machine, Donald Trump's campaign aides are lining up some well known sports figures to appear at the GOP convention in Cleveland next month. As Bloomberg reports, Trump's convention list includes boxing legend Mike Tyson, Super Bowl winning coach Mike Ditka, former Indiana University basketball icon Bobby Knight, and NASCAR chief Brian France. Organizers said that a broad slate of other celebrities are being lined up as well.

At an event in Virginia earlier this month, Trump told the crowd that he wants the convention to be a "winners evening" of sports celebrities and champions rather than fill the evening with politicians. "We're going to do it a little different, if it's OK. I'm thinking about getting some of the great sports people who like me a lot." Trump said.

Trump said he'd rather sports greats address the convention as opposed to "these people, these politicians who are going to get up and speak and speak and speak." Adding that "our country needs to see winners. We don't see winners anymore. We have a bunch of clowns running this country. We have people who don't know what the hell they're doing running our country."

Bloomberg notes that musical guests include Journey, Poison frontman Bret Michaels, Rick Springfield, and country acts Martina McBride, Rascal Flatts, and The Band Perry.

* * *

This should come as no surprise to anyone, as Trump has always done things his own way throughout the campaign, and The Donald clearly wants to make the race about two completely different candidates. By lining up recognizable sports figures to address the convention instead of the typical political insiders, Trump is executing the plan as intended.

The Donald has made it clear that Tyson endorses him, and that he's just fine with that: "Mike Tyson endorsed me, I love it. You know, all the tough guys endorse me." Trump responded to the Bloomberg article by saying that Mike Tyson hadn't been asked to speak at the convention however.

via http://ift.tt/2963XON Tyler Durden

Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

In my article 'Brexit: Global Trigger Event, Fake Out Or Something Else?', published before the U.K. referendum vote, I outlined numerous reasons why I believed the Brexit was likely to pass. As far as I know, I was one of very few analysts that stuck to my call of a successful Brexit right up until the day of the referendum instead of slowly backing away as the pressure of conflicting polls increased. My prediction was verified that evening.

In my post-Brexit commentary, which can be read here, I then outlined why so many analysts in the mainstream and even in the liberty movement were caught completely unaware by the referendum results. Today, however, I now see hundreds of analysts using the same talking points I argued before the Brexit, but still missing the first and most VITAL underlying truth.  The core reason why I was able to discern the Brexit outcome was because I accepted the reality that the Brexit does not hurt globalists — in the long run, it actually helps them.

Now, I fully understand the excitement surrounding this event.  For many people it was a complete surprise because they assumed that international financiers and the ever-pervasive global elites would do anything to stop it from happening. It feels like a kind of revolution; a pointy stick in the eye of the beast. While I applaud the people of the U.K. for their ongoing battle for sovereignty, I can assure you that the Brexit is NOT an obstacle to the plans of globalists.

What is rather amazing to me is the number of people that, before the referendum vote, were arguing that the elites would "never allow" the Brexit to continue and were thoroughly convinced they would use their influence to disrupt it.  Now, in the face of a successful vote, those same people now argue that the elites had no influence over the Brexit, and do not benefit from its passage.

I would remind readers that it was actually "pro-EU" globalist puppet David Cameron himself that presented the prospect of a referendum to exit the EU.  While some may argue this was bungling on the part of Cameron, I think this is a rather foolish notion.  Cameron does what he is told like every other elitist owned politician.  Furthermore, the behavior of internationalists leading up to the Brexit was rather strange, hinting to me that they were preparing for a Brexit surprise.

Globalist financiers like George Soros jumped into the markets and bet in favor of stocks going negative, indicating prior knowledge.  Hilariously, Soros' advisers are now playing damage control by claiming that Soros "lost money" on bets on the English Pound.  While they admit he did "make profits" on all of his other investments due to the Brexit, they will not say what the magnitude of those investments were, nor have they provided evidence supporting any of the information they have given to the media on his losses on the Pound.  Truly, a slapdash lazy play at spin control.

The Federal Reserve’s Janet Yellen used the Brexit as the primary reason for the latest rate hike delay, mentioning that such conditions may have influence "for some time to come".  This indicates she may have had prior knowledge of its coming passage.

And the world’s central bankers all convened in Basel, Switzerland to take marching orders from their masters at the Bank for Internationals Settlements right before Brexit voting commenced, something they most likely would not do if the Brexit was destined to fail rather than prevail.

Not only did the globalists through David Cameron originally introduce the concept of the Brexit vote, they also apparently knew that the U.K. referendum would succeed.

As I originally stated in my prediction article:

“…the failure of the EU does not necessarily mean a failure for the internationalists. For groups of globalists that promote an ideology of Fabian Socialism, a breakdown of the EU, whether partial or total, can be used as leverage for a larger and more centralized global power structure in the long term. Mark my words, when the system comes crashing down (whether after the Brexit or after another trigger event), internationalists will say that the EU failed not because it was centralized, but because it was not centralized ENOUGH.”

 

“If the Brexit succeeds, the globalists can allow the market systems they have been inflating for years to finally crash (at the speed they choose). They can then blame those dastardly “far-Right extremists” in the U.K. for triggering a domino effect within the global financial system, conveniently scapegoating British conservatives, moderates and sovereigns for a breakdown that was going to happen eventually anyway. Their solution will once again be to argue for the end of “barbaric” conservative principles and install complete centralization and socialism as the cure.”

Already, this narrative is being presented by internationalists in the aftermath of the referendum.

Bloomberg writes that the Brexit “casts a dark shadow on the world’s great move to openness,” as if globalism is a bastion principle of free markets rather than the murderer of free markets and the outright tyrannical socialization and centralization of everything.  European elites are out in droves admonishing the Brexit as a move towards dangerous nationalism and isolationism. The Chinese premier is in the media warning of a “butterfly effect” in global markets caused by instability in “certain countries,” obviously referring to the U.K. and the EU.  His solution?  He wants even more “enhanced coordination” among all the economies of the world (Interpretation: more centralization).

EU officials only continue to strengthen my predictions by calling for an EU superstate in response to the Brexit; in other words, a completely centralized Europe.

And, Bloomberg has reported on Mario Draghi's recent call for a "new world order" in response to the UK referendum in which central bank policies around the globe are completely coordinated.  Bloomberg removed the word "NEW" from the article's title an hour after it was published.  Go figure; I guess mentioning the "new world order" was just a little too honest.

Of course, Draghi does not mention that all central banks are ALREADY coordinated through the Bank for International Settlements, which is why numerous central bank heads were at the BIS when the Brexit vote was underway.  What Draghi is pushing for is open centralization among the world's central banks – the next step towards a single global central bank and a single global currency system.

For more information on why the elites desire an economic crisis and what they hope to gain from it, read my article 'The Economic End Game Explained'.

In my prediction article I also stated in part reference to the Jo Cox murder:

“…the goal may only be to perpetuate a longer term narrative that conservatives in general are a destructive element of society. We kill, we’re racists, we have an archaic mindset that prevents “progress,” we divide supranational unions, we even destroy global economies. We’re storybook monsters.”

 

“The murder of Jo Cox has had a minimal effect on Brexit polling numbers.  In the end, the elites may find Thomas Mair more useful as a mascot for the Brexit after the vote, rather than before the vote.

 

So now the Brexit movement, which is conservative in spirit, is labeled a “divisive” and “hateful group”, and if the referendum is triumphant, they will also be called economic saboteurs.”

The concept of a dangerously volatile and destructive populist movement for sovereignty is being heavily pushed in the mainstream media. The racist angle is now being implemented, with the MSM warning that racism is on the rise in the U.K. due to the Brexit campaign.

Most if not all of the developments I warned of when I predicted the Brexit are also coming true.  So, if I am as correct about the motives behind the Brexit as I was correct about the outcome of the Brexit, here is what will probably happen in the coming months as the drama unfolds.

Federal Reserve Catch-22

 

All eyes will soon be on the Fed to see if the central bank behind the world reserve currency will take some kind of action to mitigate the possible negative effects of the Brexit.  The problem is, the Fed has created a catch-22 scenario here; not for them, they are happy to instigate an equities crisis as long as the timing is right.  Rather, they have created a catch-22 for the markets.

 

If the Fed raises rates to prove they can, stock markets will see this as a shock move and initiate a sell-off.  If the Fed lowers rates or institutes negative rates, the public will see this as an act of desperation and a loss of credibility.  Really, the only safe measure the Fed can take from now on is to do nothing.  I highly doubt that they will do nothing.  In fact, even in the face of the Brexit I still believe the Fed will raise rates a second time before the end of the year.  Why?  This is what the Fed has always done as recession takes hold.  Historically, the Fed raises rates at the worst possible times.  As with the Brexit, I am going to have to take the contrary position to most analysts on this.

 

Referendum Catch-22

 

The globalists have conjured an interesting paradox with the UK referendum.  Look at it this way; even if you believe that the globalists were "caught off guard" by the Brexit, one must admit that it is still in their best interest to initiate a crash.

First, the elites spent so much time warning of the doom that would befall the world if a Brexit vote succeeded, they must now fulfill their own prophecy or appear foolish and impotent.

 

Second, if globalists and the central banks they control act too aggressively to stall a market plunge, they are sending a message to all other EU nations that they should not worry about seeking their own referendums, because the central banks will save the day if they do.  More referendums mean exponential crisis in equities.  So, markets will crash if the central banks don't act, and they will crash if central banks do act.

 

This is all an academic discussion, though, because central bankers fully intend for the existing system to at least partially crash.  They simply want to decide the pace of the implosion.  Most will do this through jawboning and minor policy maneuvers, but not much else.  The Federal Reserve is the only wild card in this equation.

 

Slow Grind Towards The U.S. Elections

 

While the Brexit vote is a considerable shock to global markets, and there is a likelihood of referendums in other European nations, I do not believe the Brexit alone is enough to cause the kind of economic crisis the elites are seeking.  There needs to be a one-two punch combo here, and the second punch has not arrived yet.

 

What form will it take?  I have no idea.  I do believe that with the Brexit drama in full swing, the timing is perfect for certain unstable EU banks, including Deutsche Bank, to announce insolvency.  This could be the next moment of shock.  That said, there are hundreds of possible trigger events ready and waiting to be exploited.

 

So far it would appear that equities markets in particular are in for a slow grind down (with sporadic but short lived rallies) going into the U.S. elections.  I would not expect much to happen until the Fourth of July holiday has passed and I would expect low trading volume to persist until then.  I believe that by the time November arrives the global economy will be in a clear and visible recessionary mode.  This does not mean a "collapse" in the Hollywood sense will be in full swing, but our fiscal structure will be visibly worse off to even the most oblivious citizens.

 

A Trump Presidency

 

In light of the Brexit I’m going to have to call it here and now and predict that the most likely scenario for elections will be a Trump presidency.  Trump has consistently warned of a recession during his campaign and with the Brexit dragging markets lower over the next few months, he will probably be proven “prophetic.”

 

Those who read my articles regularly know that I do not trust Trump and that I think his behavior signals that he is controlled opposition, but this is really beside the point.  Even if Trump is a legitimate anti-establishment conservative, his entry into the Oval Office will seal the deal on the economic collapse, and will serve the globalists well.  The international banks need only pull the plug on any remaining life support to the existing market system and allow it to fully implode, all while blaming Trump and his conservative supporters.

 

If Hillary Clinton, a clear establishment puppet, is the chosen one, and markets crash after her inauguration, then the establishment gets the blame.  However, if Trump becomes president, and markets crash, then conservative and freedom movements get the blame.

 

The mainstream media has been consistently comparing Trump supporters to Brexit supporters, and Trump himself has hitched his political wagon to the Brexit. This fits perfectly with the globalist narrative that populists and conservatives are killing the global economy and placing everyone at risk.

 

Sovereignty Is The Villain

 

Imagine that the economic and political events of our world are for the most part a cleverly staged piece of cinema. The globalists are writing a screenplay for that cinema and we are all supposed to believe that the movie we are watching is real life rather than an engineered fantasy. The Brexit in our story is an act of “evil sovereignty activists” and “right wing extremists” who lure ignorant people away from the light of globalism using “emotion” rather than logic.

 

These conservatives and populists promote barbaric principles of nationalism that no longer serve humanity in our age of “reason” and multicultural “civility.”  Globalism is the future and pro-sovereigns are holding the world back from “progress.”

 

This will be the narrative pressed in politics and social discussions from now on.  The story the globalists are writing is one of the terrorism of selfish freedom movements, how they brought the planet to the verge of complete collapse, and how globalism and collectivism finally “triumphed” and saved humanity.

 

Divisions Between Young And Old

 

An interesting and very manipulative propaganda campaign being put in motion around the Brexit is the idea that the U.K. referendum represents a division between older generations and younger generations.  The mainstream media argues that older generations in the U.K. that have already benefited from the EU are now “taking it away” from the younger generations and essentially screwing them out of their futures.

 

Anyone who understands the root failings of the EU and the fact that it has been on the edge of collapse for the past several years knows that such arguments are patently ridiculous. The EU has been beneficial to no one except in minor part to perpetually insolvent nations and peoples.  The EU aids these folks by stealing from solvent nations and peoples.  The Scottish were extremely anti-Brexit, for example, exactly because they have become a welfare dependent society and they know where their bread is buttered.  Most Muslim refugees aren’t flooding into the EU on the premise that they plan to start from scratch and work their way towards prosperity.  They march into the EU on the promise of free goodies.

 

Yes, according to recent polls around 73% of voters 18 to 24 years old supported the EU, but around 27% did not.  Does this 27% not count?  People aged 25 to 34 voted 38% in favor of Leave.  Anyone over age 35 was increasingly more likely to vote Leave.  Are people in their late 30's now considered "old"?  This is hardly an example of the "old" destroying the precious collectivist futures of the young.

 

To claim that the Brexit was about young versus old is clearly a lie, but we should expect that this narrative will be pushed further.  The globalists need to own the minds of the next generation, and they hope to do so by blaming all their future economic woes on the kinds of sovereignty movements that voted for the Brexit.  The young are often desperate to believe that they are wiser than the old, desperate to assert their place in a world they don't yet understand because they have little experience in it, and desperate to prove that new ideas (usually old failed ideas rehashed) are better than traditional ideas.  The elites know this, and are quick to con the young with the concepts of futurism.

The Long Game

The great weakness among economic analysts and many independent analysts is their refusal to examine the long game of the elites.  They become so obsessed with the day to day parade of stock tickers and the month to month central bank policy meetings that they miss the greater trends.  We can focus intently on each drop of water that makes up a tidal wave and forget that we are at the edge of the beach staring down death.

The Brexit is part of a globalist long game that is designed to finally and completely demonize sovereignty movements.

Think about it for a moment — what better way to remove the only obstacle in their path? The globalists create an economic crisis and then foster conditions by which their primary opponents (liberty activists) get BLAMED for it.  They then swoop in as the heroes of their little cinema after the damage is already done and offer their solution: complete globalization.  With enough people destitute from a global financial calamity, they may very well be begging the elites for help.  This is not to say that the elites will ultimately succeed (I believe they will fail), but that does not stop them from making the attempt.

I realize this is not what many in the liberty movement want to hear, but this is reality.  This does not diminish the value of a British movement for sovereignty, but it does demand that we temper our celebration and recognize when we are being targeted with fourth-generation warfare.  If we accept the fact that the Brexit is an event the elites plan to exploit for their own ends, then we can identify the threat and deal with it.  If we continue the delusion that the Brexit is some kind of slap in their face when it is not, then we allow them yet another weapon in their arsenal of propaganda.

via http://ift.tt/29rblUb Tyler Durden

Randi Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers, and is a name that hedge fund managers and those on Wall Street are beginning to learn quite well.

About a decade ago, some liberals joined conservatives in pushing to expand charter schools. As the WSJ reports, those efforts received financial support from hedge fund managers including Dan Loeb, Paul Singer and Paul Tudor Jones, who together kicked in millions of dollars toward the effort. Some involved in the effort to push for the expansion of chartered schools portrayed public school teachers and their unions as obstacles to improving education, and thus the reputation of unions took a beating.

Enter Randi Weingarten. Weingarten was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers in 2008, and her aim was to restore public trust in public school teachers and their unions. Weingarten's federation represents about two dozen teachers unions whose retirement funds have a total of $630 billion in assets, a large portion of the more than $1 trillion controlled by all teachers unions according to the WSJ. Although the unions themselves control where the money is invested, Weingarten can make recommendations.

Weingarten instructed investment advisers at the federation's Washington headquarters to sift through financial reports and examine the personal charitable donations of hedge fund managers, focusing on those who want to end defined benefit pensions, and entities backing charter schools and the overhauling of public schools. In early 2013, the union federation published a list of roughly three dozen Wall Street asset managers it says donated to organizations that support causes opposed by the union, and the federation wanted union pension funds to use the list as a reference guide when deciding where to invest (or not invest) their money.

Said otherwise, if asset managers don't support unions, the unions won't invest with the funds.

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a think tank that supports increasing school choice and replacing defined benefit pension plans with 401(k)-type plans is one of the groups that wound up on the list. Lawrence Mone, its president, said the tactics amount to intimidation, and that "I don't think that it's beneficial to the functioning of a democratic society."

To signify the importance of Weingarten's list, after KKR & Co. president Henry Kravis made the list in 2013, Weingarten received a call from Ken Mehlman, an executive at KKR. Mehlman said KKR had a record of supporting public pension plans, and Weingarten agreed – KKR was then taken off the list. Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management went as far as hiring a friend of Weingarten and paying $25,000 to be a founding member of a group KKR was starting with Weingarten to promote retirement security. Asness was removed from the list.

Asness continued to serve on the board of The Manhattan Institute, however in September of last year an aide to Weingarten spoke to a California State Teachers' Retirement System (Calstrs) official about Asness's continued service – one phone call later and Asness said that he was stepping down from the Manhattan Institute board.

One hedge fund manager has been more combative however – Dan Loeb. The founder of Third Point is a donor to the Manhattan Institute and chairman of the Success Academy, which operates a network of charter schools in New York City.

A bit more combative is an understatement – Loeb pushed back on Weingarten, and didn't seem to care about the influence she had over where funds were directed.

As the WSJ explains

In a March 2013 letter to Mr. Loeb, Ms. Weingarten noted his support of a group “leading the attack on defined benefit pension funds” and said she was “surprised to learn of your interest in working with public pension plan investors.” Seeking business from union pension funds while donating to the group, she wrote, “seem to us perhaps inconsistent.”

 

The two agreed to meet.

 

Mr. Loeb emailed Ms. Weingarten, noting his fund’s average annual return of 21% over 18 years. “I completely respect the political considerations you may have and understand if other factors dictate how funds are allocated,” he wrote.

 

A week later, Ms. Weingarten wrote back to reiterate that unions were wary of investing with Mr. Loeb “given the political attack on defined benefit funds.”

 

In response, Mr. Loeb asserted that it must be “frustrating” for unions to invest with funds that “have different political views or party affiliations.” He added: “At least we can rejoice in knowing that as Americans we share fundamental values that elevate individual opportunity, accountability, freedom, fairness and prosperity.”

 

The meeting was called off, and Mr. Loeb was added to the list.

 

At a fundraising dinner that May for his charter-school group, Mr. Loeb stood up and said: “Some of you in this room have come under attack for supporting charter-school education reform and freedom in general.” He called Ms. Weingarten the “leader of the attack” and pledged an additional $1 million in her name.

 

“Both Randi and I believe America’s children deserve a 21st century education, and I hope the day comes when she embraces the positive change created by public charter schools,” Mr. Loeb said recently in a written statement.

As part of the punishment, Loeb eventually lost $75 million from a Rhode Island pension fund. Around that same time, a giant billboard appeared above Times Square that was not kind to Weingarten – perhaps not a coincidence.

"We all guessed it had to be people like Dan Loeb" Weingarten said.

After the billboard, Weingarten and the union group launched an advocacy group called Hedge Clippers, that lobbied against proposed New York legislation to increase the charitable deduction for donations to public and private schools. The group also published a report called "All That Glitters Is Not Gold," that among other things, claimed that the high fees charged by hedge funds made them unattractive investments. Furthermore, the union group is funding a campaign to eliminate the carried interest tax rate on investment income earned by asset managers, as well as filing a class action lawsuit accusing 25 Wall Street firms of violating antitrust law and manipulating Treasury bond prices.

Other large pension funds such as an Illinois public pension fund and one of New York City's public pension funds have cut hedge fund investments. However, Loeb may have had the last laugh, as when Weingarten tried to convince a large Ohio fund to follow suit, it voted to remain invested in hedge funds, including Loeb's.

* * *

Regardless of a stance on this topic, this battle between Weingarten and the targeted hedge funds such as Third Point will remain an epic story to watch unfold. Also, as readers know, pension funds are severely underfunded, and given that NIRP and other insane central bank policies have created an environment where risk assets are a necessity if one wants to generate higher target returns, hedge funds may be one avenue that pension funds need to consider, whether the funds support charter schools or not.

via http://ift.tt/291yKKc Tyler Durden