August 2016 – Page 17

“Racist, Untrained, Murdering” San Francisco Cops Slam Kaepernick, Demand Apology

There is seemingly no end to the number of people and organizations that Colin Kaepernick has offended with his recent comments and decision to "sit out" the national anthem. Apparently the San Francisco police union was among the offended. We're not sure why, really…all Colin said was that they're racist murderers with less skill than a hairdresser. Is that offensive? Per CBS, Colin's comments about the police included the following:

"There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

“There is police brutality — people of color have been targeted by police. That’s a large part of it. They (the police officers) are government officials. They are put in place by the government so that’s something that the country has to change. There are things we can do to hold them more accountable. Make those standards higher…You have people who practice law, lawyers, who go to school for 8 years, but you can be a cop in 6 months. You don’t have to do the same amount of training as a cosmetologist. I mean someone with a curling iron has more education and training than people who have a gun. That’s insane.”

So the San Francisco police union decided to send a letter to Jed York, President and CEO of the 49ers, and Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, expressing their "distaste" for being called racist murderers. Among other things the SF police union says that Kaepernick has "embarrassed himself, the 49er organization, and the NFL." The police also solicited Kaepernick's opinion on the "murder of 40 police officers in the United States in the past few months" or the "8,000 murders that African Americans inflicted on one another in 2015."

"While we certainly acknowledge Mr. Kaepernick’s first amendment right to remain seated during the National Anthem, as inappropriate as that may be, we will not stand by while he attacks police officers in this country with such statements as as, ‘People are on paid leave while people of color are killed.’"

"Not only does he show an incredible lack of knowledge regarding our profession and ‘officer involved’ shootings, but also shows a naivety and total lack of sensitivity towards police officers. Ironically it is those officers who have on numerous occasions protected Mr. Kaepernick and have ensured that the venues where the NFL holds its events are fully protected.”

"In short, Mr. Kaepernick has embarrassed himself, the 49er organization, and the NFL based on a false narrative and misinformation that lacks any factual basis."

"Perhaps Mr. Kaepernick could comment on the murder of 40 police officers in the United States in the past few months, or the assaults perpetrated on over 100,000 law enforcement officers in the past year. Perhaps he could lend his commentary to the over 8,000 murders that African Americans inflicted on one another in 2015. The law enforcement community cannot be continuously blamed for all of society's problems, including racial divide, in our country. It isn't fair and it isn't true."

"Until then we hope your organizations choose to do the right thing and at least apologize to the many police officers Mr. Kaepernick has disrespected for no apparent reason."

The letter from the SFPOA can be read in its entirety below:

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Wake Up America – It’s Time To Eliminate The ‘Pusher’

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Central banks can only do one thing, and that's provide monetary welfare for the wealthy.

The fact that central banks provide welfare for the wealthy is now entering the mainstream. The fact that all central bank policies since 2008 have dramatically increased wealth and income inequality is now grudgingly being accepted as reality by mainstream economists and the financial media.

The central banks' PR facade of noble omniscience on behalf of the great unwashed masses has cracked wide open. Even The Wall Street Journal is publishing critiques of Federal Reserve policies that suggest the Fed has no idea how the U.S. economy actually works because their policies have failed to help the bottom 95%.

The grudging admission that central bank policies have enriched the rich while failing to benefit the bottom 95% is a breakthrough–the stone wall of denial has finally been pierced. The mainstream media and the Establishment have resolutely clung to the self-serving fantasy that the Federal Reserve 1) knows what's it's doing and 2) is boosting a "recovery" that will soon achieve self-sustaining "escape velocity"–that is, the economy will generate its own growth and the Fed can dial back its zero-interest rate policy and all its other unprecedented monetary easing measures.

But like a strung-out junkie that needs ever-stronger injections of smack just to stay alive, the U.S. economy is now totally and completely dependent on central bank heroin to keep from crashing. Rather then wean the economy of central bank largesse, the Fed has made the entire economy dependent on zero interest rates, central bank asset purchases and quantitative easing.

At the mere hint that rates might rise or the Fed might cease buying assets and goosing liquidity, the stock market swoons and every sector that's dependent on cheap, abundant credit faints dead away.

We now have the charade of Chief Heroin Pusher Janet Yellen claiming the addict is "recovering" while she shoves another needle of monetary smack into the comatose U.S. economy. The Fed fantasy was that boosting the wealth of the obscenely wealthy would "trickle down" to the bottom 95% via "the wealth effect"–as stocks and bonds rose in value, households would feel wealthier and happily plunge deeper into debt.

Apparently the hordes of PhDs and "professional" economists in the Fed were incapable of observing that 3/4 of all financial wealth is held by the top 5%: the top 1% owns 43% and the next 4% own another 30%. The upper-middle class owns 15% and the bottom 80% own what little is left: "wealth" such household belongings and equity in homes that can no longer be extracted.

Globally, the top .7% (less than 1%) own 45% of all wealth and the top 8% own 85% of all wealth:

While the spending of the bottom 95% stagnates, spending by the top 5% that have benefited from the Fed's welfare for the rich has soared.

If you glance at this chart, it's no longer a mystery why most of the new jobs in the "recovery" are low-paying service-sector jobs waiting on the top 5%: bussing their dishes in fancy bistros, delivering meals to their luxe condos/homes, walking their dogs, etc.

As for "reforming" the central bank or the status quo–real reform is impossible, as I explain in my book Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform. All "reform" is just PR cover for more of the same.

Central banks can only do one thing, and that's provide monetary welfare for the wealthy. Now that the central bank has enriched the obscenely wealthy, distorted markets globally and addicted the economy to cheap credit, the servile toadies and lackeys in the mainstream media and the Cargo Cult of economic "professionals" is finally admitting that it was all a fraud, a racket that favored the rich.

Wake up, America. The only way to stop widening wealth and income inequality and kick your smack addiction is to eliminate the pusher.

* * *

My new book is #9 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book's website.

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Creativity Triumphs Over the Law: New at Reason

Over and over again creativity beats the law.

J.D. Tuccille writes:

Human creativity is a boundless resource. It produces great works of art and philosophies that explore the meaning of life. Creativity brings us technological innovation and exploration of the unknown. And humanity’s innate ability to find new approaches and examine problems from different perspectives also brings us ever-evolving ways for defeating the would-be tyrants and petty nannies in our midst.

Without creativity, not only would we still be huddled in cold, dark caves, we’d also be living unquestioningly under the thumb of the latest in a long line of control-freak tribal chieftains.

Take drones, for example. Sure, hobbyists have fun slapping cameras on them and spying on their sunbathing neighbors. But the remote-controlled flying devices have serious uses, too.

“The Yuma Sector Border Patrol has recently encountered small remote controlled aircraft, commonly referred to as drones, being used to smuggle drugs into the United States,” Customs and Border Protection announced in April. “The drones vary in size, but are commonly between 2 to 4 feet wide.”

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Former GOP Donor Goes in Big for Gary Johnson With $117,000 to His Campaign

Gary Johnson’s Libertarian Party campaign for president received its biggest single donation, pushing very near the legal maximum with $117,000 from B. Wayne Hughes Jr.

The donation went to the Gary Johnson Victory Fund, a special joint fundraising committee formed by the Johnson campaign and a group of state Libertarian Parties. This committee can currently legally take a maximum of $122,700 from individual donors.

Hughes’ father founded the company Public Storage, and Hughes is on its board of directors. He described his fortune as deriving from “real estate” in a phone interview last night.

Hughes had, as he said, a “long history of donating to the Republican Party” and was “involved as a donor in both Bush campaigns.” He had also been a major funder of Karl Rove’s American Crossroads PAC that helped win Congress for the GOP in 2010.

Hughes was also a major funder of California’s Proposition 47, giving over $1.2 million and winning for a proposition that, as the Sacramento Bee reported in a story on Hughe’s philanthropy in 2014, “lowers penalties to misdemeanors for drug possession and property crimes, and could result in the release of 9,000 prisoners.”

“I was inspired that the people of California would take time and stop and see the issue for what it was. They have a heart,” Hughes told the Bee then. The Bee reported that Hughes’ philanthropy was at that point mostly focused on “saving lost souls. He visits a prison every few months, and funds a prison ministry and several women’s recovery homes. Hughes interest in prisoners was inspired by his friendship with Chuck Colson, the former Nixon aid who dedicated his later years to helping prisoners reform.

Hughes does not feel like he has walked away from the GOP now, saying that in the Trump era “it’s a matter of them walking away from me.” He went to the Johnson campaign, not the other way around, he says. “I don’t see any ideas and any track record on either side [of the two major parties] that would lend itself to good government,” Hughes says. He studied Johnson and his vice presidential partner William Weld’s records as Republican governors of New Mexico and Massachusetts, respectively, and saw them “speaking reason and sanity into what was otherwise cacophony” in the election.

While he’s been aware of the Libertarian Party, “I never thought of throwing my vote” to it until now. “I’m conservative,” he says. “I characterize myself as a conservative before a Republican. I’m very fiscally conservative and socially moderate.” He says he first heard about Johnson from “a friend” about six months ago who “said there was a third [choice] trying to carve out a place at the table.”

He most appreciated about Johnson and Weld “their experience, and their position toward governance and against government being involved in all of our daily lives, creeping in all the time through regulation and taxation and restrictions. That’s not” what should be the government’s position.

I talked to Hughes about various areas where the Libertarian position might run counter to Republican thinking.

On immigration, while he thinks “a country that doesn’t secure its borders puts itself in danger” he also believes that “if folks want to come here and work and start a new life, there’s no better country in the world to do so, and I don’t hold it against them. Deporting 11, 12 million here illegally is not feasible and just grandstanding.”

While he says one of Johnson’s pet issues of marijuana legalization “really isn’t that important to me,” he also thought: “Why would we ask law enforcement to put their life on the life to enforce the law against someone who wants to smoke marijuana? That’s ridiculous. It doesn’t make you go and rob banks, it makes you order a pizza.” Ultimately “the war on drugs is a joke” though he still believes “certain drugs consume a person’s body and mind and soul and causes them to do bad things, but I don’t think marijuana falls into that category.”

On foreign policy, Hughes agrees “the idea of nation building is ridiculous, and we are in how many dozen countries paying to be there? Even China or Russia, the amount of bases they have on foreign soil pales to amount we have—not that we are a bad actor, we are there for the right reasons, but being world policeman is a role we filled for a long long time and it’s time to take ourselves out of that role.”

Hughes knows that doing so means “there are going to be problems, but that doesn’t mean we ought not think of taking ourselves out of that role; we’ve been hanging on to that anchor and it’s taking us deeper and deeper and it’s time to let go of the anchor” of that responsibility to manage the world.

Hughes, as the reporting on his role supporting Prop. 47 stressed, is a serious Christian, though he “wouldn’t say my faith had anything to do with my decision for Gov. Johnson.” But he does like to think of Jesus in his work and in his support of prison ministries and prison reform. “People in prison are under pressure, and they can turn to dust or diamonds depending on who takes a stand with them,” Hughes says.

Hughes has not completely ruled out the idea of further funding for Johnson through SuperPACs, though he thinks it’s unlikely. He says he’s given to such PACs before and they didn’t necessarily do things he wanted them to do. “$117,700 is a lot of money, but I think Gov. Johnson is the candidate who is going to speak truth and light into a situation where it’s in short supply.”

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How the NSA Prizes Online Surveillance Over Online Security: New at Reason

With a name like the National Security Agency, America’s chief intelligence outfit might at least attempt to promote American security online. At the veryleast, one would hope its activities don’t actively undermine U.S. cybersecurity. But—bad news—a recent leak of the agency’s digital spy tools by a myterious group called the Shadow Brokers shows how the agency prioritizes online surveillance over online security.

For years, there have been rumors that the NSA was stockpiling a secret cache of powerful computer bugs to exploit for cyber-snooping. Recent revelations by the Shadow Brokers appear to confirm these allegations. On August 13, the group published a number of “cyber weapons” that it claims were used by an NSA-linked hacking outfit known as the Equation Group. The dumped information appears to be legitimate, and is dated from around 2013.

View this article.

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“The Americans Give Us Nothing”: France Effectively Kills TTIP, Calls For End To Negotiations

Just two days after Germany’s outspoken vice chancellor (who has over the past 48 hours slammed not just Merkel’s refugee policy but also Brexit negotiation demands), announced that Obama’s transatlantic trade treaty, the TTIP, is dead, saying negotiations have failed because “we Europeans did not want to subject ourselves to American demands”, France voiced its support to the German position when the French trade minister on Tuesday called for an end to trade negotiations between the European Union and the U.S., the firmest sign yet of opposition in Europe to what would be the most ambitious trade deal in decades.

Matthias Fekl, cited by the WSJ, said on French radio that “France no longer politically supports these negotiations,” adding that “The Americans are giving us nothing. This is not how allies should be negotiating.” Fekl said he would ask the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, at a meeting of trade ministers late September to end negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, generally known as TTIP. The Commission leads talks with the U.S. for the EU.

“There should be an absolute clear end so that we can restart them on good basis,” he said on RMC Radio, adding he would suggest that course to fellow ministers.

Fekl echoed the position of Germany’s econ minister Gabriel who said on Sunday that TTIP negotiations had effectively failed after Europe refused to accept some U.S. demands. Gabriel is the chairman of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD), who share power with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.

While many German Social Democrats have serious reservations about TTIP but Merkel backs the talks: her spokesman insisted on Monday that talks should continue, while Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier – also a member of the SPD – said on Tuesday that both sides were still far away from agreeing on standards and procedures.

However, with the French veto it seems that Merkel is now out of luck.

Fekl’s comments show how skepticism of trade deals is surging on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.S., President Barack Obama faces a tough battle in Congress to pass another major trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders bolstered their support during the presidential race by strongly opposing trade deals, putting pressure on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to adopt a more skeptical stance on trade.

In Europe, politicians in the bloc’s biggest economic powers, France and Germany, find themselves under fire for supporting negotiations with the U.S. Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s right-wing National Front party, has repeatedly attacked President François Hollande for backing the talks.

Three years of TTIP negotiations have failed to resolve multiple differences, including over food and environmental safety, but the USTR’s spokesman told German magazine Der Spiegel the negotiations “are in fact making steady progress”. The deal is expected to eliminate almost all tariffs and reduce regulatory red tape that acts to limit trade, establishing what would effectively be a vast, trans-Atlanic free-trade zone. But fears have persisted in Europe that the deal will require the region to accept U.S.-backed technologies, such as biotech crops, that the region opposes.

The White House has said this week it aims to reach a deal by the end of the year. “It’s going to require the resolution of some pretty thorny negotiations, but the president and his team are committed to doing that,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in Washington.

Meanwhile, the European Commission also remains upbeat. Although trade talks take time, the ball is rolling right now and the Commission is making steady progress in the ongoing TTIP negotiations,” the executive’s spokesman, Margaritis Schinas, told a news conference in Brussels on Monday.

Supporters say the TTIP could deliver more than $100 billion worth of economic gains on both sides of the Atlantic, according to Reuters, but critics say the pact would hand too much power to big multinationals at the expense of consumers and workers. It would also likely result in even more mass layoffs.

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“Why Case Against Gold Is Wrong” – James Rickards

James Rickards, geopolitical and monetary expert and best selling author of the ‘The New Case for Gold’ considered today ‘the case against gold’ in best selling UK financial publication Money Week.

Rickards debunks the most commonly held arguments against gold including that gold does not have a yield, there is not being enough gold to support the monetary and financial system and that gold “cannot support the growth of world trade and commerce because it doesn’t grow fast enough.”

Rickards begins his article by recapping gold’s recent price history and why it appears undervalued now:

… I want to take a look at the case against gold. Starting from a low of about $250 per ounce in mid-1999, gold staged a spectacular rally of over 600%, to about $1,900 per ounce, by August 2011. Unfortunately, that rally looked increasingly unstable towards the end.

Gold was about $1,400 per ounce as late as January 2011. Almost $500 per ounce of the overall rally occurred in just the last seven months before the peak. That kind of hyperbolic growth is almost always unsustainable.

Sure enough, gold fell sharply from that peak to below $1,100 per ounce by July 2015. It still shows a gain of about 350% over 15 years. But gold’s lost nearly 40% over the past four years. Those who invested during the 2011 rally are underwater, and many have given up on gold in disgust. For long-time observers of gold markets, sentiment has been the worst they’ve ever seen.

Yet it’s in times of extreme bearish sentiment that outstanding investments can be found – if you know how and where to look.

There’s already been a change in the winds for gold so far this year.

James Rickards said recently that gold has the “chart of the decade” and made a strong case, based on ‘maths’ and on gold’s small above ground supplies and meager annual production versus surging money supply growth, why he believes gold will rise to $10,000 per ounce.

He has also pointed out the risks of having all your assets in a digital format – be they digital currency deposits, digital gold, stocks or indeed bonds. These assets are now intermediated by technology which creates counter party risk from the platform, liquidity providers etc.

The number one reason to buy gold bullion given the new risks in the 21st century digital age is “cyber financial warfare” and the risks this poses to people’s assets that are held online, according to James Rickards.

Owning gold bars and coins in your possession and owning bullion in allocated and most importantly in segregated accounts will continue to protect and grow wealth in the coming years.

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Gold and Silver Bullion – News and Commentary

Gold holds overnight gains; U.S. data back in focus (Reuters)

Gold Heads for Monthly Drop as Investors Weigh U.S. Rate Outlook (Bloomberg)

Gold turns up from near 5-week low as dollar eases (Reuters)

Gold is doing something it’s only done twice in the past decade (BusinessInsider)

Platinum industry not mining anywhere near forecast demand (MiningWeekly)

Is Britain on the verge of a Brexit-fuelled house price crash? (TheGuardian)

British sovereignty depends on leaving the EU and the Single Market (Telegraph)

Thanks to the EU’s bungling, Russia will inevitably win in Ukraine (Telegraph)

The Night That Is Upon Us and the Dawn of a New Era (Plata)

Six Ways NIRP Is Economically Negative (GoldSeek)

Gold Prices (LBMA AM)

30Aug: USD 1,318.85, GBP 1,008.39 & EUR 1,180.90 per ounce
26Aug: USD 1,324.90, GBP 1,002.95 & EUR 1,173.33 per ounce
25Aug: USD 1,324.50, GBP 1,001.06 & EUR 1,172.98 per ounce
24Aug: USD 1,337.30, GBP 1,010.73 & EUR 1,185.38 per ounce
23Aug: USD 1,338.50, GBP 1,015.25 & EUR 1,181.09 per ounce
22Aug: USD 1,334.30, GBP 1,018.20 & EUR 1,181.26 per ounce
19Aug: USD 1,346.85, GBP 1,026.30 & EUR 1,189.67 per ounce

Silver Prices (LBMA)

30Aug: USD 18.78, GBP 14.35 & EUR 16.82 per ounce
26Aug: USD 18.67, GBP 14.15 & EUR 16.54 per ounce
25Aug: USD 18.50, GBP 14.02 & EUR 16.39 per ounce
24Aug: USD 18.84, GBP 14.23 & EUR 16.70 per ounce
23Aug: USD 18.98, GBP 14.40 & EUR 16.75 per ounce
22Aug: USD 18.91, GBP 14.45 & EUR 16.74 per ounce
19Aug: USD 19.42, GBP 14.80 & EUR 17.14 per ounce

Recent Market Updates

– Obama To Leave $20 Trillion Debt Crisis For Clinton Or Trump
– Gold Bullion Averages Biggest Seasonal Gains in September Over Past 20 Years
– Gold Futures See Massive $1.5 Billion “Non Profit” Liquidation In “One Minute”
– Jim Grant Is “Very Bullish On Gold”
– Germans Warned To ‘Stockpile’ Cash In Case Of ‘War’
– Ireland’s Biggest Bank Charging Depositors – Negative Interest Rate Madness
– Rothchilds Buying Gold On “Greatest Experiment” With Money In “History of the World”
– Gold – “Mother of All Bull Markets Has Only Just Begun” – Grandich
– 45th Anniversary Of Nixon Ending The Gold Standard
– Gold In UK Pounds Collapses 38% Versus Gold and 56% Versus Silver Year To Date
– Will Ireland Be First Country In World To See Bail-in Regime?
– Money “Madness” Negative Interest Rates Sees Gold Buying Surge
– Gold Investment Demand Reaches Record In First Half 2016 On “Perfec

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Frontrunning: August 30

EU demands Apple pay Ireland up to 13 billion euros in tax (Reuters)
Dollar Advances as Treasuries Drop on Rate Outlook; Stocks Rise (BBG)
Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan hit by suspected suicide car bomb (Reuters)
France, joining German Economy Minister, urges halt to trade talks with U.S. (Reuters)
Euro zone monthly economic sentiment falls more than expected (Reuters)
Japan’s Household Spending and Unemployment Fall in July (BBG)
At Ports, a Sign of Altered Supply Chains (WSJ)
Food Price Deflation Cheers Consumers, Hurts Farmers, Grocers and Restaurants (WSJ)
Fed’s Fischer says U.S. job market ‘very close’ to full strength (Reuters)
Defiant Rousseff says Brazil’s democracy on trial with her (Reuters)
Yuan Bears Emerge From Hibernation as Fed Imperils G-20 Calm (BBG)
Employers Find ‘Soft Skills’ Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply (WSJ)
Can Assange and Denton revive the Wikileaks-Gawker revolution? (Reuters)
Beneath Yuan’s Quiet, China Worries Rise (WSJ)
Massachusetts Could Swap Time Zones for Later Winter Sunsets (BBG)
Fight for Syria’s Aleppo exposes limits of Russian air power (Reuters)
Japan’s First Home-Made Jet Back in Hangar After Aborted Tests (BBG)

Overnight Media Digest

WSJ

– Oreo cookie maker Mondelez International Inc ended its pursuit of Hershey Co after the famed chocolatier rebuffed its latest acquisition offer, putting an end to a months-long takeover campaign that would have created the world’s largest candy company. http://on.wsj.com/2bMOS4d

– Gene Wilder, who blended manic energy, quiet irony and quirky humanity in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and other classic comedies of the 20th century, has died at the age of 83, according to his agent. http://on.wsj.com/2caBquS

– Republican Donald Trump has said he isn’t interested in running a traditional presidential campaign. Campaign-finance records show he’s not. Half of the campaign’s 10 highest-paid consultants over the course of the election had never previously worked for a presidential campaign. http://on.wsj.com/2caCWNo

– When Turkish ground forces delivered a lightning strike on Islamic State fighters in Syria last week, the Pentagon hailed what it described as close U.S.-Turkish coordination. But behind the scenes, cooperation between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners broke down at senior levels, according to officials on both sides. http://on.wsj.com/2bNgc2j

– Mylan NV, whose price hike on its life-saving EpiPen drug drew broad criticism this month, said it would launch a half-priced generic version of the medicine-in effect, competing against itself. http://on.wsj.com/2buEXT3

– The European Union’s antitrust regulator is poised to rule as soon as Tuesday that Apple Inc tax arrangements with Ireland have breached the bloc’s state-aid rules. The EU’s decision is likely to aggravate trans-Atlantic tensions over the investigations into tax deals brokered between U.S. multinational corporations and individual European countries. http://on.wsj.com/2bRdRp7

– Uber Technologies Inc said a longtime Alphabet Inc executive has left its board as the two tech companies increasingly clash over the future of transportation and logistics. http://on.wsj.com/2bwEFes

– Fox News Channel called claims by former on-air personality Andrea Tantaros that she was sexually harassed by former network chief Roger Ailes a “smokescreen to obscure her violation of her employment contract.” http://on.wsj.com/2bw1OR6

– Frank McCourt entered exclusive talks to buy French football club Olympique de Marseille in a deal said to be worth 50 million euros ($55.94 million).

– Royal Dutch Shell’s North Sea assets that are being sold have attracted bidders such as Carlyle Group-funded Neptune and Siccar Point Energy. The companies are looking at a package of the assets offered by Shell as a part of the $30 billion disposal programme.

– Carolyn Fairbairn, head of the CBI employers’ federation, has urged the British government and regulators to allow the banking industry “off the naughty step” if the City of London has to fend off post-Brexit challengers.

– Deloitte has clocked its fastest UK revenue growth in 10 years, driven by improvement in corporate client sentiment over the past 18 months. Its UK revenue increased by 13.6 percent to 3.05 billion pounds ($4.00 billion) in the 12 months to May 31.

NYT

– The European Union’s competition authorities are set to announce a tax ruling against Apple Inc’s tax dealings with the Irish government on Tuesday. The decision is set to further aggravate tensions between American officials and their European counterparts. http://nyti.ms/2by7hke

– Zhongwang USA, backed by Chinese aluminum magnate Liu Zhongtian, said it would buy U.S. aluminum company Aleris in a bet by the billionaire that the nascent U.S. automotive aluminum sector will be the industry’s next big growth market. http://nyti.ms/2by8Dvt

– The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued emergency authorization for a Zika diagnostics test from Swiss drugmaker Roche, skirting normal approval channels as the regulator moves to fight the disease’s spread. http://nyti.ms/2by82tz

– Mylan said on Monday that it would be introducing a generic EpiPen which would be identical to the existing product, however, it will have a wholesale list price of $300 for a pack of two. http://nyti.ms/2byabpi

Britain

** A former Barclays Plc trader, Christopher Ashton, faces becoming the first individual to be fined over allegations that he rigged the foreign exchange market after U.S. regulators pressed ahead with moves to impose a penalty of more than $1 million. http://bit.ly/2bxurMN

** The fatal collapse of a Brazilian dam operated by a mining company owned by BHP Billiton Plc and Vale SA occurred because its poorly designed structure allowed water to seep into its infrastructure and left sand inside the dam “loose, uncompacted and saturated,” an expert panel announced. http://bit.ly/2bxtCDn

The Guardian

** More than 75,000 people have signed an EU staff petition calling on former European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso to forfeit his pension because they say he brought the European Union into disrepute by joining Goldman Sachs. http://bit.ly/2bxu58H

** The government is considering a proposal to detach development of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant from an agreement allowing China to build a reactor in Essex. http://bit.ly/2bxtgwT

The Telegraph

** A former City minister has attacked SoftBank’s perceived lack of commitments to ARM Holdings Plc as shareholders prepare to approve the 24.3 billion pounds ($31.84 billion) offer for Britain’s most high-profile technology company. http://bit.ly/2bxtrrV

** BHS pensioners are facing a protracted wait over the future of their payments, as it will take “months” for Sir Philip Green to broker a deal to plug the retailer’s pension black hole, it has emerged. http://bit.ly/2bxtwMn

Sky News

** Morgan Stanley is retreating from investing in European buyouts months after writing a big cheque to the campaign to keep the UK in the EU. http://bit.ly/2bxtNPe

** The multimillionaire founder of JJB Sports, Dave Whelan, has struck a deal to lead a break-up of Fitness First, the group that was once Britain’s biggest gyms operator. http://bit.ly/2bxu84A

The Independent

** The Bank of Mum and Dad has the potential to branch out further as a major national mortgage lender, according to a new survey. More than a quarter of parents and grandparents might be interested in lending money to youngsters other than their own offspring to buy a home, according to insurance group Legal & General. http://ind.pn/2bxvk7T

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Cheers to American Beers: New at Reason

American beers are actually pretty good.

Marian Tupy writes:

A couple of weeks ago, a European friend of mine, who was passing through Washington, suggested that we get together for a few drinks to bitch about politics in Europe and America. “Could we,” he requested in a typically dismissive way, meet at a place that serves imported beer as opposed to “the s–t that Americans drink?”

I pointed out to my snooty European friend that not all Americans drank Budweiser and Coors, and that the country abounded with thousands of breweries producing a great variety of beer. In 2013, for example, the United States had close to 2,600 breweries. Today, one source claims, there are over 3,700.

Moreover, the quality of American beer can be very high. To celebrate the annual International Beer Day, for example, one British newspaper ranked the best beers in the world. In a story titled World’s best beers to try before you die, six out of the top 17, including the overall winner, came from the United States.

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Bureau of Prisons Will Reduce Time Inmates Spend in Controversial ‘Double Solitary’

The federal Bureau of Prisons announced Friday that it will curtail its practice putting dangerous inmates in cramped cells together for up to 23 hours a day, a practice paradoxically known as “double-cell solitary.”

The agency, as part of the Obama White House’s directives earlier this year to reduce the use of solitary confinment, said it will now require mental health screenings before placing an inmate in what’s known as its Special Management Unit, which is meant to hold gang leaders, violent inmates, and others considered too dangerous for the general prison population. Time in SMU will be limited to two years, with the goal of getting most inmates out within one year, and, the agency said, it will no longer release inmates straight from SMU back out into society.

Solitary confinement is often described as a tiny slice of hell, but arguably more hellish, as Jean-Paul Sartre once famously observed, is being trapped with another person. Civil liberties advocates argue the practice of putting two inmates, many times violent or mentally ill or both, in a 6×10 foot cell for up to 23 hours almost day ensures they will become more violent, more ill, or both.

“We’re placing people in SMU who are supposed to have behavioral problems,” Amy Fettig, the senior counsel for for the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in an interview. “But then we’re placing them in a cell the size of your bathroom with another person for 12 months. That type of arrangement sets up people to be injured, if not worse.”

As the Marshall Project reported earlier this year, at least 18 states double-up their restrictive housing unit cells, more than 80 percent of the 10,747 federal prisoners in solitary have a cellmate, and the consequences are often deadly:

One prisoner, Aaron Fillmore, started feeling an unexplainable aggression towards his cellmate. “It was a level of discomfort that I never experienced before,” he wrote in a letter. Fillmore was double celled at Lawrence Correctional Center in Illinois for three months. “I had thoughts of just punching him in the face. Why? I have no idea. I just had the urge to do it.”

In 2013, an Ohio man suffering from psychotic delusions strangled his cellmate a day after they were placed together. The murdered cellmate was two days away from being released. A prisoner in Georgia stabbed his cellmate multiple times in 2014 as officers were handcuffing that cellmate through the cell door. When guards demanded that the prisoner put his hands up to be cuffed, he yelled in response, “I can’t do that. He just kept messin’ with me.” That same year in Alaska, two cellmates who had been friends got into an argument, which ended when one strangled the other. After realizing what he had done, he screamed for the guards’ help.

Fettig and other civil liberties advocates say the reforms are a step in the right direction, but still far above international standards for solitary confinement. A United Nations expert on torture has called for solitary confinement over 15 days to be completely abolished.

And, Fettig said, although inmates in SMU are not technically in solitary, “what we hear from mental health experts is it’s still an extreme level of isolation even if you’re with another person. The mental health impact is very, very similar. You’re likely to see the mental and cognitive degradation that occurs in severe isolation.”

Alan Mills, the executive director of the Uptown People’s Law Center in Chicago, a nonprofit legal aid organization, said “double celling does not relieve the damage done by solitary.”

“To the contrary, it makes it worse,” he continued. “People confined to solitary develop coping mechanisms–constant pacing is one, very strict routines is another. Having a second person, always present, in a very small space with zero privacy, interferes with these coping mechanisms–and one person’s coping mechanism is another person’s irritant.”

In 2014 Mills documented two inmates confined to double-cell solitary in an Illinois state prison who had developed bed sores from lack of movement.

For now, civil liberties advocates are waiting to see how the new policies will actually play out.

“What is in writing is not always what is implemented on the ground,” Fettig said, “and in a vast system like the Bureau of Prisons, we’re going to have to see rigorous oversight, otherwise it’s just a piece of paper.”

The Lewisburg federal penitentiary currently has the largest SMU in the country, housing more than 1,000 inmates. As Fusion reported on Friday:

Constructed in the 1930s, Lewisburg was a model of prison reform. Inmates lived in a building designed to look like a college campus, and participated in programs like a prison newspaper and a farm where they grew their own crops. But over the years, the facility got more and more restrictive. Starting in 2009, most of the prison was transformed into an SMU. It’s billed by the Bureau of Prisons as a rehabilitation program, a way to make the worst of the worst inmates—gang leaders and inmates with extreme disciplinary records—more manageable. Among prisoners around the country, however, it’s a source of fear […]

One inmate, Sebastian Richardson, said in a lawsuit filed in 2011 that he was assigned to be a roommate with another prisoner—nicknamed “The Prophet”—who had assaulted about 20 people while in prison. When Richardson refused his roommate assignment, he said he was placed in hard restraints for a month. (Five years later, the case is still pending.)

In a press release, the Bureau of Prisons said “the SMU program is one of the tools available to staff to ensure a safe and orderly environment at all institutions and to address unique security and management concerns.”

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