Month: December 2016

Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via Strategic-Culture.org,

Looking at US history over a fairly long period of time, it is easy to see the destructive path that has accompanied the expansion of the American empire over the last seventy years.

While World War II was still raging, US strategists were already planning their next steps in the international arena. The new target was immediately identified in the assault and the dismemberment of the Soviet empire. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet economic model as an alternative to the capitalist system, the West found itself faced with what was defined as ‘the end of' history, and proceeded to act accordingly.

The delicate transition from bipolarity, the world-order system based on the United States and the Soviet Union occupying opposing poles, to a unipolar world order with Washington as the only superpower, was entrusted to George H. W. Bush. The main purpose was to reassure with special care the former Soviet empire, even as the Soviet Union plunged into chaos and poverty while the West preyed on her resources.

Not surprisingly, the 90's represented a phase of major economic growth for the United States. Predictably, on that occasion, the national elite favored the election of a president, Bill Clinton, who was more attentive to domestic issues over international affairs. The American financial oligarchy sought to consolidate their economic fortunes by expanding as far as possible the Western financial model, especially with new virgin territory in the former Soviet republics yet to be conquered and exploited.

With the disintegration of the USSR, the United States had a decade to aspire to the utopia of global hegemony. Reviewing with the passage of time the convulsive period of the 90’s, the goal seemed one step away, almost within reach.

The means of conquest and expansion of the American empire generally consist of three domains: cultural, economic and military. With the end of the Soviet empire, there was no alternative left for the American imperialist capitalist system. From the point of view of cultural expansion, Washington had now no adversaries and could focus on the destruction of other countries thanks to the globalization of products like McDonald's and Coca Cola in every corner of the planet.

Of course the consequences of an enlargement of the sphere of cultural influence led to the increased power of the economic system. In this sense, Washington's domination in international financial institutions complemented the imposition of the American way of life on other countries. Due to the mechanisms of austerity arising from trap-loans issued by the IMF or World Bank, countries in serious economic difficulties have ended up being swallowed up by debt.

Too many nations have experienced the tragedy of an economic collapse due to the obligation to privatize or grant to foreign corporations the rights to exploit their primary resources – the long arm of Western governments. Such an economic model has generated an epidemic of predatory finance and speculation, enormously strengthening the domination of the capitalist system on the rest of the globe. It is not a coincidence that in 1995 the WTO was founded, which imposed conditions of trade that strongly favored the European powers and the American empire.

In the event of a failure of cultural or economic pressure, Washington has often opted for real military aggression. An act of war is the most explicit form of abuse and is normally reserved for nations that refuse to comply with Atlanticist directions. In this sense, towards the end of Clinton's term, the tone of the presidency shifted from a predilection towards focussing on the economy to aggression against sovereign nations. The first victim was Somalia, then in short order followed by the bombing of Serbia and the breakup of Yugoslavia. A relatively new phase in the recent history of the United States began, whereby economic and cultural expansion gave way to the reign of destructive bombs and missiles.

Although the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia was successful, the US image in the world began to be diminished, including its cultural leadership. Military action always produces consequences in the functioning of international relations, although history is often written by the winners.

By the end of the 90's, although no country was in a practical position to oppose a cultural, economic or military resistance against Washington, the first thoughts of an alternative alliance to the Western bloc were beginning to emerge. The United States, while sniffing the danger, did not change direction, committed as it was to the idea of a ??cultural imposition, which became even more pronounced as a result of the expansion of the Internet as well as the effects of economic globalization.

The decision to shift gears, accelerating the triad of cultural, economic and military pressure, was eloquently expressed by the elites with the controversial victory of George W. Bush in 2000.

The successor to Bill Clinton had necessarily to be a president with a strong military angle, a high capacity to expand the capitalist globalization model, and a huge sense of patriotism to spread American propaganda of every possible cultural form in every corner of the planet. The ultimate goal was to surround the Heartland (China + Russia + Eurasia generally) as was expressed by MacKinder, to control their resources. Thus began an uncertain mission, requiring the election of a president friendly to the project of a unipolar New World Order created by the elite.

In the following years, thanks to the September 11, 2001, Washington had a perfect way to expand its wars and terror to every corner of the world. Economic aggression experienced a further boost with the creation of the EURO, a maximal expression in the financial domain. The Internet and increasing growth of interconnectivity ended up accelerating globalization, centralizing even more decision-making power into a few hands. The sum of these factors made it possible to fruitfully continue the devastating work of evangelization according to the Western economic model.

Yet despite the apparent economic and cultural expansion of the United States, as well as an incessant war operation in Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2001, the dream of a triumphant march towards global hegemony began to suffer the first setbacks.

The economic or cultural factor began to no longer be sufficient, requiring the opting of an armed solution as in Afghanistan and Iraq, demonstrating in practice how the American empire was serious about expanding eastwards, expanding its ambitions and influence. In this cultural, economic and military march, Washington often ignored or underestimated the consequences of its actions thanks to its unique position as the world superpower. This is a strategic mistake that will cost the United States and its utopian dreams of global domination.

However, the earliest forms of Eurasian resistance already began to emerge in the mid 90’s, first with the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 1996 and then with the Eurasian Economic Union in 2000 (the first discussions began in 1994), two factors that changed the course of history several years later.

The Republic of China, thanks to the pressure resulting from globalization, became the global farm, accumulating wealth and rapidly becoming over the coming fifteen years the first global economic power. The Russian Federation, on the other hand, after a decade of hunger and hardship, elected Putin, a strongman emanating from the intense nationalistic view. Thanks to a protectionist attitude towards the economy and a strong determination to reinvigorate the military role of Russia, in the space of 15 years he brought Moscow to be global power status.

In the end, the Bush era, degraded by destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, has brought more harm than good in Washington. Bush laid the foundation for a process of unification of the opposing powers to American imperialism and forced them into each other's’ arms (BRICS) to mount an effective counter to the cultural, economic and military action of the euro-American elites.

As well as unifying the enemies of Washington, the American home front was beginning to show signs of unrest, both economically and militarily. The two wars deeply shook Western public opinion, forcing the elite to propose a candidate representing rupture who was focused on internal needs. Obama has been the perfect representation of this intent.

Elected with less warlike intentions of Bush and the clear need to reform a financial system that was out of control, he has failed in both cases, dragging the world into an unending conflict while giving high finance absolute control over the levers of economic power. The Fed and the private banks have increased their power enormously under Obama, coming to determine directly the democratic order of even allied nations with mechanisms such as spread or the ability to print money at zero interest. Instead of regulating the perverse financial mechanisms, their influence has increased. Instead of trying to mediate with hostile nations, Obama embarked on a mission of nation-building, regime change and color revolutions, using the whole arsenal of soft-power at his disposal. these were of course intentional and deliberate choices.

Obama was forced to adopt new destabilization techniques to obscure their purpose in the eyes of the population without losing sight of the objectives of the elites established in the early 90’s. Drones, economic manipulation, TTIP, TTP, special forces, color revolutions, the Arab Spring, sanctions and cyber warfare – these have become the Obama administration's modus operandi.

The key factor remains the possibility of denying direct involvement in wars harmful to the image of the United States and its continuing economic, cultural and military expansion. From here these techniques can be seen in 2010 in the Middle East and North Africa, the spread of speculation in some European countries, and drone attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. This is not to mention the hundreds of troops belonging to special forces spread over five continents and the coup financed and organized by the US government organs in Ukraine.

The Obama administration has been accelerating global hegemony by swapping tools, but the effects and causes have remained the same as, or even worse than, previous administrations.

Meanwhile, the economic unions, cultural and military between the three nations pioneer of anti-imperialism, Iran, China and Russia, have accelerated their strategic alignment as an instrument of deterrence against advancing American hegemony.

The war in Syria, combined with the worsening of the crisis with Russia, tensions with China in the South China Sea, and the aggressive posture toward Iran's orbit of Shiite nations, have accelerated the erosion of American power. The main causes are the failed cultural model imposed through the Arab Spring; the economic coup in Ukraine (the nation is on the brink of bankruptcy); and the military impossibility of direct intervention in Syria. The United States, in the space of a decade, has found itself facing a reality no longer compatible with the plan of global hegemony.

The Trump victory fits into this decadent scenario. Are we facing a true revolutionary who intends to rid forever global hegemonic aims, or is he simply a well-thought-out pause, created by the elites to revitalize the economy, arrest the internal discontent in the country, and rebuild the army to resume the march toward global hegemony in 2020?

This is the typical million-dollar question that I tried to give an answer to in a previous article. At the moment, it is difficult to interpret and predict which path will be taken by the elected president. Both have many arguments to support them and can easily be disputed or accepted. Only time will tell if the reality around us is already now placed in a multipolar world order, or if we are in a convulsive transition phase in which the United States remains anchored to the role of global power hoping to preserve the 'unipolar moment' it began in 1989.

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Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

You have to hand it to the regressive left, when they conjure propaganda they really know how to run with it. When their indoctrination doesn’t take, and the public stops them cold with a wall of skepticism, they don’t give up! No — the little buggers double down and go for broke!

I would point out, however, that this seemingly boundless drive to forsake all logic and reason in the name of ideology is not due to these people being special in their ambition. Rather, they are following a somewhat successful historic model; the model of communism. And by successful, I mean successfully destructive.

With Donald Trump on the way to the White House in January, along with a Republican majority in Congress and the Senate, leftists long accustomed to dominating the public narrative through the mainstream media have found themselves without leverage. Now, they must resort to ankle biting with efforts like the “fake news” meme, which is designed to undermine the alternative media through ad hominem.  Obviously this will fail.  It is far too late for the mainstream media to gain back any social capital, and they will have to adapt or die out.

With this avenue closing for the left, the next stage will be direct asymmetrics; they will use subversion at a more localized level; working to provoke “marginalized” groups into taking extreme action in order to illicit a negative and totalitarian response from conservatives.

I am rather well versed on the history of communist insurgencies, and one simple reality that consistently stands out to me is that wherever communist movements exist, war follows.  They may claim to be peaceful in their aims and methods, they may claim to want what is best for society as a whole, but when these movements are denied access to social evolution, they almost always revert to violent means.  The primary reason for this, I believe, is that they really do assume at their very core that their ideal is the ONLY ideal.

They think they are heroes, awakened to a world view that the rest of us are incapable of comprehending. In their minds, anyone seeking to obstruct them is either dangerously ignorant or a fascist hellbent on sabotaging humanity’s “natural progression” into the leftist utopia.   Therefore any and all actions are justified on their part.  They are fighting “evil.”  And, of course, conservatives like you and I are the physical manifestations of that evil.  We are the super-villains that must be destroyed at all costs in the leftist fantasy world.

As I noted in my last article, Order Out Of chaos: The Defeat Of The Left Comes With A Cost, regressives in the form of social justice warriors are currently more cute in their provocations than dangerous, but this is only an early stage of their movement.  When these people do not get what they want, when they realize that propaganda methods are not effective, they will inevitably turn toward militancy and aggressive mob action.  This is the problem with zealots: they are infinitely capable of moral relativity.  They are monsters in people suits just waiting to be unleashed, but made even more dangerous by their self-image as guardians.

There is nothing worse than a psychopath with a desperate desire to nurture you.

After my last article, some readers responded that they understood my basic premise — that the left versus right dynamic is being instigated by global elites, and that this could result in both sides moving to opposing extremes of the political spectrum; communism versus fascism.  That said, they also wanted to know what I thought should be done about the left in particular?  Sure, the elites are the root cause of the threat, but what about all the crazed leftists the elites hide behind and exploit?  Don’t we have to deal with them at some point as well?

I would say yes, though our reaction must be measured or we risk falling into the paradigm trap the elites have constructed for us.

So, here is the reality — when a movement like the social justice cult reverts to zealotry, there is nothing that can be done to persuade them otherwise.  Some will leave the movement behind, but the majority will refuse to acknowledge that their ideology has failed to sway the masses, and that this might be due to the fact that their ideology is highly flawed. They will seek instead to FORCE us into compliance. This ensures that a violent conflict will eventually arise.

The danger is that while conservatives now appear to hold the keys to the behemoth that is government after wrestling it from the left (again, at least in appearance), we will be tempted to swing the cannons of the bureaucratic battleship towards our foes and in our favor.  I’ll have to use the old Lord of the Rings analogy once again here — big government is like the “one ring;” it will always result in evil, no matter who is wearing it.  Good people will take hold of it thinking they can resist abusing it and that they will exploit its incredible power to help others; and they will fall into darkness like everyone else.

The solution?  Conservatives must face leftist extremists on equal ground. We must avoid the temptation of using government as a weapon to extinguish them.  We must avoid stooping to their level.  Otherwise, there is an serious risk that we will falter in our principles and become just as bad if not worse than the regressive left.  And yes, this means a decentralized civil war — a war in which government is denied as a player.  As long as conservatives refuse to wield government as a sword in our arsenal, we will win against all enemies.  The second we wimp out and beg government to aid us in our fight, we will be co-opted and assimilated by the elites.

But what would this conflict look like?

I could see an insurgency versus an insurgency scenario, but this is only if the right refuses to join with government to exact its goals.

In the meantime, I welcome you to look at theories on this from the left side of the spectrum. Check out this article, referencing military “experts” from the ever regressive and dwindling Cracked Magazine titled 6 Reasons Why A New Civil War Is Possible And Terrifying, published at the beginning of November.

While Cracked does briefly address the notion that a civil war could be triggered by the left in the U.S., their article was published before the election, clearly with the assumption that Donald Trump was bound to lose and that “right wing extremists” were the greatest threat to peace and stability in the wake of a Clinton presidency. The majority of their list is composed of scenarios in which “anti-government” right wingers could undermine social cohesion and was no doubt supplemented thoroughly by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I also want to quickly point out that the No. 2 threat on the Cracked list of civil war threats was the Thermal Evasion Suit I designed!  Or at least, the notion that we have the ability and knowledge to build these kinds of countermeasures.  Here’s a quote from the article:

"But in my lurking on militia sites, I did occasionally run into information that looked like it had its basis in something other than a manual. Take this guide to evading drones published by the Oath Keepers, an anti-government group made up of former military and police veterans."

 

[Cracked never actually links to the video, they just show a still photo.  Clearly they did not want people watching it and deciding for themselves what my intent was.]

 

"I had a former drone operator review the video. He said their “thermal evasion suit” was based on a “decent premise”, although he said it would only work well if the shooter was stationary. It’s impossible to know if the info in this video came from someone with direct (albeit outdated) drone experience. In his time among America’s many militias, Bill said, “…I’ve probably ran into direct training” of groups by military veterans, “…five or six times, in five different states. It’s incredibly prevalent."

I’m not sure exactly who their “expert” was.  Apparently he thought I was building an invisibility suit because he mentions the problem of “movement,” which no suit I know of can hide. They also state something about “outdated drone experience,” yet don’t actually qualify that with anything of substance. Finally, they insinuate that I somehow received help from military insiders with top-secret knowledge, and this is how I managed to design a thermal evasion system.  In fact, I came up with the design and materials on my own and brought it to Oath Keepers, who aided in the testing phase.  Not one drone expert was on hand to feed me design information.

The point is, these people have no idea what they are talking about. Cracked never contacted me about the suit even though my face and email address are all over the video. It was not “impossible to know” if I received insider information; all they had to do was ask.  The left in their zealotry likes to jump to conclusions. They also assume we are a bunch of dumb hillbillies, when we are in fact much smarter and more innovative than they are.

While Cracked and their so-called “experts” are hopelessly naive in many respects, they do make a few solid observations.

First, they present the issue of lack of trust in government and police forces on the part of the public. They seem to suggest this is a bad thing by claiming that distrust of government leads to insurgency.  I would say distrust of government is the healthiest state a society can exist in.

That said, I would remind readers that conservatives will take over the helm of the government ship as of 2017.  And, as I warned when I predicted a Trump election win back in June, the elites have allowed us into authority at a time when trust in government is at historic lows.  We have been handed the reigns of power, but I say this is not a cure, but a curse. We will no longer be considered freedom fighters.  We will be considered the jackboot stomping on the face of America.

Second, Cracked brings up the problem of infrastructure interference, such as highway bombings and other methods of breaking down travel and supply routes.  They mention this based on the premise that we right wingers might set up IEDs using tannerite to terrorize road networks.

We’ve already seen something like this, but not from the right wing.  Leftists are notorious lately for building human walls across major roads in order to shut down movement.  I would suggest that they will do this with more frequency (and with more violence) once winter winds down (leftists can’t stand the cold, which is why most of them live near beaches). Communists like to disrupt supply chains and production; they know this is the quickest path to instigating mass panic.

Third, the Cracked article argues that right wingers might adopt the methods of ISIS in our bid for supremacy, which is extraordinarily absurd if you know anything at all about conservatives.

It is actually the left that has shown time and time again their affinity for Muslim extremism.  They defend it openly and publicly. You would think all the social justice feminists and gay rights groups would view the Muslim world as a carnival of horrors being that in almost any Muslim controlled nation on the planet they would be enslaved, stoned to death or thrown off a tall building. But no, instead, SJWs champion mass Muslim immigration without question.

Understand that forced Muslim immigration standards in Europe and in the U.S. are a product of global elitism under the Cloward Piven strategy.  The elites like to use incompatible cultures as a tool to destabilize target societies.  But, leftists are also more than happy to go along with this program.  I believe it is because the left is inherently weak when it comes to direct confrontation, and many progressives secretly enjoy the idea of having their own hitmen (Muslim extremists or Black Lives Matter) on speed dial just in case.

If any group has shown a willingness to work with the likes of ISIS, it is the left. Set aside the fact that the Department of Defense under Obama admits in its own white papers supporting the rise of the Muslim terrorist network.

Finally, Cracked and their experts suggest the idea that a second American civil war will not be two-sided, but multi-sided.  This is the only intelligent notion in the entire article and I agree with it wholeheartedly.

Here is the problem — multiple groups on the left and the right have entirely different concepts on what the final American product should look like.  Some on the left are anarchists, some are communists, some just want the continuation of the democratic process (but still think Trump should be supplanted). On the right, there are hardcore neo-cons and war hawks that want to nuke the Middle East into oblivion, women and children included.  There are libertarians that just want a return to small government and constitutionalism.  There are anarcho-capitalists that seem to want the erasure of government and the constitution entirely but live in a world of theory rather than practicality (I call them egghead libertarians).  There are even Christian factions that long for a Christian-based theocracy.

Then, there are people like me, who just want to get to the root of the problem and hang the globalists from lampposts (after a speedy trial of course).  We don’t necessarily have a beef with any other group as long as they stay out of our way.  We would like to circumvent the danger of a civil war altogether if possible.

Unfortunately, I think Cracked and their experts are right on this, and that a second American civil war will be multifaceted.  And, while we are all at each others throats, the elites will be lounging on the riviera sipping mojitos and laughing.  The most dangerous faction (besides the elites) will be the catalyzing faction; the regressive left.  They will be the group that initiates all other hostilities.

What leftists do not know is that they have always been useful idiots for the global elites, and, they will be thrown in the garbage once the elites are finished with them.  I hope that every leftist could watch the following interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov, in which he examines the process by which free nations are brought to chaos by the elites through the exploitation of the regressive left in order to establish a totalitarian system.

I leave you with this thought — civil war is unavoidable. The left is too crazy, and the right has now been given the weapon of government too enticing to overlook. Consider for a moment which “faction” in the world benefits most from this arrangement and then you will understand that the left is ultimately a distraction from the greater enemy. Remove the globalists from the picture, and the left will sort itself out.

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While all eyes were on India (as rumors swirled of an imminent gold import ban), The FT reports that China curbed gold imports in the wake of government attempts to clamp down on capital leaving the country, according to traders and bankers.

Some banks with licences have recently had difficulty obtaining approval to import gold, they said — a move tied to China’s attempts to stop a weakening renminbi by tightening outflows of dollars, the banks added.

 

The hit to gold imports comes as China tightens restrictions on overseas deals by state-owned companies in an effort to limit capital outflows that has seen the renminbi fall to its lowest against the dollar in eight years.

When the headline hit, gold futures legged lower, but are rebounding…

As The FT notes, quotas for importing gold have been cut during quarterly assessments this year. Banks also have dollar quotas, some of which must be used when buying gold.

The limits on imports bite as the weakening renminbi raises Chinese investors’ interest in gold. Lower gold prices have also triggered more buying.

 

The combination of tighter quotas and an uptick in demand caused the premium for gold in China over the international gold price to jump as high as $46 in the past few weeks, according to data from Wind Information. Normal levels are about $2 to $4.

 

In an effort to ease that premium, Chinese banks have been allowed to import gold under their quotas using the offshore renminbi, one banker said. Although still high, the premium for gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange has since fallen to $26, according to Wind data.

If the restrictions on imports are sustained that could raise questions about China’s moves to open its gold market to international traders. The world’s largest consumer of the precious metal has moved to have a greater voice over the price of gold.

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Submitted by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The market should not be overly enthusiastic over today’s oil price surge on reports that OPEC has managed to reach some kind of a deal to reduce supply, David Hunt, chief executive at asset manager PGIM, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday.

Hunt, CEO of the asset management group that manages US$1 trillion in assets, said the oil price surge today is “probably not” sustainable.

Earlier today, OPEC managed to reach the much-hyped agreement to cut output in a bid to boost oil prices. The ministerial meeting in Vienna is said to have clinched a deal to cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day to 32.5 million barrels per day, but the deal may come with a condition that non-OPEC producers also cut production, by some 600,000 bpd.

Oil prices are soaring on the OPEC deal news, and as of 10:50 AM (EST), WTI Crude was surging 7.21 percent at US$48.49, and Brent Crude was soaring by 7.65 percent at US$50.94, staying above the US$50 mark for a couple of hours now.

“For us who are long-term investors, we tend to look at the group of people who are gathering in Vienna and say ‘they’re fighting against history… The cost of producing crude, largely due to fracking technology, has dramatically changed the marginal economics of oil,” Hunt told Bloomberg Television.

According to Hunt, long-term investors like PGIM see the longer-run market fundamentals and sentiment as “much more important than whether we get a bounce of a couple of dollars on Brent today or not. Fundamentally the economics of oil have changed and we now need to work that through how different industries are pricing, and how commodities are priced on the basis of that”.

Hunt also cautioned against investors being too optimistic in the long run about equity indexes’ continued rally since Donald Trump was elected U.S. President.

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President Obama apparently still hasn’t come to terms with Hillary’s stunning loss on November 8th.  When asked about the 2016 election by Rolling Stone magazine in a recent interview, Obama relayed his view that “Fox News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country” was a big part of the reason democrats lost the White House.

In this election, [they] turned out in huge numbers for Trump. And I think that part of it has to do with our inability, our failure, to reach those voters effectively. Part of it is Fox News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country, but part of it is also Democrats not working at a grassroots level, being in there, showing up, making arguments. That part of the critique of the Democratic Party is accurate. We spend a lot of time focused on international policy and national policy and less time being on the ground. And when we’re on the ground, we do well. This is why I won Iowa.

Yes, because Fox News didn’t exist in 2008 and 2012 in the MidWest and CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NYT, Reuters, AP, etc., etc., etc. are all extremely impartial news outlets…not extensions of the democratic party. 

Pres Obama blames ‘Fox News being in every bar and restaurant’ as to why Democrats lost the election http://pic.twitter.com/eaquFLdkP5

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) November 30, 2016

 

No, it certainly can’t be that the following memo, revealed by WikiLeaks that was sent to pretty much everyone in the mainstream media and intended to “give reporters there first thoughts” and “frame the HRC message and race”, implies any sort of bias in the overwhelming majority of the media outlets in the U.S.  God forbid that reporters be allowed to form their own “first thoughts”…no, first impressions are too important and had to force fed to the press by Hillary’s team.   

But sure, Obama, Fox News is definitely the problem…

Oddly, we would note that Fox News was the one major media outlet excluded from Hillary’s invite list…hmmm

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Philadelphia police have launched an investigation into an assistant city attorney in connection with anti-Trump graffiti found on the side of an upscale supermarket in Chestnut Hill on November 25th, according to the Inquirer; meanwhile an angry local Republican Party wants him fired.

Surveillance footage released overnight, shows two men walking along in Chestnut Hill, around midnight on Friday by the Fresh Market located at 8200 Germantown Avenue. One wears a blue blazer, khakis and a rakishly-tied scarf, and carries a glass of wine. What at first appeared like a calm end to a night out in an upscale part of the city, changed when the second man was seen spray painting a message on the wall of a newly-constructed grocery store: “Fuck Trump.”

The damage is estimated at between $3,000 and $10,000.

While the sprayer remains unidentified, the man in the blazer turns out to be Assistant City Solicitor Duncan Lloyd. No charges have been filed and as of Wednesday evening, the city was awaiting more information before taking any administrative action.

According to Philly.com, First Deputy City Solicitor Craig Straw confirmed Lloyd, who has worked for the law department since 2011, is one of two men in the video. “We do not condone this type of behavior from our employees,” Straw said. “To my knowledge, Mr. Lloyd has already contacted the Philadelphia Police and is cooperating with them. We will decide on a course of action once we obtain more information about the investigation.”

Lloyd, 32, is a University of Pennsylvania and Temple’s Beasley School of Law graduated, according to his Linkedin page and makes $63,207 a year, representing the city mostly in federal and state discrimination lawsuits. On his Linkedin page he wrote of the job, “As a result of these responsibilities, I hear the craziest stories – ones regularly driven by the unreasonable mores of lust, anger, passion, and envy.”

This incident is hardly news: The Inquirer reports that since election day, anti-Trump graffiti has been reported throughout the city. In early November, spray-painted swastikas, racist graffiti and references to Donald Trump and Nazi Germany appeared in South Philadelphia. Anti-Trump graffiti has been reported on bus shelters and on the exterior wall of City Hall, where “Not my President,” was spray painted and removed Nov. 12. Mayor Kenney has denounced the destruction of property, which mirrors similar incidents nationwide. However, on no prior occasions was the alleged perpetrator dumb enough to be a public servant calmly drinking wine while on closed-circuit camera.

* * *

To Lloyd the graffiti incident may have seemed like a childish prank, but the chair of the Philadelphia Republican Party, Joe DeFelice, is out for blood demanding his immediate firing. In a statement released this afternoon, DeFelice said the following:

“If the image of an upper-middle class city attorney clad in a blazer and sipping wine while vandalizing an upscale grocery store with an anti-Trump message strikes you as perhaps the most bourgeois sight imaginable, that’s because it is. Nothing can better represent the hysterical pearl-clutching of the ‘progressive’ elite in response to this earth-shattering election, when residents of Chestnut Hill and similar neighborhoods across the country discovered – gasp – that other people have a voice too. The assistant city solicitor in question had ostensibly taken the law into his own hands, since a democratic election didn’t yield his preferred outcome.

 

“For somebody with extensive legal training to feel entitled to vandalize a newly opened super-market strikes us at the Philadelphia Republican Party as an astonishing feat of idiocy. Did the extra glass of Shiraz give him some sort of delusional confidence that there are no cameras on Germantown Ave? The taxpayers should be entrusting exactly none of our faith into this man. He should be fired from our city’s law department immediately.”

No arrests, or terminations, have been made so far.

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Industrial metals commodity prices plunged by the most since March in the last 2 days as China’s exchanges (once again) clamped down on speculation by tightening trading rules. As Bloomberg reports, for the second time this year, trading has exploded on the nation’s exchanges, pushing prices of everything from zinc to coal to multi-year highs and sending authorities scrambling to deflate the bubble before it bursts.

Metals brokers described panic earlier this month as the frenzy spread to markets in London and New York, prompting wild swings in prices that show no signs of abating.

“I can recall only two other occasions in my career where there was such panic and devastating price action in copper but this market today is far less transparent,”

 

While billions of yuan have poured in from herd-like Chinese retail investors who show little regard for market fundamentals, brokers and traders say even more is coming from an expanding army of deep-pocketed hedge funds. They’re chasing better returns in commodities as stocks and real estate fade, often using algorithms and trading late into the night, when markets in London and New York are most active.

 

“There is no doubt that the price moves and the bigger volumes worldwide are being driven by the Chinese, and by professional speculators and financial players,” said Tiger Shi, managing partner at brokerage BANDS Financial Ltd., which counts several of those funds as clients. “The western hedge funds and institutional investors don’t really know what’s going on. Often they were used to trading macro factors or Fed policy, but now they find they have fewer advantages.”

And it was never going to end well…

Zinc Futures have plunged over 10% in the last 2 days (after surging over 27% since the start of November).

 

Steel Rebar is tumbling…

 

And Iron Ore futures have collapsed more… twice…

Think it's the Trump-Trade? Think again. Fundamentally, as Bloomberg highlights, there is massive oversupply. Iron ore port inventories in China are near the highest since September 2014 and are up 19 percent this year, according to Shanghai Steelhome Information Technology Co. Top producer Vale SA reiterated its output guidance of 360 million to 380 million tons for 2017 on Tuesday and expects to produce 400 million to 420 million tons the year after.

So what is it? What had driven this panic-buying in industrial commodities? Simple – another Chinese speculative bubble…

Iron ore and steel futures trimmed their second monthly advance as bourses in Dalian and Shanghai moved to deflate a boom driven partly by speculative trading.

 

The Dalian Commodity Exchange raised margin requirements and the Shanghai Futures Exchange capped some positions. These measures have taken some speculative steam out of the market, according to Justin Smirk, a senior economist at Westpac Banking Corp.

As the Chinese commodity bubble of March/April is back and trading volumes explode relative to open interest…

NOTE: SHFE updated their Zinc "control measures" once again tonight, capping new positions at 1500 lots.

 

 

Thank to hot money flows…

“Commodities market volatility is liquidity driven, as money from commercial bank wealth management products and private banking accounts flow into the market seeking higher return,”

And an increase in algos…

The use of algorithmic trading, in which computers execute multiple orders in milliseconds, is turbo-charging volume and volatility, according to Fu Peng, a portfolio manager at Lianzhan Global Macro Fund Management Co. About a third of activity on Chinese exchanges is executed by automated commands, which generates more volume and greater momentum on global markets, Shi estimates.

 

“The machine component in the market is now so much bigger as is the onshore retail and fund involvement on the Shanghai Futures Exchange and OTC options.”

Similar to the last frenzy in April, the government-owned exchanges have stepped in to cool trading by raising fees and margins, or cutting the number of new positions allowed daily. In the latest move, the Shanghai Futures volume and turnover have since come off their highs but prices are still swinging.

So with the China Commoditty Echo Bubble now bursting, the big question is, where does the hot money flow next? As Socgen shows, Chinese 'gamblers' have chased stocks (and lost), dumped capital (Yuan loss), piled into commodities (in March/April) and lost, rotated into housing (until the government choked that off), and then sent bond yields to record lows…

As Fu at Lianzhan Global Macro Fund noted:

“The nation’s supply-side reforms had a big impact on the market balance, and that’s the fundamentals behind the trading,”

 

“But at the same time, we’ve got too much money there. There have been no returns from investment in industries. The stock market is neither dead nor alive. Investment in real estate also got curbed. So all the money is rushing into commodities.”

But now, Chinese housing is at record highs, Chinese stocks are falling, Chinese bonds are falling, and Chinese commodities are tumbling… the only thing with momentum for the hot money to chase in the currency… and we suspect (by recent liquidity withdrawals) that The PBOC has had enough of that.

“The massive and unprecedented surge in Chinese trading volume in base metals over the past month — but especially since the election — has put LME metals traders on red alert,” Tai Wong, director of commodity products trading at BMO Capital Markets in New York.

via http://ift.tt/2gzVgid Tyler Durden