Month: May 2017

While one can hardly accuse the market of being particularly nervous at this moment, with the VIX dropping to single digits earlier today for the first time in a decade, and with strategists and pundits explaining to anyone who will listen how this is the “most hated rally ever” despite the S&P trading at all time highs at valuations that are in the 99 historical percentile, an interesting admission was made today by Bank of America which reported that in April, its Sell Side Indicator, a proprietary measure of Wall Street’s bullishness on stocks, rose by 0.6ppt to 53.5, its highest level since August 2015 (recall August 2015 is when the infamous ETFlash Crash took place, sending the Dow Jones brief lower by 1,000 points).

BofA’s Savita Subramanian also explains that the indicator moved further into “Neutral” territory, where it has been for the past five months. What is curious is that while sentiment has improved significantly off of the 2012 bottom — when this indicator reached an all-time low of 43.9 — today’s sentiment levels are barely above where they were at the market lows of March 2009.

And yet, while modest the transition is notable, at least to the BofA strategist, who writes that “the recent inflection from skepticism to optimism could be the first step toward the market euphoria that we typically see at the end of bull markets and that has been glaringly absent so far in the cycle.”

How is this particular indicator constructed? BofA explains:

The Sell Side Indicator is based on the average recommended equity allocation of Wall Street strategists as of the last business day of each month. We have found that Wall Street’s consensus equity allocation has been a reliable contrary indicator. In other words, it has historically been a bullish signal when Wall Street was extremely bearish, and vice versa. See our December report for more details on the Sell Side Indicator.

Implications about potential blow off top aside, what does this indicator suggest about future returns? According to BofA, with the S&P 500’s indicated dividend yield currently above 2%, that implies a 12-
month price return of 14% and a 12-month value of 2727. At that level, the forward PE would be well in the 20x.

Subramanian clarifies that while “this is not our S&P 500 target, this model is an input into our target, along with fundamental and technical signals. Historically, when our indicator has been this low or lower, total returns over the subsequent 12 months have been positive 95% of the time, with median 12-month returns of +22%. However, past performance is not an indication of future results.”

In short, the bank has spun an indicator that suggests a “first step toward market euphoria” into predicting over 300 points of S&P upside. Which, considering the record $1 trillion liquidity injection by central banks in 2017 alone, is certainly feasible.

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

Apparently Bloomberg and some auto executives are convinced that soaring car prices are the reason that sales are starting to slump.  Bloomberg attributes the problem to new, costly technology being added vehicles:

To understand why the U.S. auto market isn’t growing, consider a top-of-the-line minivan from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV now costs about $50,000.

 

With twin second-row touch screens, reclining third-row seats, a vacuum and automated parallel parking, the Chrysler Pacifica packs plenty of features to justify a hefty expense. But this big a price tag puts the prototypical family vehicle out of reach for most Americans.

Ford CFO, Bob Shanks, was quick to confirm the theory because pretty much any explanation is better than the truth, which is that auto sales have been propped up by low interest rates, a subprime debt binge that puts the 2008 mortgage crisis to shame and stretched out terms of new loans.

“At some point that will be one of the aspects that will continue to drive down the volume,” Bob Shanks, Ford’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. “It will become tougher.”

 

“It’s not just the price of the cars — it’s the price of everything else,” she said. “The price of things like health care, shelter — all of that is fighting for the budget.”

And while this explanation may seem logical, it’s patently false.  While average auto sticker prices tend to rise 2-3% per annum, as TrueCar recently pointed out, industry incentive spending in March rose 13.4% year-over-year to an average of $3,511 per vehicle sold.  So while sticker prices may be rising, the price that people are actually paying is coming down, courtesy of very generous auto OEM shareholders.

 

Of course, we’ll get out latest look at the numbers tomorrow when OEMs report April sales.  Here’s how the ‘experts’ see things playing out:

 

So what say you…temporary blip or is the U.S. car buyer tapped out?

via http://ift.tt/2pR8i2D Tyler Durden

By Chris at http://ift.tt/12YmHT5

I still remember my brother coming home with a cell phone.

It looked like a brick and weighed as much. But hell, was it cool. That was in the late 90’s.

The world today is almost unrecognisable in comparison.

Today, people are hyper connected all the time – streaming Kim Kardashian bending over in her yoga pants or listening to Justin Bieber (why, I cannot fathom). Using some app to help park the car, another to book a hotel, yet another to organise flight schedules, and – when the novelty of all of those has worn off – an app to organise getting laid. Revolutionary stuff!

And if that weren’t enough, while all this is going on you can wear a Fitbit which will record every minuscule thing you do and feed this information back to any device of your choosing in order for you to quantify just exactly how fat and appallingly lazy you actually are.

Not only that but we’ve not even begun to discuss the homes, shopping centres, airports, etc. all regulated with sensors controlling climate, security systems, and so on.

Now, I’ll readily admit to having almost none of these gadgets, partly because I’m mean and partly because I like to keep my life simple. 90% of this stuff doesn’t do that for me.

The other reason is experience has taught me that when the new iAnything comes out it costs $1.8bn new and within 24 months you can get it for a few hundred bucks – Moore’s law being what it is. And by then, I’ve determined I don’t really want it anyway. Problem solved.

Twenty years ago, we all thought we’d be in flying cars by now. Instead we got the smartphone, exquisitely designed to build the next generation of hunchbacks.

There is a beacon of light at the end of this tunnel, though.

Two things:

1. Turn off the meaningless junk and recapture your life, and
2. Realise nobody else will, which means that we’re dealing with a growth industry. Excellent!

Tell me, how dependent are you on technology?

Think about it seriously and remember that almost EVERYTHING is connected. Look around you and you’ll realise that EVERYONE is connected.

Take a look at this:

Did you know the IOT was this large? I didn’t.

Think about those 50+ billion connected devices – each of them a vulnerability point for breach of data.

As I’ve written recently, security is an area where nowhere near enough money is being spent. This will change.

I wrote about a private company I’ve invested in in the IOT sector of security, where I mentioned the following:

“The real bang for your buck will lie in artificial intelligence, machine learning, drones, and the integration of existing data sources.”

It’s going to change because the risks are exponential.

Consider recent data hacks in the corporate sector:

• eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY): 150 million passwords
• JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM): 73 million emails
• Target (NYSE:TGT): 40 million credit card numbers
• Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO): 1 billion accounts

Ok, so that’s the corporate sector. And remember for many companies simply admitting to hacks taking place renders them less trustworthy in the eyes of the consumer. Most CEOs would sooner admit to genital warts than admit to data breaches. Industry experts suggest the actual number of hacks taking place are far higher than being reported. I don’t doubt them.

Government

Chairman Trump isn’t the only guy to see that cyber security is important. Certainly Hillary figured that one out. It may have even contributed to her losing the election. Here’s what Trump says about cyber security:

“I will make certain that our military is the best in the world in both cyber offense and defense. I will also ask my Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs to present recommendations for strengthening and augmenting our Cyber Command.”

He goes on to say:

“To enhance the defense of the other agencies of government, including our law enforcement agencies, we will put together a team of the best military, civilian and private sector cybersecurity experts to comprehensively review all of our cybersecurity systems and technology.”

What Can We Do?

On a personal level we should be protecting ourselves. Get rid of the crap that brings no value to your life. Simply not using something reduces personal risk.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then I strongly suggest watching Snowden and Citizenfour, and jumping online to watch videos given by hackers. You’ll quickly realise how vulnerable we all are.

The simple stuff like using a firewall, anti-virus software, never using public Wi-Fi, and always using a VPN should be mandatory for any device we use. It’s just so easy to use public Wi-Fi, neglect using a VPN, but the risks are asymmetric to the downside. Like wearing a seatbelt, it doesn’t matter until, well, until it does.

Will this protect you from being hacked or your history being recorded and archived? No, but it’ll substantially decrease the risks.

Out of those listed topics above, the only one I’ve had some issues with over the years has been the use of VPNs. I’ve used a number of different ones and, like anything, some work better than others, often depending on your location. I recently found what is I think the best I’ve used so far, but whatever you use, I think using a firewall, anti-virus software, and then neglecting a VPN is silly.

How to Invest

While I’m not sure this qualifies as asymmetric in nature I do think that we’re looking at a growth industry.

Here is a good resource with a host of forecasts and trends in the IOT industry.

Estimates of the current size of the IOT market range from $600 billion to $900 billion. Even if we’re working at the low end of that range, consider that the two largest ETFs in the cyber security space total a combined $870 million. That’s it.

That’s nothing!

Heck, Enron On Wheels’ market cap is now north of $50 billion and they make cars (barely) with other peoples’ parts. I’d gladly pair trade these over the next decade. Long HACK and CIBR and short TSLA.

In any event, here’s HACK:

And CIBR:

There are pros and cons to them. HACK has more liquidity, is larger in size but charges a higher expense ratio than CIBR.

Why look at ETFs?

Remember Betamax? Killed by VHS which DVDs then sent to the grave.

You want to be involved in the growth of the sector but unless you are going to dedicate your time to really understanding all the movers and shakers in that sector, diligencing balance sheets, earnings statements, competing technologies, and the like, then you’re better off making a sector bet.

If you want a set and forget play, then buying the ETF means you’re just making a sectorial bet not betting on Betamax in 1977 just as VHS was being released.

Either way, cyber security is likely to do really well over the coming years. It’s a war hedge, an innovation play, and, as long as the IOT space continues to grow cyber security, will become an increasingly required service sector.

– Chris

“There are only two types of companies. Those that have been hacked and those that will be.” — Robert Mueller, FBI Director 2012

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via http://ift.tt/2p2KHI4 Capitalist Exploits

Authored by Zainab Calcuttawala via OilPrice.com,

Chinese diplomatic analysts believe further nuclear tests by North Korea could push Beijing over the edge, prompting an oil embargo that would deal a devastating blow to Pyongyang’s stability.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Fox News that he had been informed that “China would be taking sanctions actions on their own,” should Pyongyang conduct another nuclear test.

“Crude oil is very likely to be included as part of new U.N. sanctions if North Korea continues with its provocative nuclear tests, and China will almost certainly endorse such an effort,” Sun Xingjie, an expert on North Korea from Jilin University said on the matter.

International sanctions against North Korea have been in place for the past several years, with the most recent United Nations-backed round targeting the country’s shipping network. A Chinese oil embargo would likely debilitate Kin Jong-un’s government.

“Instead of an oil embargo of just one or two months, which is unlikely to have a major impact on North Korea’s strategic oil reserves, we are talking about a halt in Chinese crude oil supplies for at least six months. That would be a real nightmare for Kim,” said Sun.

The expert said Beijing would likely require a mandate from the U.N. to take new actions against Pyongyang absent further nuclear activity.

Gasoline prices in North Korea jumped by as much as 83 percent this week on the back of reports that China is mulling over crude sanctions for the unruly neighbor.

While China has historically supported—above all—the stability of the Pyongyang regime as a means of avoiding a refugee crisis should the political system there collapse, now it is putting equal weight on regime stability and the denuclearization of that same regime.

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

Ever since the stunning 2016 election caught them off-guard, Democrats, who expected to quickly fall in-line behind their new leader Hillary Clinton, have been struggling to identify a new party leader or even a cohesive message to rally around.  Meanwhile, in light of the sudden power vacuum and the fact that Bernie Sanders was clearly sabotaged during the primary process, the Democratic party, much like Republicans and the Freedom Caucus, seems to be splintering before our eyes with the more “progressive” elements of the party increasingly distancing themselves from the more moderate voices.

And, as the in-fighting ramps up, it seems that Elizabeth Warren is quickly emerging as the leader of the far-left movement.  In fact, she has become increasingly critical of President Obama in recent days with her most recent attack coming via an interview with the Guardian in which she suggested that Obama was disconnected from the woes of the working class people of the United States who are “getting kicked in the teeth” after 8 years of his rule.

“I think President Obama, like many others in both parties, talk about a set of big national statistics that look shiny and great but increasingly have giant blind spots,” she told the Guardian. “That GDP, unemployment, no longer reflect the lived experiences of most Americans.

 

“And the lived experiences of most Americans is that they are being left behind in this economy. Worse than being left behind, they’re getting kicked in the teeth.”

Of course, this latest attack came just days after Warren trashed Obama for taking a $400,000 pay day for a single wall street speech. 

“I was troubled by that…the influence of money – I describe it as a snake that slithers through Washington.”

Obama’s $400k Wall Street speech stuns @ElizabethWarren
who paid women staff $53k & men staff $76k
Dem HYPOCRISY!http://pic.twitter.com/L7rVVsIW9i

— BillboTex (@BillboTex) April 30, 2017

 

Meanwhile, Warren went even one step further by lumping many in her own party with Republicans who have “thrown their lot in with the rich and the powerful.”

The senator went on take a swipe at members of
her own party while describing the collapse of old distinctions between
left and right. “I think there are real differences between the
Republicans and the Democrats here in the United States,” she said. “The
Republicans have clearly thrown their lot in with the rich and the
powerful, but so have a lot of Democrats.”

Of course, with rumors of her interest in a 2020 run swirling, Warren also took the opportunity to trash Trump for all his flip-flopping and taking away “healthcare coverage for 24 million people” so that he could provide “tax cuts for a handful of millionaires and billionaires.” 

“I think what Donald Trump did was he said, ‘The system is rigged and I will be out there for working people every single day; that is my first priority,’” she said. “He got elected and did a 180-degree turn, headed in the exactly the opposite direction.

 

“He put millionaires and billionaires in charge of his government; he has signed off on one law after another to make it easier for government contractors to steal people’s wages, to make it easier for corporations to hide it when they kill or maim their employees, to make it easier for investment advisers to cheat retirees.”

 

The prime example, she said, was Trump’s attempt to repeal and replace Obama’s signature healthcare legislation, the Affordable Care Act.

 

“It was like in a microcosm,” she said. “If you want one emblematic what does he really stand for, who does he really work for? It was take away healthcare coverage for 24 million people, raise costs for a lot of working families. Why? So that he could produce tax cuts for a handful of millionaires and billionaires.”

For some reason we suspect a 2020 Trump/Warren match-up would be quite entertaining…

Pocahontas is at it again! Goofy Elizabeth Warren, one of the least productive U.S. Senators, has a nasty mouth. Hope she is V.P. choice.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2016

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

While one can debate if last week’s failed attempt by Trump to pass the GOP healthcare vote before the expiration of his 100 days in office counts as attempt #2 by the administration to repeal Obamacare, the Republicans are now back to square one, because based on the latest whip count by The Hill, the GOP again appears to lack sufficient votes to pass its Healthcare bill in the House, despite earlier reports from GOP leaders and the White House that it might be approved by the lower chamber this week.

The Hill’s most recent whip list reveals 22 Republicans – mostly moderates – who oppose the bill, the maximum number of GOP defections that can be afforded, meaning the GOP is just one vote away from another failure.

The latest Republican to announce his opposition is Rep. Billy Long (Mo.), a staunch conservative who often says he was “Tea Party before Tea Party was cool.” He told The Hill he wouldn’t support the bill because of the impact it could have on people with preexisting conditions. 

“I have always stated that one of the few good things about ObamaCare is that people with pre-existing conditions would be covered,” Long said in a statement to The Hill. “The MacArthur amendment strips away any guarantee that pre-existing conditions would be covered and affordable.”

Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Daniel Webster of Florida and Chris Smith of New Jersey will also vote against the current bill, making their decisions public in succession Monday afternoon.

Adding to the confusion, Trump himself, who earlier in the day was optimistic the House could pass a bill Wednesday, “muddied the waters” by suggesting the measure may still be changed.  “I want it to be good for sick people. It’s not in its final form right now,” he said during an Oval Office interview Monday with Bloomberg News. “It will be every bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare.” Heading into a Republican whip meeting Monday afternoon, some of the members going in still didn’t know how they would personally vote for the health care bill: Reps. Kevin Yoder, David Valadao, Erik Paulson, Elise Stefanik, and Adam Kinzinger all were undecided.

As a reminder, the fight over how pre-existing conditions are covered is at the center of the fight. Trump said Sunday the White House is pushing forward, and that the GOP plan “guarantees” coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions. “Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I mandate it. I said, ‘Has to be,'” Trump said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday.

An amendment authored by Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) would allow states to apply for waivers to two ObamaCare provisions: essential health benefits, which mandates what services insurers must cover, and “community rating,” which essentially bans insurers from charging people with preexisting conditions more for coverage.  While the AHCA keeps an ObamaCare provision banning insurers from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions, allowing states to waiver out of community rating means insurers could charge sick people more.

Trump said that “we actually have a clause that guarantees” coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and added that the health care legislation is “changing.” Unlike the mandate under Obamacare, however, under the GOP bill insurers could charge them higher rates than others in the plan if they allow their coverage to lapse.

The Hill’s whip list includes some Republicans who were ready to vote for the bill before changes made the language backed by MacArthur and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the Freedom Caucus chairman.

They include Reps. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Fred Upton (Mich.).  Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) went from being a yes on the bill to a no. And four members of the GOP Whip team, Reps. David Valadao (Calif.), Erik Paulsen (Minn.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Kevin Yoder (Kansas) are undecided on the bill. Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) told CNN that she’s talked to centrist Republicans who say they won’t back the bill because they don’t like it, and because they don’t think it will be approved by the Senate even if it does pass the House.

“They’re being asked to walk the plank on a bill they know won’t survive,” she said.

It didn’t end there, as the Hill elaborates:

In another bad sign for the GOP’s whip count, Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) on Monday refused to say if it had his support. 

 

Frelinghuysen came out against the bill shortly before it was pulled from the floor last month and told reporters Monday he was “still looking” at the changes. 

 

“I’m focusing on the appropriations bill for 2017, so that’s my focus,” he said. 

 

“My position is that I’m focused on the appropriations process, trying to get the bill across the finish line. I haven’t been focused on anything else.”

The Republican  leadership’s focus remains trying to help those moderates get comfortable with the new MacArthur amendment. Over the weekend, House leaders, as well as Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, spoke with members hoping to flip enough votes to move the bill forward. Leadership aides emphasize that there isn’t much room to change the proposal at this point, but many deputy whips are trying to get members to keep the process in perspective.

“You remind them there is a United States Senate, and it will change things. What we send over there isn’t going over there on stone tablets,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma.

“Going back to the drawing board would be death to repeal and replace,” one aide said.

Of course, if just one more Republican flips, the latest attemp to repeal would be dead anyway. That, increasingly appears to be the most likely scenario because after last week’s discussion, many moderates are frustrated with the process. Some say they see their party making the same kind of mistakes Republicans criticized Democrats for making back in 2010.

“We didn’t learn anything from their mistakes,” said Rep. Mark Amodei, a moderate Republican from Nevada told CNN. “We learned nothing from their mistakes.”

As to promises the bill will be changed once it’s in the Senate? “Seriously, you want me to go back and tell the people in my fourth of Nevada ‘the Senate will make it better?'” Amodei said. “What the hell?”

via http://ift.tt/2oRpa9t Tyler Durden

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Should we make homelessness against the law and simply throw all homeless people into prison so that we don’t have to deal with them?  Incredibly, this is actually starting to happen in dozens of major cities all across the United States.  It may be difficult to believe, but in many large urban areas today, if you are found guilty of “public camping” you can be taken directly to jail.  In some cities, activities such as “blocking a walkway” or creating any sort of “temporary structure for human habitation” are also considered to be serious crimes.  And there are some communities that have even made it illegal to feed the homeless without an official permit.  Unfortunately, as the U.S. economy continues to slow down the number of homeless people will continue to grow, and so this is a crisis that is only going to grow in size and scope.

Of course the goal of many of these laws is to get the homeless to go somewhere else.  But as these laws start to multiply all across the nation, pretty soon there won’t be too many places left where it is actually legal to be homeless.

One city that is being highly criticized for passing extremely draconian laws is Houston.  In that city it is actually illegal for the homeless to use any sort of material to shield themselves from the wind, the rain and the cold…

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is taking a similar approach—his anti-encampment ordinance makes it illegal to use “fabric, metal, cardboard, or other materials as a tent or temporary structure for human habitation.” This ensures that the Houstonian homeless are vulnerable not just to the elements, but also to the constant threat of the police. Officials cite one of the most common justifications for crackdowns on the homeless: neighborhood safety (a more socially acceptable way of talking about the not-in-my-backyard mentality).

With all of the other problems that we are facing as a nation, it stuns me that there are politicians that would spend their time dreaming up such sick and twisted laws.

According to one news report, the homeless in Houston are now officially banned from doing all of the following things…

1. They can’t block a sidewalk, stand in a roadway median or block a building doorway. (AKA they can’t panhandle).

 

2. They also can’t do any of these things — blocking walkways — under state law that already existed.

 

3. They can’t sleep in tents, boxes or any other makeshift shelter on public property.

 

4. They also can’t have heating devices.

 

5. They can’t carry around belongings that take up space more than three feet long, three feet wide, three feet tall.

 

6. People can’t spontaneously feed more than five homeless people without a permit.

If I was a homeless person in Houston, I would definitely be looking to get out of there.

But where are they going to go?

Things are almost as bad in Dallas.  In fact, it is being reported that the police in Dallas “issued over 11,000 citations for sleeping in public from January 2012 to November 2015.”

When you break that number down, it comes to 323 citations per month.

Of course some people have tried to challenge these types of laws in court, but most of the challenges have been unsuccessful.  For example, just check out what recently happened in Denver…

Three people who were contesting Denver’s urban-camping ban were found guilty on Wednesday, April 5, at the Lindsey-Flanigan courthouse. The defendants — Jerry Burton, Randy Russell and Terese Howard — were determined to have unlawfully camped on November 28, 2016, and to have interfered with police operations at one location. All three were sentenced with court-ordered probation for one year and between twenty and forty hours of community service.

 

The case challenged Denver’s unauthorized-camping ordinance, which has been divisive ever since Denver City Council approved it in 2012.

Since the courts are generally upholding these laws, this has just emboldened more communities to adopt anti-homelessness ordinances.  According to one report, dozens of major cities have now passed such laws…

City-wide bans on public camping (PDF) have increased by 69 percent throughout the United States. What used to be seen as an annoyance is now prohibited, forcing fines or jail time on those who certainly can’t afford it. The only nationwide nonprofit devoted to studying this, the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, has been tracking these changes since 2006. Their findings? There are a scary number of laws passed that ironically make it costly to be homeless.

 

For example, in 33 of the 100 U.S. cities they studied, it’s illegal to publicly camp. In 18, it’s illegal to sleep in public. Panhandling is illegal in 27 cities.

 

In 39 cities, it’s illegal to live in vehicles.

As I have warned repeatedly, we are seeing hearts grow cold all around us.  Instead of doing everything that they can to try to help those in need, communities are trying to make them go some place else, and those that try to feed and help the homeless are being harshly penalized.

Sadly, all of this comes at a time when homelessness is on the rise all over America.  In a previous article I pointed out that in New York City the number of homeless people recently hit a brand new all-time high, and things have gotten so bad in Los Angeles that the L.A. City Council has formally requested that Governor Jerry Brown declare a state of emergency.

We tend to think of the homeless as bearded old men with drinking problems, but the truth is that many of the homeless are children.

In fact, the number of homeless children in the United States has risen by about 60 percent since the end of the last recession.

If this is how we are going to treat some of the most vulnerable members of our society while things are still relatively stable, how are we going to be treating one another when the economy completely collapses?

via http://ift.tt/2pBJB9h Tyler Durden

The feud between Trump and Steve Bannon appears to be a thing of the past.

As part of his extended interview with Bloomberg on Monday, Trump dismissed speculation that his administration is split by discord, saying he is sticking by his polarizing chief strategist, Steve Bannon, calling him a “very decent guy” who is getting a “bad rap.” Trump even revealed his own term for Bannon’s ideology, calling it “alt-left,” a pun on Bannon’s ties to the conservative “alt-right” movement.

Why alt-left? Because as Trump explains, “Bannon’s more of a libertarian than anything else, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said during the Oval Office interview.

More importantly, Bloomberg adds that Trump’s “playful approach” to the former chief of Breitbart News, arguably the biggest target of liberal fury, and his other comments about his staff suggest that a widespread shakeup of his inner circle is unlikely in the near future.

Trump added that both Bannon and Reince Priebus would likely still be in their same roles several months from now, along with two other figures in his administration who have drawn withering fire: counselor Kellyanne Conway and press secretary Sean Spicer. Confirming reports from early April, Trump also said that Bannon and his son-in-law Jared Kushner had managed to repair their relationship.

“Bannon is a very decent guy who feels very strongly about the country. Likewise, Jared. And they’re getting along fine,” Trump said, calling Kushner “a very brilliant young guy.”

The president did, however, acknowledge past tensions on the staff: “We have a lot of people that are getting along well,” Trump said. “It’s coming out better now than it was, you know, for a while. And for a while it was a little testy, I guess for some of them, but I said they’ve got to get their acts together.” Taking a walk down memory lane, Bloomberg reminds us that the heat switched to Bannon (previously it was on Priebus after the first failed attempt to pass Obamacare repeal) after his April 4 removal from the principals committee of the National Security Council. This was followed by reports of in-fighting between Bannon and Kushner. As we reported on April 8, one day prior Priebus, at Trump’s request, oversaw a session of “marriage counseling” for Bannon and Kushner. The pair agreed to resolve their differences, aides said.

The Bloomberg interview then goes over the tenuous relationship between Trump’s two (until recently) top advisors.

Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman, has looked to merge the outsider world of the Trump campaign with the party establishment he’s long led. Bannon, for his part, been among the most vocal advocates for a nationalist, anti-establishment approach to governance within the Trump White House.

 

The two men were in charge of running operations within a Trump White House that has experienced a string of blunders and missteps, including a travel ban barring visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries that was hastily written and quickly blocked by federal courts.

 

One White House official said last week that Trump’s top aides believe they have learned better the governing process and are now striving to keep various agency leaders and decision-makers in the loop so that no one feels shut out.

Either that, or they have both realized that with the ascent of Mnuchin and Cohn to the innermost circle of Trump advisors, their opinions simply no longer matter as much, and so it is best to simply indeed get along, or at least go along for the ride.

Trump concluded by saying that he didn’t expect to see departures from the White House soon. “Now, I will tell you, probably people are going to get job offers. You know, things happen,” he said. “But I’m very happy with our group. We’re doing very well.”

via http://ift.tt/2ppnUc2 Tyler Durden

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

I’m constantly amazed by the ability of those in power to create a narrative trusted by a gullible non-critical thinking populace. Appealing to emotions, when you have millions of functionally illiterate, normalcy bias ensnared, iGadget distracted, disciples of the status quo, has been the game plan of the Deep State for the last century. Americans don’t want to think, because thinking is hard. They would rather feel. For decades the government controlled public education system has performed a mass lobotomy on their hapless matriculates, removing their ability to think and replacing it with feelings, fabricated dogma, and social indoctrination. Their minds of mush have been molded to acquiesce to the narrative propagandized by their government keepers.

“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.” – Thomas Sowell

With a majority confused, distracted, malleable, willfully ignorant, and easily manipulated by false narratives, heart wrenching images, and fake news, the Deep State henchmen have been able to control the masses with relative ease. The unanticipated rise of Donald Trump to the most powerful role in the world gave many critical thinking, anti-big government, skeptical curmudgeons hope he could drain the swamp and begin to deconstruct the massive out of control Federal bureaucracy.

His rhetoric during the campaign about repealing the disastrous Obamacare abortion, cutting taxes, dismantling Federal regulatory red tape, making Mexico pay for the wall, dumping Yellen, favoring higher interest rates, and not interfering militarily in countries who are not threatening the United States, appealed to many libertarian minded people.

I’ve watched with disgust over the last month as the promises of non-interventionism by a presidential candidate have been broken by the third consecutive president. George W. promised a humble foreign policy with no nation building. He had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist:

“If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I’m going to prevent that.”

With 9/11 as a convenient excuse, he invaded sovereign countries based on flawed data, passed the 4^th Amendment destroying Patriot Act, allowed neo-cons to create a Orwellian surveillance state, and permitted the military industrial complex to regain its power and control over the political apparatus in Washington D.C. With no Cold War to fill their coffers, neo-cons in Congress, warmongering think tank co-conspirators, military brass and their arms dealer cronies needed to create a new war to keep the racket going.

The War on Terror is unwinnable because you can’t defeat a tactic, and that is just what the Deep State is counting on. An unwinnable war, like the War on Drugs and War on Poverty, results in never ending funding, no evaluation of success or failure, continuous propaganda designating new enemies whenever convenient, and a narrative questioning the patriotism of anyone who argues against foreign interventionism.

After Bush’s reign of error, the election of a liberal community activist as president surely would result in a dramatic reduction in military intervention around the world. It was so certain, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for just being elected for promising hope and change. He ran against neo-con tool McCain who never met a country he didn’t want to invade. Obama’s words as a candidate echoed those of Bush Jr. before he was placed on the throne by the powers that be.

“We continue to be in a war that should never have been authorized. I am proud of the fact that way back in 2002, I said that this war was a mistake.”

After being elected Obama immediately changed his tune about the business of war. He withdrew troops from Iraq as required by the agreement signed by Bush with the Iraq puppet government, but he ramped up the never ending Afghanistan war – now sixteen years old and still not won. The vacuum left by our epic failure in Iraq allowed the rise of ISIS. Obama essentially created ISIS by providing arms to “moderate” rebels fighting Assad in Syria.

By the end of his term, troops were back in Iraq and more are on the way. Obama and a Secretary of State named Clinton decided to overthrow Gaddafi even though he posed no threat to U.S. interests. They have left a lawless chaotic failed state, now home to ISIS, Al Qaeda, and various other terrorist factions.

Obama should have won the Nobel Drone Prize as he launched ten times as many attacks as Bush, killing thousands, blowing up wedding parties, and murdering hundreds of innocent civilians. He bombed seven countries even though we are not officially at war with anyone. He renewed all aspects of the unconstitutional Patriot Act. Edward Snowden revealed the mass surveillance on all Americans by Obama’s spy agencies.

His continued support for the overthrow of Assad, so Saudi Arabia and Qatar could build a natural gas pipeline to Europe, was thwarted by Putin. Hysterically, after eight years of war mongering and expansion of the warfare/welfare surveillance state, Obama is now portrayed as a pacifist. The fact is Obama, like Bush, filled his role in the imperial empire, policing the world, enriching the military industrial complex, and doing the bidding of his Deep State sponsors.

Now we have Donald Trump, the billionaire champion of the common man, who campaigned on getting out of the nation building business. Where have I heard that before? Exactly one year ago, Trump gave a foreign policy speech laying out his vision for the U.S. role in the world.

“We’re getting out of the nation-building business and instead focusing on creating stability in the world. However, unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct. You cannot have a foreign policy without diplomacy. A superpower understands that caution and restraint are really truly signs of strength. Although not in government service, I was totally against the war in Iraq, very proudly, saying for many years that it would destabilize the Middle East. Sadly, I was correct, and the biggest beneficiary has been has been Iran, who is systematically taking over Iraq and gaining access to their very rich oil reserves, something it has wanted to do for decades.”

He scorned Obama and Bush’s foolish attempt at creating western style democracies in 3^rd world den of snakes, inhabited by factions of Muslim religious fanatics. He railed against the trillions wasted fighting worthless wars, leaving countries in anarchy, and allowing terrorists organizations like ISIS to fill the vacuum. His arguments sounded like they were being spoken by Ron Paul. He clearly ran as a non-interventionist.

“We went from mistakes in Iraq to Egypt to Libya, to President Obama’s line in the sand in Syria. Each of these actions have helped to throw the region into chaos and gave ISIS the space it needs to grow and prosper. Very bad. It all began with a dangerous idea that we could make western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interests in becoming a western democracy.

We tore up what institutions they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed. Civil war, religious fanaticism, thousands of Americans and just killed be lives, lives, lives wasted. Horribly wasted. Many trillions of dollars were lost as a result. The vacuum was created that ISIS would fill. Iran, too, would rush in and fill that void much to their really unjust enrichment.”

Trump rationally promised to have peaceful relations with the other two nuclear superpowers. He was diplomatic, lucid and non-confrontational when talking about the two countries neo-cons love to hate. His promises of improved relations lasted about as long as it took the Deep State to create a blatant false flag in Syria.

“We desire to live peacefully and in friendship with Russia and China. We have serious differences with these two nations, and must regard them with open eyes, but we are not bound to be adversaries. We should seek common ground based on shared interests. Russia, for instance, has also seen the horror of Islamic terrorism. I believe an easing of tensions, and improved relations with Russia from a position of strength only is possible, absolutely possible. Common sense says this cycle, this horrible cycle of hostility must end and ideally will end soon. Good for both countries.”

There seems to be a common theme when it comes to how all presidents end up doing the bidding of the military industrial complex as soon as they settle into the Oval Office, no matter what they said during their campaigns. Trump is the latest example of talking diplomacy, no nation building, non-interventionism, and not putting boots on the ground, and then doing the exact opposite within weeks of taking office.

The game plan is tried and true. The Deep State either creates or provokes a false flag event to set in motion the pressure to respond militarily. They utilize their propaganda emitting media mouthpieces to spread disinformation and create the opinions of the non-critical thinking masses. Dramatic visual images and a storyline with an evil villain are essential to properly influencing a pliable, easily misled, oblivious public.

The use of false flag events, fake news, and staged graphic photographs to control and manipulate public opinion has been utilized for decades by the Deep State to push the country into military conflict craved by the military industrial complex. We’ve known for almost a century war is a racket, as described by General Smedley Butler in 1935.

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

We were warned by the most respected general of the 20^th Century about allowing the military industrial complex to gain control over our government and politicians. Eisenhower experienced the influence of the Deep State from the military perspective and firsthand as president. Sadly, his hopes for an alert and knowledgeable citizenry keeping the military industrial complex under wraps were dashed on the shoals of a purposefully failing public education system and a relentless propaganda campaign championing never ending war.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower         

Those controlling the levers of power have understood the power of propaganda since Edward Bernays taught them how to manipulate the public mind with his theories of propaganda in 1928. He believed the masses were driven by biological urges which needed to be channeled and guided by highly intelligent corporate elite overseers. His contempt for the masses was born out in his corporate fascist view of the world.

He believed our dangerous animalistic urges needed to be subdued to keep society sedate and controllable by those constituting the invisible government (aka Deep State). He trained the controllers to use propaganda in order to mold the minds of the masses in a way most beneficial to the state.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.

Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays – Propaganda

The use of propaganda and the flogging of false flag narratives by the corporate media acting as mouthpieces for the Deep State has worked wonders and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American boys and innocent victims (collateral damage according to neo-cons) around the world. An explosion that sunk the USS Maine was used by William Randolph Hearst and William McKinley to provoke a war with Spain in 1898.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a false flag used by LBJ and the war party in 1964 to kick off the Vietnam War, resulting in over 58,000 American deaths, 153,000 Americans wounded, hundreds of thousands mentally scarred for life, and the deaths of over 2 million Vietnamese. For who? For what? The American boys sacrificed on the altar of the Deep State were nothing but cannon fodder in the warped minds of McNamara, LBJ, Westmorland and the rest of warmongering elitists. Only the military industrial complex benefited, as the burgeoning welfare/warfare state resulted in raging inflation during the 1970s.

As time passed, the propagandists have become immensely more sophisticated in their messaging, psychological assessment of a dumbed down American populace, and manipulation of patriotism, symbolism and emotions to run roughshod over those opposing nonsensical, illegal, and immoral military intervention around the world. The most successful technique utilized by the Deep State for the last few decades has been “atrocity propaganda”. Appealing to the emotions of people who have been indoctrinated by government schooling to feel rather than think has been wildly successful in controlling the agenda.

Atrocity propaganda was initially employed to sway public opinion to support the First Gulf War against Sadaam Hussein, engineered by Madison Avenue maggots from Hill & Knowlton on behalf of the Kuwaiti government. In emotional testimony before Congress an unidentified 15 year old girl, who happened to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S., gave false testimony that she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die.

This propaganda successfully convinced a clueless public to support our involvement in the Gulf War. With the end of the Cold War, how could the military industrial complex generate immense profits without enemies? Afterwards, Stormin Norman Schwarzkopf was glorified as the brilliant courageous hero. The masses need a hero to worship.

Whether 9/11 was a false flag or a monumental security blunder, it was hijacked by the neo-con faction within the government to wage perpetual war and turn our country into a surveillance state. A critical thinking citizen or honest journalist might wonder how the 342 page Patriot Act, which changed 15 existing laws and created entire new agencies, could be written, debated, and signed into law within 45 days of the 9/11 attack. It almost seemed like it was already written, awaiting the opportune time to implement. The War on Terror had begun. The Deep State managed to create a war against a tactic, which could never be won. It has done wonders for the military industrial complex, as arms industry stocks have risen 400% to 500% since 2001 versus the 100% rise in the S&P 500. War is a profitable racket.

The neo-cons immediately began their propaganda campaign to invade Iraq, even though they had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. There were virtually no religious Muslim zealots inhabiting the country. Hussein hated bin Laden and his ilk. The propaganda machine, driven by Cheney and Wolfowitz, churned out false stories about 9/11 involvement and the imminent threat from Hussein using “WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION”. The Colin Powell show on national TV convinced the fearful American populace to support the invasion of a country who threatened us in no way, without a declaration of war from Congress.

The invasion of Iraq set the precedent that presidents can wage war around the globe with no legislative approval. The invasion became a reality TV show called Shock & Awe. In retrospect, the Iraq War was either a colossal error of judgement or exactly what the Deep State had in mind. The ultimate financial cost of our Middle East adventures will exceed $6 trillion, while 4,400 young men gave their lives, 32,000 were badly wounded, thousands more are afflicted with PTSD, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed or maimed, all for a worthless cause. Iraq is now a failed state, with Muslim terrorists controlling large swaths of territory.

The warnings from men of stature, integrity and nobility like Smedley Butler, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ron Paul have gone unheeded by an increasingly dumbed down, iGadget absorbed, intellectually lazy, willfully ignorant, emotionally stunted populace. They question nothing. They believe whatever the boob tube tells them to believe. Their extreme level of normalcy bias allows the Deep State to maintain control and become outrageously bold in their lies, misinformation, and ability to convince the masses of the most ridiculous narratives. Only one voice in the wilderness remains. Speaking truth to power only creates change if an educated populace says enough is enough.

“How did the American people ever reach this point where they believe that US aggression in the Middle East will make us safe when it does the opposite? How did the American people ever reach the point where they believe that fighting unconstitutional wars is required to protect our freedoms and our Constitution? Why do we allow the NSA, CIA, FBI, TSA, etc. to destroy our liberty at home, as part of the Global War on Terror, with a pretext that they are preserving our liberty?

Why are the lying politicians reelected and allowed to bankrupt our country, destroy our money, and enter wars without the proper consent? Why do the American people suffer in silence and not scream “Enough is enough!”? We’ve had enough of the “humanitarian do-gooders” and the proponents of “American exceptionalism” who give us nothing but war, economic suffering, and less freedom. This can and must be stopped.” – Ron Paul, Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity

“The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil water-way leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky–seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.” – Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

In Part Two of this article I will detail various recent false flag and propaganda episodes which are being used by the Deep State to push the world toward war. The acceleration of events based on false narratives, appeals to patriotism, and fake news puts the lives of millions at risk, with no comprehension of how they are being manipulated through propaganda techniques refined to a science. Imperial empires always fall due to their hubris and military overreach. We are being led into a heart of immense darkness.

via http://ift.tt/2ppmo9S Tyler Durden