another site
During a drill, New Jersey’s State Office of Emergency Management accidentally issued an emergency alert for a nuclear plant in Salem County. While the plant’s emergency sirens did not sound, many people saw the alert on TV.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2sh7GBi
via IFTTT
Authored by Khadija Khan via The Gatestone Institute,
Terror attacks and other offshoots of Islamic extremism have created an atmosphere of mistrust between Europe's natives and thousands of those who entered European countries to seek shelter.
The situation is turning the Europeans against their own governments and against those advocating help for the war-torn migrants who have been arriving.
Europeans are turning hostile towards the idea of freedom and peaceful coexistence; they have apparently been seeing newcomers as seeking exceptions to the rules and culture of West.
In an unprecedented shift in policy after public fury about security, the German government decided to shut down the mosque where the terrorist who rammed a truck into a shopping market in Berlin, Anis Amri, was radicalized before hecommitted the crime.
The mosque and Islamic center at Fussilet 33 in Berlin had apparently also been radicalizing a number of other youths by convincing them to commit terror attacks in Europe and to join the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The authorities had the mosque under surveillance for a time but did not make a move before 12 innocent civilians were butchered by Amri on December 19, 2016, while leaving around 50 others injured.
The police and counter terror authorities also conducted raids in 60 different German cities and searched around 190 mosques to target kingpins of another group called "The True Religion".
Europeans appear to be seeking an alternative way to control this social disruption.
Many Muslims want to live in segregated areas where they strive to create the kind of culture they left behind before settling in the West. This preference, however, seems to lead to a rise in extremism and is proving counterproductive for the society as a whole.
The newcomers soon start demanding privileges. They ask for gender segregation at work and in educational institutions; they ask for faith schools (madrasas), and demand an end to any criticism of their extremist practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriages, child marriages and inciting hatred for other religions. They call any criticism "Islamophobia". They additionally seek to establish a parallel system of justice such as sharia courts.
Hardliners have been delivering sermons across the Europe preaching hatred and intolerance of other religious groups.
Most newcomers also seem reluctant to condemn the terror attacks committed by jihadis or the inhumane activities of totalitarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia or Iran. Most newcomers are also unlikely, on different pretexts, to support any anti-terror or anti-extremism program.
These groups seem only to focus on criticizing the policies of West towards the Middle East and Muslim countries and blame the West for everything wrong with the Muslim world.
The Muslim Council of Britain — a non-government organization claiming to represent British Muslims, and affiliated with over 500 mosques, charities and schools — introduced its own so-called counter-terrorism campaign, instead of following the one launched by the government.
In the U.S., the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) also shocked many when its leaders demanded the district attorney of Louisiana cancel an ongoing anti-terrorism training program and accused the organizer of being a "notorious Islamophobe".
"We are not a pro-abortion march, we are a pro-women march," one of the advocates for sharia in the West, Linda Sarsour, stated while addressing a feminist event in Washington D.C.
The event was organized right after President Donald Trump's inauguration and was supposed to criticize his anti-abortion stance and seek equal rights for women.
Sarsour, however, seemed less interested in the cause of these women and sounded hungrier for attention and publicity to market her brand of sharia.
Sarsour , who appears to have been seeking imposing sharia on West – in a plan that would entail taking away most of the rights from these liberal women — was instead standing next to them as if she were the champion of their rights.
Sarsour, known for desiring to slice off the genitals of girls, merely tweets for general Muslim across the globe.
Linda Sarsour speaks onstage during the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images) |
Sadly, we now have in the West extremists who seem hell-bent on dragging civilization back to repression and violence in the name of sharia.
These hardliners are projecting a dogma that implies the advantages of killing and persecuting apostates, non-Muslim minorities, homosexuals, and inflicting the same brutalities on women and minors as we have been seeing in many Muslim majority countries in Middle East, Asia and Africa – as well as, unofficially but increasingly, in Europe and the West.
The British government recently announced a posthumous pardon for thousands of people who were penalized by the state for homosexual activities decades ago.
In the same Britain, however, more than half the Muslim population still believes that in the U.K., homosexuality should be completely illegal.
The cracks between the Muslim and European cultures seem to be widening even in the most harmonious places.
In Canada, a resolution by a Muslim MP seeking special laws to condemn freedom of speech about Islam, has led to scores of Canadians taking to the streets calling on the government to avoid bending rules in favor of a specific religious group in the country.
Many newcomers to Canada and Europe are demanding similar laws to those from which they claim to be seeking refuge.
via http://ift.tt/2sqskhO Tyler Durden
Chinese police are cracking down on labor activists attempting to expose sweatshop-like working conditions at a local factory that manufactures shoes for Ivanka Trump's label. One activist working on the campaign has been detained, while two others have disppeared, and are presumably in police custody, according to Western media reports.
Hua Haifeng, Li Zhao and Su Heng, who were working undercover under the direction of New York-based workers' rights organization China Labor Watch, have been unreachable by phone over the weekend, Li Qiang, the founder of the advocacy group, told Bloomberg. The three men had been investigating labor conditions at factories that produce shoes for Ivanka Trump’s brand and other Western brands. A picture of Zhao, published in the WaPo, can be seen below:
Local police contacted Hua’s wife by phone Tuesday afternoon and told her that he’d been detained for “illegal eavesdropping,” Bloomberg reported.
The factory, operated by shoe manufacturer Huajian Group and located in the southeast province of Jiangxi, is one of 15 that supposedly makes shoes for the brand founded by President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, Bloomberg reported. In a letter sent to Ivanka Trump in April, the group alleged several labor violations at two of these factories, including that employees were forced to work at least 12 1/2 hours a day for wages below China’s legal minimum, a pay rate equal to about $1 an hour, Bloomberg said.
The arrest and disappearances come at a time of sustained pressure on labor activists in China amid a crackdown on civil society under President Xi Jinping, Reuters reported.
In 17 years of activism, including investigations of hundreds of factories in China, no member of Li’s group has ever been arrested for suspicion of having committed a crime, Li told Reuters. He also told The Washington Post that having three people detained was “rare.”
"This is the first time we've come across this kind of situation," he told Reuters, adding the accusation against Hua had "no factual basis".
Amnesty International called for the three to be released if they were being held only for investigating possible labor abuses at the factories.
"Activists exposing potential human rights abuses deserve protection not persecution," Amnesty’s China researcher, William Nee, told Reuters.
Huajian has previously said it has been making shoes for the U.S. president’s daughter for nearly a decade, accounting for one-third of her shoes made in China – though her shoes account for only a small portion of the company’s total output, according to WaPo.
The effort has been under intense police scrutiny for months, according to China Labor Watch. Two of the activists were told they were not allowed to leave China in April and May, Li said, a request he characterized as “relatively common,” according to WaPo.
The Daily Beast reported that Ivanka-branded shoes were being produced at the factory back in December, when the media organization published a photoessay documenting its working conditions. Some of these photos can be seen below:
The crackdown on the labor activists follows a public détente between President Trump and China. The former has dropped his protectionist rhetoric and praised China’s leader, Xi Jinping, for offering to work with the US on helping to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambition.
However, escalating tensions related to China’s buildup of artificial reefs in disputed waters in the South China Sea, have recently led to a series of uncomfortable encounters between Chinese fighter jets and the US military. Last week, two Chinese jets attempted to “intercept” a US military surveillance plane flying near Hong Kong, with one jet reportedly coming within 200 yards of the US aircraft.
via http://ift.tt/2qIGycB Tyler Durden
Authored by Brian Cloughley via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The American guided missile destroyer USS Dewey was reported as having carried out a ‘freedom of navigation operation’ or FONOP in the South China Sea on May 24. According to the US Naval Institute the undertaking involved manoeuvres «within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef for about 90 minutes zig-zagging in the water near the installation. At one point during the operation, the ship’s crew conducted a man overboard drill».
Mischief Reef is 900 miles from the mainland of China, and 12,000 miles from the mainland of the United States. It has been built up by China from a sandy pile of rock into a habitable base and lies in the Spratly Island chain which is claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam, both members of the Association of South East Asian Nations, ASEAN.
A week before the United States sent a warship to «demonstrate that Mischief Reef is not entitled to its own territorial sea regardless of whether an artificial island has been built on top of it» there was a meeting attended by representatives of China and all ten ASEAN countries. The purpose was to continue discussions aimed at establishing a code of conduct in the South China Sea, and on May 18 an announcement of progress was made. It was stated that all concerned nations «uphold using the framework of regional rules to manage and control disputes, to deepen practical maritime cooperation, to promote consultation on the code [of conduct] and jointly maintain the peace and stability of the South China Sea».
As stated by the head of the Chinese delegation, deputy foreign minister Liu Zhenmin, «the draft framework contains only the elements and is not the final rules, but the conclusion of the framework is a milestone in the process and is significant. It will provide a good foundation for the next round of consultations». It wasn’t a breakthrough in agreeing about allocation of territory or anything like that — but it was indicative of peaceful progress in an important matter affecting regional countries.
In 2012 the countries involved had agreed that «the adoption of a code of conduct in the South China Sea would further promote peace and stability in the region» and issued a statement that included reaffirmation of «their commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and other universally recognized principles of international law which shall serve as the basic norms governing state-to-state relations».
All these countries are, of course, signatories to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which, according to the Voice of America «provides guidelines for how nations use the world's seas and their natural resources. It also contains mechanisms for addressing disputes».
But the United States of America, whose coast is 12,000 miles from the South China Sea where its ships zig-zag in ‘Freedom of Navigation’ operations, and its electronic warfare aircraft roam the skies forcing China to activate its mainland defensive radars so that they can be identified as future targets, refuses to sign the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The Berkeley Journal of International Law notes perceptively that «Although ratification of UNCLOS is unlikely today given staunch opposition to it in the Senate, the treaty remains an essential instrument of international law, particularly for resolving international maritime disputes. America’s abstention from the treaty is significant in this context, since as the preeminent naval power in the world it should hold a leading role in shaping the law of the sea. Instead, other nations are playing a larger role». But the US Senate is not known for a logical approach to international affairs, and its reaction is usually confrontational.
On May 10, just before the China-ASEAN conference and the zig-zagging antics of the USS Dewey, several US senators, including the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to President Trump expressing concern that the US Navy had not carried out patrols «upholding freedom of navigation» in the South China Sea since October 2016. This caused them to «urge your administration to take necessary steps to routinely exercise freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea, which is critical to US national security interests and to peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region».
There has been no instance of any international commercial vessel being in any way denied passage through the South China Sea. There has never been a case in which any nation in the world has had cause to protest that one of its transiting merchant ships has been approached or in any fashion intimidated, endangered or even mildly disconcerted by the actions of a Chinese warship. There hasn’t been a single Chinese zig-zag.
These US Senators appear unable to understand that for China to take such action would be economically disastrous. The New York Times records that «$5.3 trillion worth of goods moves through the sea every year, which is about 30 percent of global maritime trade. That includes huge amounts of oil and $1.2 trillion worth of annual trade with the United States». Surely these representatives of the American people, elected presumably because of their outstanding levels of intelligence, flexibility, shrewdness, self-discipline and overall integrity, can see that if there were any real threat to passage of mercantile craft in the South China Sea there would be a catastrophic impact on making profits?
Even if they are not intelligent or shrewd or possess any of the other qualities desirable in a national legislator, they should realise that if the world’s financial community thought there was a threat to merchant ships in the South China Sea then insurance rates would go through the roof. There would be worldwide rocketing of commodity prices and a massive financial crisis. That is basic enough for even the dumbest senator to understand.
The only overflights in the region that have drawn attention have been the coat-trailing provocative electronic warfare missions of US military aircraft. There has not been one occasion on which an overflying civil aircraft has experienced interference of any sort.
Maintenance of peace and furtherance of prosperity of the region are being handled satisfactorily by regional countries, as demonstrated by the recent amicable gathering of Asian nations who agreed to «jointly maintain the peace and stability of the South China Sea». The major problem in the region is interference by warships and military aircraft of the United States. There is little doubt that China’s deputy foreign minister had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he told the media he hoped the China-ASEAN consultations would not be «subject to any outside interference», because he knew very well that cordial agreement between China and other Asian nations concerning the South China Sea would be anathema to Washington.
The Congress and the Pentagon are marching in step, as evidenced by the declaration of the senators that «We are encouraged by the statement made by Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of US Pacific Command, during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 26, that he expects new FONOPs to take place soon. We also share Admiral Harris’s assessments that ‘China’s militarization of the South China Sea is real’ and that ‘China continues its methodical strategy to control the South China Sea’».
Much of the world believes that the United States, 12,000 miles from the South China Sea, is the country that wants to control it. Methodical strategy might be the way to go about it, but as we have seen in the swathe of nations from Afghanistan to Libya, by way of Iraq and Syria, the strategy of the United States is not methodical. But it is decidedly confrontational. And disastrous.
via http://ift.tt/2spXMMW Tyler Durden
Content originally published at iBankCoin.com
Last night President Trump typed in a word ‘covfefe’, which lit the internet ablaze. Obviously, we can’t have this man have access to the nuke codes.
Some believe Trump say on his phone in a drunken stupor and wrongly typed indiscernible words into this phone. Libshits were swinging from vines, attempting humor at the President’s expense. Since then, translations of the mysterious word have surfaced.
The White House said the word was typed on purpose and that they knew what it meant. Either way, this is juvenile horseshit.
Alas, Hillary Clinton attempts to capitalize on grande stupidity, taking her cool factor from -10 to -100.
People in covfefe houses shouldn’t throw covfefe. https://t.co/M7oK5Z6qwF
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 1, 2017
Don Trump Jr. checked and mated her. Game, set, match.
What house is he in again??? That’s what I thought. You’re trying too hard. https://t.co/9Yomz1Emb5
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 1, 2017
via http://ift.tt/2spjvog The_Real_Fly
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
As of late, the media has forgotten about tensions between Ukraine, NATO, and Russia. Crimea and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine have largely left the public’s awareness. However, that shouldn’t be the case, because this region is still a powder keg that could blow at any time. And if it does, it could easily result in another world war.
If you don’t think the situation in Ukraine could still explode into a wider conflict, take a look at what this member of Russia’s parliament recently said at an international security conference.
“On the issue of NATO expansion on our borders, at some point I heard from the Russian military — and I think they are right — If U.S. forces, NATO forces, are, were, in the Crimea, in eastern Ukraine, Russia is undefendable militarily in case of conflict without using nuclear weapons in the early stage of the conflict,” Russian parliamentarian Vyacheslav Alekseyevich Nikonov told attendees at the GLOBSEC 2017 forum in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Russian military leaders have discussed Moscow’s willingness to use nuclear weapons in a conflict with military leaders in NATO, as part of broader and increasingly contentious conversations about the alliance’s expansion, Nikonov later told Defense One.
That’s a startling admission when you think about it. It seems the Russian’s believe that if there is a war between Russia and the West, their conventional forces won’t be capable of defending Russian soil from NATO. They’re basically warning us that “if you bring a knife to this fight, we know we can’t win, so we’ll be bringing a gun.”
And there’s a good reason for them to believe that NATO poses a dire threat to their territory and interests.
“For us, [NATO] is a military alliance spanning three-quarters of the global defense money, now planning to expand that figure,” said Nikonov.
In the two years since Russia annexed Crimea, NATO’s Baltic members have doubled their defense budgets. In 2018, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are projected to spend nearly $670 million, up from $210 million in 2014. “This growth is faster than any other region globally,” Craig Caffrey, principal analyst at IHS Jane’s, remarked last October. “In 2005, the region’s total defence budget was $930 million. By 2020, the region’s defence budget will be $2.1 billion.”
NATO has been expanding its troop presence in Eastern Europe as well. In April 2016, during the Warsaw summit, NATO agreed to increase the size of the NATO force deployed to Baltics, a posture move sometimes called enhanced forward presence. In January, the U.S. deployed some 4,000 troops to Poland. The following month, Germany, announced that it will send some 1,000 troops to Lithuania.
Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has slowly but surely encircled Russia. Just last month NATO admitted another Eastern European nation into their alliance, and the current antagonism between West and Russia is being driven by NATO’s attempts to absorb Ukraine.
The West needs a reality check. The further we encroach into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, the closer we come to World War Three. And if Russia really is such a serious threat to us, as our government has claimed many times in recent years, is expanding NATO really going to guarantee our safety?
We were perfectly capable of protecting ourselves from the much more powerful Soviet Union, and we did so with a much smaller alliance. We’re expanding NATO to Russia’s doorstep, and all we’re receiving in return is the heightened risk of nuclear war.
via http://ift.tt/2qCoRQJ Tyler Durden
Many industry experts predict that our interactions with computing devices will move away from text-based input towards voice-based input in the future. Smartphones, voice-enabled speakers and other devices already come with so-called smart assistants such as Siri, Cortana or Google Assistant. As Statista's Felix Richter notes, these virtual assistants can help you organize your day, control smart home devices and answer general questions. Or can they?
According to research conducted by digital agency Stone Temple "smart assistants" may not be quite as smart as they are made out to be.
You will find more statistics at Statista
Take Amazon's Alexa for example: the assistant powering the company’s popular line of voice-enabled speakers was able to answer just 20.7 percent of the 5,000 questions fired at it as part of the experiment. Notably, Google Assistant and Microsoft's Cortana were much more knowledgeable when it came to these factual questions while Apple's Siri performed similar to Alexa… but as the chart above shows, Siri was the worst-performer in terms of 100% correct responses.
via http://ift.tt/2rr0m8j Tyler Durden
Authored by Kristin Tate, op-ed via TheHill.com,
One of the pillars of democracy erodes before our eyes. The ability to disagree with the politically different disintegrates under red and black flags, and hooded rioters obscuring their faces. It’s not Donald Trump’s secret police. It’s not something out of a dystopian novel. It’s the very real culture of permissive violence exploding from today’s left. Bit by bit, this sort of behavior becomes quickly normalized (in the parlance du jour) and escalated.
While there’s generally been blackout coverage of these “mostly peaceful” riots in the legacy media, every once in awhile something breaks through. Such is the case with the ever desperate Kathy Griffin’s latest sickening stunt. Griffin, who most people aren’t exactly sure why she is famous, posed for photos featuring the decapitated head of President Trump. Intended for an audience eager for more and more radical action, Griffin jumped over a big red line. Even CNN had to ask: did she commit a felony?
Her too little, too late apology simply said she went “too far” rather than understanding the underlying crassness and danger her precedent sets. Griffin, who must appear on almost everyone’s “Top 10 Annoying Noncriminal People” (although the latter may change) list, traded vulgar coarseness for attention to a dying career. She said she asked the photographer to “take down the image” — as if that’s possible in the age of the internet. The only thing genuine in her drab statement was that it “wasn’t funny.” Understatement of the year.
The real underlying question is why Griffin thought that such an odious action was acceptable in the first place. In the echo chamber of the modern left wing, it’s obvious. Where is the swift condemnation of the stunt by this “comedian?” Whataboutisms abounded, said one Twitter commentator with 217 followers — a random hillbilly once depicted a hanged President Obama!
Some criticism came in from the left, including CNN’s Jake Tapper. He hosted a segment where — surprise, surprise, his panel said the network had better things to talk about than her. Considering the news network employs her for their New Year’s “I forgot to turn on Ryan Seacrest” snoozefest says enough.
Will this incident live past this news cycle? Will there be solemn op-eds calling for “soul searching” among leaders of the Democratic Party for their tacit support of violent rhetoric and its predictable results? How many Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert monologues will ridicule Griffin back into obscurity? Unfortunately, such questions are a waste of time. Even violence committed by that side of the aisle gets blamed on the White House.
One of the rioters in Berkeley was finally arrested for assaulting a Trump supporter with a bike lock. Kellyanne Conway called on Democratic Party leaders to quell the rising violence among their supporters. Police again arrested violent protesters during the People’s Republic of Seattle’s May Day. Black clad antifa rioters assault and intimidate citizens and pro-Trump marchers.
Meanwhile, if you turned on the mainstream media, you would think that President Trump was personally leading a campaign of violence from the left wing Oregon hipster district to the Montana congressional race.
Take last week’s terrible attack on passengers in Portland. A mentally deranged man screamed at two Muslim women and slit the throats of their defenders. The media saw its narrative perfectly crafted. Except he was a Bernie supporting, Jill Stein voting, Trump hating maniac. The New York Daily News instantly declared Trump “ignored” the incident. The Huffington Post had to one up — or should I say 20-up them. Inverse said that Trump’s tweet condemning the attack didn’t even exist.
I wrote about the issue two months ago — and it only seems to be getting worse. This isn’t some sort of game. It’s people’s lives and livelihoods played with to reach the front of TMZ or the Huffington Post. Heck, the latter said that violence was “logical” and apologized to … you guessed it, liberals.
It’s not funny. It’s not edgy. It’s just wrong.
Where does the atmosphere of delegitimizing an elected government and brushing violence under the rug get you? Well, it gets you this…
via http://ift.tt/2sfSOmG Tyler Durden
Following yesterday’s official (if less credible and focused mostly on SOEs) manufacturing and non-mfg PMI reports from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, both of which came either in line or slightly better than expected, moments ago Caixin/Markit reported its own set of Chinese manufacturing data, and it was far more disappointing: at 49.6, not only did it miss expectations of 50.1, but by printing below 50, the operating conditions faced by Chinese goods producers deteriorated for the first time in nearly a year. As shown below, this was the first contractionary print sine last June when China’s massive, anti-deflationary fiscal stimulus kicked in.
The seasonally adjusted PMI posted below the neutral 50.0 value at 49.6 in May, the first contractionary print since the middle of 2016. Although only indicative of a marginal deterioration in operating conditions, Caixin conceded that the index fell from 50.3 to signal the first decline in the health of the sector for 11 months.
The fall in the headline index coincided with slower increases in output and new orders, while staff numbers were cut at a quicker rate. Subdued demand conditions underpinned a renewed fall in purchasing activity, albeit only slight, and the first increase in inventories of finished items in 2017 so far. The latest data also signalled the first fall in input costs since last June, which in turn led manufacturers to lower their selling prices for the first time since February 2016.
Commenting on the data, Dr. Zhengsheng Zhong, Director of Macroeconomic Analysis at CEBM Group said:
“The Caixin China General Manufacturing PMI fell 0.7 points to 49.6 in May, marking its first contraction in 11 months. The subindices of output and new business stayed in expansionary territory, but both fell to their lowest levels since June last year. The subindices of input costs and output prices dropped into contractionary territory for the first time since June 2016 and February 2016 respectively. The sub-index of stocks of purchases signalled a renewed decline, while the sub-index of stocks of finished goods rebounded, indicating that companies have stopped actively restocking as inventories began to stack up. China’s manufacturing sector has come under greater pressure in May and the economy is clearly on a downward trajectory.”
And while Chinese manufacturers reported a further rise in production during May, the pace of expansion was the weakest in the current 11-month sequence and only slight. Softer growth in output reflected a relatively muted increase in total new orders during May. Furthermore, growth in new order books was also the slowest seen since the current upturn began in July 2016. Data indicated that customer demand was relatively subdued both at home and overseas, with new export sales rising at a similarly marginal pace. Confidence towards the year-ahead meanwhile remained weaker than the historical average, with the degree of optimism unchanged from April’s four-month low.
At the same time, employment continued on a downward trend, with the rate of job shedding picking up slightly for the third month running. Notably, it was the quickest decline in workforce numbers seen since last September. Lower staffing levels were partly linked to company down-sizing initiatives, but also the non-replacement of voluntary leavers. As a result, outstanding business increased again in May and at the fastest pace this year so far.
Goods producers in China lowered their purchasing activity for the first time in 11 months in May, albeit only slightly. A number of panellists mentioned that weaker than expected sales had weighed on input buying. As a result, stocks of inputs declined and at the quickest pace since January. Subdued sales also contributed to a renewed increase in inventories of finished items.
Although purchasing activity fell in May, average delivery times continued to lengthen. A number of panellists blamed longer lead times on stock shortages at vendors.
Manufacturing companies reported the first decline in average cost burdens for nearly a year in May. The rate of reduction was marginal overall, and widely linked by respondents to lower raw material prices. Firms generally passed on any savings to clients, by cutting their output charges for the first time since February 2016.
* * *
None of this should come as a surprise: back in February we showed that, as a result of China’s deleveraging measures, the global credit impulse had suddenly tumbled back to zero.
And since that is a 3-4 month leading indicator, it was only a matter of time before China’s economy reverted back into contraction, as the latest PMI data now confirms.
via http://ift.tt/2sg3mST Tyler Durden
Less than a week after declaring that China’s economy is headed for an economic “day of reckoning” thanks to its twin asset bubbles (real estate and equity), short-seller Carson Block said he’s starting to believe there are “real problems with Canada” – particularly the country’s dangerously overvalued housing market.
Block discussed Canada's housing market with a Bloomberg reporter who called him for comment after shares of Element Fleet Management, a Toronto-based leasing company, plunged 38% on unfounded speculation that the famed short-seller had chosen the company as his next target. Shares of troubled home lender Home Capital Group also dipped in early trade.
Block told Bloomberg that the action in those two stocks suggests Canadians are (rightfully) nervous about soaring real estate prices and household debt…
“I’m starting to believe that there could be some real problems with Canada,”
Though Block said he hadn’t heard of Element before Wednesday, the run on Home Capital Group’s deposits in recent weeks suggests that “investors denial is just starting to crack.” HCG is being drained of assets at an unprecedented pace – already 94% of retail deposits have fled the troubled lender – and the company has erased more than half of its market capitalization since a Canadian regulator accused it five weeks ago of misleading investors over an internal probe of fraudulent mortgage loan applications – a practice that bears some resemblance to US mortgage lenders’ reliance on “liar loans,” which helped inflate the subprime bubble.
“Particularly given what happened to Home Capital in recent weeks I kind of wonder if Canadian investors are really nervous about the stuff that they’re holding and that’s why there was so much sensitivity around Element this morning," Block said.
“When I see a reaction like we saw to a stock that I had never heard of because people were evidently concerned that we were about to short it, that tells me that maybe we’re at a point in Canada where investor denial is just starting to crack,” he said.
Block told Bloomberg that Canada’s real estate market has “been pushed by foreign money” to the kind of “buying frenzy” the U.S. experienced a decade ago.
A frenzy of buying by wealthy Chinese nationals seeking to store their wealth outside of China has helped push Canadian home prices in certain markets to levels that are obviously unsustainable and well beyond the means of most Canadian citizens.
Even Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz acknowledged as much earlier this month when he remarked that Toronto home prices “were not sustainable” while answering questions following a speech in Mexico City.
Block told Bloomberg about a visit to Toronto in 2011, when he said he was stunned to see posters throughout Toronto’s financial district encouraging people to borrow aggressively for consumption.
“I was thinking, my God, didn’t we just go through this in the U.S.?”
Meanwhile, there is a prevailing sense in Canada that the situation is different, and the collapse experienced by the U.S. in 2008 couldn’t happen here, he told Bloomberg.
“Every time you hear that, you know that it can happen, and it’s going to.”
Block concluded ominously…
"The conditions seem to exist for there to be some pain inflicted on the markets. That suggests that Canada is the hottest market in the world for short sellers; if not, it could be."
After a more than five-year break from shorting Canadian companies, Block announced Monday that he is shorting Asanko Mining Inc., saying that production problems at the company's largest mine will likely force the company into bankruptcy in 2018.
True to form, Block explained his reasoning for shorting the stock in a 43-page research report published Wednesday, then summarized its contents during an appearance on Canada’s Business News Network. The notorious short seller believes the Vancouver-based mining company will run out of money in 2018 as it struggles to make urgent repairs at its main asset, the Ghana-based Nkran gold mine, while also serving its $165 million debt load.
“We think Asanko is on its way to zero,” Block said during the interview.
via http://ift.tt/2rGF7jM Tyler Durden