Month: September 2017

A month ago, we wrote about the bitcoin fork. We described the fork:

Picture a bank, the old-fashioned kind. Call it Acme (sorry, we watched too much Coyote and Road Runner growing up). A group of disgruntled employees leave. They take a copy of the book of accounts. They set up a new bank across the street, Wile E Bank. To win customers, they say if you had an account at Acme Bank, you now have an account at Wile, with the same balance!

This fork came about from a disagreement among the bitcoin miners, those who control the blockchain and hence the currency. The equivalent of the disgruntled Acme Bank group left to form bitcoin cash, the equivalent of Wile E. Bank. However, it has often been said that necessity is the mother of invention. Applied to bitcoin, that means that what happened due to irreconcilable differences in this case, could also occur deliberately later.

Why would someone do this deliberately? Well, as of this writing (Saturday afternoon), bitcoin cash is trading for $568.28. This copy of the original bank ledger is worth over fahv hunnert Benjahminns! Actually, not the ledger. Each record in the ledger. The ledger as a whole is worth $9.4 billion.

For anyone—or a cartel of someones—who can fork bitcoin, there are now 9.4 billion reasons to do so. Think about that. Take as long as you need.

Now, we don’t want to disparage anyone. We are absolutely certain that everyone who is speculating to get rich in bitcoin will turn away from forking. It just doesn’t feel right, and it couldn’t possibly be moral to create forks on purpose, to get richer quicker.

But if someone did wish to do it, there is a powerful incentive. Economics tells us that if a powerful incentive exists to do something, then someone will do it. For example, if the government subsidizes borrowers by pushing down the interest rate then there will be all sorts of borrowing that would otherwise not occur (to finance all sorts of activities that would otherwise make no sense). Or, if it subsidizes insurance for people who build in flood plains, then many people will build in flood plains.

We now live in a world where altcoins are proliferating. There is a crypto currency named for a set of Internet memes called Doge. There is PotCoin for the marijuana industry, and even PepeCash and PutinCoin. There is a coin named for the most popular four-letter word. By this standard, it makes sense to fork bitcoin as many times as one can. To fork and fork and fork until the marginal ForkCoin has value lower than the cost of forking.

Snark aside, and in all seriousness, the point of our article a month ago is that the fork shows the contradiction in a ledger of liabilities unbacked by assets. By dispensing with the need for assets, the liabilities can proliferate—fork—and there can be any number of alt liabilities too.

Our point in this article is that this contradiction creates a powerful perverse incentive, that someone sooner or later will take up. We prefer the term “perverse incentive” to “unintended consequence”, because it puts the focus where it belongs. We look at what is profitable for someone to do, rather than the real or alleged intentions of the designers. In some cases, the intention is obviously evil. For example, Obamacare was designed to destroy the insurers and drive America towards socialized medicine. In other cases, perhaps in bitcoin, the designer did not foresee much less intend the outcome.

However, here we are. Both the possibility to fork and the incentive are now obvious. We would not bet against it, as we would not bet against Boromir putting on the One Ring. In a Middle Earth minute.

We have not much focused on price, other than how rising price makes bitcoin unsuitable as money or how bitcoin does not have a firm bid. We do not subscribe to the view that bad means the price must go lower soon. However, let’s look at price of an asset in a bubble starting with the dollar.

The dollar, it is often and loudly asserted, has value only because of faith. As soon as the faith is pricked, the air will rush out of the bubble. This partly explains why the gold bugs latch on to every story about gold repatriation in Germany or Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin visiting Fork Knox. Mnuchin said, “I assume the gold is still there,” and thus began quite a tempest in a tea pot.

The belief is that as soon as the one-awful-fact-they-don’t-want-you-to-know becomes known, then the dollar will collapse. And gold will go to $65,000 (price measured in collapsed dollars). It’s a quest for the holy grail. Now, we enjoy tilting at windmills as much as Don Quixote, but this view is wrong. The dollar does not have value because of some fragile, collective faith.

The dollar has value because of the struggles of the debtors. What are you willing to sell, in order to avoid foreclosure on your house, repossession of your car, or bankruptcy of your business? Your labor and the products of your effort. As much as you need to sell, in order to service your debts and avoid default.

However, there is no real borrowing in bitcoin. What holds up the value of bitcoin?

There is a risk that a series of forks could prick this bubble of faith.

---

There were big moves in the metals markets this week. The price of gold was up $31 and that of silver $0.56. The price of gold hasn’t been this high in just about a year, which is another way of looking at the one-year low price of the dollar. From its high over 27.5mg gold in mid-December 2016, the dollar has dropped 11% to its current 23.5mg.

Will the dollar fall further? In the short term, anything is possible. Once speculators smell blood in the water (i.e. a strong looking chart pattern), they may enter bigger trades with leverage. We will, of course, see that as a rising basis which is a contrarian signal. In the longer term, prices cannot go up too far or remain high if there is not a renewed demand to hold gold metal.

One possible driver of this is portfolio rebalancing by those who bought a small allocation of bitcoin or Etherium which is now not-small. Will these folks sell their cryptocurrencies, which are anti-dollar plays, to buy more dollars? Or will some of them buy real money? This remains to be seen.

As always, we are interested in the fundamentals of supply and demand as measured by the basis. We will show intraday basis charts this week as there are some interesting features.

But first, here are the charts of the prices of gold and silver, and the gold-silver ratio.

Next, this is a graph of the gold price measured in silver, otherwise known as the gold to silver ratio. The ratio moved down.

In this graph, we show both bid and offer prices for the gold-silver ratio. If you were to sell gold on the bid and buy silver at the ask, that is the lower bid price. Conversely, if you sold silver on the bid and bought gold at the offer, that is the higher offer price.

For each metal, we will look at a graph of the basis and cobasis overlaid with the price of the dollar in terms of the respective metal. It will make it easier to provide brief commentary. The dollar will be represented in green, the basis in blue and cobasis in red.

Here is the gold graph (Dec contract), this time showing intraday resolution for the full week (here is the regular gold basis chart).

We have posted many graphs showing basis correlating with price. That is, as price rises so does basis. Basis is the spread between futures and spot. A rising basis means futures are rising faster than spot, which occurs if the buying pressure is occurring in the futures market. If the buyers are mostly speculators.

Something should immediately leap out at you on this graph. This relationship broke down Thursday afternoon (GMT). First there is a minor sell off seen in the price move from about $1,307 to $1,305. The basis drops from about 1.17% to 1.12%. The basis begins to rise with rising price after that, but it trails. It recovers the 1.17% level but only when price is about $1,317—ten bucks higher. Then as price keeps rising, basis is sideways until midnight. Basis makes one more rally approaching 7am (GMT), then falls back sharply as price continues to rise. Especially late in the day. Even if we ignore the last part below 1.11% as liquidity is dropping with the rest of the world offline and only whatever trading volume remains in the US Friday afternoon before a major holiday weekend (Monday is Labor Day), we still see a falling basis with rising price.

Demand for gold metal has picked up, even at this higher relative price. One of gold’s unique properties is that demand can rise as price rises, without any particular limit (even if it hasn’t happened much in recent years).

To put this into perspective, we would not characterize the current market state as a gold shortage. Every contract is in contango (Sep basis is over 0.5%). The continuous gold basis has been in a rising trend for two months. Gold is not exactly scarce, nor facing massive demand for physical metal and shortage. As our old buddy Aragorn would say, “today is not that day.”

However, the basis move is notable in contrast to the price move. The rise in basis has not been much, considering how much the price has risen—about $120 in two months. Now the December contract, which matures in under 120 days, has a basis below that of 3-month LIBOR (about 1.3%).

The calculated Monetary Metals gold fundamental price was up $25, to $1,355.

Now let’s look at silver, with a similar graph of the week’s action (here is the regular silver basis chart).

At the risk of turning these charts into Rorschach Tests, this one does not look the same to us at all. The silver basis tracks the silver price, though a skew occurred on Wednesday and widened on Thursday. The movement of both traces were a close fit on Thu and Fri. Note the spike down in the basis at the end of the day on Friday (as in gold, though gold had been falling all during the London day through the US day).

Our calculated Monetary Metals silver fundamental price increased $0.46. And, though our calculated Monetary Metals gold:silver ratio fundamental price has dropped a bit, it was rising the last three days of the week.

 

© 2017 Monetary Metals

via http://ift.tt/2vYWeuA Monetary Metals

With the US markets closed today, market events this week will be dominated by G10 central bank meetings, among which the ECB stands out, but also notable will be the RBA, BoC and Riksbank. Consensus does not expect policy changes yet. There is also a busy calendar for the UK (PMIs, housing, IP and trade balance) along with GDP/IP releases elsewhere. In EMs, there will be monetary policy meetings in Brazil, Poland and Malaysia. Brazil BCB is expected to cut rates by 100bp.

Central bank preview:

• The ECB remains trapped between a strong(er) EUR and a rapidly shrinking universe of monetizable bonds; as a result Draghi will emphasize the impact of a strong EUR on inflation dynamics but will refrain from disclosing the destiny of QE after the 2018 expiry. Given the recent EUR appreciation, the ECB will prefer waiting for the September FOMC before committing on QE. Most sellside desks call for the October meeting where BofA expects a 6m QE extension at €40bn/month.
• The RBA is also expected to remain on hold with communication potentially getting more interesting now that forecasts and Parliamentary testimony are out of the way. On the longer term, the domestic housing market in particular to have a more significant influence on monetary policy with the balance of risks favoring rates up.
• For the BoC, unexpectedly strong economic growth, below neutral o/n rates and the Fed on a hiking cycle means that the Canada should follow with a hiking cycle as well. This said, low inflation and inflation expectations along with CAD appreciation do not argue for urgency. As a result while some have said the BOC’s meeting is “live”, most expected the central bank to remain on hold in September and hikes +25bp in October.

In other data:

• In the US, we get durable & capital goods orders (F), trade balance, ISM non-mfg and multiple Fed speakers in the agenda.
• In the Eurozone, beyond the ECB, we have retail sales, industrial production and GDP.
• In the UK, we have PMIs, industrial production, construction output, and trade balance.
• In Japan, we have monetary base, PMIs, trade balance and final print of Q2 GDP.
• In Canada, beyond central bank rates decision, we also have labor market report.
• In Australia, focus is on RBA’s rates meeting, while other economic releases include trade balance, retail sales, GDP, home loans and investment lending.

Below is a breakdown of key events by day, courtesy of Deutsche Bank:

• It’s a quiet start to the week today with Eurozone PPI and the Sentix investor confidence reading the only data of note. With the US closed there is no data scheduled across the pond.
• Onto Tuesday, Japan and China’s (Caixin) service and composite PMIs are due early in the morning. Then we have UK and Italy’s service and composite PMI for August. There is also the final readings for service and composite PMIs for the Eurozone, Germany and France. Elsewhere, the Eurozone’s retail sales and final readings for 2Q GDP are due. In the US, there is factory orders for July and final readings for durable goods and capital goods orders.
• Turning to Wednesday, Germany’s factory orders for July is the only data due out. Over in the US, the ISM non-manufacturing PMI, the Fed’s Beige book, trade balance and final Markit services and composite PMI are also due.
• For Thursday, Germany’s industrial production for July are due along with France’s trade balance and current account balance stats. Elsewhere, house price data in the UK and Q2 GDP (final revision) for the Eurozone is due. This is all before the ECB meeting around midday. Over in the US, there is initial jobless claims, continuing claims and final readings for Q2 nonfarm productivity due.
• Finally, on Friday, Japan’s trade balance and current account balance along with final readings for 2Q GDP will be due in early morning. China will also release its August import / export stats. In Europe, Germany’s trade balance, current account balance and export / imports stats are due. In the UK and France, industrial production, manufacturing production and trade balance stats are also due. Over in the US, there is the final reading for wholesale inventories along with consumer credit data.

Away from the data, today we’ll have the second round of negotiations for NAFTA in Mexico. On Tuesday US congress returns from the August recess to tackle issues such as the debt ceiling. Elsewhere, Fed Governor Brainard, the Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari and Dallas Fed President Kaplan will speak at separate functions. Turning to Wednesday, UK PM Theresa May will face opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn in parliament and the IMF’s managing director Lagarde will speak at a conference in Korea. President Trump will also meet House Speaker Ryan, Senate Leader McConnell and a few others to discuss the coming debt ceiling. Then onto Thursday, in the UK, Brexit Secretary Davis faces questions in the House of Commons about the state of Brexit talks. In the US, Cleveland Fed President Mester and NY Fed President Dudley are schedule to speak. Elsewhere, the IMF Managing Director Lagarde, BOJ Deputy  Governor and BOK Governor will meet for a two-day conference on growth in Seoul. Finally, on Friday, the Philadelphia Fed President Harker will speak on consumer behaviour in credit.

It is a quieter, holiday-shortened week in the US, where the key economic release this week is ISM non-manufacturing on Wednesday. There are several scheduled speaking engagements by Fed officials this week. Additionally, the Beige Book for the September FOMC period will be released on Wednesday.

Here is a full breakdown of what to expect courtesy of Goldman:

Monday, September 4

• U.S. Labor Day holiday. US markets are closed, and there will be no major data releases.

Tuesday, September 5

• 07:30 AM Fed Governor Brainard (FOMC voter) speaks: Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard will give a speech on the economic outlook and monetary policy at a breakfast hosted by the Economic Club of New York. There will be a live webcast of the speech, and audience Q&A is expected.
• 10:00 AM Factory orders, July (GS -3.3%, consensus -3.2%, last +3.0%); Durable goods orders, July final (last -6.8%); Durable goods orders ex-transportation, July final (last +0.5%); Core capital goods orders, July final (last +0.4%); Core capital goods shipments, July final (last +1.0%): We estimate factory orders declined 3.3% in July following a 3.0% increase in June – driven by a decline in commercial aircraft orders. Core measures in the July durable goods report were strong, with better-than-expected growth and upward revisions in core capital goods shipments.
• 12:30 PM Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari (FOMC voter) speaks: Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will participate in a moderated Q&A at an event hosted by the Carlson School of Management in Minneapolis. Audience Q&A is expected.
• 01:10 PM Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari (FOMC voter) speaks: Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will also give a speech at a town hall event at the University of Minneapolis. Audience Q&A is expected.
• 07:00 PM Dallas Fed President Kaplan (FOMC voter) speaks: Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan will participate in a moderated discussion at an event hosted by the Dallas Business Club. Audience and media Q&A is expected.

Wednesday, September 6

• 10:00 AM ISM non-manufacturing index, August (GS 56.0, consensus 55.5, last 53.9): Regional service sector surveys were stronger on net in August, with notable gains in the New York Fed (+12.4pt to +11.7), Richmond Fed (+10pt to +22), Philly Fed (+8.4pt to +31.8), and Dallas Fed (+4.6pt to +15.1) non-manufacturing surveys. We expect the ISM non-manufacturing index to rebound 2.1pt to 56.0 in the August report following a 3.5pt decline in July. Overall, our non-manufacturing survey tracker rose 2.2pt to 56.3 in August, suggestive of a solid pace of growth in business activity.
• 08:30 AM Trade balance, July (GS -$44.8bn, consensus -$44.6bn, last -$43.6bn): We estimate the trade deficit widened by $1.2bn in July. The Advance Economic Indicators report last week showed a wider goods trade deficit, and elevated export growth in recent months suggests scope for deterioration in the trade balance.
• 09:45 AM Markit US services PMI, August final (consensus 56.9, last 56.9)
• 02:00 PM Beige Book, September FOMC meeting period: The Fed’s Beige book is a summary of regional economic anecdotes from the 12 Federal Reserve districts. The July Beige Book noted that activity expanded across all districts, though the pace of growth varied. Labor markets continued to tighten, and wage pressures had risen since the prior report. In the September Beige Book, we look for additional anecdotes related to the state of consumption, price inflation, and wage growth.

Thursday, September 7

• 08:30 AM Nonfarm productivity (qoq saar), Q2 final (GS +1.4%, consensus +1.2%, last +0.9%); Unit labor costs, Q2 final (GS +0.1%, consensus +0.4%, last +0.6%): We estimate Q2 non-farm productivity will be revised up in the second vintage by 0.5pp to +1.4%, above the 0.75% trend achieved on average during this expansion. Similarly, we expect Q2 unit labor costs – compensation per hour divided by output per hour –to be revised down by 0.5pp to 0.1% (qoq saar).
• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended September 2 (GS 250k, consensus 242k, last 236k); Continuing jobless claims, week ended August 26 (consensus 1,945k, last 1,942k): We estimate initial jobless claims rose 14k to 250k in the week ended September 2, reflecting a rise in Texas filings related to Hurricane Harvey. Continuing claims – the number of persons receiving benefits through standard programs – have declined in recent weeks, following an early-summer rebound.
• 12:15 PM Cleveland Fed President Mester (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Cleveland Federal Reserve President Loretta Mester will give a speech on the economic outlook and monetary policy at an event jointly hosted by the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, World Affairs Council, CFA Society of Pittsburgh, and the Association for Financial Professionals. Audience and media Q&A is expected.
• 07:00 PM New York Fed President Dudley (FOMC voter) speaks: New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley will give a speech titled “The U.S. Economic Outlook and the Implications for Monetary Policy” at an event hosted by the Money Marketeers of New York University. Audience Q&A is expected.
• 07:00 PM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic will take part in a moderated Q&A session on his views about the U.S. economy at an event hosted by the Atlanta Fed.
• 08:15 PM Kansas City Fed President George (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George will give a speech on the U.S. economy and monetary policy at the Omaha Economic Forum in Omaha, Nebraska. Audience Q&A is expected.

Friday, September 8

• 8:45 AM Philadelphia Fed President Harker (FOMC voter) speaks: Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Patrick Harker will give a speech on “Consumer Finance Issues” at the New Perspectives on Consumer Behavior in Credit and Payments Markets Conference in Philadelphia.
• 10:00 AM Wholesale inventories, July final (consensus +0.4%, last +0.6%)
• 03:00 PM Consumer credit, July (consensus +$15.0bn, last +$12.4bn)

Source: BofA, ING, Goldman, DB

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

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

The threat of total abandonment of NAFTA took on a second front this weekend as Canada’s biggest private-sector union said NAFTA should be scrapped if Mexico cannot agree to better labor standards.

Please consider Sharp Differences Over Labor Surface at NAFTA Talks in Mexico.

Tensions over sharp differences in pay between Mexican workers and their Canadian and U.S. counterparts surfaced on Sunday as negotiators discussed labor market rules in talks to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement.

 

Canada’s biggest private-sector union said NAFTA should be scrapped if Mexico cannot agree to better labor standards, clashing with Mexican business leaders who argued that workers rights were a matter for each country to resolve internally.

 

Mexican political and corporate leaders firmly resist demands to bring wages into line with U.S. and Canadian levels, arguing the big cost advantage the country enjoys over richer peers should decrease as economic development advances.

 

Labor union leaders in the two wealthier nations say laxer labor standards and lower pay in Mexico have swelled corporate profits at the expense of Canadian and U.S. workers, making resolution of the issue a major battleground of the NAFTA talks.

 

Jerry Dias, national president of Canadian union Unifor, said NAFTA had been a “lousy trade agreement for working-class people” and that the union was pushing his government to walk away from the talks if it could not secure them a better deal.

 

“If labor standards aren’t a part of a trade deal, then there shouldn’t be a trade deal,” Dias told reporters in Mexico City on the sidelines of a second round of negotiations to update the 1994 trade agreement among the three countries.

Bosco de la Vega, head of Mexican farm lobby, the National Agricultural Council, said more trade, not intervention in labor markets, was the best way for the region to grow economically.

 

“Mexico can’t interfere in the labor market issue in the United States and Canada. We ask the same: that they don’t interfere in these matters,” he told reporters at the talks.

Moral Outrage Over Free Trade

Are bad jobs at bad wages better than no jobs at all? Should the US demand third world economies pay “living wages”?

If so, and if countries don’t oblige, should the US impose tariffs so the US does not lose jobs to such countries?

This is what I think…

Moral outrage is common among the opponents of globalization–of the transfer of technology and capital from high-wage to low-wage countries and the resulting growth of labor-intensive Third World exports. These critics take it as a given that anyone with a good word for this process is naive or corrupt and, in either case, a de facto agent of global capital in its oppression of workers here and abroad.

But matters are not that simple, and the moral lines are not that clear. In fact, let me make a counter-accusation: The lofty moral tone of the opponents of globalization is possible only because they have chosen not to think their position through. While fat-cat capitalists might benefit from globalization, the biggest beneficiaries are, yes, Third World workers.

Workers in those shirt and sneaker factories are, inevitably, paid very little and expected to endure terrible working conditions. I say “inevitably” because their employers are not in business for their (or their workers’) health; they pay as little as possible, and that minimum is determined by the other opportunities available to workers. And these are still extremely poor countries, where living on a garbage heap is attractive compared with the alternatives.

And yet, wherever the new export industries have grown, there has been measurable improvement in the lives of ordinary people. Partly this is because a growing industry must offer a somewhat higher wage than workers could get elsewhere in order to get them to move. More importantly, however, the growth of manufacturing–and of the penumbra of other jobs that the new export sector creates–has a ripple effect throughout the economy. The pressure on the land becomes less intense, so rural wages rise; the pool of unemployed urban dwellers always anxious for work shrinks, so factories start to compete with each other for workers, and urban wages also begin to rise. Where the process has gone on long enough–say, in South Korea or Taiwan–average wages start to approach what an American teen-ager can earn at McDonald’s. And eventually people are no longer eager to live on garbage dumps.

The benefits of export-led economic growth to the mass of people in the newly industrializing economies are not a matter of conjecture. A country like Indonesia is still so poor that progress can be measured in terms of how much the average person gets to eat; since 1970, per capita intake has risen from less than 2,100 to more than 2,800 calories a day. A shocking one-third of young children are still malnourished–but in 1975, the fraction was more than half. Similar improvements can be seen throughout the Pacific Rim, and even in places like Bangladesh.

Why, then, the outrage of my correspondents? Why does the image of an Indonesian sewing sneakers for 60 cents an hour evoke so much more feeling than the image of another Indonesian earning the equivalent of 30 cents an hour trying to feed his family on a tiny plot of land–or of a Filipino scavenging on a garbage heap?

The main answer, I think, is a sort of fastidiousness. Unlike the starving subsistence farmer, the women and children in the sneaker factory are working at slave wages for our benefit–and this makes us feel unclean. And so there are self-righteous demands for international labor standards: We should not, the opponents of globalization insist, be willing to buy those sneakers and shirts unless the people who make them receive decent wages and work under decent conditions.

This sounds only fair–but is it? Let’s think through the consequences.

First of all, even if we could assure the workers in Third World export industries of higher wages and better working conditions, this would do nothing for the peasants, day laborers, scavengers, and so on who make up the bulk of these countries’ populations. At best, forcing developing countries to adhere to our labor standards would create a privileged labor aristocracy, leaving the poor majority no better off.

And it might not even do that. The advantages of established First World industries are still formidable. The only reason developing countries have been able to compete with those industries is their ability to offer employers cheap labor. Deny them that ability, and you might well deny them the prospect of continuing industrial growth, even reverse the growth that has been achieved. And since export-oriented growth, for all its injustice, has been a huge boon for the workers in those nations, anything that curtails that growth is very much against their interests. A policy of good jobs in principle, but no jobs in practice, might assuage our consciences, but it is no favor to its alleged beneficiaries.

You may say that the wretched of the earth should not be forced to serve as hewers of wood, drawers of water, and sewers of sneakers for the affluent. But what is the alternative? Should they be helped with foreign aid?

And as long as you have no realistic alternative to industrialization based on low wages, to oppose it means that you are willing to deny desperately poor people the best chance they have of progress for the sake of what amounts to an aesthetic standard–that is, the fact that you don’t like the idea of workers being paid a pittance to supply rich Westerners with fashion items.

In short, my correspondents are not entitled to their self-righteousness. They have not thought the matter through. And when the hopes of hundreds of millions are at stake, thinking things through is not just good intellectual practice. It is a moral duty.

Purposeful Plagiarism

I need to point out that everything above following “This is what I think…” was not written by me (but it does reflect my exact beliefs).

Believe it or not, Paul Krugman wrote that, and here is the link: In Praise of Cheap Labor.

Krugman wrote that before he lost his mind.

Fair Trade is Unfair

The unions howl they want “fair trade”. Fair to whom? The answer is fair to their self-interests, damn the enormous costs to everyone else.

Tariffs will not bring jobs back to the US, at least jobs by living, breathing human beings.

All tariffs will do is slow global trade and raise costs on everyone.

Those looking for someone to blame for income inequality and low real wages, should not look at globalization, but rather the Fed (central banks in general), insisting on rising prices in a technological deflationary world.

Repetitive asset bubbles and the demise of the middle class are the direct results.

Related Articles

1. Disputing Trump’s NAFTA “Catastrophe” with Pictures: What’s the True Source of Trade Imbalances?
2. Make China Great Again: Ford Bypasses NAFTA Dispute By Moving Focus Production to China
3. Killing the Trade Golden Goose: Farmers Rattled by Trump’s NAFTA Rescinding Plans
4. Lose Lose Lose Affair: Farm Lobby Turns Up Heat on Trump Over NAFTA

An ideal trade agreement can fit on a napkin: Effective immediately, all tariffs and all subsidies, on all goods and services ends today.

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

Ethereum and bitcoin are crashing this morning, after China confirmed its recent threat of an ICO crackdown (reported here last Monday) when the central bank said on Monday that initial coin offerings are illegal and disrupt financial markets, according to statement on China’s central bank website. The PBOC also asked all related fundraising activity to be halted immediately, issuing the strongest regulatory challenge so far to the burgeoning market for digital token sales.

The crackdown was announced in a statement on the PBOC’s website in which the central bank said that it had completed investigations into ICOs, and will strictly punish offerings in the future while penalizing legal violations in ones already completed. The regulator said that organizations or individuals that completed initial coin offerings should return the money raised, in move “to protect investors’ rights and properly handle risks,” though it didn’t specify how the money would be paid back to investors.

Taking the recent SEC crackdown on Initial Coin Offerings several steps further, the PBOC also said digital token financing and trading platforms are prohibited from doing conversions of coins with fiat currencies. Digital tokens can’t be used as currency on the market and banks are forbidden from offering services to initial coin offerings, and are also also banned from offering pricing and information services on coins. Most importantly was the PBOC’s determination that “digital token can’t be used as currency on the market” and its warning that “China will strictly punish over sustained offerings and law violations in completed ones.”

The central bank’s Monday directive made no mention of cryptocurrencies such as ether or bitcoin. Bitcoin tumbled over 8%, the most since July on a closing basis, to $4,480. Ethereum was down more than 11% Monday, to just above $310, after trading nearly $400 last week.

“This is somewhat in step with, maybe not to the same extent, what we’re starting to see in other jurisdictions – the short story is we all know regulations are coming,” Jehan Chu, managing partner at Kenetic Capital in Hong Kong, which invests in and advises on token sales, told Bloomberg. “China, due to its size and as one of the most speculative IPO markets, needed to take a firmer action.”

As described previously, ICOs are controversial digital token sales that have seen unchecked growth over the past year, raising $1.6 billion and surpassed traditional venture capital raising pathways. They have been deemed a threat to China’s financial market stability as authorities struggle to tame financing channels that sprawl beyond the traditional banking system. Widely seen as a way to sidestep venture capital funds and investment banks, they have also increasingly captured the attention of central banks that see in the fledgling trend a threat to their reign.

While hardly the world’s biggest coin offering market, China accounts for about a quarter of the blockchain based capital raising activity YTD: there were at least 43 ICO platforms in China as of July 18, according to a report by the National Committee of Experts on the Internet Financial Security Technology. Sixty-five ICO projects had been completed, the committee said, raising 2.6 billion yuan ($398 million).

Incidentally, just as we speculated in late July, when the SEC announced its own crackdown on initial coin offerings, a move we deemed would be beneficial in the long run for weeding out the various criminal and ponzi schemes that have proliferated in the unregulated market, so today’s move by China is seen by some as favorable for blockchain dynamics:

“This is a positive move given the rapid proliferation of low quality and possibly fraudulent coin sales promising the moon,” said Emad Mostaque, London-based co-chief investment officer at Capricorn Fund Managers Ltd. “There is tremendous value in the model but we need to see more separation of high quality, ethical offerings versus those seeking to circumvent securities law for a quick buck.”

Indeed, the SEC signaled greater scrutiny of the sector when it warned that ICOs may be considered securities, though it stopped short of suggesting a broader clampdown. The regulator reaffirmed its focus on protecting investors, however, and said issuers must register the deals with the government unless they have a valid excuse. The vast amount of money amassed in a short span of time has also attracted cyber criminals, with an estimated 10 percent of money intended for ICOs looted away by scams such as phishing this year, according to Chainalysis, a New York-based firm that analyzes transactions and provides anti-money laundering software.

China will likely eventually allow token sales, according to Chu of Kenetic Capital, however only on approved platforms, and may even vet projects individually. “I think they will allow the sale of tokens in a format which they deem safe and more measured,” he said.

via http://ift.tt/2eVsYQ1 Tyler Durden

Having started off with a sharp gap lower following Sunday’s news of the latest, 6th nuclear test by North Korea, global stocks and US futures pared losses in the overnight session, despite reports of North Korean preparations for yet another missile launch, while the yen trimmed its risk-off gains even as gold kept its upside and the South Korean Kospi closing 1.2% lower, with traders asking whether “this time will be different:, or inversely, will today’s market reaction will be a carbon copy of what happened last Monday, when stocks gapped sharply lower on North Korea missile launch fears, only to surge 1% by the end of the week, as shown in the chart below.

Still, concern that U.S. President Donald Trump has few viable options to rein in North Korea has disrupted a three-week-long rally in emerging markets, sending stocks to the biggest loss since Aug. 11: The MSCI index of world stocks dropped 0.7%, led by consumer-discretionary and industrial-goods sectors, as the relative strength index, a measure of momentum, fell to 60 from 68 on Friday.

The South Korean Kospi extended declined at the close, down 1.2% after Yonhap reported South Korea had detected North Korea’s preparation for an ICBM missile launch.  The index fell as much as 1.7% at the open Monday before paring back some of its decline to a 0.9% drop; volatility among South Korean stocks surged as much as +15%, although absent further escalation, that spike will likely be faded in the coming days.

Europe’s Stoxx Europe 600 Index declined, with all industry sectors in the red, after a Monday morning report from Yonhap that Pyongyang is preparing to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile heightened investors’ unease. European equity markets opened lower and stay within a tight range, with tech and banking lagging.

Both USD/JPY and U.S. equity futures fell, but have stayed within overnight ranges and in the case of the Yen, much of the latest gains have been unwound, while European government bonds advanced and Swiss franc led currency gains.

The euro strengthened even as economists expect European Central Bank President Mario Draghi to express concern Thursday about the currency’s rise. Industrial metals including copper and nickel extended a rally. US Treasuries and bund futures briefly hit session highs on Korean concerns before fading. The German curve steepened, with focus on upcoming supply this week.

Having surged to the highest level since the Trump election victory, spot gold edged modestly lower from overnight high, tagging $1,334 in early trading.

Currencies, as a group, erased losses thanks to an advance in offshore yuan; otherwise, most currencies are lower against the dollar.

Meanwhile, China’s onshore yuan extended gains to a 15-month high as North Korea’s nuclear test failed to dent bullish sentiment on the currency. The Chinese exchange rate traded in Hong Kong’s overseas market rose for a 14th day, the longest rally on record. In onshore markets, the CNY climbed 0.5% to 6.5245 per dollar; the currency climbed 1.35% last week, the strongest showing in CFETS data going back to April 2007. The PBOC strengthened the yuan reference rate by 0.37%, the most since Aug. 10, to 6.5668 against the greenback.

It wasn’t just the Yuan that proved immune to Korean worries: shares in mainland China rose as strength in commodity producers outshone concerns about North Korea saying it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb over the weekend. Hong Kong’s benchmark fell for a third day. The Shanghai Composite Index rises 0.4%, most in a week, to 3,379.58

What happens next for global risk is in the hands of China and the US as the North Korean conflict is rapidly escalating into a proxy war of the world’s two most powerful nations.

US markets are closed on Monday for holiday.

Top Overnight Headlines

• South Korea has continued to detect preparations related to another ICBM launch by North Korea according to a Defense Ministry official
• Trump says U.S. considers new sanctions, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea; Mattis says ’many military options’ available
• Mnuchin says debt limit hike should be linked to Harvey aid
• China says using force to resolve the North Korea issue isn’t an option: Reuters
• China says U.S. President Trump’s trade threat over North Korea is “unacceptable” and “unfair”
• U.K. government has proposed extending the next round of Brexit negotiations on a rolling week-by-week basis until breakthrough is reached on financial settlement according to people familiar: Politico
• U.K. Aug. Construction PMI: 51.1 vs 52.0 est; weakest reading since July 2016, Markit note reduced levels of commercial building
• U.K.’s Davis dismisses reports of GBP50 billion EU payment as ’nonsense’
• Portugal outlook changed to positive from stable by Moody’s
• Ex-PBOC adviser urges free float of yuan rate: Securities Journal

In European equities, risk-off sentiment following North Korea’s nuclear test has hit European shares in early trading this Monday, with all sectors in negative territory, led by financials. In regards to stock specific movers, Fiat Chrysler are down around 3 percent after its CEO said that Fiat had received no offer for the firm.

In fixed income, EGB’s trading a better levels following the aforementioned newsflow out of North Korea. Peripheral bonds outperforming against their German counterpart as spreads tighten. Eyes could be on the performance of PGB’s vs. Bunds after Moody’s placed Portgual’s sovereign rating on positive outlook, as such a possible upgrade to investment grade from junk may see the spread narrow to YTD lows at mid-220bps.

In currencies, JPY/CHF: Safe haven flow dominating sentiment to begin the week, which came after reports that North Korea successfully launched its most powerful so-called H-Bomb to date. In turn, USD/JPY  slipped to the mid-109s while USD/CHF broke through 0.96 as risks are seemingly skewed to the downside as markets digest and monitor the situation. Aside from the tensions on the Korean Peninsula, concerns over the US debt limit will keep a lid on risk appetite, providing further headwinds for the greenback. The soft NFP report on Friday and dampened risk sentiment has underpinned EUR this morning. Although the currency remains below 1.1900 as the ECB meeting is likely to cap near term gains as speculation mounts over potential comments from Draghi and Co. regarding the recent appreciation in EUR.

In commodities, WTI and Brent crude futures slipping this morning, more notably in Brent as WTI is somewhat supported as several refineries resume activity. RBOB gasoline futures easing after emergency stocks had been released amid early indications that the damage to infrastructure were not as bad as initially feared.

* * *

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

With August behind us and the weather here in the UK yesterday already starting to resemble autumn it feels like the final push into the end of the year is well and truly on. This week should be an interesting one with the highlight likely coming this Thursday with the ECB meeting. We aren’t expecting any policy announcements – indeed our economists expect Draghi’s strategy to be one whereby he and the ECB wrap the QE exit step in dovishness when it is announced in October – but the risk is perhaps that Draghi says very little at all and buys even more time for the ECB. In this regard, what Draghi does or doesn’t say about the euro is what most in the market will probably be looking out for. It feels like the consensus expect Draghi to address the recent appreciation but we’d imagine that he will probably have to also strike a bit of a  delicate balance given that the data is holding up pretty well still. Draghi’s job was perhaps made ever so slightly easier by that fact that the single currency closed on Friday 1.75% off Tuesday’s highs but it is still up 3.50% since the ECB last met back in July.

Anyway that is for Thursday. In the meantime, it feels like déjà vu writing this again this morning as the weekend headlines are once again dominated by the latest North Korea missile test. Yesterday’s test was called a “perfect success” by the Korean Central News Agency with the underground explosion supposedly ten times more powerful than previous detonations. The explosion also caused a magnitude 6.3 earthquake and all the talk is that the test has reached new ground in terms of potential magnitude and power. President Trump responded to the latest test by saying that “the United States is considering, in  addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea”. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin confirmed that he is drafting a sanctions package to send to Trump and Defence Secretary Mattis said that the US has “many military options” when questioned about a possible response. Other world leaders also had their say. Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel said that North Korea’s latest actions had reached a “new dimension” while Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi Jinping also responded and agreed to “appropriately deal with” the latest test. An emergency UN meeting has been called for today.

The latest development has seen markets in Asia start the week with a risk-off tone although moves overall have been fairly modest still. In terms of safe havens, Gold is up +0.61%, while the Yen and Franc are +0.41% and +0.38% respectively. Equity markets across Asia are down with the Nikkei (-0.86%) and Kospi (-0.79%) standing out the most, while the ASX 200 (-0.49%) and Hang Seng (-0.47%) are also in the red. Markets in China are flat.

It’s worth noting that the US is off today for the Labour Day holiday so we will have to wait until tomorrow to see how cash markets across the pond respond although S&P 500 futures are down around -0.32% as we go to print. In terms of other news from the weekend, in Germany, Merkel and her Social Democratic opponent Martin Schulz took part in a TV debate where they clashed over refugee policy with Merkel standing by her view on keeping the country’s borders open and Schulz attacking Merkel for her early response to the refugee crisis in 2015. This was actually the only live TV debate between the two leaders before the election on September 24th and the latest polls show Merkel as holding a roughly 13-14% lead over Schulz after the latter had at one stage closed that gap completely earlier in the year. According to Bloomberg two flash polls released after yesterday’s debate were scored a draw and a Merkel win.

Elsewhere, here in the UK, Brexit Secretary David Davis called a Sunday Times report suggesting that PM Theresa May was to approve a £50bn Brexit Bill as “nonsense”. The report also suggested that May won’t disclose any details on kick starting trade talks until after the Tory Party conference in October. Conversely, EU negotiator Barnier said the British people need to be “educated” about the price they will pay for quitting the EU.

Meanwhile in the US it’s worth noting that Congress will return from the August recess on Tuesday with the debt ceiling debate almost certain to be front and centre. Over the weekend Mnuchin noted that the debt limit should be linked into a package of relief for victims of Tropical Storm Harvey. The suggestion on Friday was that the House could plan a vote on funding as a standalone bill this week but the latest comments suggest that this is less likely now. Assuming lawmakers don’t get in the way of relief efforts, one would imagine that this perhaps lowers the risk around the debt ceiling as time ticks down towards the end of month deadline.

Now just recapping the macro data on Friday. In the US, the main focus was a softer than expected August employment report, with the change in nonfarm payrolls coming in at 156k (vs. 180k). Adding to the disappointment, the unemployment rate was a tad higher at 4.4% (from 4.3%) and average hourly earnings rose just 0.1% mom (vs. +0.2% expected), leaving growth at +2.5% yoy.

However, we would still characterize the labour market as being in solid shape and note that the August reports can be impacted by difficulties in seasonaladjustment around the holiday period. Further, our US economics team notes that they would not be surprised to see subsequent positive revisions (since 2010, August payrolls have been revised up by +55k on average between the initial and third prints). Elsewhere, the August ISM manufacturing was higher than expected at 58.8 (vs 56.5 expected), marking the best reading since March 2011. Moving along, the University of Michigan consumer confidence print was softer than expected at 96.8 (vs 97.5) but the final Markit US manufacturing PMI was revised up slightly to 52.8 from 52.5.

In Europe, UK’s manufacturing expanded at the strongest pace in four months, with the August PMI at 56.9 (vs. 55.0 expected). In Italy the manufacturing PMI was also higher than expected at 56.3 (vs. 55.3 expected) while the final reading for 2Q GDP was confirmed at +0.4% qoq and +1.5% yoy. Elsewhere, other final Markit manufacturing PMIs were broadly in line with the flash estimates, with the Eurozone at 57.4 and France at 55.8, but Germany was a tad lower at 59.3 (vs. 59.4 flash).

By the end of play markets ended slightly firmer with the S&P 500 closing +0.20% and Stoxx 600 up +0.60% driven by gains in mining names. Bond yields rose in the US and Europe, with UST 10y up 5bp to 2.166% and core European bond yields up around 2bps. The US dollar index was broadly unchanged on Friday and has dipped 0.20% this morning. Elsewhere, WTI oil edged up 0.3% and US gasoline prices fell 1.8% on Friday (first decline in the week) and have fallen a further 2.8% this morning.

Taking a step back, it’s worth noting that the current rally in the S&P 500 is the 3rd longest since WWII without a 3% selloff, but our asset allocation chief strategist Binky Chadha remains constructive. He noted that the market remains overdue for a pullback and rising domestic and geopolitical risks provide plenty of potential catalysts. But as in past episodes, he views the economic and market context dominating. On the economic front, Binky sees further upside to global growth, with PMIs having further to recoup pre dollar and oil shock levels, a strengthening in the US labour markets and capex, while Binky also expects earnings growth to sustain in the double digits. On the market front, he sees the demand-supply picture for US equities becoming more supportive with inflows on a turn up in data surprises and higher rates as inflation picks up.

via http://ift.tt/2wy5Pwl Tyler Durden

Barely had the market digested news of the latest, 6th – and this time allegedly thermonuclear – test by North Korea (with the South Korean Kospi cutting initial losses of as much as 1.6% in half on yet another BTFNWD ramp), when Yonhap reported that South Korea’s spy agency said it had detected that North Korea is making preparations for a possible intercontinental ballistic missile launch, a move that would further raise tensions a day after it conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear detonation.

Chang Kyung-soo, acting chief of the defense ministry’s policy planning office, told lawmakers on Monday that North Korea was making preparations for a missile firing, according to Bloomberg while Yonhap adds that South Korea’s spy agency said there was a chance the North could fire an ICBM into the Pacific Ocean, saying that the isolated state was able to conduct a nuclear test at any time. Gen. Jang didn’t say what the signs of activity were, nor did he give a time frame for a possible launch. But many experts have been preparing for a weapons test around Sept. 9, when North Korea marks the anniversary of its foundation in 1948.

His assessment was echoed by South Korean intelligence officers, who said North Korea could test launch another ICBM toward the northern Pacific Ocean or a submarine-launched ballistic missile, according to lawmakers who attended a closed-door legislative meeting on Monday. The intelligence officers also said North Korea could conduct further nuclear tests at any time, based on construction work on two tunnels at its test site that appear to be near completion, these lawmakers said.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) told lawmakers in a closed session that Pyongyang may lob the missile around the anniversary of the regime’s foundation slated for Saturday or the establishment of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea on Oct. 10.

North Korea fired ballistic missiles, including two ICBMs fired in July, at a lofted angle to prevent them from crossing over other countries including Japan. But Pyongyang lobbed a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew over Japan last week.

 

“There is a possibility that the North would fire an ICBM on a standard trajectory,” the NIS was quoted as saying by lawmakers.

Separately, Gen. Jang said the U.S. and South Korea are in talks about deploying an aircraft carrier or stealth bombers to South Korea as part of the response to North Korea’s recent actions. Top South Korean officials had said in recent days that the two allies were in discussions about the deployment of “strategic assets” to the Korean Peninsula. At the time, officials didn’t elaborate on what strategic assets they were considering, but the phrase typically refers to aircraft carriers, bombers or nuclear weapons.

The NIS also said that more analysis is needed to verify whether the North
detonated an electromagnetic pulse-based bomb or a hydrogen bomb during
its nuclear test, according to lawmaker. “North Korea claimed an H-bomb test, but we are analyzing it on the assumption that there could be three possibilities — a hydrogen bomb, an atomic detonation and a boosted fissile weapon,” the agency was quoted as saying.

It said that Pyongyang appeared to try to show that international sanctions are not working and to express its complaints against China or Russia by timing the detonation with a Beijing-hosted five emerging nations BRICS summit and Russia’s economic forum slated for later this week.

 

“The North also seemed to want to spark tensions to pressure the United States into changing its North Korea policy,” it added.

 

It said that the latest detonation was conducted in a northern tunnel of its nuclear site in the northeastern area where Pyongyang previously carried out three tests.

Meanwhile, South Korea earlier in the day paved the way for the full deployment of a U.S. missile defense system while its military conducted a live-fire drill with North Korea’s test site as the virtual target. The Environment Ministry on Monday conditionally approved an environmental impact report on the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system.

That removes the final administrative hurdle for complete installment of the missile shield, known as Thaad, which China sees as a threat to the region’s “strategic equilibrium.” South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it would install the system’s remaining launchers “soon.” The governments in Seoul and Washington were also discussing deployment of a U.S. carrier group and strategic bombers, Yonhap said.

Following Sunday’s latest nuclear test, President Trump threatened to increase economic sanctions and halt trade with any nation doing business with North Korea – a threat he has used before without following through. That list would include China – the U.S.’s biggest trading partner – which accounted for about a sixth of its overseas commerce. China hit back at Trump’s threat, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang saying the comments were “neither objective nor fair.”

While Asian stocks fell on Monday as investors turned to haven assets, sending the yen, gold and Treasury futures higher, the fallout was relatively contained with S&P futures down just 0.3% as of 6am ET. The biggest declines were in Tokyo and Seoul, with more moderate reactions elsewhere in the region.

Trump, who threatened over the weekend to pull out of the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement, took a shot at President Moon Jae-in’s administration after the nuclear test. On Twitter, he said that South Korea is finding that its “talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work.” In response, Moon’s office said that war shouldn’t be repeated and that South Korea and its allies “will pursue the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula through peace.” The two leaders haven’t spoken since North Korea detonated what it called a hydrogen bomb.

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

Authored by Soren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• More than 50,000 jihadists are now living in Europe. – Gilles de Kerchove, EU Counterterrorism Coordinator.
• Europol, the European police office, has identified at least 30,000 active jihadist websites, but EU legislation no longer requires internet service providers to collect and preserve metadata – including data on the location of jihadists – from their customers due to privacy concerns. De Kerchove said this was hindering the ability of police to identify and deter jihadists.

German authorities are hunting for dozens of members of one of the most violent jihadist groups in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, but who, according to Der Spiegel, entered Germany disguised as refugees.

The men, all former members of Liwa Owais al-Qorani, a rebel group destroyed by the Islamic State in 2014, are believed to have massacred hundreds of Syrians, both soldiers and civilians.

German police have reportedly identified around 25 of the jihadists and apprehended some of them, but dozens more are believed to be hiding in cities and towns across Germany.

In all, more than 400 migrants who entered Germany as asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016 are now being investigated for being members of Middle Eastern jihadists groups, according to the Federal Criminal Police (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA).

The revelation comes amid new warnings that jihadists are posing as migrants and arriving from North Africa on boats across the Mediterranean and onto Italian shores. In an interview with The Times, Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj said that jihadists who had been able to pass undetected into his country were almost certainly making their way into Europe.

"When migrants reach Europe they will move freely," said al-Sarraj, referring to the open borders within the European Union. "If, God forbid, there are terrorist elements among the migrants, any incident will affect all of the EU."

Independent MEP Steven Woolfe said:

"These comments show the problem to be two-fold. Firstly, potential terrorists are using the Mediterranean migrant trail as a way of entering Europe unchecked. Secondly, with Europe's lack of borders due to Schengen rules, once in Europe, they are able to move from one country to another freely. Strong borders are a necessity."

Around 130,000 migrants arrived in Europe by land and sea during the first eight months of 2017, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The main nationalities of arrivals to Italy in July were, in descending order: Nigeria, Bangladesh, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Mali. Arrivals to Greece were from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Congo. Arrivals to Bulgaria were from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Turkey.

In recent weeks, traffickers bringing migrants to Europe have opened up a new route through the Black Sea. On August 13, 69 Iraqi migrants were arrested trying to reach the Romanian Black Sea coast, having set off from Turkey in a yacht piloted by Bulgarian, Cypriot and Turkish smugglers. On August 20, the Romanian Coast Guard intercepted another boat carrying 70 Iraqis and Syrians, including 23 children, in the Black Sea in Romania's southeastern Constanta region.

A total of 2,474 people were detained while trying to cross the Romanian border illegally during the first six months of 2017, according to Balkan Insight. Almost half of them were caught while trying to leave Romania for Hungary. In 2016 only 1,624 migrants were detained; most were found trying to cross from Serbia to Romania.

Meanwhile, more than 10,000 migrants reached Spanish shores during the first eight months of 2017 — three times as many as in all of 2016, according to the IOM. Thousands more migrants have entered Spain by land, primarily at the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the north coast of Morocco, the European Union's only land borders with Africa. Once there, migrants are housed in temporary shelters and then moved to the Spanish mainland, from where many continue on to other parts of Europe.

Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, has warned that jihadists are using the migration crisis to enter Europe and plot attacks across the continent. Frontex It has also conceded that it does not know the true number of migrants who have crossed into Europe and has no way of tracking them. In its annual risk analysis for 2016, Frontex wrote:

"The Paris attacks in November 2015 clearly demonstrated that irregular migratory flows could be used by terrorists to enter the EU. Two of the terrorists involved in the attacks had previously irregularly entered through Leros [Greece] and had been registered by the Greek authorities. They presented fraudulent Syrian documents to speed up their registration process.

 

"False declarations of nationality are rife among nationals who are unlikely to obtain asylum in the EU, are liable to be returned to their country of origin or transit, or just want to speed up their journey. With a large number of persons arriving with false or no identification documents or raising concerns over the validity of their claimed nationality — with no thorough check or penalties in place for those making such false declarations, there is a risk that some persons representing a security threat to the EU may be taking advantage of this situation."

In an August 31 interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Gilles de Kerchove, the EU's Counterterrorism Coordinator said that more than 50,000 jihadists are now living in Europe:

"Three years ago, it was easy to identify someone who has become radicalized. Now, most fanatics disguise their convictions. We do not have exact figures, but it is not difficult to do approximate calculations. United Kingdom, it is not a secret, it has been published, it has 20,000. France, 17,000. Spain much less, but more than 5,000, I suppose. In Belgium almost 500 have gone to Syria and there are about 2,000 radicals or more. I would not venture to a specific figure, but tens of thousands, more than 50,000."

Masked Spanish policemen in Madrid arrest a man suspected of recruiting jihadists to fight for the Islamic State, June 16, 2014. (Photo by Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images)

In an interview with the Belgian daily Le Soir, de Kerchove warned that even if the Islamic State is militarily defeated, it will continue to thrive as a "virtual caliphate." He also said that Europol, the European police office, has identified at least 30,000 active jihadist websites, but that EU legislation no longer requires internet service providers to collect and preserve metadata — including data on the location of jihadists — from their customers due to privacy concerns. De Kerchove said this was hindering the ability of police to identify and deter jihadists: "On metadata, I confess that we pull our hair out."

via http://ift.tt/2x4pWDG Tyler Durden

After the massive Bitcoin price surge in November 2013, the popularity of launching new cryptocurrencies took off along with it.

In fact, as Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, if you go back at historical snapshots around that time, you’ll see that there were literally hundreds of new coins available to mine and buy. Here’s one from November 2014 – a time when there were only 32 coins that were worth more than $1 million in market cap, and 354 coins that were worth less than $50,000, usually trading for tiny fractions of a cent.

It seems like everyone and their dog were launching cryptocurrencies back then, even if they were a longshot to materialize into anything.

Then vs. Now

Fast forward to today, and things haven’t changed much – many people and companies are still launching new cryptocurrencies through a mechanism known as an ICO (Initial Coin Offering).

The only difference?

Today, there is real money at play, and in 12 months the number of cryptocurrencies worth >$1 million has soared by 468%. Meanwhile, the total value of all currencies together has skyrocketed by 1,466%.

Cryptocurrency is so hot, in fact, that raising money through ICOs has become more effective than traditional early-stage angel and VC funding.

For the long-time advocates of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it is now their moment in the sun.

And with this ICO activity and a wealth of opportunities emerging, a new breed of Bitcoin millionaire has been born. Like the wealthy tech founders that exit and give back to their local startup ecosystems, these new digital tycoons are using their newfound wealth to invest in upstart crypto projects that show potential – ultimately, further enhancing the ecosystem.

Out of the Woodwork

Of course, whenever there is a massive surge in prices and speculation, there are two other players that tend to come out of the woodwork.

One is of the scammer and shyster variety, and certainly crypto-fueled scams are a concern for everyone else in the broader ecosystem.

Perhaps even a bigger threat, however, are the regulators – and in recent weeks the SEC has voiced concerns about ICO “pump and dump” schemes, while Canadian authorities have clearly stated that “most ICOs need oversight”.

With the market exploding with hundreds of new cryptocurrencies and the total value reaching $177 billion, a new series of questions has emerged: what risk do ICO scams ultimately have on market? And, could misguided regulation disrupt the momentum of the crypto boom?

 

via http://ift.tt/2wA9Q1q Tyler Durden