Month: September 2018

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Are we on the verge of another great financial crisis, a devastating recession and a horrific implosion of the global debt bubble?  On my website I have been relentlessly warning my readers about the inevitable consequences of our very foolish actions, but now the mainstream media is beginning to sound just like The Economic Collapse Blog. 

The coming crisis is so close now that a lot of them are starting to see it, and of course economic disaster is already a reality for much of the rest of the planet. 

For years, the mainstream media told us that things would get better, and in a lot of ways we did see some improvement.  But now the tone of the mainstream media has become quite ominous, and that is definitely not a positive sign.  The following are 8 examples of mainstream media sources warning us of imminent economic disaster…

#1 Forbes: “Disaster Is Inevitable When America’s Stock Market Bubble Bursts”…

As shown in this report, the U.S. stock market is currently trading at extremely precarious levels and it won’t take much to topple the whole house of cards. Once again, the Federal Reserve, which was responsible for creating the disastrous Dot-com bubble and housing bubble, has inflated yet another extremely dangerous bubble in its attempt to force the economy to grow after the Great Recession. History has proven time and time again that market meddling by central banks leads to massive market distortions and eventual crises. As a society, we have not learned the lessons that we were supposed to learn from 1999 and 2008, therefore we are doomed to repeat them.

The purpose of this report is to warn society of the path that we are on and the risks that we are facing.

#2 CNBC: “Tech stock sell-off could be just beginning if trade war with China worsens”…

Congressional scrutiny of social media companies and fears of new regulation pummeled their stocks, but other tech names could also soon be vulnerable to a new round of selling pressure if President Donald Trump goes through with new tariffs on Chinese goods.

#3 Bloomberg: “Emerging-market rout is longest since 2008 as confidence cracks”…

For stocks, it’s 222 days. For currencies, 155 days. For local government bonds, 240 days.

This year’s rout in emerging markets has lasted so long that it’s taken even the most ardent bears by surprise. Not one of the seven biggest selloffs since the financial crisis — including the so-called taper tantrum — inflicted such pain for so long on the developing world.

#4 CNN: “Emerging Markets Look Sick. Will They Infect Wall Street?”…

Chinese stocks are is in a bear market. Turkey’s currency has collapsed. South Africa has stumbled into a recession. Not even an IMF bailout has stemmed the bleeding in Argentina.

The storm rocking emerging markets has its origins in Washington. Vulnerable currencies plunged as the US Federal Reserve steadily raised interest rates. And President Donald Trump’s trade crackdown added gasoline to the fire.

The trouble could spread, infecting other emerging markets or even Wall Street.

#5 The Motley Fool: “6 signs the next recession might be closer than we realize”…

To be perfectly clear, trying to predict when recessions will occur is pure guesswork. Top market analysts have called for pullbacks in the market, unsuccessfully, in pretty much every year since the Great Recession ended. But the economic cycle doesn’t lie: recessions are inevitable. And in my estimation, we’re probably closer to the next recession than you realize.

How can I be so certain? Well, I can’t. Remember, I just noted there’s virtually no certainty when it comes to predicting when recessions will occur. There are, however, six warning signs that suggest a recession could be, in relative terms, around the corner.

#6 Forbes: “U.S. Household Wealth Is Experiencing An Unsustainable Bubble”…

Since the dark days of the Great Recession in 2009, America has experienced one of the most powerful household wealth booms in its history. Household wealth has ballooned by approximately $46 trillion or 83% to an all-time high of $100.8 trillion. While most people welcome and applaud a wealth boom like this, my research shows that it is actually another dangerous bubble that is similar to the U.S. housing bubble of the mid-2000s. In this piece, I will explain why America’s wealth boom is artificial and heading for a devastating bust.

#7 Savannah Now: “Global debt soars, along with fears of crisis ahead”…

“We were supposed to correct a debt bubble,” said David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff, a wealth-management firm. “What we did instead was create more debt.”

#8 CNBC: “The emerging market crisis is back. And this time it’s serious”…

But markets are feeling a sense of deja vu. Blame it on a stronger dollar, escalating tensions since President Donald Trump came to power, worries over a full-fledged trade war with China or rising interest rates in the U.S., this time around the crisis seems to have entered a new phase.

The damage is far more widespread. The crisis has engulfed countries across the globe — from economies in South America, to Turkey, South Africa and some of the bigger economies in Asia, such as India and China. A number of these countries are seeing their currency fall to record levels, high inflation and unemployment, and in some cases, escalating tensions with the United States.

I don’t think that we have seen such ominous declarations from the mainstream media since the last global financial crisis in 2008.

And the mainstream media is not alone.  Yesterday, I discussed the fact that tech executives on the west coast are setting up luxury survival bunkers in New Zealandin order to prepare for what is ahead.

They all know what is coming, and they also know that it is approaching very rapidly.

This chapter in American history is not going to end well.  On some level, all of us understand this.  Storm clouds have been building on the horizon for quite some time and the warning signs are all around us.

Our day of reckoning may have been delayed, but it was not canceled.  America has a date with destiny, and it is going to be exceedingly painful.

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The first exit poll from Sweden’s SVT is out, and while it has been deemed “too close to call”, the initial results may present a major headache for Sweden’s establishment – and Brussels – as they show Sweden’s four-party opposition with 39.6% of the vote, while the red-green block of government parties including the Social Democrats and Green and their Left Party ally, just behind, with 39.4% of the vote, a remarkable if expected decline from the 2014 election.

The full details from the SVT exit poll, via Bloomberg, which has called the results a “dead heat”:

Red-green block (39.4%):

• Social Democrats backed by 26.2% vs 31% in 2014 election
• Left Party supported by 9.0% vs 5.7%
• Green Party backed by 4.2% vs 6.9%

Four-party alliance opposition (39.6%)

• Moderate Party supported by 17.8% vs 23.3%
• Center Party supported by 8.9% vs 6.1%
• Liberals backed by 5.5% vs 5.4%
• Christian Democrats backed by 7.4% vs 4.6%

Meanwhile, the nationalist Sweden Democrat party which has been the center of attention in this election, is said to be backed by 19.2% of the vote, largely in line with preliminary polling, and a 50% surge from the party’s 12.9% result in the 2014 election, if below the 20% psychological level which many had kept a close eye on.

Assuming the exit polls is correct, the Social Democrats’ result of 26.2% would be the worst since general voting started in 1921. And, as Bloomberg notes, it’s pretty clear that the Alliance opposition would try to form a government with a result like this.

Sweden, SVT exit poll:

S-S&D: 26.2%
SD-ECR: 19.2%
M-EPP: 17.8%
V-LEFT: 9.0%
C-ALDE: 8.9%
KD-EPP: 7.4%
MP-G/EFA: 4.2%
L-ALDE: 5.5%

Sample size: 10,000-15,000#valet2018 #val2018 #swedenelection

— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) September 9, 2018

So while we wait for the official results, it’s going to be a long night in Stockholm.

As a reminder, since for now it appears that there won’t be a clear winner, in terms of what happens next, if Prime Minister Lofven doesn’t resign based on these results he will face a confidence vote in parliament two weeks after the election. Then, if he loses, the speaker will present a new candidate for prime minister to parliament. Historically, the speaker has never had to present more than one government alternative, the first proposal has always been accepted according to Bloomberg.

Parties will have a maximum of four attempts to form a government, otherwise a new election will be held within three months. A new government, or a Lofven II-cabinet, will need to present a budget to parliament within three weeks of assuming office, Nov. 15 at the latest, while a budget vote will be held in December.

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US Prosecutors are walking back their claim that a now-jailed Russian woman, Maria Butina, traded sex in exchange for a job wihin a “special interest organization,” reports the Washington Post. 

Following the July arrest of Butina, 29, Assistant US Attorney Erik M. Kenerson said that she was offering “sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization.” 

Now, months later, the government is backpedaling: 

The concession came in a late-night court filing Friday in which prosecutors said Maria Butina, 29, should stay in custody as a flight risk but wrote “the government’s understanding of this particular text conversation was mistaken.” –Washington Post

The 2015 text exchange between Butina and a married, longtime friend who does public relations work for a Russian gun rights group, and did her a favor by renewing her car insurance, reads:

“I don’t know what you owe me for this insurance[.] They put me through the wringer,” her friend texted her in Russian.

“Sex,” responded Butina, who added: “Thank you so much. I have nothing else at all. Not a nickel to my name.”

The man later replied: “Think of something!! . . . Sex with you does not interest me.” 

Prosecutors say that their mistake shouldn’t derail the government’s overall case – which is not part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election. 

Separate of the text exchange in question, Butina allegedly worked with South Dakota-based GOP Paul Erickson, whom she met in Moscow in 2015, after which a romantic relationship ensued. 

Butina moved to the US on a student visa in 2016, graduating from American University in Washington DC with a master’s degree in international relations earlier this year. After her July arrest on charges of acting as a foreign agent without registering with the US government, Butina was transferred to another prison in August. 

Erickson, who has strong ties to both the National Rifle Association and the Russian gun rights community, allegedly attempted to develop a back-channel between the NRA and the Russian government. In May, 2016, Erickson sent an email to Trump campaign adviser Rick Dearborn and Jeff Sessions with the title “Kremlin connection,” seeking a meeting between then-candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an annual NRA convention. 

Butina, meanwhile, allegedly tried to use Erickson to introduce her to influential political figures in order to arrange a meeting between Trump and her boss, Russian central banker Alexander Torshin.

The Trump campaign declined the invitation, however Torshin and Butina did have a brief interaction with Donald Trump Jr. at a dinner. 

Butina is accused of trying to cultivate “back-channel” relationships with the Republican Party’s leading presidential candidates and develop close ties to the NRA to provide Russian officials “with the best access to and influence over” the party.

Butina allegedly was assisted by Erickson, who helped introduce her to influential political figures and who sought to organize a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Alexander Torshin, Butina’s colleague and a Russian central banker, at a May 2016 NRA convention. –Washington Post

US prosecutors on Friday argued that Butina should remain in jail pending trial, providing additional evidence that Torshin coordinated her activities – claiming that at his direction she drafted language which would persuade the Russian foreign ministry to let him attend the meeting at the NRA event, which she called a “unique opportunity.” 

Prosecutors have cited Moscow’s vehement protests of Butina’s detainment in making their case that she is a Russian operative. 

Prosecutors also cited Moscow’s vehement protests of her case — including six consular visits to Butina in jail, four diplomatic notes, two personal complaints by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the official Kremlin Twitter account placing Butina’s face as its avatar — in telling the judge they “confirmed her relationship with, and value to, her own government.” –Washington Post

The Russian embassy has complained that Butina is being subjected to unwarranted strip searches and denial of proper medical care in an effort to “break her will.” Her defense attorney, Robert Driscoll, claims she has suffered health problems in jail and has been denied proper treatment. 

“There’s no allegation of espionage, there’s no allegation of classified information, there’s no allegation she was paying anyone off, there’s no allegation she was recruiting spies. None of the things you would typically see in an espionage case,” Driscoll told RT in August

“The significance of defendant Butina to the government of the Russian Federation is evident in light of the Russian government’s actions since her arrest,” prosecutors wrote, adding “so too, does it underscore her risk of flight.”

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Bob Woodward told CBS in a Sunday morning interview that a war with North Korea was nearly triggered by an almost-sent Trump tweet, which White House staff prevented.  

“He drafts a tweet saying ‘We are going to pull our dependents from South Korea — family members of the 28,000 people there,’” Woodward claimed on “CBS Sunday Morning,” in reference to American military families stationed on the Korean peninsula. 

Such a message, Woodward explained in the interview, would have been interpreted by Pyongyang as a sign that it would face imminent US attack.  This “spooked” Pentagon officials into action to prevent the potential for unintended war. 

It is but the latest in a series of sensational claims ahead of Woodward’s release of his new book “Fear: Trump in the White House” which hits stores on Tuesday. 

Woodward described the incident as the most dangerous moment of Trump’s war of words with a nuclear armed North Korea from earlier this year. 

According to Woodward’s account, the tweet was never posted because of “a back-channel message from the North Koreans that they would view it as a sign the US was preparing to attack,” according to CBS.

“At that moment there was a sense of profound alarm in the Pentagon leadership that, ‘My God, one tweet and we have reliable information that the North Koreans are going to read this as ‘an attack is imminent.'”

Woodward has described the situation in the White House as an “administrative coup d’etat” and it follows other seemingly tailor-made to fit the headlines explosive stories after his strategically “leaked” excerpts from his upcoming book appeared in the Washington Post last week.

The book has been described as painting a picture of an erratic executive of the most powerful nation on earth who is nearly incapable of doing the job, rendered dangeous by narcissism, a short attention span, and a cold lack of empathy for both those around him and vast segments of the population. 

During the Sunday interview Woodward appealed directly to the American public, telling CBS: “That people better wake up to what’s going on.”

In response to the initial allegations following the WaPo story, Trump unleashed a string of tweets Tuesday and Wednesday slamming the allegations as false and libelous. 

Meanwhile, despite the best efforts of the mainstream media to reinforce the idea that Trump-Kim relations are going nowhere, it appears there has been progress and President Trump has also on Sunday, in the hours immediately following the Woodward CBS interview, thanked Kim for his show of good faith at the nation’s 70th anniversary military parade, which purposefully excluded ICBM’s. 

North Korea has just staged their parade, celebrating 70th anniversary of founding, without the customary display of nuclear missiles. Theme was peace and economic development. “Experts believe that North Korea cut out the nuclear missiles to show President Trump……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 9, 2018

…its commitment to denuclearize.” @FoxNews This is a big and very positive statement from North Korea. Thank you To Chairman Kim. We will both prove everyone wrong! There is nothing like good dialogue from two people that like each other! Much better than before I took office.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 9, 2018

“This is a big and very positive statement from North Korea. Thank you To Chairman Kim. We will both prove everyone wrong!” – Trump tweeted. 

Last Wednesday a South Korean delegation which had met with Kim announced the North’s intentions to pursue denuclearization by the end of President Trump’s first term, or by early 2021.

So clearly something of Trump’s Korea denuclearization strategy appears to be working. 

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After spending more than a year in hock to the FBI, former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos has finally received his sentence – 14 days in federal prison  – for allegedly deceiving investigators pursuing operation Crossfire Hurricane, the bureau’s official pre-Mueller probe into potentially illicit connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. And with his involvement with the investigation behind him, Papadopoulos is free for the first time to share his side of the story with the press. And share he has.

In a pair of interviews with CNN and ABC, Pap offered convincing rebuttals to allegations that he provided the initial spark that ignited the Russia probe, and – more importantly -that he informed Trump campaign operatives about Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud’s claims that Russia had unspecified “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton.

While Papadopoulos readily admits to telling then-candidate Trump and other senior campaign officials about his efforts to organize a summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the now-infamous March 2016 meeting of the Trump campaign’s national security advisors, he eagerly pushed back against allegations that he told campaign officials about the alleged “dirt”, arguing that, at the time, he harbored doubts about Mifsud’s credibility and the legitimacy of his claims. Pap also pointed out that if he had indeed informed John Mashburn about Mifsud’s claims via email – as Mashburn testified – then that email would’ve been produced as evidence (and, we imagine, probably been leaked to the press). But alas, no such email has ever been entered into evidence.

In his interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Pap offered a step-by-step accounting of his April 2016 meeting with Mifsud (the meeting where Mifsud allegedly first shared news of the so-called dirt) and what Pap shared – or, crucially, didn’t share – with the Trump campaign.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And in April, that other meeting with Professor Mifsud where he said for the first time that he knew of possible hacked Hillary Clinton e-mails. What exactly did he say?

PAPADOPOULOS: So this meeting took place at the Andaz hotel by Liverpool Street Station in London. As far as I remember, what happened was Joseph Mifsud had informed me that he would be travelling to Moscow the week before we met at the Andaz hotel where he had a series of meetings at the — at the Duma, which I believe —

STEPHANOPOULOS: Russian parliament.

PAPADOPOULOS: Exactly, which I believe is the equivalent of the Russian parliament. Then he sat me down and he was quite giddy. And he told me, I have information that the Russians have thousands of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. There’s a misunderstanding that he told me about DNC or Podesta or any of these —

STEPHANOPOULOS: Because that was right after the hack of John Podesta’s e-mails.

PAPADOPOULOS: This was late April. I think Podesta’s e-mails were hacked —

STEPHANOPOULOS: Earlier.

PAPADOPOULOS: Yes. I just — to my recollection, I never heard the name Podesta DNC. I saw him as somebody at the time — you have to — we have to understand what my impression of this individual was at the time. At the time, I was actively seeking to leverage him to meet with the Russian ambassador in London. After he promised that they would be inclined to meet, he was unable to set up any meetings with me and any senior Russian officials.

He introduced me to a low level think tank official in Moscow, Ivan Timofeev and a Russian student who he purported was the niece of Vladimir Putin.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But this news about the e-mails is pretty big.

PAPADOPOULOS: It was very big, but because of his inability to really connect me the way I wanted him to, when he did state this, you know, I guess it was a momentum statement, at the time I thought how could this person possibly hold the keys to the kingdom of such a massive conspiracy when he couldn’t even introduce me to the people I wanted.

So I was – of course I was shocked, but at the same time, this wasn’t a Russian official telling me this either.

STEPHANOPOULOS: John Mashburn, who was working on the campaign, testified that you sent an e-mail to him talking about this.

PAPADOPOULOS: If – I have no recollection of doing that, George. If I did send an e-mail and especially if others were copied on it, I’m sure that evidence would have been produced by now.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you can’t guarantee that you did not.

PAPADOPOULOS: I could just say if that e-mail was sent, even I had deleted it, if that’s what people are – believe I did, there would be a copy somewhere else.

Pap doubled down on this claim during his interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper (which aired a day before the ABC interview), affirming that he had no recollection of telling anybody in the Trump campaign about Mifsud’s claims.

“As far as I remember, I absolutely did not share this information with anyone on the campaign,” Papadopoulos said, adding, “I might have, but I have no recollection of doing so. I can’t guarantee. All I can say is, my memory is telling me that I never shared it with anyone on the campaign.”

In fact, the only official of some important with whom Pap shared Mifsud’s claims was the Greek foreign minister (the Greek government has declined to confirm this, but it’s safe to say that this individual had no discernible connection to the Trump campaign).

Complicating these denials, Papadopoulos admitted that he told a senior Greek official about the Russian dirt while visiting the country on a trip authorized by the Trump campaign.

“He explained to me that where you are sitting right now, tomorrow Putin will be sitting there,” Papadopoulos said. “And then a nervous reaction I had, I blurted out, I heard this information.”

The Greek government confirmed to CNN that the meeting happened but declined to say what was discussed. Papadopoulos described the conversation as “gossiping among diplomats.”

Those who have been closely following the intricate drama surrounding the genesis of operation Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s links to Russia, will recall that the grave mistake that landed Papadopoulos in the crosshairs of the FBI was telling a pair of investigators that he wasn’t involved with the Trump campaign when he had his fateful meeting with Mifsud. During his interview with ABC, Pap readily admitted to lying, but explained that he wasn’t protecting Trump from prosecution so much as he was trying to protect his own professional reputation – a key distinction that cuts against the mainstream media narrative.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And it was in that context on January 27, 2017 when you met with the FBI and lied to them about your meetings with Joseph Mifsud. Why did you lie to them?

PAPADOPOULOS: As you stated quite eloquently, at the time of my interview with the FBI, I think around three or four days before that, I was at the inauguration attending parties with senior level transition officials.

I understood that there was an incipient investigation into a Russian interference in the 2016 election. And I found myself, as somebody who worked incredibly hard over the past year with the campaign to actually have the candidate Trump be elected.

And then I found myself pinned between the Department of Justice and the sitting president and having probing questions that I thought might incriminate the sitting president.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You were trying to protect the president.

PAPADOPOULOS: Of course.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why of course?

PAPADOPOULOS: Because, you know, I didn’t understand really the nature of what was going on. Of course I’m remorseful, I’m contrite and I did lie but, you know, you’re just taken off guard I guess in a such a momentous situation where you’re potentially sitting there, incriminating the president, even though of course I don’t think I did.

You know, that was probably in the back of my mind, of what exactly am I doing here talking about Russian hacking or election interference with the candidate that I just worked for.

Pap also confirmed that the Trump campaign supported his efforts to set up a summit with Putin, but during his national security meeting, Pap said that Trump appeared noncommittal. However, Pap took the opportunity to throw Attorney General Jeff Sessions under the bus by implying that Sessions lied during testimony to Congress last year.

PAPADOPOULOS: So basically what happened was we had a — a — some sort of round table where we all discussed what our backgrounds were, what we were actually going to contribute to the campaign now that we were all sitting across from the principles, Jeff Sessions and candidate Donald Trump. I explained to them that I come from a think tank background and I work in the energy industry but I do have a connection that can establish a potential summit between candidate Trump and President Putin.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What was the reaction?

PAPADOPOULOS: The reaction, of course, was mixed. There were many people in that room that came from conservative think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, who you know, nodded in disapproval. Candidate Trump at the time nodded at me. I don’t think he was committed either way. He was open to the idea. And he deferred, of course, to then senior Senator Jeff Sessions, who I remember being quite enthusiastic about hosting —

As a tactic to help his client win a lighter sentence, Papadopoulos’s lawyer, Thomas Breen, tried to deflect some of the blame for his client’s lies toward the president (as the NYT reminds us)…

The sentencing hearing, which lasted more than 90 minutes in a packed courtroom, veered in unexpected directions. Mr. Papadopoulos’s defense lawyer, Thomas M. Breen, tried to shift some of the blame for his client’s lies to President Trump. He suggested that Mr. Papadopoulos took his cues from Mr. Trump, who has tried to discredit the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russia’s interference in the election and whether any Trump associates conspired.

“The president of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could,” Mr. Breen said. “The message for all of us is to check our loyalty, to tell the truth, to help the good guys.”

But Papadopoulos insisted to ABC that this was merely a rhetorical ploy on the part of his lawyer, and insisted again that he acted alone in pursuing his contacts with Mifsud.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your lawyer said that President Trump hindered the investigation more than you did. Do you agree?

PAPADOPOULOS: Those are their opinions. I have no idea about that.

Furthermore, when asked for his opinion on Trump’s job performance, Papadopoulos asserted that, in his estimation, Trump has done “a good job.” Stephanopoulos, unsurprisingly, was unwilling to let this assertion go unchallenged, and promptly pushed back. But Pap stood his ground.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you believe — is President Trump still the candidate, been the kind of candidate, president you expected to be when you signed up?

PAPADOPOULOS: When I signed up I was a foreign policy adviser. I wasn’t dealing with social issues or economic issues for that matter. On foreign policy, I think he’s done a good job.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Done a good job.

PAPADOPOULOS: I think he’s done a good job.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How so?

PAPADOPOULOS: I see improvement on the Korean peninsula. I see NATO expanding their capabilities under President Trump. I do see a detente emerging between U.S. and Russia. I think things are stabilizing around the world.

Of course, the mainstream media will try to twist Pap’s words into an act of betrayal. But a careful reading of the transcript shows that it was anything but. Despite being written off as a “coffee boy” (a claim that infuriated his wife, Simona Mangiante), Papadopoulos had an opportunity to implicate the president, but he didn’t.

That should tell you everything you need to know about the Russia probe.

Watch an excerpt from CNN’s interview below:

And here’s the ABC interview in full:

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Authored by Tom Luongo,

If there’s one thing that makes this job difficult it is the endless smokescreens. Filtering out the noise is draining. From the double-speak of politicians to the endless manipulations of financial markets by central bankers the world is awash in fake news, fake prices and fake geniuses.

So, when a series of events occur that bring clarity to the circus that is world politics, my first reaction is to distrust them. It’s that weird moment when the evil-doers rip off their masks and just start telling you what their intentions are. This creates cognitive dissonance in those of us conditioned to reading between the thinnest of lines.

But, sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be.

And what is clear to me now is that the Deep State is done whipping the progressive Left into a frenzy over Donald Trump. They are now openly handing them pitchforks and mustering for a hostile takeover of the Oval Office.

The anonymous op-ed published by the New York Times timed perfectly with the leaked quotes from moldy old Bob Woodward’s new book “Fear – Trump in the White House” are clarion calls for a challenge of Trump’s competency via the 25th amendment.

We are in the last 60 days before the mid-term elections. The fear of loss by the Deep State is palpable. If Trump survives this election with his base and any form of congressional majority intact he will finally be able to go to town on these people who are a threat not just to the country but to humanity itself.

This narrative about Trump being unstable and insane began during the campaign and those that need to believe in this were always willing to keep this fire stoked. After that it’s simply a matter of repeating the lie over and over until, hopefully, they’ve manufactured a bonfire big enough to roast Trump on the altar of their agenda.

Trump, at times, doesn’t help himself with some of his antics. It’s no secret that Trump has little respect for the ‘proper way to do things in Washington.’ And I’m sure stories about him making fun of H.R. McMaster’s suits have more truth to them than fiction.

When I read that quote from Woodward’s book I laughed out loud.

This certainly rubs his staff the wrong way. They want the status quo maintained.

But, what these careerists refuse to understand is this is exactly what we elected him for. Their way is over. The hardcore progressives are crushing incumbents in their primaries.

Populism is now bi-partisan.

So, Woodward’s stories and Trump not toeing the neocon party line are only going to endear him to us that much more.

Bob Mueller is openly threatening anyone on Trump’s side to turn on him either by staying quiet or lie.

Trump is surrounded by neocons and globalists. They hate his skepticism about U.S. foreign and trade policy. They are only there because that’s what’s available from the pool of candidates for many of these jobs.

It is an unfortunate reality.

But, from a procedural level, these are the people who make the D.C. political trains run on time.

It makes you wonder if the Coen Brothers’ brilliant movie about the D.C. cocktail party circuit, Burn After Reading, is more documentary than farce.

And that creates a foundation to build a case against him in the court of public opinion, the only court he can be tried in since Bob Mueller’s investigation has failed completely to find any evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians.

In fact, all Mueller has done is expose the lengths to which members of the FBI, CIA, MI-6, the DNC and John McCain (or do I repeat myself) went to spy on him with the intent to frame him.

This is the real civil war that has been brewing for two years now.

What the New York Times article did was to try and shift the blame for staffer disobedience onto Trump. This is the essence of the Deep State, the unelected bureaucracy that acts independently of the wishes of the President and other elected officials.

In the same way that last week the same New York Times tried to spin the FBI’s purchasing of the Steele Dossier about Trump as a way to ‘flip’ Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

All of these stories are ludicrous. And Trump is right to call the Times out to reveal its ‘source’ within the White House on “National Security” grounds.

The real danger for Trump is passivity. I’ve said many times that spooks start civil wars but militaries end them. And it’s no shock then that the juiciest of the leaked quotes from Woodward’s book revolve around the two generals on Trump’s staff, James Mattis and John Kelly.

It’s also no shock that both men, who respect the chain of command, vehemently denied the quotes.

Trump needs to go on the offensive here. He needs to give his base who are in the trenches everyday burning Nike shoes, eating In-and-Out Burgers and canceling their NFL Sunday Ticket Packages something to fight for.

They’ll go through the wall for him.

Because now is the time to strike. Trump’s enemies have over-extended themselves. Their arrogance and, frankly, desperation have placed them firmly at odds with a clear majority of Americans.

They have revealed themselves as agent provocateurs and traitors. The sad spectacle that is the Brett Kavanaugh hearings will do nothing but alienate more of the center.

The Left is cannibalizing itself as the Democrats move hard left. Blacks and Hispanics are walking away from them. The Uniparty is in retreat with retirements and primary upsets on both sides of the political party.

These mid-terms are shaping up to be an extension of the 2016 Presidential election, a clear choice between America’s future by dismantling its insane kleptocracy or returning to the past and enshrining it into stone is on the ballot.

*  *  *

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As the global Muslim population continues to expand, conditions during the Hajj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim must make at least once in their life are growing more crowded raising the likelihood that a serious infectious disease could easily spread. This tendency was on full display last week as serious health scares at airports in New York and Philadelphia were traced back to pilgrims who were returning from the Hajj.

Passengers who were traveling from Dubai to New York City (a group that amusingly included rapper Vanilla Ice) were quarantined for hours at JFK airport on Wednesday amid reports that more than 100 people aboard the plane reported feeling ill. In the end, 11 people were sent to an area hospital for testing. Of those, two tested positive for a particularly infectious type of influenza A virus, and one of the two was gravely ill with pneumonia. A third person tested positive for a cold virus, according to Channel News Asia.

On Thursday, two flights arriving in Philadelphia from Europe were screened by medical teams after 12 passengers reported flu-like symptoms. One of them had visited Mecca for the Hajj.

The CDC was not alerted in advance about the two flights that landed in Philadelphia from Paris and Munich, but several travelers had complained of illness, triggering a “medical review” of 250 passengers from those flights, a spokesman said.

Twelve passengers were found to have sore throats and coughs, and one also tested positive for the flu, a CDC spokesman confirmed.

Roughly 2 million Muslims traveled to the Holy City of Mecca last month to take part in the Hajj. While the pilgrimage was largely free of catastrophes like the deadly stampede that killed 800 pilgrims in 2015, the sheer number of travelers prompted the New York Times to calculate roughly how long it would take for every living Muslim to complete the Hajj once in their life. The answer, the Times found, is roughly 581 years.

Per NYT, the number of pilgrims voyaging to Mecca peaked in 2012 at more than 3 million. Since then, the Saudi government has tightened quotas for other countries that send pilgrims based on the size of their Muslim populations.

And while the vast majority of pilgrims have probably returned home by now after completing the five-day journey two weeks ago, health officials should already be preparing for next year’s Hajj, which could present a serious public-health threat given how pilgrims spend long hours walking in packed crowds until they arrive at the Kaaba in what one reporter once described as an “overwhelming mass of humanity.”

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Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

You’d think the previous decade’s housing bust would still be fresh in the minds of mortgage lenders, if no one else. But apparently not.

One of the drivers of that bubble was the emergence of private label mortgage “originators” who, as the name implies, simply created mortgages and then sold them off to securitizers, who bundled them into the toxic bonds that nearly brought down the global financial system.

The originators weren’t banks in the commonly understood sense. That is, they didn’t build long-term relationships with customers and so didn’t need to care whether a borrower could actually pay back a loan. With zero skin in the game, they were willing to write mortgages for anyone with a paycheck and a heartbeat. And frequently the paycheck was optional.

In retrospect, that was both stupid and reckless. But here we are a scant decade later, and the industry is headed back towards those same practices. Today’s Wall Street Journal, for instance, profiles a formerly-miniscule private label mortgage originator that now has a bigger market share than Bank of America or Citigroup:

The New Mortgage Kings: They’re Not Banks

One afternoon this spring, a dozen or so employees lined up in front of Freedom Mortgage’s office in Mount Laurel, N.J., to get their picture taken. Clutching helium balloons shaped like dollar signs, they were being honored for the number of mortgages they had sold.

Freedom is nowhere near the size of behemoths like Citigroup or Bank of America; yet last year it originated more mortgages than either of them, some $51.1 billion, according to industry research group Inside Mortgage Finance. It is now the 11th-largest mortgage lender in the U.S., up from No. 78 in 2012.

Its rise points to a bigger shift in the home-lending business to specialized mortgage lenders that fall outside the banking sector. Such nonbanks, critically wounded in the housing crisis, have re-emerged to become the market’s dominant players, with 52% of U.S. mortgage originations, up from 9% in 2009. Six of the 10 biggest U.S. mortgage lenders today are nonbanks, according to the research group.

They symbolize both the healthy reinvention of a mortgage market brought to its knees a decade ago—and how the growth in that market almost exclusively has been in its less-regulated corner.

Postcrisis regulations curb bank and nonbank lenders alike from making the “liar loans” that wiped out many lenders and forced a wave of foreclosures during the crisis. What worries some industry participants is that little has changed about nonbank lenders’ structure.

Their capital levels aren’t as heavily regulated as banks, and they don’t have deposits or other substantive business lines. Instead they usually take short-term loans from banks to fund their lending. If the housing market sours, banks could cut off their funding—which doomed some nonbanks in the last crisis. In that scenario, first-time buyers or borrowers with little savings would be the first to get locked out of the mortgage market.

“As long as the good times roll on, it’s fine,” said Ed Pinto, co-director of the Center on Housing Markets and Finance at the American Enterprise Institute. “But all I can say is, we’re in a boom, and you cannot keep going up like this forever.”

Freedom was just a small lender in the last crisis. When it became hard to borrow money, Freedom Chief Executive Stan Middleman embraced government-backed loans on the theory they would offer more stability.

As Quicken Loans Inc., the biggest and best-known nonbank, grew with the help of flashy technology and advertising campaigns, Freedom stayed under the radar, buying smaller lenders and scooping up other companies’ huge portfolios of loans, often made to relatively risky borrowers.

Mr. Middleman is fond of saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. “I always believed that, if somebody is applying for a loan, we should try to make it for them,” says Mr. Middleman.

What does this mean? Several things, depending on the resolution of the lens you’re using.

In the mortgage market it means that emerging private sector lenders are taking market share – presumably by being more aggressive – which puts pressure on the relatively stodgy brand-name banks to lower their own standards to keep up. To grasp the truth of this, just re-read the last sentence in the above article: “I always believed that, if somebody is applying for a loan, we should try to make it for them.” That is fundamentally not how banks work. Their job is to write profitable loans by weeding out the applicants who probably won’t make their payments.

Now, faced with competitors from the “No Credit, No Problem!” part of the business spectrum, the big guys will once again have to choose between adopting that attitude or leaving the business. See Bad Bankers Drive Out Good Bankers: Wells Fargo, Wall Street, And Gresham’s Law. Since the biggest mortgage lender is currently Wells Fargo, for which cutting corners is standard practice, it presumably won’t be long before variants of liar loans and interest only mortgages will be back on the menu.

From a broader societal perspective, this is par for the late-cycle course. After a long expansion, most banks have already lent money to their high-quality customers. But Wall Street continues to demand that those banks maintain double-digit earnings growth, and will punish their market caps if they fall short.

This leaves formerly-good banks with no choice but to loosen standards to keep the fee income flowing. So they start working their way towards the bottom of the customer barrel, while instructing their prop trading desks and/or investment bankers to explore riskier bets. Misallocation of capital becomes ever-more-common until the system blows up.

The signs that we’re back there (2007 in some cases, 2008 in others) are spreading, which means the reckoning is moving from “inevitable” to “imminent”.

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It increasingly looks like the Trump White House is in the driver’s seat when it comes to stalled negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. 

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un has in the past days and week seemed somewhat desperate to telegraph to Trump that he is fully committed to denuclearization.

The latest such signalling is reported via Reuters early Sunday:

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un told an envoy of Chinese president Xi Jinping that North Korea is upholding the denuclearisation agreement it reached with the United States this year, China’s state broadcaster said.

Chinese parliament chief Li Zhanshu, who is in Pyongyang for celebrations marking 70 years since the founding of North Korea, was told by Kim that North Korea hopes the United States keeps to its side of the agreement, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The Chinese envoy was present in Pyongyang to mark the 70th anniversary of North Korea’s founding, which included the standard sprawling military parade; however conspicuously absent from the parade were North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), thought to be capable of hitting the United States — a clear sign that Kim is taking ongoing diplomatic efforts with the US and South Korea seriously.  

CNN described the parade as “considerably understated compared to previous years” which analysts say is “to avoid antagonizing US President Donald Trump”.

Li Zhanshu, Beijing’s third-ranking Communist Party official, headed the Chinese delegation on behalf of President Xi Jinping and delivered a message that there’s a pressing need for North Korea and the US “to thoroughly implement the consensus … to reach the common goal of denuclearisation”, state broadcaster China Central Television reported.

Kim stressed that his country had already taken the early agreed upon steps toward denuclearisation, and wants “the US side to take reciprocal measures to solve the Korean peninsula issues diplomatically”.

“I [also] wish to learn from the Chinese experience of economic development,” Kim was quoted as saying.

This comes after last Wednesday North Korea announced it would pursue denuclearization by the end of President Trump’s first term, or by early 2021. The announcement came via South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his national security advisor Chung Eui-yong, who met with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un the day prior.

Kim reportedly set down a timeline for denuclearization, the first step of which is a meeting summit between himself and the South Korean president in Pyongyang on Sept. 18-20, during which the two have pledged to discuss “practical measures” toward denuclearization.

Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims “unwavering faith in President Trump.” Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2018

This included a personal “good faith” message reportedly sent from Kim to President Trump via the South Korean envoy.

Trump responded to news of the message early Thursday morning via Twitter: Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims “unwavering faith in President Trump.” Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together! – Trump stated. 

During the historic Singapore summit in June the two leaders agreed to “work toward the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”, but negotiations have stalled since then; however, this past week showed significant signs that progress may resume. 

Kim is reported to have reaffirmed this past week in talks with the South Korean envoy “his strong will to carry out more proactive measures toward denuclearization if action is taken in response to the North’s preemptive steps.” 

It appears that Sunday’s ICBM-absent military parade is a first symbolic step that North Korea is indeed serious about restarting talks at the same table with the Trump White House. 

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Responding to an anonymous Op-Ed in the New York Times detailing an active resistance within the Trump White House, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told Reuters that President Trump is facing a “coup” the likes of which haven’t been seen since the American Civil War. 

“What you saw the other day was as serious as it can get. This is a direct attack on the institutions,” Bannon said while flying to Italy. “This is a coup, okay”.

The Wednesday column in the New York Times slams Trump’s “amorality” and claims that “Many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”

Bannon told Reuters that the last time a sitting US president had been challenged like this was during the American Civil War when Democratic General George B. McClellan went after Republican President Abraham Lincoln. 

“This is a crisis. The country has only ever had such a crisis in the summer of 1862 when General McClellan and the senior generals, all Democrats in the Union Army, deemed that Abraham Lincoln was not fit and not competent to be commander in chief,” said Bannon – whose departure from the White House was in large part over a fallout with Trump’s “establishment” advisers. Bannon said at the time that the “Republican establishment” sought to nullify the results of the 2016 election and effectively neuter Trump. 

“There is a cabal of Republic establishment figures who believe Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. This is a crisis,” Bannon said in Rome.

“I am not a conspiracy guy … I have said there is no deep state. It is an in-your-face state.” -Steve Bannon

On Friday, President Trump called on the Department of Justice to investigate who wrote the piece, citing national security. On Thursday night, Trump told a crowd in Billings, Montana that the Times should publish the name of the author at once. 

But for the sake of our national security, the New York Times should publish his name at once. I think their reporters should go and investigate who it is. That would actually be a good scoop. 

(APPLAUSE)

That would be a good scoop. Unelected deep state operatives who defy the voters to push their own secret agendas are truly a threat to democracy itself. And I was so heartened when I looked

Bannon warned liberal progressives within the Democratic Party that they would suffer the same fate as Trump. For an example, look no further at how establishment Democrats shunned Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arer after her upset primary victory over the 4th most powerful Democrat in the House, Joe Crowley. 

“Don’t think it will be any different if you take power,” Bannon warned outsider liberal candidates like Bernie Sanders. “Because this is the established order dictating that they know better than the people.”

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