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Hedge Funds “All-In” On Gold As Fiat ‘Race To The Bottom’ Accelerates

Gold is having its best year since 2016, soaring over 17% year-to-date, outpacing stocks, bonds, and the dollar.

And Gold is strong and getting stronger.

“We’re now going from trade wars almost into currency wars,” said Whitney George, president of Sprott Inc., a precious metals-focused fund.

“Gold is a currency, but it’s nobody’s obligation, so it will stand tallest when everyone else is trying to debase their currency to be competitive globally.”

Analysts are jumping on the bullion bull market bandwagon:

Goldman have a six-month gold forecast of $1,600;

Citi has said it will rise to the same $1600 level in 6 to 12 months; and,

Bank of America Merrill Lynch sees prices climbing toward $2,000 within two years, topping the all-time record of $1,921.17 reached in the spot market in 2011.

Goldman’s technical chartists see the break above 1,453 was bullish in nature.

As has been discussed in previous updates, needed it to break higher than 1,453 in order to avoid this looking like a complete ABC rise from the Aug. ’18 low. Having done so, this now opens up the possibility of a longer-term projection target up at 1,568-1,595.

…the next near-term resistance is up at 1,528-1,539

The move since Jul. 17th looks like an incomplete iii of v waves up. What that means is that any near-term pullback should still be considered corrective and counter-trend.

Would use support at 1,484 and 1,468 as levels from which to consider bullish exposure. Shouldn’t retrace/make contact with the top of wave i at 1,453. In other words, the market needs to pullback further than 1,453 to think that a top might actually be in place.

Could eventually continue up towards 1,600.

But its not just analysts that are piling in. Large speculators’ net positioning in gold is near record highs and silver positioning is also soaring.

In other words, specs are largely all-in, and as the world shifts to an easing cycle, this sets the scene for more bullish gold pressure as negative-yielding global debt levels will inevitably rise.

“When we have global deflation concerns and the slowdown in global economic activity and governments are all running to devalue their country’s currency to try to stimulate economic growth, they’re dealing with negative interest rates, and that’s been driving gold,” said Frank Holmes, chief executive and chief investment officer of U.S. Global Investors,

And finally, as Bloomberg reports, traders and analysts have switched to a strongly bullish position, with 69% expecting price gains, and none bearish for the first time since March, according to a recent survey.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YZqRTf Tyler Durden

Joe Biden Concedes the ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban He Wants To Revive Had No Impact on the Lethality of Legal Guns

Joe Biden, who just a few years ago was still bragging about “the 1994 Biden Crime Bill,” has since had second thoughts about aspects of that law, including its expansion of mandatory minimums and crimes subject to the death penalty. But the former Democratic senator and vice president, who is the leading contender for his party’s 2020 presidential nomination, is still proud of the ban on “assault weapons” that was also included in that law, and he tries to explain why in a New York Times op-ed piece published yesterday.

Even while conceding that the “assault weapon” ban left lots of equally lethal firearms on the market, Biden argues that it made mass shootings less common. “From 1994 to 2004, the years when assault weapons and high-capacity magazines were banned, there were fewer mass shootings,” he writes, citing a study reported in The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery last January. But that is not what the researchers, led by New York University epidemiologist Charles DiMaggio, actually found.

Drawing on three databases of mass shootings (maintained by Mother Jones, the Los Angeles Times, and researchers at Stanford University), DiMaggio focused on shootings that killed at least four people, the definition used by the FBI. “In a linear regression model controlling for yearly trend, the federal ban period was associated with a statistically significant 9 fewer mass shooting-related deaths per 10,000 firearm homicides,” they reported. “Mass-shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur during the federal ban period.”

The study, in other words, looked not at the number of mass shootings, as Biden claims, but the number of mass-shooting deaths as a share of all firearm homicides. The difference in total fatalities during the period when the ban was in effect amounted to 15 fewer deaths over a decade, or 1.5 a year on average, including mass shootings that did not involve weapons covered by the ban. That’s based on a comparison of deaths from 1981 through 1993 to deaths from 1994 through 2004, the year the ban expired. Leaving aside the fact that the pre-ban period is two years longer than the ban period, “the drop of 15 mass shooting deaths from before the ban to during it is a slender difference on which to base firm conclusions,” as Jon Greenberg notes in a recent Politifact analysis,

DiMaggio et al. concede that “no observational epidemiologic study can answer the question whether the 1994 US federal assault ban was causally related to preventing mass-shooting homicides.” Furthermore, DiMaggio told Greenberg it’s not clear that the rate of mass shooting deaths (per 100,000 Americans) fell during the ban period. “There is some evidence they actually declined—or at least didn’t continue to increase during the period of the ban,” he said.

Greenberg also quoted RAND economist Rosanna Stewart, who wrote a 2018 analysis concluding that the results of two earlier studies looking at the impact of the “assault weapon” ban on mass shootings were “inconclusive.” Stewart is still unconvinced. “I don’t think [DiMaggio’s] methods are well-suited for determining the causal impact of the assault weapons ban,” she told Greenberg.

Mass shootings are very rare events; between 1981 and 2017, the period covered by DiMaggio et al.’s study, there were just 51, or an average of 1.4 a year, that met their criteria. Furthermore, the numbers related to these crimes are highly volatile; in 2017, for example, a single incident, the massacre in Las Vegas, accounted for 60 percent of deaths in mass shootings that killed four or more people. That volatility makes correlations with a single policy difficult to identify with any confidence and even harder to interpret.

The causal mechanism imagined by Biden is even harder to figure out. He describes “assault weapons” as “military-style firearms designed to fire rapidly.” But they do not fire any faster than any other semi-automatic. He also says “shootings committed with assault weapons kill more people than shootings with other types of guns.” While it’s true that “assault weapons” figure disproportionately in the deadliest shootings, it does not follow that eliminating them would make shootings less deadly. Most mass shootings, including three of the 10 deadliest since 1949, do not involve “assault weapons.” If all the guns in that arbitrary category disappeared overnight, there would still be plenty of equally deadly alternatives.

Biden actually concedes this point, saying he favors a modified “assault weapon” ban that would “stop gun manufacturers from circumventing the law by making minor modifications to their products—modifications that leave them just as deadly.” Biden thus admits that the 1994 ban, the one he credits with reducing the frequency of mass shootings and the deaths caused by them, drew distinctions that had no practical significance, since the guns that remained legal were “just as deadly.”

Biden is right. Under the 1994 ban, removing “military-style” features such as folding stocks, flash suppressors, or bayonet mounts transformed forbidden “assault weapons” into legal firearms, even though the compliant models fired the same ammunition at the same rate with the same muzzle velocity as the ones targeted by the law. But that is also true of the new, supposedly improved “assault weapon” ban sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.), who wrote the 1994 ban. Feinstein has fiddled with the list of military-style features (omitting bayonet mounts while adding barrel shrouds, for instance), and any one of them would now be sufficient to make a rifle illegal, whereas two were required under the 1994 law. But the problem identified by Biden remains: Removing these forbidden features results in a gun that is “just as deadly.”

It’s not clear how Biden thinks he can solve that problem, since focusing on functionally significant features such as rate of fire, ammunition, and muzzle velocity or muzzle energy would result in a ban that covers many commonly owned firearms that were not heretofore considered “assault weapons” (and are in fact specifically exempted by Feinstein’s new bill). Nor is it clear what Biden plans to do about the 16 million or so “assault weapons” that are already in circulation. He mentions “a buyback program to get as many assault weapons off our streets as possible as quickly as possible.” But unless that “buyback” is mandatory (i.e., a form of compensated confiscation), it will have no impact on people who like their guns and want to keep them. And judging from past experience in the United States and other countries, a ban that includes current possession would be honored mostly in the breach.

Biden cites a 2019 poll, conducted immediately after the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, that found 70 percent of voters, including 54 percent of Republicans, either “strongly” or “somewhat” supported “banning assault-style weapons.” But since 1996, according to Gallup, support for a ban on “semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles” has ebbed and flowed, falling from a high of 59 percent in 2000 to a low of 36 percent in 2016 before rebounding to 48 percent in 2017 and falling to 40 percent last October. Data from the Reason-Rupe Public Opinion Survey (sponsored by the Reason Foundation, which publishes this website) indicate that support for such legislation is especially high among people who don’t understand what it would do. While Biden is trying hard to perpetuate such confusion, his own arguments unintentionally provide some clarity.

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Joe Biden Concedes the ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban He Wants To Revive Had No Impact on the Lethality of Legal Guns

Joe Biden, who just a few years ago was still bragging about “the 1994 Biden Crime Bill,” has since had second thoughts about aspects of that law, including its expansion of mandatory minimums and crimes subject to the death penalty. But the former Democratic senator and vice president, who is the leading contender for his party’s 2020 presidential nomination, is still proud of the ban on “assault weapons” that was also included in that law, and he tries to explain why in a New York Times op-ed piece published yesterday.

Even while conceding that the “assault weapon” ban left lots of equally lethal firearms on the market, Biden argues that it made mass shootings less common. “From 1994 to 2004, the years when assault weapons and high-capacity magazines were banned, there were fewer mass shootings,” he writes, citing a study reported in The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery last January. But that is not what the researchers, led by New York University epidemiologist Charles DiMaggio, actually found.

Drawing on three databases of mass shootings (maintained by Mother Jones, the Los Angeles Times, and researchers at Stanford University), DiMaggio focused on shootings that killed at least four people, the definition used by the FBI. “In a linear regression model controlling for yearly trend, the federal ban period was associated with a statistically significant 9 fewer mass shooting-related deaths per 10,000 firearm homicides,” they reported. “Mass-shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur during the federal ban period.”

The study, in other words, looked not at the number of mass shootings, as Biden claims, but the number of mass-shooting deaths as a share of all firearm homicides. The difference in total fatalities during the period when the ban was in effect amounted to 15 fewer deaths over a decade, or 1.5 a year on average, including mass shootings that did not involve weapons covered by the ban. That’s based on a comparison of deaths from 1981 through 1993 to deaths from 1994 through 2004, the year the ban expired. Leaving aside the fact that the pre-ban period is two years longer than the ban period, “the drop of 15 mass shooting deaths from before the ban to during it is a slender difference on which to base firm conclusions,” as Jon Greenberg notes in a recent Politifact analysis,

DiMaggio et al. concede that “no observational epidemiologic study can answer the question whether the 1994 US federal assault ban was causally related to preventing mass-shooting homicides.” Furthermore, DiMaggio told Greenberg it’s not clear that the rate of mass shooting deaths (per 100,000 Americans) fell during the ban period. “There is some evidence they actually declined—or at least didn’t continue to increase during the period of the ban,” he said.

Greenberg also quoted RAND economist Rosanna Stewart, who wrote a 2018 analysis concluding that the results of two earlier studies looking at the impact of the “assault weapon” ban on mass shootings were “inconclusive.” Stewart is still unconvinced. “I don’t think [DiMaggio’s] methods are well-suited for determining the causal impact of the assault weapons ban,” she told Greenberg.

Mass shootings are very rare events; between 1981 and 2017, the period covered by DiMaggio et al.’s study, there were just 51, or an average of 1.4 a year, that met their criteria. Furthermore, the numbers related to these crimes are highly volatile; in 2017, for example, a single incident, the massacre in Las Vegas, accounted for 60 percent of deaths in mass shootings that killed four or more people. That volatility makes correlations with a single policy difficult to identify with any confidence and even harder to interpret.

The causal mechanism imagined by Biden is even harder to figure out. He describes “assault weapons” as “military-style firearms designed to fire rapidly.” But they do not fire any faster than any other semi-automatic. He also says “shootings committed with assault weapons kill more people than shootings with other types of guns.” While it’s true that “assault weapons” figure disproportionately in the deadliest shootings, it does not follow that eliminating them would make shootings less deadly. Most mass shootings, including three of the 10 deadliest since 1949, do not involve “assault weapons.” If all the guns in that arbitrary category disappeared overnight, there would still be plenty of equally deadly alternatives.

Biden actually concedes this point, saying he favors a modified “assault weapon” ban that would “stop gun manufacturers from circumventing the law by making minor modifications to their products—modifications that leave them just as deadly.” Biden thus admits that the 1994 ban, the one he credits with reducing the frequency of mass shootings and the deaths caused by them, drew distinctions that had no practical significance, since the guns that remained legal were “just as deadly.”

Biden is right. Under the 1994 ban, removing “military-style” features such as folding stocks, flash suppressors, or bayonet mounts transformed forbidden “assault weapons” into legal firearms, even though the compliant models fired the same ammunition at the same rate with the same muzzle velocity as the ones targeted by the law. But that is also true of the new, supposedly improved “assault weapon” ban sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.), who wrote the 1994 ban. Feinstein has fiddled with the list of military-style features (omitting bayonet mounts while adding barrel shrouds, for instance), and any one of them would now be sufficient to make a rifle illegal, whereas two were required under the 1994 law. But the problem identified by Biden remains: Removing these forbidden features results in a gun that is “just as deadly.”

It’s not clear how Biden thinks he can solve that problem, since focusing on functionally significant features such as rate of fire, ammunition, and muzzle velocity or muzzle energy would result in a ban that covers many commonly owned firearms that were not heretofore considered “assault weapons” (and are in fact specifically exempted by Feinstein’s new bill). Nor is it clear what Biden plans to do about the 16 million or so “assault weapons” that are already in circulation. He mentions “a buyback program to get as many assault weapons off our streets as possible as quickly as possible.” But unless that “buyback” is mandatory (i.e., a form of compensated confiscation), it will have no impact on people who like their guns and want to keep them. And judging from past experience in the United States and other countries, a ban that includes current possession would be honored mostly in the breach.

Biden cites a 2019 poll, conducted immediately after the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, that found 70 percent of voters, including 54 percent of Republicans, either “strongly” or “somewhat” supported “banning assault-style weapons.” But since 1996, according to Gallup, support for a ban on “semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles” has ebbed and flowed, falling from a high of 59 percent in 2000 to a low of 36 percent in 2016 before rebounding to 48 percent in 2017 and falling to 40 percent last October. Data from the Reason-Rupe Public Opinion Survey (sponsored by the Reason Foundation, which publishes this website) indicate that support for such legislation is especially high among people who don’t understand what it would do. While Biden is trying hard to perpetuate such confusion, his own arguments unintentionally provide some clarity.

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Ep- Bern- Gold- Wein- Franken-stein

Submitted by Michael Every of Rabobank

A weekend binge-watching Netflix’s conspiracy theory thriller ‘Designated Survivor’ was either the best, or the worst, way to prepare for the news-flow we start Monday with. Jeffrey Epstein, the US billionaire–a man who nobody can explain how he made or maintained his wealth–who has been publicly linked to a paedophile sex-ring and names such as Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and ex-Israeli PM Ehud Barak, managed to commit suicide over the weekend before he could provide testimony in his upcoming trial. That was despite the fact that he had already attempted suicide previously in the top security prison he was being kept in. ‘Designated not to survive?’ is what some are asking, even at the highest levels.

At this stage it’s tempting to shift from Epstein to Bernstein, as in Woodward & Bernstein, the investigative reporters who brought down the Nixon “if the president does it then it’s legal” administration. That can feel thrillingly like being your own Agent Wells from Designated Survivor.

Similarly, some will no doubt mutter darkly about ‘who is really behind all this’, including the US president in one of his latest tweets, which takes us down a dangerous alley towards Goldstein: that’s Emmanuel Goldstein from Orwell’s ‘1984’, the made-up hate-figure the controlled and brain-washed public channel its hate at instead of the noxious reality in front of it.

However, let’s not forget that truly outrageous states of affairs can exist in front of us for years without any conspiracy other than awkward silence. Think of Harvey Weinstein, for example, and how many YouTube clips there are of him being fawned over while clutching awards on stage in a tux. Everyone knew what was actually going on, according to his accusers, but it was just poor politics to ever say it out loud.

Indeed, as far sharper minds than mine have pointed out, let’s not forget that where one spots a conspiracy, there can just be plain incompetence. For example, while it seems incredible that an experienced high-security prison might put Epstein in solitary confinement just after he had already attempted suicide; or that it would not have put him on suicide watch; or that it would not have monitored him 24/7 if he were on suicide watch, consider this; his prison guards were allegedly working back-to-back overtime shifts to try to compensate for institutional understaffing, which one can presume might have been aimed at keeping costs down. In short, the real culprit here may just be the depressingly-familiar short-term profit-over-performance-focused Frankenstein that is modern market capitalism. After all, it’s also not as if we are short of other ‘conspiracy theories’ standing there in the open if we are brave enough to point to them.

One example: we are now projecting Fed Funds to fall back to zero over the next two years. That’s even as the Fed claims this is a “mid-cycle adjustment”, and that just months after they promised further hikes ahead. In effect, the Fed don’t know what they are doing – or all they can do is blow bubbles that rate hikes then blow up.

Another example: the RBA deciding it needs a 4.5% unemployment rate ASAP after crowing for years about labour-market strength around 5% and predicting higher wages that never arrive – which conveniently now allows it to slash rates to save the housing market that they really care about most (and where we also think rates will end up close to zero as a result).

Another example is the ECB, who are going to have to cut rates as well just after declaring “mission accomplished”- they just haven’t created the correct Emmanuel Goldstein to explain it yet. I suspect “trade war” will stand in for the Frankenstein of an uneven, QE- and debt-driven economic structure that can never allow borrowing costs to rise or liquidity to be tightened. Let’s also not forget that we have the ‘Weinstein’ of USD trillions of Euro bonds with negative yields, including 14 junk bonds, while Denmark is now offering negative-yielding mortgages.

There are, of course, some real “Ah ha!” moments still to come. Consider that it was revealed late Friday that China has helped to prop up Turkey’s FX reserves, which might explain something about both its foreign policy shifts and the performance of TRY. However, questions about China’s own FX reserves continue to be asked – and it will be a true ‘Designated Survivor’ shock if those suggestions are accurate (…on which note, Turkey’s central bank has just fired nine high-ranking officials, including the head of research and risk management).

Indeed, markets cannot avoid a CNY focus again this week, especially as Friday saw President Trump underline that he may continue trade negotiations in September or he may not. Today’s CNY fixing at 7.0211 suggests that we are still in a steady grind lower rather than a plunge given the Friday close was 7.0623.

But let’s not point to the fact that the global economy is seeing a synchronised slowdown, that we are edging towards an epic FX war and a stronger USD that hits EM hard, that central banks are all out of both ideas and credibility, that trade tensions continue to escalate, that Hard Brexit is looking more and more likely, and that geopolitics is a mess on many fronts. Otherwise we too might end up on suicide watch – with an underpaid, over-worked security guard to keep an eye on us.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZYj1Xi Tyler Durden

Elizabeth Warren Takes The Lead In Online Betting Markets

After a handful of strong debate performances, coupled with the doddering, gaffe-prone antics of de facto front-runner Joe Biden, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is for the first time leading the massive pool of Democratic 2020 primary contenders in the online betting market PredictIt.

Source: PredictIt

Warren has been the biggest gainer following the first two Democratic debates, while other frontrunners like Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have seen their numbers drop.

Polling aggregations from Real Clear Politics show a similar trend.

Warren’s biggest rival for the mantle of progressive leader, Bernie Sanders, has also seen his popularity slide. Of course, with six months to go until the Iowa Caucus, the official start of primary season, there’s plenty of time to change.

We imagine President Trump, who loves to bash Warren – or “Pocahontas”, as he’s fond of calling her due to her supposed native American heritage, will be thrilled at the prospect of facing off against a Warren, a candidate whom Trump claims would be among the easiest dems to beat in the primary.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ORzgEE Tyler Durden

When Should You Panic About The Yuan? Here Is The Simple Answer

Chinese authorities weakened the Yuan Fix for the 8th day in a row overnight, sending offshore yuan down to 7.10/USD, drifting back towards last week’s devaluation lows.

Some have proclaimed the recent ‘stability’ – i.e. yuan hasn’t kept collapsing in a straight line despite capital outflow fears and the political crisis in Hong Kong – a positive…

But as Nordea warns, The PBoC is the key for global risk sentiment currently. 

USD/CNY has become the most important gauge of the trade outlook and a further move north would spell trouble for risky assets. 7.30 is an important line in the sand in our view. To counter the newly announced 10% tariffs on the rest of the Chinese export goods, the PBoC would have to allow USD/CNY to move to 7.30 to counter the effects 1 to 1.

A move above 7.30 would likely lead to panic mode in the financial markets, while the interval between 7.00 and 7.30 is to be considered risk-off territory. Below 7.00 is stabilisation territory.

Chart 1: The USD/CNY risk’o’meter

We take at least some comfort in the current policy from the PBoC. They have continuously set the USD/CNY fixing lower than “they should” over the past days. This is in our view a sign that the PBoC is trying to cave in the upside pressure on USD/CNY. Remember that markets, not the PBoC, weaken CNY versus USD, and currently the PBoC is fighting against the market. They will not continue fighting gravity forever.

Chart 2: The PBoC sets the USD/CNY fixing at too low levels, a sign that they fight against market forces

In the coming days we will likely see a lot of stories on “China pondering selling Treasuries as part of the trade war”. In our view this is a non-sensical storyline. China only offloads Treasuries when market pressure is on the upside on USD/CNY. So right now, the PBoC may be offloading USDs and Treasuries, but all in an attempt to stabilise USDCNY. The market (almost solely) dictates the USD & Treasury holdings of the PBoC, not the PBoC itself.

And so there it is… Don’t Panic quite yet… but soon.

 

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Hong Kong Cops Beat and Blind Protesters As PRC Sends Trucks and Tanks to the Border

Demonstrations in Hong Kong escalated over the weekend when at least nine protesters were injured by police. One woman will likely be permanently blind after a police officer shot her in the eye with a non-lethal bean bag round.

Bean bag rounds are supposed to immobilize and cause muscle spasms, not death or serious injury. When using these rounds, police are supposed to target extremities, not necks or faces. It’s not clear whether the injured woman was a protester or a medic. Her image is now being used as a symbol of resistance.

The conflict between Hong Kong protesters, their own government, and mainland China—now in its 10th week—started when Hong Kong legislators began considering an extradition treaty that would allow the Hong Kong government to extradite those accused of crimes to Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Many Hongkongers, who enjoy basic democratic norms and a far better-functioning criminal justice system, object to the criminal justice practices of the PRC in mainland China. Since the ’90s, Hong Kong has operated as a special economic zone. It is technically a part of the PRC, but is statutorily semi-autonomous and has a semi-democratically elected legislature.

To many protesters, allowing extradition would winnow away at the basic rights of Hongkongers and cede far too much power to the PRC, tilting an already-tenuous balance to mainland China’s authoritarian government.

Police also fired tear gas into subway stations, posed as protesters, and arrested at least 12 protesters in the last day. More than 500 people have been arrested over the last 10 weeks of protests.

Jocelyn Chau, a community organizer and pro-Democracy politician who hopes to be elected to local government in November, was live-streaming the event for social media—not actively participating in protests or wearing protective gear—when she was beaten by cops and arrested.

Reporters and medics were also allegedly targeted and harassed by Hong Kong police.

As all this was going on in subway stations and on the streets, airport protests continued. On Monday, authorities shut down all flights in and out of Chek Lap Kok airport, an international hub which typically schedules more than 1,000 flights daily—one of the busiest on the continent. A government spokesperson in Beijing said protesters show “signs of terrorism,” despite the peaceful presence they’ve maintained over the last few days in the airport. Another Chinese government spokesperson said, “These violent, illegal actions must be met with a determined legal crackdown, with no softening of hands or any sign of mercy,” per the Los Angeles Times.

As of a few hours ago, video footage spread by one of China’s national English-language newspapers shows tanks lining up in Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. It’s unclear at this point whether Chinese military forces will be moving in or whether this is China flexing.

Meanwhile, China continues to put out propaganda videos in an attempt to erode Hongkongers’ credibility:

More on the situation in Hong Kong here.

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Russia Admits Radiation Releasing ‘Mystery Blast’ Involved “Mini Nuclear Reactor”

Russia has belatedly admitted that the mystery explosion which released radiation into the air last Thursday, triggering warning alerts across towns near the northern port cities of Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk, involved a “small-scale nuclear reactor”.

Radiation levels had spiked to 20 times their normal levels after the incident at a military testing ground in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region, prompting an emergency response team to deploy in full nuclear radiation protective gear, as photos which came out in the aftermath appeared to show. Consistent with early speculation, western defense officials and analysts now believe it was a failed test of a Russian nuclear powered cruise missile.

Russia previously published hints that it’s development of hypersonic missiles was further along than most thought, via the WSJ.

Putin had first unveiled the experimental technology during a 2018 speech showcasing Russian defense technology developments. The chief stunning claim behind the hypersonic missile is that it can traverse the globe indefinitely at speeds multiple times the speed of sound based on its nuclear powered core. 

Though within two days following last Thursday’s accident – believed to have happened on a sea platform, which resulted in an area of a White Sea port being shut down – Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom, admitted it had been testing an “isotope power source in a liquid propulsion system,” it’s believed there’s now greater confirmation it involved a cutting edge hypersonic cruise missile.  

One US defense analysts has pointed to “an experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile known in Russia as the 9M730 Burevestnik and by Nato as the SSC-X-9 Skyfall” — precisely the type of nuclear-powered weapon Putin had previously touted among Russia’s developing hypersonic arsenal. 

Local Russian media photo which was widely circulated over the weekend showing emergency response units in full chemical/radiation protective suits.

A video statement released on Sunday evening, a Russian Federal Nuclear Center official confirmed the agency’s work includes “miniaturised sources of energy using [fissile] materials”. This has been taken as a belated admission that Thursday’s deadly mystery explosion was a nuclear accident, which further included the following stunning quotes: 

Vyacheslav Solovyov, the centre’s scientific director, said similar work on “small-scale nuclear reactors” is also taking place in the US. He did not say how much fissile material had been involved in the accident, or what role it may have played in the explosion.

“We are now trying to understand, we are working closely with a government commission, analyzing the entire chain of events to assess the scale of the accident and to understand its causes,” Solovyov said.

Interestingly, The Guardian report also cited Russian experts recently had sighted a nuclear fuel carrier near the site of last Thursday’s explosion. 

The military base in the small town of Nyonoksa. Source: RFERL 

Official state nuclear agency Rosatom had previously described the blast as having occurred on a sea platform during a series of trials, which “threw several employees into the sea,” who perished.

In the days after the blast, pharmacies and hospitals reported a run on iodine pills (used to reduce the effects of radiation exposure) in the northern region. 

“Everyone has been calling asking about iodine all day,” one pharmacy was quoted as saying by a local media outlet in Arkhangelsk area, Reuters reported. And now we know, despite Russian media downplaying a “panic” among the populace, that area residents were right to be immediately concerned and suspicious. 

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106: Central banks should consider giving people money

I thought in this age of insanity that we are living in, nothing would surprise me anymore. But sure enough, there was a headline in the Financial Times the other day, “Central banks should consider giving people money.”

It seems almost impossible that someone could believe in something so ridiculous. And yet this is the world we are living in. The path to prosperity is now based on unelected central bankers conjuring millions of dollars of out of thin air.

Bankrupt governments are issuing bonds with negative yields, meaning they are being paid to go deeper into debt. And there are more than $13 trillion of these negative yielding bonds in the world.

If anything this makes a compelling case for why people should consider owning gold.

It’s a store of value with a 5,000 year track record of withstanding inflation, political crisis, and monetary stupidity.

I’ve been suggesting people consider buying gold for quite some time, especially over the last year. I argue that the supply of gold, is actually declining, yet the demand will increase in large part due to all of this central bank lunacy.

And that has absolutely been happening. The price of gold is up more than 25% over the last year, and just surpassed $1,500 per ounce. But unlike most other assets like real estate, stocks, bonds, etc, gold is still far from it’s all time high.

There could still be plenty of gains ahead.

And silver would have to triple before it reaches it’s all time high.

Every summer for the past eight years, I’ve enjoyed a week or two in the italian countryside at a 400 plus year old villa. Here I relax with friends, family, business colleagues, and some of our Total Access members who fly in from around the world, to break bread and enjoy really stimulating and entertaining conversation.

This year Peter Schiff has been one of my guests. He’s an old friend who shares many of the same beliefs. And when our conversation this morning turned to gold, I thought it appropriate to record it, and make a Podcast out of it.

In our conversation we talk about why gold and silver have plenty of room to rise, and a number of different ways to invest.

Source

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Hong Kong Cops Beat and Blind Protesters As PRC Sends Trucks and Tanks to the Border

Demonstrations in Hong Kong escalated over the weekend when at least nine protesters were injured by police. One woman will likely be permanently blind after a police officer shot her in the eye with a non-lethal bean bag round.

Bean bag rounds are supposed to immobilize and cause muscle spasms, not death or serious injury. When using these rounds, police are supposed to target extremities, not necks or faces. It’s not clear whether the injured woman was a protester or a medic. Her image is now being used as a symbol of resistance.

The conflict between Hong Kong protesters, their own government, and mainland China—now in its 10th week—started when Hong Kong legislators began considering an extradition treaty that would allow the Hong Kong government to extradite those accused of crimes to Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Many Hongkongers, who enjoy basic democratic norms and a far better-functioning criminal justice system, object to the criminal justice practices of the PRC in mainland China. Since the ’90s, Hong Kong has operated as a special economic zone. It is technically a part of the PRC, but is statutorily semi-autonomous and has a semi-democratically elected legislature.

To many protesters, allowing extradition would winnow away at the basic rights of Hongkongers and cede far too much power to the PRC, tilting an already-tenuous balance to mainland China’s authoritarian government.

Police also fired tear gas into subway stations, posed as protesters, and arrested at least 12 protesters in the last day. More than 500 people have been arrested over the last 10 weeks of protests.

Jocelyn Chau, a community organizer and pro-Democracy politician who hopes to be elected to local government in November, was live-streaming the event for social media—not actively participating in protests or wearing protective gear—when she was beaten by cops and arrested.

Reporters and medics were also allegedly targeted and harassed by Hong Kong police.

As all this was going on in subway stations and on the streets, airport protests continued. On Monday, authorities shut down all flights in and out of Chek Lap Kok airport, an international hub which typically schedules more than 1,000 flights daily—one of the busiest on the continent. A government spokesperson in Beijing said protesters show “signs of terrorism,” despite the peaceful presence they’ve maintained over the last few days in the airport. Another Chinese government spokesperson said, “These violent, illegal actions must be met with a determined legal crackdown, with no softening of hands or any sign of mercy,” per the Los Angeles Times.

As of a few hours ago, video footage spread by one of China’s national English-language newspapers shows tanks lining up in Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. It’s unclear at this point whether Chinese military forces will be moving in or whether this is China flexing.

Meanwhile, China continues to put out propaganda videos in an attempt to erode Hongkongers’ credibility:

More on the situation in Hong Kong here.

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