American Politicians Say They Live In Fear As Threats Against Congress Increase

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Threats against politicians have been skyrocketing lately. Many in Congress are now living in fear, purchasing body armor and hiring armed guards to protect themselves against the people they should be serving rather than controlling.

One year after the horrific congressional baseball shooting that almost took the life of Representative Steve Scalise and former Hill staffer Matt Mika, members are keenly aware that the continued attempt to control and manipulate the public has finally put a target on their backs.

The true reality is if somebody wanted to do me harm, they could probably do that with relative ease and that is sad,” said Representative Chuck Fleishmann (R-Tenn.), a New York City native.

Mexican citizens have been executing politicians in the country south of the United States’ border.  So far, 113 political elites (or those attempting to become a political master by way of election) have been killed.

Make that 114… Just tonight, AP reports that the mayor of a small town in western Mexico who was running for re-election has been killed, the 16th candidate murdered ahead of the July 1 elections. The governor of Michoacan state says “we will not rest until we find those responsible for this regrettable act.”

The majority of politicians experiencing the threats appear to republican. Which just goes to show that liberals intend to use violence and theft to get people to conform to their ideas rather than use peace and voluntary interaction.

In 2016, there were 902 threatening incidents and communications against members of Congress. By 2017, the reports had more than doubled to about 2,000, according to the House Sergeant at Arms office. According to The New York Post, in response, the House Administration Committee allocated $25,000 to each member in 2017 and again in 2018 to beef up their personal and office security, prompting members to hire bodyguards for events and equip offices with panic buttons and shatter-resistant glass. Meaning they are using the funds of those who are making the treats to protect the ruling class.

The House Sergeant at Arms got an additional $5 million to improve office security for district offices. Congress also increased funding for Capitol Police by $29.2 million in 2017, and another $29.9 million in 2018. In recognition of the danger level to the political elites, the Federal Election Commission also ruled in July that lawmakers can also use campaign funds, which are typically spent on TV ads and mailers, to install security systems at their homes instead.

The chairman of the House Administration Committee, representative Gregg Harper that authorized security spending, said the shooting made clear that Congress needed to do more. “What we would never want to have happen is for an incident to occur and anybody – a member, a visitor or staffer – to say you didn’t give us what we needed to protect ourselves,”  Harper, who has hired personal armed bodyguards said.

While violence is not the answer, neither is the elite ruling class shoving their laws down the throats of the public on a whim with no consequences. Eventually, this ruling class vs. the slaves mentality was going to explode (just like it did leading up to the American Revolution.) People always eventually figure out that they don’t enjoy being slaves to a wealthy elite few. As soon as enough people wake up and realize whom the real enemy of liberty is, there won’t be a need for violence or threats though, liberals.  There will eventually hopefully be enough people who no longer wish to be slaves to politicians that government itself will become obsolete; peacefully.

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CNN Responds To Trump: “We Are Not The Enemy Of The American People”

President Trump’s latest casual criticism of the American mainstream media was apparently a bridge too far for CNN Host Wolf Blitzer. In one of the most self-congratulatory segments of cable news in recent memory, Blitzer and CNN analyst David Gregory took turns griping about Trump and the culture of anti-media hostility that Trump has supposedly created (even though it existed long before he arrived, and is much more closely linked to the media’s own inept coverage).

Blitzer

Furious about the media’s skeptical coverage of his meeting with Kim Jong Un, Trump fired off a tweet earlier this week where he declared that “our country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools!”

Gregory got the conversation going when he blasted Trump for being unoriginal and accused him of trying to “outdo Nixon”. No president gets along with the media, but most of Trump’s predecessors at least adhered to a sense of decorum, Gregory exclaimed. Also notice how there’s a woman on the panel who tries to speak up several times but is each time drowned out by one of her male colleagues.

Wolf chimed in, sounding indignant about the shift in public opinion concerning CNN and its coverage.

“Everybody’s always criticizing us and not happy with our coverage whether it was President Clinton or President Bush or President – they’re all criticized,” Blitzer said.

The fact that so many Americans distrust the media is “a really, really awful situation,” he added. The fact that there’s China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and so many other countries that are geopolitical adversaries of the US, but the people see the US media as the enemy, just isn’t right,” Wolf whined.

“We are not the enemy of the American people. We love the American people.”

Maybe, if the media wants to win back the trust of the American public, it should find a way to shed its sanctimonious tone, and start working on finding a new strategy for conveying the news rather than the self-righteous virtue signaling that’s popular over at CNN. 

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Russia Is Finally Conquered… By ‘Football’

Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The Football World Cup tournament kicks off in Russia today, with the country hosting the quadrennial event for the first time ever in the contest’s nearly 90-year history.

For the next four weeks, billions of people around the world will feast their eyes on one of the globe’s most-loved spectacles.

Thirty-two nations will compete in the “beautiful game” with 64 matches in total being held in 11 different cities across Russia, from Kaliningrad in the west to Yekaterinburg in the east.

It will be the 21st World Cup event organized by the sport’s governing body, FIFA, or Federation Internationale de Football Association, since the very first games were held in Uruguay in 1930.

Ahead of the opening of the 2018 tournament, Russian President Vladimir Putin shared the joy and honor of his country hosting the event. “Generations of Russian fans have dreamed of this day,” he said while addressing the FIFA congress in Moscow.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino playfully referred to history, saying that “Russia has never been conquered,” but this week the country will be “conquered by football,” he quipped with a smile.

The FIFA chief went on to say that for the next month the whole world will be similarly conquered by the sport as nations tune in every day to enjoy the drama, talent and celebrations.

What a sweet surrender for all of humanity! Not by force, aggression, armies or violence, but by sheer joy of a beautiful game, shared by all human beings as equals, united in emotions, elevated above petty nasty things like jingoism and chauvinism, prejudices and stupid animosities.

Putin also thanked Infantino for FIFA’s commitment to holding the games in Russia, and for “keeping politics out of sports”.

Indeed, Infantino and FIFA deserve respect for steadfastly adhering to the selection of Russia as the host country. For the past four years, there has been a scurrilous Western media campaign to discredit Russia over a range of trumped-up political accusations.

Western politicians have even called at various times for Russia to be de-selected as the host nation for the 2018 tournament. When FIFA itself was embroiled in bribery allegations back in 2016 – when Infantino took over from Sepp Blatter – the whole affair seemed to be driven by an ulterior agenda to smear Russia. Notice how that supposed scandal has since faded into oblivion; proof that it was always a non-issue and just another contrived Western media campaign to denigrate Russia.

One of the most disgraceful and fatuous attempts at sabotaging Russia’s World Cup event was the British foreign secretary Boris Johnson making the comparison earlier this year to the 1936 Berlin Olympics hosted by Nazi Germany. Johnson was trying his best to hype up the propaganda war over the alleged poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal – another media campaign that like countless others has faded into oblivion.

Anyway, as Putin remarked this week, the World Cup has finally come to Russia – and thanks in part to FIFA under Gianni Infantino not being pressured into succumbing to odious politicization of the event.

President Putin spoke for millions of football fans and ordinary people around the world when he praised the great sporting event for providing a forum for common humanity. He said the enjoyment of the games is a chance for people to share culture and celebrate our one humanity, and to “understand that other countries like their own are home to kind, enthusiastic and open-minded people, and all of them want to live in peace, communicate with each other, visit each other, and watch and play football together.”

That is a powerful cultural, and in a wider, benign sense, political force. There might seem a contradiction in the maxim of “keeping politics out of sports”. Yes, if by “politics” it is meant to mean a narrow, nationalistic, antagonistic form, then definitely that must be excluded. But the wider politics, or perhaps philosophy, that Putin was alluding to is beyond narrow, nationalistic agendas. It is about common humanity. If football, and sports generally, reinforce that higher value, then bring it on.

Getting back to the nastier politics and in particular the anti-Russia agenda that has been extant over recent years, this week saw more examples in the most petty and pathetic way. The day before the World Cup opening in Moscow, Western news media ran non-entity stories, whose real purpose was not to inform audiences, but to make a last-ditch bid to smear Russia.

France 24 TV, the state-owned channel, carried a report alleging that certain football stadiums were not finished to requisite building standard for the games. It was a lame report by the channel’s Russia correspondent Thomas Lowe, who never seems to have anything positive to say about the country. Skimpy details were padded out with hearsay complaints from a few disgruntled residents griping about nearby construction. Is that the best France 24 can come up with? The day before the big event. How cheap!

A second report in the Washington Post carried grim warnings about Russian football fans allegedly having outsized racialist hostility. Lamentably, racist sociopathy is an ugly tendency among a small minority of football fans in many countries. England and Italy have particular problems. There is no sound indication that Russia is any worse. Besides, the real aim of the Post’s report seemed to be more about casting a last-minute cloud over Russia as a football venue.

These last two media examples are the type of “politics in sports” that should be abhorred. This kind of politics has nothing to do with bringing people together. It is all about dividing and conflicting, and abusing sport for unscrupulous agendas.

In any case, when the Russia World Cup games get underway all the naysayers and negative numbskulls will be swept away by the global euphoria. Our common humanity will overwhelm all the petty snipers and would-be warmongers.

Russia has the honor of being home to all of humanity for the next four weeks.

The small-minded Russophobes are going to be left on the sidelines of this great global spectacle.

So, let the games, and let the celebrations begin, for all of humanity.

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A Closer Look At Extreme FBI Bias Revealed In OIG Report

As we digest and unpack the DOJ Inspector General’s 500-page report on the FBI’s conduct during the Hillary Clinton email investigation “matter,” damning quotes from the OIG’s findings have begun to circulate, leaving many to wonder exactly how Inspector General Michael Horowitz was able to conclude:

 “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative actions we reviewed”

We’re sorry, that just doesn’t comport with reality whatsoever. And it really feels like the OIG report may have had a different conclusion at some point. Just read IG Horowitz’s own assessment that “These texts are “Indicative of a biased state of mind but even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the Presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.”

Of course, today’s crown jewel is a previously undisclosed exchange between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in which Page asks “(Trump’s) not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” to which Strzok replies “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.” 

Nevermind the fact that the FBI Director, who used  personal emails for work purposes, tasked Strzok, who used personal emails for work purposes, to investigate Hillary Clinton’s use of personal emails for work purposes. Of course, we know it goes far deeper than that… 

The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel also had plenty to say in a Twitter thread:

1) Don’t believe anyone who claims Horowitz didn’t find bias. He very carefully says that he found no “documentary” evidence that bias produced “specific investigatory decisions.” That’s different 

2) It means he didn’t catch anyone doing anything so dumb as writing down that they took a specific step to aid a candidate. You know, like: “Let’s give out this Combetta immunity deal so nothing comes out that will derail Hillary for President.”

3) But he in fact finds bias everywhere. The examples are shocking and concerning, and he devotes entire sections to them. And he very specifically says in the summary that they “cast a cloud” on the entire “investigation’s credibility.” That’s pretty damning.

4) Meanwhile this same cast of characters who the IG has now found to have made a hash of the Clinton investigation and who demonstrate such bias, seamlessly moved to the Trump investigation. And we’re supposed to think they got that one right?

5) Also don’t believe anyone who says this is just about Comey and his instances of insubordination. (Though they are bad enough.) This is an indictment broadly of an FBI culture that believes itself above the rules it imposes on others.

6) People failing to adhere to their recusals (Kadzik/McCabe). Lynch hanging with Bill. Staff helping Comey conceal details of presser from DOJ bosses. Use of personal email and laptops. Leaks. Accepting gifts from media. Agent affairs/relationships.

7)It also contains stunning examples of incompetence. Comey explains that he wasn’t aware the Weiner laptop was big deal because he didn’t know Weiner was married to Abedin? Then they sit on it a month, either cuz it fell through cracks (wow) or were more obsessed w/Trump

8) And I can still hear the echo of the howls from when Trump fired Comey. Still waiting to hear the apologies now that this report has backstopped the Rosenstein memo and the obvious grounds for dismissal.

So, let’s review more of the exchanges which had no bearing on the “unbiased” report:

(h/t Robby Starbuck, Paul Sperry and others)

 “OIG discovered texts and instant messages between employees on the investigative team, on FBI devices, expressing hostility toward then candidate Donald Trump and statements of support for then candidate Hillary Clinton.

Viva le resistance!

In one shocking exchange between two unnamed FBI employees which we assume to be Strzok and Page, “Attorney 1” asks “Attorney 2” “Is it making you rethink your commitment to the Trump administration?” to which “Attorney 2” replied “Hell no,” adding “Viva le resistance.” 

Some of Strzok and Page’s greatest hits: 

August 16, 2015, Strzok: “[Bernie Sanders is] an idiot like Trump. Figure they cancel each other out.”

February 12, 2016, Page:  “I’m no prude, but I’m really appalled by this. So you don’t have to go looking (in case you hadn’t heard), 
Trump called him the p-word. The man has no dignity or class. [texted the FBI agents having an extramarital affair] He simply cannot be president. 

February 12, 2016, Strzok:  “Oh, [Trump’s] abysmal.  I keep hoping the charade will end and people will just dump him.  The problem, then, is Rubio will likely lose to Cruz.  The Republican party is in utter shambles. When was the last competitive ticket they offered?”

March 3, 2016, Page: “God trump is a loathsome human.

March 3, 2016, Strzok: “Omg [Trump’s] an idiot.

March 3, 2016, Page:“He’s awful.”

March 3, 2016, Strzok:  “God Hillary should win 100,000,000-0.”

March 3, 2016, Page: “Also did you hear [Trump] make a comment about the size of his d*ck earlier?  This man cannot be president.”

March 12, 2016:  Page forwarded an article about a “far right” candidate in Texas, stating, “[W]hat the f is wrong with people?”  Strzok replied, “That Texas article is depressing as hell.  But answers how we could end up with President trump.”

March 16, 2016, Page: “I cannot believe Donald Trump is likely to be an actual, serious candidate for president.”

June 11, 2016, Strzok: “They fully deserve to go, and demonstrate the absolute bigoted nonsense of Trump.”

July 18, 2016, Page: “…Donald Trump is an enormous d*uche.”

July 19, 2016, Page: “Trump barely spoke, but the first thing out of his mouth was ‘we’re going to win soooo big.’The whole thing is like living in a bad dream.”

July 21, 2016, Strzok: “Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing his Presidency would be.”

August 26, 2016, Strzok:  “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support….

September 26, 2016, Page:  Page sent an article to Strzok entitled, “Why Donald Trump Should Not Be President,” stating, “Did you read this?  It’s scathing.  And I’m scared.”

October 19, 2016, Strzok:  “I am riled up.  Trump is a fucking idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer.”

November 7, 2016, Strzok:  Referencing an article entitled “A victory by Mr. Trump remains possible,” Strzok stated, “OMG THIS IS F*CKING TERRIFYING.”

November 13, 2016, Page:  “I bought all the president’s men.  Figure I needed to brush up on watergate.”

Strzok also refers to having “unfinished business” and a need to “fix it” – while also admitting that “there’s no big there, there” presumably regarding the Trump-Russia investigation.

While there are many more damning revelations in the OIG report, one would think that given the above, there was more than enough evidence to, at minimum, launch a special counsel – especially when you consider the weak sauce used to justify Mueller’s special counsel probe. 

Oh, and Hillary’s gloating now…

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On The Verge Of A Major Turning Point

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

This morning I had the pleasure of being buried in a mountain of paperwork– the penalty for trying to do basically anything in the financial system these days.

It seems that everything, from sending a wire transfer to establishing a new account, comes with endless bureaucratic hoops to jump through as you’re forced to convince these people that you’re not a criminal money laundering terrorist.

In my case I was opening a new brokerage account. And as I went through the process, the questionnaire asked me about my risk tolerance.

Was I seeking low risk and low returns? Or high risk and high returns?

This is one of the oldest fallacies in investing– the idea that risk and return go hand in hand.

I remember taking a personal finance class more than 20 years ago and seeing a neat little graph in the textbook showing a straight line at a perfect 45 degree angle: the higher the risk, the higher the reward.

Sadly there was no option for “None of the above.” Because in truth I prefer strong returns with minimal risk.

And for anyone willing to put in the hard work, there are options to achieve this outcome.

We’ve been discussing this concept a lot lately because I think we’re on the verge of a major turning point.

Just consider what’s happened in the last two weeks alone:

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, as expected.

But the Fed also signaled continued rate increases based on concerns about inflation and an overheated economy.

Two days earlier, the Department of Labor published data showing that inflation in the US reached a 6-year high.

And earlier this month the Labor Department reported the lowest unemployment rate in decades.

(The unemployment rate is a deeply flawed metric. But regardless, the central bank typically raises interest rates when it gets too low.)

This is all happening at a time when the federal government has racked up a record amount of debt that is only going higher.

The Treasury Department’s own estimates are that it will borrow trillions of dollars more over the next few years.

This is going to be incredibly difficult given that Uncle Sam’s most reliable lenders over the past decade (China, Japan, and the Federal Reserve) are no longer buying US debt.

And because there are fewer buyers for US government bonds, the interest rates on those new bonds will be higher. It’s basic supply and demand.

Bottom line, all of these trends lead to higher interest rates.

And for an economy that has been addicted to 0% interest rates for more than a decade, this will likely have serious consequences.

One obvious consequence is that higher interest rates tend to put pressure on asset prices.

Think about real estate as an example: most people borrow money to buy property.

If a buyer makes enough money to be able to afford a mortgage payment of $3,000 per month, that’s enough to buy a $827,000 house (assuming a 20% down payment) if interest rates are 3.5%.

But if rates rise to 5.5%, that same $3,000 per month only buys a $654,000 house.

Higher rates mean buyers can’t pay as much, so real estate prices fall across the board.

It’s similar with stocks.

For the past several years, companies have borrowed enormous quantities of money and used a lot of it to buy back their own shares.

Stock prices surged as a result of this artificial demand.

Rising interest rates should significantly diminish these debt-fueled buybacks, meaning that one of the biggest contributing factors to rising stock prices over the past few years is going away.

So no matter whether you’re buying a house or investing your retirement savings, we’re reaching a turning point where there’s a lot of risk looming over important financial decisions.

And that takes me back to risk vs. reward.

Bottom line, you don’t have to take a lot of risk to achieve higher returns.

Here’s an easy example: right now the biggest banks in the US pay almost nothing to their depositors.

Bank of America’s interest checking account pays just 0.01%. JP Morgan Chase pays a whopping 0.02% on a 1-month Certificate of Deposit.

The government of the United States, on the other hand, is currently paying almost 2% on a similar product, the 28-day T-Bill.

There’s virtually no difference in risk: loaning money to your bank, versus loaning money to the government.

To be clear, neither is risk-free. Not by a long shot. But I’m illustrating that the risk differential between the two options is essentially zero.

Yet the reward with T-Bills is 100x as great. So you’re taking similar risk but achieving a MUCH higher reward.

It seems obvious. But most people don’t think about this.

We’ve been trained to believe that our savings belongs in a bank, that our investment capital belongs in the stock market, and that higher returns require higher risk.

But there’s an entire universe of options that defies these conventions.

We talked about a few of these yesterday— including T-Bills, asset-backed Peer-to-Peer loans, and deep value investments.

Deep value is essentially buying $1 for 50 cents.

This is our Chief Investment Strategist’s primary area of expertise– he routinely finds absurdly undervalued businesses that are selling for a fraction of their liquidation value.

Think about it: if you only pay 50 cents for an asset that’s legitimately worth $1, you stand to double your money.

Yet most of the risk has already been taken off the table. So there’s not much downside remaining.

Low risk. Strong return.

Whatever you choose to do, it’s important to start paying close attention to what’s happening.

The people who drive these policy decisions are being EXTREMELY vocal.

The Federal Reserve. The Treasury Department. They’re telling us what’s coming next. Ignore them at your own peril.

And to continue learning how to safely grow your wealth, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.

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Pelosi: “I Just Don’t Even Know Why There Isn’t An Uprising In This Country”

Having attempted to play down multi-decade lows in unemployment and record highs in consumer confidence, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has taken her “anything Trump does must be awful” show back on the road…

Source: The Burning Platform

This time she is saying that she doesn’t understand why Americans aren’t starting an “uprising” against their government.

The irony is not lost on many that perhaps she has forgotten what happened in November 2016?

Nevertheless, as The Daily Caller reports, Pelosi railed against the DHS policy of separating children from their parents when they cross the border illegally (which was an Obama policy that is now being enforced by Trump) before asserting, “I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country and maybe there will be when people realize that this is a policy they defend.”

“It’s a horrible thing and I don’t see any prospect for legislation here,” she added on the House floor. “We do nothing.”

We wonder what the media would have made of a speech by President Trump or any Republican who expressed surprise at the people not rising up? Would they be impeached for starting riots?

It’s been a bust week for Pelosi who on Wednesday, criticized Trump’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, telling reporters, it “pays to have a nuclear bomb in your pocket.”

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Professor Says Feminists Have “Every Right” To “Hate Men”

Authored by Grace Gottschling via Campus Reform,

Northeastern University’s director of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies demands that men “step away” because “we have every right to hate you.”

Suzanna Danuta Walters, who is also a professor of sociology at NU, asks “Why can’t we hate men?” in a Friday op-ed for The Washington Post.

“So, in this moment, here in the land of legislatively legitimated toxic masculinity,” Walters begins. “Is it really so illogical to hate men?”

“My edge has been crossed for a long time,” Walters said, citing the recent Eric Schneiderman and Harvey Weinstein accusations and the incidents of live-streamed sexual assaults and “red pill men’s groups and rape camps.”  

“Seen in this indisputably true context, it seems logical to hate men,” Walters wrote, scoffing at feminists who insist that they “don’t hate men.”

Objecting to women, like Michelle Obama, who argue that “#NotAllMen” are the problem, Walters suggested that “maybe it’s time for us to go all Thelma and Louise and Foxy Brown on their collective butts.”

She then tells men that “if you really are #WithUs and would like us to not hate you for all the millennia of woe you have produced and benefited from,” they should follow a series of self-effacing instructions.

“Start with this: Lean out so we can actually just stand up without being beaten down. Pledge to vote for feminist women only. Don’t run for office. Don’t be in charge of anything. Step away from the power. We got this,” she elaborated.

“And please know that your crocodile tears won’t be wiped away by us anymore. We have every right to hate you. You have done us wrong. #BecausePatriarchy. It is long past time to play hard for Team Feminism. And win.”

While Walters advocates for electing women instead of men in the op-ed, she also asserted in an interview with Northeastern’s news website during the 2016 election that not just “any woman” would do, saying that sending a woman like Carly Fiorina or Sarah Palin to the White House “would set all women back” because of their anti-feminist “agendas.”  

This is not the first instance of Walters’ targeting men and labeling masculinity as negative or toxic. In a a 2014 Twitter post, Walters also blamed “warped masculinity” for gun violence.

In addition to being the director of the WGS program, Walters’ also teaches classes like “Sex, Gender, and Popular Culture,” which, according to the course description, “analyzes popular texts and media for their treatment of gender and sexuality and the intersection of those categories.”

* *  *

UPDATE: Northeastern University Media Relations Specialist Shannon Nargi provided the following statement to Campus Reform:

“Northeastern University steadfastly supports a safe and inclusive learning and working environment in which hate has no place. The university has more than 1,000 faculty members whose viewpoints span the entire political spectrum. Consistent with our unwavering commitment to academic freedom, the opinions of an individual professor do not reflect the views of the university or its leadership. Northeastern is committed to fostering an environment in which controversial ideas can be discussed, debated, and challenged.”

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“Don’t Panic”: Bank of America’s 20 Must-Know Stats For Investors

Taking whimsical stream-of-consciousness financial commentary to levels even Aleksandar Kocic would blush, overnight BofA CIO Michael Hartnett has released a report titled “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Investment Universe”…

… which, to the delight of Douglas Adams fans everywhere, covers “Wall St Life, the Universe and Everything.”

Hartnett’s report is a primer for retail & institutional investors on the size, composition, performance, risks, fund flows, yields, and valuations of the bond & equity universe.

Of course, there are exactly “42” charts & tables in the report, which illustrate Wall Street’s huge bull run, the “great corporate rotation”, credit’s inflection point, the multi-year decoupling of US assets, tech’s leadership & vulnerability, and the shift to late-cycle returns in 2018.

For the sake of brevity, we will focus only on the 20 “don’t panic” must-know stats for investors highlighted by Bank of America:

1. Global financial assets = $180tn or 226% of global GDP, an all-time high. Global financial assets totaled $23tn in
1990, $64tn in 2000, $139tn in 2010.

2. By the end of 2017 the universe of global equities totaled $81tn. And in Jan’18 global equity market cap reached a high of $90tn, a massive jump from $30tn in Mar’09

3. The “great corporate rotation”: Since the GFC, US companies have issued $14tn of debt, bought $5tn of stocks. Corporations in the US have become more important relative to institutional investors in driving equity prices up & down

4. Number of listed equities on NYSE was 3572 in 2000, fell to 3062 in Q1’18. The diminishing number of public companies this century has coincided with much higher valuation

5. The US Treasury market is the largest debt market in the world with $17.6tn of debt securities. US = 37% of global government bond market. The US, no surprise, is the largest equity market, accounting for $24.9tn or 53% of the MSCI index, close to its all-time high53% of global stock market.

 

6. Tech sector market cap: US $6.6tn, China $0.7tn, Europe $0.5tn, Japan $0.5tn

7. Five largest global stocks 2018: Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook

8. Five largest global stocks in 2009: ExxonMobil, GE, China Mobile, Microsoft, Gazprom

9. YTD returns: commodities best since 2002, REIT returns worst since 2011, US IG bonds worst since 1974

10. Peak-to-trough yield from GFC: global HY 23.1% to 5.0%; now 5.9%

11. Peak-to-trough yield from GFC: EM debt 10.8% to 3.6%; now 5.0%

12. Govt bond yields >7%: Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico, Indonesia

13. Dividend yields >5%: banks in Aust, Brazil, France, Italy; US telcos; UK energy

14. From all-time equity index high: US 3%, Japan 19%, Eurozone 27%, China 31%

15. Most creditworthy = German bunds (CDS 11bp), least creditworthy = Venezuelan debt (11507bp)

16. Evolution of “tail risks” since 2011: Eurozone debt crisis…US “fiscal cliff”…China “hard landing” & geopolitics…populism…quantitative tightening…trade war

17. Evolution of “crowded trades” since 2013: short Yen, long high “yield”, long US$, long high Quality, long Nasdaq, long Bitcoin, short vol, long FAANG+BAT

18. Price to book ratios >3x: US, India, tech, health care, staples, discretionary

19. Price to book ratios <1.5x: Russia, Italy, Korea, Spain, Japan, financials

20. Price to book ratio of China tech stocks = 8x, China financials = 1x

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Of Carrots, Sticks, And How The Empire Fails

Authored by Tom Luongo,

It’s important for bullies to always win.  Because once their weakness is exposed they can no longer be bullies.

Empires don’t start out as bullies.  They start out as the reaction to the last Empire which became a bully after embracing hubris over humility.

Empires have to resort to bullying near the end because they are fundamentally weak.  They all over-extend themselves through currency debasement which, in turn, degrades the cultural advantage the society had over the previous Empire.

Donald Trump knows how to bully with the best of them.  I go back and forth about his status as a bully, however.  He is a mercurial figure whose unpredictability is predictable.

I see him more as Loki than the typical bully.  In other words, it’s probably fair to say that to Trump bullying is just another tactic.

So, as the head of the U.S., an Empire in the early stages of collapse, fundamentally weakened by two generations of empire building after the failure of Bretton Woods, Trump will bully his opposition because he knows that an Empire that is not feared is one that will soon be laughed at.

And when that happens, it’s game over.

Trump understands that the U.S. can no longer afford to pay for the post-WWII institutional order.  Europe’s been rebuilt but the EU is in the process of tearing it down for the sake of globalism.

And Germany is the one benefiting on our dime.

So, if you are opposed to the Empire, regardless of your politics, seeing Trump take it to the G-7 and, in particular, Germany should be welcomed.

Where you should be worried however, is how that same bullying is being turned on Russia and Iran.  In my latest article for Strategic Culture Foundation I remind everyone that none other than Mr. Realpolitik, Henry Kissinger, was advising Trump on Ukraine and Crimea in early 2017.

And after looking at the way Trump is prosecuting our relationship with Russia it’s clear to me now Kissinger had a stronger influence on Trump than anyone thought.

As the Kremlin Turns

The Left still screaming about Russia collusion are themselves delusional.  Trump hasn’t been secretly doing nice things for Putin behind everyone’s back.  There’s no coordination of policy between them.

I spent most of 2017 arguing with MAGA folks convinced that Trump and Putin were waging a secret war on the Deep State and the Neocons.  4-D chess arguments abounded.

When the reality was that while Trump and Putin keep in touch to ensure little direct conflict between the U.S. and Russian forces in Syria takes place, that is not evidence that Trump is soft on Russia in any way.

Not provoking a nuclear-armed country is not evidence of collusion, just functional brain cells.  A statement I can’t make about most of Trump’s critics this week.

This is an operating principle which governed this week’s summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as well.  Trump was smart to meet with Kim, who did outmaneuver the U.S. over the past five years, by achieving nuclear-armed status.

It forced the U.S. to the table and Trump, smartly, took the opportunity to save face and choose peace.

The same thing is not on the horizon with Russia today.

The Kremlin has moved on.  It would like a better relationship with Washington but it has no illusions about it happening.  To Putin’s credit he has not ruled out speaking with Trump, but as Alistair Crooke points out today, there’s little good reason for him doing so.

Trump has crossed so many lines with his Kissinger-inspired policy to force Russia to abandon its relationship with China through economic and political aggression that there’s little to be gained by chatting about anything other than the weather.

Beware the Cauldron

To beat a bully you have to let him over-extend himself.  He has to feel confident of your passivity in the face of his aggression.  That means if you slap him in the face, he turns the other cheek.

If you attack his friends, he doesn’t attack you.

For more than a year we’ve seen these things play out around the world vis a vis Russia in Syria and in Europe.  The attacks are both military, Syria and Ukraine, and financial, the Nordstream 2 pipeline.

I’ve detailed all of this at length over the past year.  Putin has taken so many shots to the chin that U.S. / Russian relations bear a great resemblance to the “Rumble in the Jungle” where Mohammed Ali let George Foreman punish him for round after round, expending himself in a futile attempt to knock Ali out.

And once Foreman’s arms felt like lead and his legs like Jello, Ali struck so hard and so fast that he stunned the world.

Russian military strategy is dominated by this type of thinking.  Lure your opponent in. Create a weak spot and allow him to attack it over and over.  Invite the chaos.  Allow him to think he is winning.

So here’s where we are today:

  1. If Trump is successful in getting Germany to cower before his sanctions regime that will, in turn, put Iran under heavy pressure financially and socially.

  2. That may yet lead to a formal withdrawal of IRGC Quds forces from Syria.  Yet another win.

  3. But, it will only happen if the U.S. leaves the border crossing at Al-Tanf.  Small pirce to pay.

  4. Germany’s government is on increasingly shaky grounds as AfD are making her life miserable in the Bundestag and her partner Horst Seehofer of the CSU, as Interior Minister is openly defying her over migrant policy.  

  5. The U.S. negotiates a deal with Turkey to control Manbij, possibly to undermine Russia’s relationship with Erdogan, keeping the Turks in Syria to complicate peace talks.

  6. Military conflict in Ukraine likely in the next few weeks with the UAF attacking the Donbass and an incident in the Sea of Azov.

  7. This supports a failing Poroshenko government in trouble before the election and sucker Putin into direct support which can justify more sanctions and keeping the EU on board because of “Russian Aggression” and “Not supporting the Minsk process.”

  8. Trump is openly tying sanctions and trade normalization with the Nordstream 2 pipeline in brazen mafia-style negotiating tactics further complicating Merkel’s life.

  9. Five more Russian companies were sanctioned this week over ‘cyber attacks.’

  10. He’s openly threatening major multinationals who do business in the U.S. for being a part of Nordstream 2.

I think you get the point.  I could go on for another page or two.

Closing the Trap

The point is that this is classic bullying behavior.  Trump is pot-committed, as poker-players say, to this policy.

Once you start with sanctions and threats, you can’t stop.  It’s go all the way or have your bluff called.  With Europe Trump holds aces.  They are dependent on the U.S. and their weakness will be the U.S.’s gain over the next year or two.  Europe’s sovereign debt crisis will explode and the U.S. will see massive foreign in-flows.

It’ll be a massive win but it won’t be the win.  And in winning over Europe it sets him up for the big loss; the fight for the Middle East and Eurasian integration.

His gambit with Russia and Iran becoming an all-or-nothing proposition.  Trump has just about pushed all-in.  Russia/Iran/China’s passivity has emboldened him. The fecklessness of the Obama administration creating dumpster fires in Ukraine and Syria, however, handed him bad cards and a dwindling stack.

He hasn’t won a hand in the Middle East yet.  Sure he’s made headlines but Putin, Rouhani, Nasrallah and Assad have won all the skirmishes that matter.  Any wins Trump has gotten were easy ones to pick up.  The framework for a deal has always been the same.  And no amount of Kissinger-style complications were going to change them.

Iran no more wants to stay in Syria than Putin wants to intervene in The Donbass. So, getting Iran out of Syria is easy.  All Trump has to do is leave.  Israel won’t like it, but it won’t be their decision.  Putin made that clear to Netanyahu when he visited Moscow.

The Kurds are the ones to make that decision for Trump, now that they are openly negotiating with Damascus after Trump backstabbed them over Manbij.

Without the support of the Kurds, the U.S. cannot stay in Syria at all.

So, when we reach the showdown hand Trump won’t have aces.  And the classic Russian cauldron will collapse in around him.  And losing there will be the end of the U.S. empire abroad.

And the world will rejoice.

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“It’s Disruptive Populism” – Steve Bannon Buys Into Bitcoin

Ensconced in the “Breitbart Embassy,” the nickname for his townhouse on Capitol Hill (even though he left the media company five months ago, and the White House staff five months before that), Steve Bannon has lately been using some of his free time to learn more about crypto and bitcoin, even investing in companies that are raising money via ICOs, a process that’s recently attracted the attention of the SEC, according to the New York Times.

The news comes as the price of bitcoin slumps to levels unseen since November. Bitcoin has now erased all of the gains from the late-stage pump that briefly brought its value to $20,000 a coin before the monthslong slide began.

Bannon

Bannon’s interest in crypto and blockchain wasn’t widely known before the story. But apparently President Trump’s former chief strategist has been involved in the space for a while, though he refuses to talk about specific projects – fearing that the controversy that accompanies his name could have a negative impact. But the Times confirmed that Bannon has had several meetings with hedge funds and so-called initial coin offerings via his investment business, Bannon & Company. Bannon also admitted that he owns a “good stake” in bitcoin, though it’s unclear when, exactly, he bought in. Once, at a gathering of academics at Harvard (where Bannon got his MBA), Bannon said he raised the idea of creating a “deplorables coin” cryptocurrency named after the famous Hillary Clinton line “basket of deplorables.” (He even once told a Swiss newspaper that crypto and blockchain would “empower” populist movements to resist the European establishment).

While his work is in the “early stages”, Bannon has said he’s interested in helping people – and even countries – launch their own cryptocurrencies, projects that would likely be centered outside the US.

“It’s disruptive populism,” Mr. Bannon said in the interview, at his Capitol Hill townhouse in Washington. “It takes control back from central authorities. It’s revolutionary.”

As Bannon sees it, whoever controls the currency has the ultimate control in society – something that crypto could help change. Bitcoin and crypto have long been popular with the “alt-right” the NYT explains because it has remained a viable payments option as PayPal and Apple Pay have shuttered the accounts of right-wing groups.

His vision for virtual currency has elements of his unorthodox ideology. He sounds like both an avowed libertarian who wants government out of his life and a progressive who wants Wall Street held to account when he insists that virtual currencies can help citizens take back power from the central banks that “debase your currency” and make citizens “slaves to debt.”

His focus on creating new digital tokens, which are usually offered through initial coin offerings, puts him squarely in the edgiest, most scam-filled slice of the cryptocurrency business.

New companies have raised billions through these I.C.O.s, which allow them to bypass regulators and other middlemen and go straight to investors. That has also led to plenty of scams, and authorities throughout the world are starting to crack down.

Mr. Bannon’s involvement in cryptocurrencies has raised eyebrows among people trying to move the business toward the mainstream. They fear he will further cement the technology’s reputation as a plaything of fringe elements.

“It almost seems like a natural progression for a man who gained prominence by shoveling out unfounded conspiracies to now shilling complex technology and financial instruments to an unsophisticated investing public,” said Colin Platt, a cryptocurrency researcher and adviser.

One hedge fund manager who told the NYT about a meeting he had with Bannon said the former political operative appeared to have done his research.

Timothy Lewis, a hedge fund manager who met with Mr. Bannon to talk about cryptocurrencies last month, said he was impressed with the degree to which Mr. Bannon had delved into the details of the technology and the challenges it faces.

“I didn’t know what to expect going in, but he had clearly done his homework,” said Mr. Lewis, who is a co-founder of the Ikigai hedge fund, which invests in cryptocurrency projects. He said they had talked about the laws governing new cryptocurrencies and a few initial coin offerings that had recently raised money from investors.

Bannon found his way to the world of crypto through Brock Pierce, a former child actor who has acted as a pitchman for at least one ICO project. Pierce more recently has been criticized for wanted to create a crypto enclave in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico because of the island’s low taxes. And while Pierce has been mocked by late-night comics like John Oliver, Bannon – who previously served on the board of one of Pierce’s companies – insists that the ventures he has been involved in with Pierce have done well despite low expectations.

“These guys are visionaries,” he said.

The question is: will he feel the same way if bitcoin returns to $3,000 a coin?

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