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Southwest Airlines has revamped their policy for travelers who need to fly with unconventional “emotional support animals,” following similar moves by JetBlue, United, American and Delta – which have all cracked down on those traveling with everything from motherfu*king therapy snakes, to supportive spiders, to peacocks trained to stow one’s emotional baggage. Cats and dogs are still allowed. 

One animal Southwest hasn’t restricted, however, is miniature horses. Because why not? 

Each passenger will be allowed one Emotional Support Animal (ESA) – which we imagine will be the ultimate Sophie’s Choice for those hoping to smuggle their emotional ant farms past security. Also, a note from a licensed medical doctor or mental health professional will be required on the day of departure. 

For everyone not bringing an emotional support cat, dog, or miniature horse – looks like you’re just going to have to go to your happy place – or take a road trip.

 

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Via Global Risk Insights,

Although China has backpedaled on proposed tariffs on U.S. crude imports, the move is indicative of its need to diversify sources and steps may now be taken to enable China to play the oil card in the future – including imports from Iran despite sanctions, and drawing closer to Russia.

A reshuffle of crude oil exports to Asia

Asian oil refiners have been rushing to secure crude supplies in anticipation of an escalating trade war between the United States and China. Last week, Dongming Petrochemical, an independent Chinese refiner, said it has halted crude purchases from the U.S. and turned to Iranian imports amid escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. U.S. crude oil exports to China reached 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) at the beginning of this July, but Beijing has recently threatened a 25 percent duty on imports of U.S. crude as part of its retaliation for Trump’s latest round of tariffs on US$34 billion worth of Chinese goods. In addition, Iran’s foreign minister said on 3 August that China was “pivotal” to salvaging a multilateral nuclear agreement for the Middle Eastern country after the United States pulled out. A reshuffle of crude oil exports to Asia is possible, with China vacuuming up much of the Iranian oil that other nations won’t buy because of the threat of U.S. sanctions. 

China, India, Japan and South Korea together account for almost 65 percent of the 2.7 million barrels a day that Iran exported in May. The U.S. has been lobbying these countries and other multinational oil giants to cut crude purchases from Iran to zero by November, the deadline for re-imposition of the secondary sanctions. In view of the current trade disputes with the U.S., China has reacted defiantly to U.S. sanctions banning business ties with the Islamic republic. This could be the determining factor in helping Tehran withstand the sanctions on its vital energy industry.

With China turning to Iran, U.S. oil would start flowing in greater amounts to other leading importers in the region, such as Japan and South Korea. In Japan, the oil industry has yet to respond to this issue publicly. The Petroleum Association of Japan previously warned refiners that they will have to stop loading Iranian crude oil from October onward if Tokyo doesn’t win an exemption on U.S.-Iran sanctions. However, this past weekend, South Korea’s embassy in Iran rejected media reports that the country had suspended oil purchases from Iran under pressure from the U.S. Whether Japan and South Korea would seek more crude imports from the U.S. remains to be seen.

China may have Russia on its side

The sanctions imposed on Russia from the West, as well as the trade tensions between China and the U.S., may provide even more room for energy cooperation between China and Russia. Russia’s sour relationship with the West forces it to look for new trade and investment partners, which could include China and countries in the Middle East. Russia has already become Beijing’s single largest crude oil supplier, exporting crude oil worth US$23.7 billion to China in 2017. Now with Beijing possibly cutting imports from the U.S., Russia may seek to export even more crude oil to China.

On 19 July, China received the first ever liquefied LNG cargo from Russian natural gas producer Novatek via the Northern Sea Route (NSR) alongside the Arctic coast. The $27 billion Yamal project is the world’s largest Arctic LNG project and the first large-scale energy cooperation project to be implemented in Russia after the “Belt and Road” initiative. China’s National Energy Administration said China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) will start lifting at least 3 million tonnes of LNG from Yamal starting in 2019. Therefore, it’s highly possible that China and Russia will deepen their cooperation in liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade despite U.S. sanctions.

In addition, according to an anonymous Russian government official, Russia is ready to invest US$50 billion in Iran’s oil and gas sector amid mounting pressure from the U.S. to economically and diplomatically isolate Tehran. Russia’s energy minister Alexander Novak said that Moscow was interested in developing an oil-for-goods program that would allow Iranian companies to buy Russian products in exchange for oil contracts to be sold to third world countries. This was evidence of Russia’s consistent strategy of using its strong oil and gas industry to meddle in Middle East issues. Under the current situation, even though China may somehow reach an agreement with the U.S. promising that it will cut oil imports if the U.S. is willing to reduce the trade tariffs, in the short-term China is still likely to get Russia on its side in defiance of the U.S. oil campaign.

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The pay gap between the CEOs of major corporations and their rank and file workers has continued to widen, maintaining a trend of inequitable wage growth that has been ongoing since the 1990s.  A new Economic Policy Institute report showed CEOs of America’s top 350 companies earned 312 times more than their rank and file workers.

According to a report summary in The Guardian, CEOs of major corporations got an average pay rise of 17.6% over the last year while rank-and-file employee compensation rose just 0.3% over the same time. The latter saw their wages stall, for the most part, while CEOs took home an average of $18.9 million in compensation, according to the report.

Not surprisingly, this divergence in pay is the continuation of a trend that started back in the 90s:

The pay gap has risen dramatically, with some fluctuations, since the 1990s. In 1965 the ratio of CEO to worker pay was 20-to-one; that figure had risen to 58-to-one by in 1989 and peaked in 2000 when CEOs earned 344 times the wage of their average worker.

CEO pay dipped in the early 2000s and during the last recession but has been rising rapidly since 2009. Chief executives are even leaving the 0.1% in the dust. The bosses of large firms now earn 5.5 times as much as the average earner in the top 0.1%.

Recently there has been added visibility on this pay gap since companies have been forced to report it in their financials. This has highlighted some extraordinarily egregious pay gaps, such as at those at McDonald’s and Walmart:

The astronomical gap between the remuneration of workers and bosses has been brought into sharper focus by a new financial disclosure rule that forces companies to publish the ratio of CEO to worker pay. Last year McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook earned $21.7m while the McDonald’s workers earned a median wage of just $7,017 – a CEO to worker pay ratio of 3,101-to-one. The average Walmart worker earned $19,177 in 2017 while CEO Doug McMillon took home $22.8m – a ratio of 1,188-to-one.

It’s not just the pay difference with the rank and file that has exploded: the average pay gap between CEOs and other very high wage earners has also grown substantially, and CEOs in large companies making 5.5x more than the average earner in the top 0.1%

The self-fulfilling prophecy of rising CEO compensation, which is estimated to partly be a result of the stock market’s rise and “everybody thinking their CEO is better than the next one”, according to Lawrence Mishel, a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, has now pushed the rising compensation rate to outgrow the rise in the stock market.

Between 1978 and 2017 CEO compensation has increased by 979%. Over the same period the S&P 500 Index of the US’s largest companies grew 637%.

At the same time, the Guardian article notes, while the S&P 500 index was up 637% from 1978 to 2017, the typical rank and file worker only saw their pay package rise just 11.2%.

The report fails to discuss the role monetary policy has had in creating this enormous pay gap; it also ignores the “virtuous circle” of stock buybacks and executive compensation, which is usually pegged to stock price milestones, incentivizing the C-suite to lever up the company just to achieve a faster cash out while burdening what’s left of the company with excess debt that could lead to an accelerated bankruptcy during a recession or when rates spike. By then, of course, the CEO – sporting an overflowing bank account – will be long gone.

Meanwhile, as the government selectively chooses to bail out those that are “too big to fail”, the average rank-and-file worker sees little to no benefits of such a policy. Under the selective bailout, crony-capitalist Keynesian system as it exists today, this data just continues to prove that it is easier for the rich to keep getting richer while ordinary workers remain stuck unable to reap any benefits.

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Authored by Nomi Prins via The Daily Reckoning,

Global debt has ballooned since the financial crisis as central banks have distorted markets and fueled debt bubbles in particular.

A lot of the increase in global debt has come from emerging market (EM) economies, especially China. In fact, a record amount of EM debt has accumulated during the past decade, mostly in dollars. A large portion of that debt is therefore denominated in U.S. dollars.

That’s why I’ve long argued that the first shoe to drop in the next crisis would likely be EM debt.

Borrowing is not a problem when dollars are cheap. Low interest rates mean the cost of servicing that debt is low.

The problem starts when the Fed raises rates or the dollar strengthens, even temporarily. The more the dollar rises, the more EM currencies and related markets fall. Dollar-denominated debt then becomes too expensive to repay or service as the dollar rises relative to EM currencies. Before long default becomes the only viable option.

This situation becomes more dangerous than even asset bubbles because debt is required to be repaid on a set schedule. If a country misses a debt payment, it could set off a chain reaction of defaults.

That’s why an EM crisis could quickly become a global crisis. In today’s world of financial globalization, any remote crisis can become an international problem in seconds. That’s the reality of today’s markets. Obviously, it could also have major ramifications for your own finances and investments.

How did we get here?

Because of the Fed’s rate hike cycle and quantitative tightening (QT) stance, the dollar has become much stronger. The dollar has risen 6.8% since late January alone. And that’s put emerging markets under considerable pressure.

Dollars are fleeing emerging market economies as investors are pouring into dollar assets and U.S. Treasuries.

As the Fed itself has warned about such a scenario, “If these risks materialized, there could be an increase in the demand for safe assets, particularly U.S. Treasuries.”

That starts a vicious cycle that only strengthens the dollar and weakens EM currencies further. In other words, emerging markets are being deprived of dollars at a time when they need them most.

Enter Turkey.

Panic spread throughout global markets last Friday as the Turkish lira plummeted after the Trump administration announced its plan to double tariffs on aluminum and steel imports. Already down substantially this year, the Turkish lira dropped as much as an additional 24% last Friday.

Even though it’s half a planet away from the U.S., the country could have a major impact. Like other emerging markets, Turkey borrowed a lot of money in U.S. dollars after the Federal Reserve initiated its zero interest rates in the wake of the financial crisis.

Turkey borrowed so much that its current foreign currency debt stands at more than 50%. Now, Turkey has a 15% inflation rate and a cratering currency.

As the Fed is raising rates, and the dollar is getting stronger, paying back that money is becoming much harder. The rise in the cost of debt payments means that defaults will become more likely.

Turkey’s central bank will need to raise rates to defend its currency, placing the government and economy in a difficult position.

The lira has been holding its own these past few days, but this dynamic could take a long time to play out. Do not assume the crisis is over, and it may be some time before Turkey recovers.

European banks with exposure to Turkey, along with U.S. banks connected to those European banks could encounter serious headwinds, as will emerging market funds. Weakness in one emerging market economy leads to a loss of investor confidence in others. We’ve seen that movie before.

But what’s happening in Turkey right now shouldn’t be terribly surprising, given Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s attitudes towards emerging markets.

Going back to last October, his words offer a glimpse of what was coming.

Powell was then just the number two guy at the Fed when he publicly articulated his outlook on tightening interest rates, the rising dollar and the impact of both on emerging markets.

He conceded that higher U.S. interest rates and weakening EM currencies “could cause capital to return to advanced economies.” But, unlike those that actually pay attention, Powell was not worried. He believed that the “most likely outcome” of that policy shift for emerging markets “will be manageable.”

Powell’s statement matters. He now commands the central bank with the largest influence on assets in the world. Powell seemed to deny that the Fed is, as Zero Hedge sums it up, the “major determinant of flows of capital into developing economies.”

Later on as Fed chairman, Powell reemphasized that position at an IMF and Swiss National Bank gathering in Zurich. According to Powell:

There is good reason to think that the normalization of monetary policy in advanced economies should continue to prove manageable for EMEs. Markets should not be surprised by our actions if the economy evolves in line with expectations.

But Powell’s argument misses a central point. What he left out was that it was the Fed’s low interest rate policy to begin with that enabled countries to borrow as much as they did.

If money is cheap around the world, higher rates absolutely matter. It appears he simply did not understand the inflows of cash, which explains why he wasn’t concerned about the outflows.

He believes that if the Fed raises rates (“normalizes monetary policy,” which it’s been doing) and causes money to flow away from the emerging-market countries, it’s not his fault.

Powell was not alone in his lackadaisical approach to emerging markets.

Though the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has expressed concerns for years about the impact of a rising dollar and rates on EM markets, it recently said that a reversal of rates would be “orderly and will not take a toll on emerging markets growth.”

Well, ask Turkey how orderly it’s been.

But capital flows won’t be the only negative for emerging markets if the Fed continues hiking rates. We could also see dollar-denominated interest on debt become squeezed if the dollar rises on the back of higher rates.

There’s also considerable reason to remain wary about not just emerging markets, but governments and corporations with too much dollar exposure.

How will the current situation affect Fed policy going forward?

Despite Powell’s previous comments, the current surge in the dollar gives reason to believe that the Fed won’t tighten as quickly as it’s said it would this year. A September rate hike, which seemed all but certain a short while ago, is now in doubt. Another rate hike right now and a stronger dollar would only throw more fuel on the fire.

Ultimately, central banks will intervene with additional easing if the crisis gets worse. That means more “dark money” will become available to prop up markets.

That also means stocks could technically continue soaring on the basis of cash or borrowed cash for an even longer period of time. Don’t be surprised if stocks move higher from here. That’s how dark money works to move markets.

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A YouTube video posted earlier this year has gained international attention after it was picked up and reposted last week on UFO and British tabloid websites, said The Charlotte Observer.

The footage, recorded May 29 by “Jason Swing,” shows a long tubular object hovering for more than two minutes over North Carolina’s Lake Norman, north of Charlotte.

Swing called the object “a spacecraft” at the beginning of his video.

“It had been raining all morning. Rain finally stopped so we went (to) pick up a boat from Lake Norman,” Swing wrote in the about section of the video. “When (I) came around the corner I saw this thing sitting still very close.”

Swing’s extremely shaky cellphone video went unnoticed for weeks and even months on end but gained international attention after being featured in two British tabloids and Russia’s Sputnik News.

Comments on Swing’s video have ranged from mockery to support for the UFO theory.

According to a Goodyear tweet, the Goodyear blimp was reportedly circling the region on May 29, for NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 race.

Wanna see – and hear – what it’s really like to watch the green flag drop from the Goodyear Blimp? This is how our pilots saw the #CocaCola600 start! pic.twitter.com/x9RvyFZ13s

— Goodyear Blimp (@GoodyearBlimp) May 27, 2018

🎇🎆🎇 Congratulations @KyleBusch! #CocaCola600 pic.twitter.com/Ur2w5qcrlL

— Goodyear Blimp (@GoodyearBlimp) May 28, 2018

Since the video went viral, social media trolls have not been kind to Swing, with many criticizing his amateurish video work. One user even said it looked like Swing was recording the object “while jumping on a Pogostick.”

“So annoying that people can’t film properly. I get that they are scared, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” user Tom Brown wrote.

“A line in the sky can’t be that scary. [It] wasn’t moving or flashing lights [and] there was no indication that it was alien and not some kind of craft made by humans. Who knows. Wish people would film things properly these days. It’s 2018 and we can’t even get a good UFO video. Ah well until we get true disclosure nothing will ever change.”

Here are some comments from the YouTube video (unedited):

• “Yes, we have many of them here. Among other things we’ve seen here. There is more going on than you know.”

• “How difficult it is to stand on an empty road and hold the freakin’ phone right?”

• “Also known as the Goodyear blimp. Real common to that area — like most anytime there is a game or race at the speedway about thirty miles south of Lake Norman. I, myself, have spoken to blimp aliens. They are an impressive life form, but for some odd reason they refused to take me aboard their mother ship.”

• “So irritating when someone is incapable of keeping their phone the least bit still. Wish I had the last two minutes of my life back.”

• “I suspect hoax and a scam due to the SHORT nature of the video and the OVERLY SHAKY cam that can only be intentional.”

• “It was terrifying. His shaking made me want to call 911 for him.”

• “Just a passenger jet coming out of Charlotte Douglas Airport. Flying low (below the cloud deck) on northbound track from airport. See this all the time up there. Look at the tops of the trees and bushes each time the video shows the plane and you see that it is steadily moving left to right. Going to look like hovering and slow movement since it is about 4 miles away.”

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Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

UPDATE: It looks like the suspension was lifted just after I hit publish on this. A lot of my fans and even a few haters made a big noise in objection to Twitter’s actions, and it worked! As we discussed recently, the plutocratic manipulators work so hard to manufacture our consent because they need that consent, and they can’t act if we don’t give it to them. I’ve left the article as-is below for posterity, and so people can see my experience with #Resistance Twitter’s attempt to silence dissident speech. Never stop fighting.

*  *  *

I’ve received an email from Twitter which reads as follows:

Hello Caitlin Johnstone,

Your account, caitoz has been suspended for violating the Twitter Rules.

Specifically, for:

Violating our rules against abusive behavior.

You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.

Note that if you attempt to evade a permanent suspension by creating new accounts, we will suspend your new accounts. If you wish to appeal this suspension, please contact our support team.

They’re calling it a “suspension”, but nobody can view my page and I can’t perform any activities on it, and it appears to be permanent unless I succeed in going through the anonymous and unaccountable appeals process. Now when people try to access my account, they get a screen that looks something like this depending on what device they’re using:

I haven’t abused anybody, and I’ve been observing extreme caution with my language for the last few days ever since I made a political tweet about John McCain which drew the wrath of #Resistance Twitter. The offending tweet reads as follows:

“Friendly public service reminder that John McCain has devoted his entire political career to slaughtering as many human beings as possible at every opportunity, and the world will be improved when he finally dies.”

I posted this four days ago when John McCain was trending because Donald Trump didn’t pay him any respect when signing the bloated NDAA military spending bill that was (appropriately) named after him. My reason for doing so was simple: the establishment pundits responsible for manipulating the way Americans think and vote have been aggressively promulgating the narrative that McCain is a hero and a saint, and I think it’s very important to disrupt that narrative. If we allow them to canonize this warmongering psychopath, then they’ll have normalized and sanctified his extensive record of pushing for psychopathic acts of military violence throughout his entire political career. They’ll have helped manufacture support for war and the military-industrial complex war whores who facilitate it. Saying we’ll be glad when he’s gone is a loud and unequivocal way of rejecting that establishment-imposed narrative.

Interestingly, I’ve been saying this exact same thing repeatedly for over a year. An article I wrote about McCain in July of last year titled “Please Just Fucking Die Already” received a far more widespread backlash than this one, with articles published about it by outlets like CNN, USA Today and the Washington Post. Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar talked about me on The View. I was never once suspended or warned by any social media outlet or blogging platform at that time; it was treated as the political speech about a public figure that it clearly and undeniably is. The only thing that has changed since that time is the climate of internet censorship.

What does an Assad apologist look like?

It looks like someone who would say John McCain deserves to die for his role in promoting US wars… but that Assad is just a family man who definitely hasn’t slaughtered civilians. pic.twitter.com/ZuNq90nve0

— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) August 17, 2018

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/4iIy0NUNbX

— Patrick (@TrickFreee) August 17, 2018

So anyway, I tweeted the thing about McCain, it was getting some angry backlash, and I received an email that a different tweet I’d made about McCain had been reported, reviewed and found not to be in violation.

Then a popular #Resist account condemned my post and was retweeted by Caroline Orr, a pundit with hundreds of thousands of followers who works with the David Brock propaganda firm Shareblue. Instantly, my Twitter notifications began filling up with comments like these:

To all the people who are reporting @caitoz to the Twitter police, what exactly are you reporting her for? She is not advocating anyone harming #JohnMcCain. She just thinks the world will be better off when he is dead.

If you think her opinions are tasteless, you can block her. https://t.co/1yFgZXNMbL

— Luca Clemente (@LucaClemente) August 16, 2018

I also got a bunch of notifications like these from bot accounts as soon as Orr shared the response to my tweet:

And I’ve received furious, vitriolic notifications from Clintonite Twitter accounts ever since, up until my account was shut down.

So it looks like anyone who voices a political opinion that is deemed sufficiently offensive to Centrist Twitter can be purged in this way now. If you can get enough people reporting the same thing over and over again for a few days, one of those reports will eventually land in the lap of an admin whose personal bias allows them to squint just right at political speech about a public figure and see a violation of Twitter policy.

I’ve been writing about the dangers of internet censorship so much lately because this is becoming a major problem. In a corporatist system of government, wherein government power and corporate power are not separated in any meaningful way, corporate censorship is state censorship.

The plutocratic class which effectively owns the US government also owns all the mass media, allowing that plutocratic class to efficiently manipulate the way Americans think and vote so as to manufacture public consent for the establishment status quo upon which those plutocratic empires are built.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. The only cracks in plutocratic narrative control have come in the form of alternative media outlets and social media, the access to which is unfortunately guarded by plutocrats with well-documented ties to secretive and unaccountable government agencies. The plutocratic alliance has successfully funneled online audiences into platforms that can be easily regulated, and now they are censoring those platforms.

An ungoverned media landscape would cripple the consent-manufacturing propaganda machine of the ruling oligarchs, making us impossible to manipulate and control. This would give us our only real shot at ending the wars that the John McCains of the world have devoted their lives to facilitating, our only shot at creating true and authentic democracy, and our only shot at turning the world around from the omnicidal, ecocidal trajectory that these sociopathic oligarchs have us on.

They can’t allow that. Their rule depends upon it, and, historically, rulers do not give up power willingly.

The longer we wait to fight this, the more marginalized our voices become, and the smaller our window to escape the cage they are building around us shrinks. Make your voices heard and refuse to consent to allowing a few Silicon Valley plutocrats to manipulate public discourse in their own interest. The time to act is now.

*  *  *

Internet censorship is closing in, so the best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to get on the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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Hedge fund manager and noted Tesla bear Crispin Odey, in the wake of Tesla’s nearly 10% crash on Friday, talked in his most recent investor letter about how difficult it was to be short the name. He also made the revelation that he believes that the company is “entering the final stages of its life”.

Odey, like many shorts, has ridden out the seemingly never-ending bullishness in Tesla stock as, despite failed promises and erratic behavior from CEO Elon Musk over the last couple of years, the equity has done very little but move higher since it has been a public company.

Odey also compared Musk’s behavior to Donald Crowhurst, “the amateur sailor who set off in the 1960s on a solo voyage around the world and never came back,” according to a Bloomberg article. 

Tesla shares were pummeled on Friday, dropping almost 10% after Thursday night’s New York Times piece, in which Musk tearfully broke down and admitted not only that no one had reviewed his going private Tweet before he put it out whilst driving, but also that he would voluntarily resign the position of CEO to somebody who could do it better.

“…if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know,” he told the New York Times. “They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.”

Also in Musk’s interview with the New York Times, published Thursday evening, he again couldn’t help himself and had to take a shot at short-sellers like Odey.

Musk said he was bracing for “at least a few months of extreme torture from the short-sellers, who are desperately pushing a narrative that will possibly result in Tesla’s destruction.”

Referring to  short-sellers, he added: 

“They’re not dumb guys, but they’re not supersmart. They’re O.K. They’re smartish.”

It’s not just short sellers that Musk thinks are “not supersmart” – he reserves that designation for virtually anyone, especially if they happen to disagree with him: in recent months, in addition to wrangling with short-sellers and sending David Einhorn “short shorts”, Musk has belittled analysts for asking “boring, bonehead” questions.

The Bloomberg article noted that Tesla is Odey European Inc’s second biggest equity short position.

“The path this fund has taken to reach this place was so painful, but now I would not swap this portfolio for anyone else’s,” Odey wrote in the letter. “It is a pity you daren’t give it a try.”

Perhaps over the coming weeks, we will truly see who is smart and who is “smartish”.

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Authored by Brian Quinlivan via Hackernoon.com,

Let’s Face It

The crypto markets are currently f*cked. Between the consistent manipulation they face, as well as specific issues per individual major exchanges like Coinbase Pro, Binance, and Bittrex, there is a lot to be concerned about when making even the simplest of token swaps and transfers. There are bots to beat, whales to wade through, advisors to avoid, and ICO’s to ignore. But adorable wordplay aside, the numerous obstacles in crypto markets today have jaded many investors and traders, and the hinderances have cost both annoyingly small to devastatingly large fortunes to many.

Regulating cryptocurrency would not necessarily unf*ck the markets by any means. In fact, it may just end up f*cking it even more. Here is a short list of cons associated with making crypto more regulated:

• People have invested their money into crypto as a way to break free from centralized governments. If the biggest advantage to cryptocurrency (decentralization) was taken away, it would defeat the purpose of using it as an investment vehicle, and values would plummet as more and more limitations are imposed on what investors and exchanges can and can’t do. The ideological objective of cryptocurrency would ultimately be lost.

• Regulatory practices can lead to abuse of power, and with decentralized assets in the hands of a centralized power, there would be major concern over how those in power are using cryptocurrency for their own agenda.

• Unless regulations are entirely unflawed and seamless, those savvy enough to find loopholes in them would greatly be able to manipulate the new system in place.

As for the pros of centralization and regulation of cryptocurrency:

• Regulation would strongly encourage the reduction of ICO scams, manipulative tactics, and complete exchange implosions. There would also be more price stability due to the strong decrease in pump and dump groups and manipulative tactics like wash trading.

• Intentions of regulatory practices would be to build a safer space to invest in cryptocurrency. Ensuring the safety of exchanges would not necessarily end the deregulatory nature of cryptoassets themselves.

• There would be an increase in awareness, and central authorities would be able to inform the masses of what crypto is and how to invest in it.

The irony of it all is that the unregulated nature of crypto brokers and exchanges is something cryptocurrency and its traders would like to maintain at all costs (even if many don’t realize it) in order to break away from the lack of freedom and flexibility typically synonymous with traditional brokerages. Michael Maisch from Handelsblatt Global explains,

“Regulators and policymakers should, of course, ensure that trading takes place in a regulated manner, and they should try to immunize the market as much as possible against attempts at manipulation. But beyond that, there is currently no reason to regulate the cryptocurrency just because overzealous politicians believe that cybercoins are as harmful to uninhibited investors as smoking or hard drugs.”

The pain, manipulation, and corruption involved in the markets can incur steep side effects. Staying unregulated is a double edged sword in the sense that there are so many obstacles intended to take your money, yet you have the power to be the shark of these markets yourself and use the lack of established rules to your advantage. Manipulation, the disadvantages that low-capital traders face, the amount of shoddy advice that pose as professional knowledge, and the minefield that are ICO’s are all legitimate concerns that we all keep our heads on a swivel for. Even the most experienced traders can fall prey to these, and the successful ones have simply found a fortunate way to work around them.

The foregone conclusion revolving around crypto is that the markets are not going to be unf*cked any time soon, and the best way to survive trading in them is to simply be knowledgeable of the problems they face. That is not to say there aren’t bright spots on the horizon — the new algorithmic trading platform, Samsa.ai, is looking at ways to help traders move away from all of the landmines they face in these highly volatile markets. But, until the following market environment conditions outlined below are improved, crypto traders currently are, to be blunt, f*cked.

Disadvantaged Trading

When it comes to trading cryptocurrency, there is a pretty pronounced and glaring disadvantage to being a small fish in a big pond full of whales. And yes, it’s a lot more glaring than the discrepancy in traditional markets. Making good decisions based on market news and research to accurately assess coin values can be very helpful in being a profitable trader. But what if you’re one of the fortunate ones to have the capital to at least temporarily sway the market in the direction you’d like it to go whenever you please? Do rational, research-based decisions even matter?

“We’re going lower, folks!” warned nobody who actually had control over the price of Bitcoin, ever.

According to a fascinating article by Hackernoon author Bitfinex’ed, there is a bot he has discovered, which he dubs “Spoofy”, that is able to pull and manipulate the price of Bitcoin on the Bitfinex exchange just as he pleases. He states,

“Spoofy makes the price go up when he wants it to go up, and Spoofy makes the price go down when he wants it to go down, and he’s got the coin… both USD, and Bitcoin of course to pull it off, and with impunity on Bitfinex.”

To assume Spoofy is an isolated instance of this kind of trader, one that manipulates the market as it pleases using its overwhelmingly large capital (from God knows what source), would be incredibly optimistic. The reality is that there are numerous Bitcoin and other altcoin whales that skew the markets in their favor on a daily basis. If you are not someone who can singlehandedly push prices up and down as you please, then you are effectively at a disadvantage and at the mercy of accounts like Spoofy, who can essentially dictate the direction markets go.

The fact of the matter is that most of us are not Spoofy, nor do most of us own millions in cryptoassets that can effectively sway the markets in our favor just from using sheer capital. We are small players in a giant room full of millions of other small players and a handful of big players, who more or less tell us when it’s time for us to enjoy crypto growth or alternatively bury our heads and panic.

Bad Advising Sources

As much as we like to joke about fake news in politics and various topics that pour all over our Facebook feeds, these bogus sources are a legitimate problem for crypto traders. It is disheartening that we have the sheer number of contradictory, biased, and ulterior motive-laced stories telling traders exactly what they should do next, but it should be expected in such a young and booming asset class. Unless you really know what news stories are significant, let alone real, it can be easy to get caught up in following the market’s lead in the wrong direction.

Sources may tell you a certain coin is going to change the world, only to pull the rug out from underneath you as soon as they’ve completed their agendas.

Take the news in late 2017 about IOTA partnering with Microsoft and Cisco, for example. Initially announced in late November 2017, IOTA’s market cap quickly soared from $3 billion to $17 billion. The excitement of a coin adopting real world use in tandem with two technological leaders was enough to cause mass hysteria across the crypto community. However, just two weeks later IOTA cooled off the rumor by claiming that they had no formal partnership, and they were simply “…working together with more than 30 of the largest companies in the world on the marketplace as a co-innovation exercise.” As you may guess, the value of IOTA plummeted right back to where it began, and many traders who had jumped on board the bullish news ended up becoming very light bag-holders.

Here are a few tips for avoiding fake news and incorrectly reacting to news and falsified/exaggerated stories:

• Take social media crypto news with a grain of salt — There are plenty of reliable Facebook and Twitter posters out there who provide great source-based content with cited and fact-based information. They usually have a high number of followers and active, insightful comment sections. However, literally anyone can post on social networks about Bitcoin’s impending demise or a new sh*tcoin’s path to reaching the top 5 on Coinmarketcap by next week (despite it currently being ranked 1,064th). Don’t assume they know what they’re talking about. For all you know, they are making their predictions as a tongue in cheek comment to get laughs, or to follow through on a cruel social experiment to see how many sheep they can convince of nonsense. If half of their posts are rehashed memes from a year ago and their comment sections are full of people putting each other down and inciting internet fights, it may be an indicator that you’re paying attention to the wrong people.

• Follow experts who have been through the ups and downs — Long-time crypto traders who have been through the Mt. Gox debacle, numerous country bans and unbans, and ridiculous hoaxes such as the fake death of the founder of Ethereum tend to press the panic button only when needed. Having people in your newsfeed that are reliable voices of reason is a great way to avoid overreacting yourself.

• Look for sources within your sources — If a major news story is being reported on a non-credible site or one you’re unfamiliar with, see what types of citations/links they have for their story. Are there similar reports of this story literally anywhere else on the web besides this Reddit post you’re viewing with 6 upvotes? Maybe wait for it to show up elsewhere before assuming it as truth.

Initial Offering Hype — The Real Bubble Indicator

For starters, one thing notable during the peak of the dot-com bubble was how companies raised funding simply through the notion that it had potential to grow into something big. Initial public offerings, better known as IPO’s, were commonly used as vehicles for these companies to gain traction and go public despite many of them having no history of public use or generation of any profit or revenue. Does this sound familiar? Well cryptocurrencies use similar methods for new crypto tokens looking to fundraise, known as initial coin offerings (ICO’s).

“Yes, peasants. My ICO will indeed cure cancer, fly us to Neptune, and provide the ability to time travel to meet Marty and Doc in their DeLorean. It’s the latest new Bitcoin of Bitcoins! Just trust me on this one.”

These ICO’s are based on attracting investors to buy into coins with potential use cases and they essentially function as a “crowdfund” in the cryptocurrency world. They are opportunities for individuals with interest in a coin to “get in on the ground floor” in hopes that the coin and team running the respective coin will turn it into something successful, thus generating significant profitfor investors. ICO’s are certainly helpful for getting deserving coins to emerge, and there are several success stories, such as Ethereum’s 2014 ICO, which raised over $18 million for $0.40 per coin (now currently sitting at $281 as of August 15, 2018). However, there are more than a handful of unsuccessful ICO’s as well. According to the article from Kai Sedgwick, a crypto analyst at news.bitcoin.com,

“Many of the 531 ICOs that have failed or are failing from last year looked sketchy from the very start. In most cases, investors were able to spot the signs and steer clear. Not everyone escaped unscathed though: these projects still raised $233 million between them… Thanks to diminished returns, increased competition, and a never-ending stream of opportunistic ICOs, crypto investing in 2018 is riskier than ever.”

Just as we saw during the internet bubble, ICO’s with very little promise received tremendous backing, particularly during the latter part of 2017 when cryptocurrency went on its massive historic bull run. Investors enjoy making gambles on small projects in sectors that are thriving. But their own choices can often lead them astray.

ICO and S-Token Scams

Initial coin offerings (ICO’s) can often be very appealing to investors for the massive return potential of a coin and huge risk/reward payoff if it breaks through to market. But the success rate of ICO’s have historically been dreadfully low, hence the risk. In fact, the list of coins that funded through ICO’s and made it to market is alarmingly small compared to the massive list of total ICO’s that have historically been offered to investors. However, the tokens that have succeeded have rewarded their investors beyond handsomely, with lists revealing that ICO’s like NEO have returned a 294,000% ROI since becoming publicly traded.

Investing in an initial coin offering can be a major risk, and it’s really the ultimate gamble in investing. Nearly every ICO token these days claims to be world changing, yet very few live up to their promises. Many don’t even have any intention of ever going public. Raw data suggests that the majority of the time, investors simply shouldn’t believe the hype of even the most well put together white papers. Keep in mind that looking at a coin’s initial plans on these feature documents can vary drastically from what their actual publicly listed product will end up being. Many modifications, tweaks, additions, and subtractions can be made to their initial plans before things are actually made official. This is why white papers are best used as a guide for investors to understand what big points a particular coin’s ICO is addressing on the blockchain. Not as the end all be all basis for deciding whether they are worth your time to invest in.

Rob May, the CEO of Talla.com, voices his opinion, stating:

“I think it is much better to evaluate a blockchain the way you evaluate a startup — you assume the starting point is a starting point, not an end point. Crypto buyers, it seems to me, evaluate a white paper like a final product, and that is where they go wrong.”

In 2016, $95 million was raised by 43 different initial coin offerings. In 2017, the number ballooned roughly 39 times that value to $3.7 billion, spread across 209 separate ICO’s. As of the first half of this year, 2018 ICO’s raised $12 billion, and there is no sign of a slow down with the price and volume of Bitcoin picking up significantly in recent weeks (mid-July). If the year continues at this overall rate, $30 billion in ICO funds raised is certainly within reach.

Beating the Markets — David vs Goliath Mentality

Beating the cryptocurrency markets can seem daunting and impossible at times, but the best thing to do is focus on long-term goals and investments. Spend the time to really do research on some of the coins out there with recent attention, particularly the ones that currently have top rankings on CoinMarketCap. These popular coins may not necessarily be the ones you want to invest in, but it will generally be significantly easier to do solid research on those with already established followings. Understand the use cases that so many of these coins are aiming to have. Some projects, such as Bitcoin, are much further along than others and are already being used for transactions in the real world. But there are a handful of others that have either already been publicly listed or are still in the ICO phase that have potentially groundbreaking ideas and impressive white papers.

With large price swings happening in cryptocurrency on a literal hourly basis, it can be easy to get caught up in trading fluctuations that would normally be massive in the crypto market. But don’t get caught up in this. Focus on rebalancing your portfolio when the opportunity strikes. Sell the profits of your winning coins to add on to the losing positions you may have. Sites out there, such as Samsa.ai, will even automate this process for you so you can minimize your attention to charts and go enjoy your day while making profitable trades. Dollar cost averaging your buys and sells is another way to ensure you are removing emotions such as greed and fear from the equation of your deals.

Knowing your role as a trader in a deregulated market full of predators may seem absolutely terrifying, and to an extent, it is. But being self aware of your position and knowledgeable of the fact that others likely can’t be trusted should only incentivize you to do your own research about tokens you are considering. Those who make rational and emotionless decisions are the ones who find ways to maximize their returns while minimizing their risk in spite of how f*cked things currently are in the good ol’ land of crypto.

*  *  *

I write in depth cryptocurrency analysis at Samsa, the passive investing tool for crypto. See what we’re doing at Samsa.ai and see our other analysis at our magazine.

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Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani has for two years maintained an Instagram account, and despite the well-known elite Iranian force commander being formally designated a terrorist by the U.S. Department of the Treasury since 2011, the account hasn’t been suspended. 

Among a number of prior threatening images, Gen. Soleimani recently posted an artistic rendering of himself standing in front the White House, which is depicted as on fire after an explosion. 

Soleimani’s account has been authenticated as his own by the Middle East Media Research Institute’s (MEMRI) Cyber and Jihad Lab in a new report.

The above image post appeared on the following account authenticated as Gen. Soleimani’s by MEMRI: His Instagram handle is @sardar_haj_ghasemsoleimani; he first posted on July 28, 2016. At the time of this writing, he had 710 posts and 69,100 followers, and is following 30 accounts. His account bio reads “Major General in Iranian Army, IRGC and commander of Qods Force since 1998,” and links to his Telegram account, T.me/sardar_haj_ghasem.

Since MEMRI’s analysis was published Thursday, Soleimani’s account has grown to over 70,000 followers and continues to be very active with a dozen more updates since the report was issued. 

Notably the post, which includes both English and Farsi words that read, “Ready for Jihad – We will crush the USA under our feet,” was published on July 28 — at the end of the same week that included threats and counter threats exchanged between President Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rohani.

Trump had started that week responding to Rouhani’s warnings for the US not to provoke Iran or halt Iranian oil exports.

In a tweet addressed to Rouhani, Trump said, “To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

And days that followed, Gen. Soleimani weighed in during a provocative July 26th speech wherein he likened the US president to a “gambler” in a casino or a bar while declaring according to MEMRI’s translation:

Know that we are near you, in places that don’t come to your mind. We are near you in places that you can’t even imagine. We are a nation of martyrdom… You know that a war would mean the loss of all your capabilities. You may start the war, but we will be the ones to determine its end.

Other recent posts include images with “Death to America” written on them…

And further some feature Iranian leaders greeting Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, such as the below photo which shows Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Nasrallah in an official visit. 

As MEMRI notes, some of the content on Gen. Soleimani’s page appears to violate Instagram’s Terms and Conditions, which state: “Instagram is not a place to support or praise terrorism, organized crime, or hate groups… We can remove any content or information you share on the Service if we believe that it violates these Terms of Use, our policies (including our Instagram Community Guidelines), or we are permitted or required to do so by law.”

This begs the obvious question: does posting an image of the White House being blown up not constitute a clear violation of Instagram’s conditions? 

If it doesn’t, then we don’t know what does. Others recognizable political figures have been kicked off for much less. 

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Via Political Calculations blog,

There are certain things that are understood without having to be said, because they’re very obvious. Things like “never get involved in a land war in Asia” or “never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line” are examples of these kinds of things. Other examples can be found in the kinds of things that Captain Obvious might say, such as “the sky is blue” or “Philadelphians sure drink a lot of alcohol”.

But what drives Philadelphians to drink so much alcohol?

The short answer is that outside of prohibition, Philadelphians have always consumed large quantities of alcohol. And as many Philadelphians might point out, prohibition wasn’t much of an obstacle for the city’s dedicated alcohol consumers.

When it comes to alcohol consumption then, the city of Philadelphia is starting out with a strong base. So what might prompt already heavy-drinking Philadelphians to boost their alcohol consumption to even higher levels?

Believe it or not, the city’s controversial tax on soft drinks would appear to be behind the city’s recent surge in alcohol sales. Last August, Scott Drenkard and Courtney Shupert of the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that Philadelphia’s “high tax rate on nonalcoholic beverages makes them more expensive than beer in some cases”, which they believed was “likely to drive consumers to more alcoholic beverage consumption”.

Philadelphia’s monthly liquor tax collections confirm that this outcome has come to pass, where the revenues from the city’s 10% tax on alcoholic beverage sales is documented within its tax reports for School District revenue collections. The following chart, which covers the City of Philadelphia’s last five fiscal years, reveals that in the 18 months since the implementation of the city’s controversial tax on all naturally and artificially-sweetened beverages distributed for retail sale within the city went into effect, the city’s is collecting an average of $6.5 million more per month from its alcohol taxes, up from the average of $5.5 million per month it collected in the 18 months preceding the soda tax implementation, an increase of $1 million per month on average.

The same phenomenon is not evident on the opposite side of Pennsylvania, where Allegheny County’s revenues from its 7% tax on alcoholic beverage sales indicate no meaningful difference in the level of alcohol sales in that region of the same state over the same period of time (the data for June 2018 is preliminary).

The two observations together are important because Allegheny County, being in the same state as Philadelphia and thereby subject to all of the same state laws and regulations on the sale of alcohol, represents the control in what amounts to a natural experiment for measuring the effect of Philadelphia’s soda tax upon liquor sales.

And what a difference it appears to be. Doing the math to work out the corresponding level of liquor sales, Philadelphia’s residents would appear to have increased their average monthly consumption of alcoholic beverages from an average of $55 million to $65 million, an increase of $10 million in the sales of taxed alcoholic beverages per month.

Let’s put that figure into a more fun context! In January 2017, just after Philadelphia’s soda tax went into effect, the Tax Foundation documented that the sale price of a 12-pack of Icehouse beer, which had just become cheaper than a 12-pack of non-alcoholic Propel sports drinks, was $7.99 in Philadelphia. For the sake of argument, let’s say that after Philadelphia’s soda tax went into effect, Philadelphia’s residents began exclusively consumed $10 million worth of Icehouse beer per month at this price. How many extra bottles of beer per month is that?

Dividing the average increase of $10 million per month by $7.99 for the 12-pack of Icehouse beer, we find that corresponds to the equivalent of roughly 1.25 million 12-packs per month, which works out to be about 15 million extra 12-oz bottles of beer consumed in the city. Per month.

Philadelphia’s total population in July 2017 was estimated to be 1.581 million people. So, after the City of Philadelphia imposed its sweetened beverage tax in January 2017, every man, woman and child living in the city responded by increasing their consumption of Icehouse beer by 9.5 bottles per month. Multiplied by 12 months, that’s an increase of 114 bottles per year.

Of course, that’s a ridiculous number, because Pennsylvania prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages to individuals under the age of 21. That prohibition blocks some 26% of the city’s population from even being able to buy Icehouse beer, assuming that the law is actively enforced against Philadelphia residents under that age. If we do the back-of-the-envelope math to estimate how many extra equivalent 12-fluid-ounce bottles of Icehouse beer that Philadelphia’s adult population is consuming, we come up with a monthly increase of 12.9 bottles per legal drinking-age Philadelphian, or over 154 bottles of Icehouse beer per adult in the city per year.

If we convert 12-fluid-ounce bottles of Icehouse beer into the equivalent number of calories, we find that at 149 calories per 12-fluid ounce container, Philadelphia’s adults are drinking in an additional 1,916 calories per month, or just over 22,989 calories per year.

Since a 12-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola has 140 calories, that’s a nearly one-for-one swap where calories are concerned, so there’s no realized health benefit from calorie reduction for the portion of Philadelphia’s adult population who have changed out sugary soft drinks for beer. For consumers who switched from low-to-no calorie soft drinks to beer, their calorie consumption would have substantially increased.

That of course doesn’t consider the impact of other potential health and safety issues that city health officials believe would go along with the increased alcohol consumption in Philadelphia that have come about as a direct consequence of the city’s controversial soda tax.

No matter what, one solid fact holds true. Philadelphians sure drink a lot of alcohol, and since the city’s soda tax went into effect, they are sure drinking a lot more!

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