Author: admin

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

The U.S. deep state’s hatred of the Iranian people goes back a long way, at least as far back as 1953. That was the year that the CIA, which was called into existence in 1947 when the U.S. government was being converted to a national-security state, targeted Iran with its first regime-change operation. And guess who paid the price for that operation. Yes, the people of Iran.

The Iranian Parliament had elected a man named Mohammad Mossadegh to be their prime minister. Mosaddegh would later be named Time magazine’s “Man of the Year.” As many government officials around the world have done, Mosaddegh nationalized the country’s oil industry, arguing that natural resources belonged to the nation.

The oil companies that bore the brunt of the nationalization were British-owned. Not surprisingly, they, along with British public officials, were livid over having the oil wells nationalized. British officials turned to the CIA for help.

The CIA asked President Truman for permission to initiate a coup to help the British oil companies, which the CIA knew would destroy the Iranian people’s experiment with democracy. To his everlasting credit, Truman said no. That didn’t stop the CIA however. As soon as President Eisenhower became president in 1952, the CIA renewed its request for a coup, arguing that Mossadegh was a “communist.”

Why did that make a difference? Because by this time, the U.S. deep state had launched its Cold War against America’s World War II partner and ally, the Soviet Union, which was run by a communist regime. Americans were inculcated with the fear that the communists were coming to get us, take over the federal government, and turn America Red. Thus, anyone labeled a “communist” automatically became a threat to U.S. “national security.”

Ike gave the go-ahead to the Iranian coup. In a brilliantly cunning plan, the CIA successfully toppled Mosaddegh but, surprisingly, left him alive. The CIA then vested the unelected Shah of Iran with total dictatorial power over the Iranian people. The Shah restored oil rights to the British petroleum countries.

The Shah’s regime was brutally oppressive, enforced by a national police-military-intelligence force called the SAVAK that was a combination of the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and FBI. Trained and supported by the CIA, the SAVAK proceeded to subject the Iranian people to one of the most brutal and oppressive totalitarian regimes in the world. The U.S. government reinforced the oppression with money, armaments, and training.

For 25 years, the Iranian people suffered under the brutal dictatorship of the U.S.-installed and U.S.-supported Shah. That came to a screeching halt in 1979, when the Iranian people finally had had enough and decided to violently revolt against their U.S.-installed dictator.

While the Iranian people succeeded in their revolution, the problem is that they were unable to restore the democratic system that the CIA destroyed 25 years before. They ended up with another brutal dictatorial regime, this time a theocratic one.

The U.S. deep state has never forgiven the Iranian people for ousting its dictator, the Shah. As far as the deep staters are concerned, no one has the right to oust a U.S.-installed and U.S.-supported dictator from power, no matter how oppressive his tyranny is.

That’s what motivated U.S. officials to partner with Saddam Hussein – yes, that Saddam – the Iraqi dictator who they would later turn on and call the “new Hitler.” But this was back in the 1980s, when they were partnering with the “new Hitler” in his war against Iran. Still angry over what the Iranian people had done in 1979, all that U.S. officials wanted was for Saddam to kill as many Iranians as he could and, in the process, even defeat Iran and install another pro-U.S. dictator to run the Iranian government.

I sometimes wonder how many Americans realize that that’s when the United States furnished Saddam with those infamous weapons of mass destruction – the ones that would later be used as an excuse for turning on Iraq and launching a U.S. regime-change operation there. Back then, U.S. officials hoped that Saddam would use those WMDs to kill Iranians. (See “Where Did Iraq Get Its Weapons of Mass Destruction?” by Jacob G. Hornberger: Part 1 and Part 2.)

That’s what the economic sanctions on Iran are all about. For years, U.S. officials have targeted the Iranian people by using sanctions to inflict massive economic harm, even death, on them. The aim has been and is: Oust your dictatorship in another revolution and restore a pro-U.S. dictatorship in its stead or we will continue to squeeze the economic lifeblood out of you until you die.

That’s also why U.S. officials are now beating the war drums against Iran – to get the same type of regime change they got in in Iran in 1953 and in Iraq in 2003. They know that there is no way that the Iranian regime could stand up to the U.S. Air Force in a war. The entire country would be bombed, just as Iraq was. They would be killing not only Iranians who serve their government as soldiers but also wedding parties and other “collateral damage.” Killing tens of thousands of Iranians in the process of destroying their country would be considered no bigger deal than killing Iraqis and destroying their country.

Here is the thing that everyone should keep in mind: Neither Iran nor Iraq has ever attacked the United States. Iran is not over here. It is the U.S. deep state that is over there. The decades-long U.S. war against the Iranian people is just another reflection of what the conversion of the U.S. government to a national-security state has done to the morals and values of the American people.

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The July release of the Federal Reserve’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS) conducted for bank lending activity over the second quarter of this year found that banks eased lending standards and terms for commercial and industrial loans, coupled with stronger demand for loans from small firms. Banks also reported weaker demand for residential loans, confirming the softer housing data in recent months.

In response to the survey questions, banks reported weaker demand for residential real estate, while demand for consumer loans was about unchanged. Suggesting that bank are a little concerned with the amount of credit card debt, a “moderate” share of banks tightened standards on credit card loans, but auto and other consumer lending standards were largely unchanged. Demand for all categories of consumer loans was roughly stable

But the highlights of this particular survey was the respondents indication that they eased standards and terms on commercial and industrial loans to firms of all sizes and kept commercial real estate lending standards about unchanged. Responding to special questions, banks reported that their C&I lending standards were easier than their median lending standards between 2005 and 2018. Banks also reported that their CRE and residential lending standards were slightly tighter than their median lending standards between 2005 and 2018.

The net percentage of banks reporting easier standards on loans to large- and medium-sized firms increased (+5pp to 16%), and lending standards for small firms eased slightly as well (+5pp to 8%).

Terms on C&I loans also eased somewhat for large- and medium-sized firms, as 32% of banks surveyed reportedly narrowed spreads of loan rates over the cost of funds; other terms, such as premiums charged for riskier loans, loan covenants, and collateralization requirements, all eased somewhat, which is understandable in light of recent reports of record weak covenant protection.

At the same time, demand for C&I loans strengthened, with net stronger demand reported from both large and small firms.

The survey comes at an apt moment, because as the WSJ reported today, while “central bank money inflated the markets for risky loans and the investment vehicles that buy many of them” now there are early signs of that driving force going into reverse.

The Journal cites a growing share of new loan borrowers who have had to lift interest rates on leveraged loans to win over investors. While some speculate that this is just a “touch of indigestion” after several large deals to fund private-equity buyouts and takeovers, some bankers think it is an early signal that liquidity is retreating from low-quality debt.

But a bigger sign of trouble for borrowers isn’t just the rising debt costs today, but the risk that loans will be harder to refinance in future when investor money washes back to safer assets as yields rise. This matters because more than 40% of leveraged loans are typically used to refinance an existing loan.

Meanwhile, loans are popular with lenders now because yields adjust with rising rates, so they don’t lose money like fixed-rate bonds do during times of rising rates. But, as the WSJ correctly notes, “the real problem lies in how investors who don’t normally buy loans will react to the end of quantitative easing, or central bank bond buying programs, which pushed them into risky loans in the first place.” And with other debt instruments start offering “normal” yields and rate rises slow, investors won’t need to take risks on credit or complexity.

Add this together, and you start seeing refinancing risk as higher rates will also weaken borrowers’ equity valuations and make debt a bigger chunk of their enterprise value. The same loan will thus look riskier, plus there will be less funding available if investors who typically buy bonds leave the loan market. “That is when refinancing risk jumps.”

For years, it was a “borrower’s market”, with companies dictating terms on secured packages, with covenant protections declining year after year, until they recently hit an all time low according to Moody’s. However that changed in the spring when the pushback on loan pricing began and has since become more prevalent.

One of the first big deals to suffer this year, according to bankers, was the $2.3 billion loan that is helping fund McDermott International’s takeover of rival engineer CB&I. Bankers had to lift the spread by 0.75 percentage points to 5% before investors would bite in April.

More recently, a string of loans have had to increase spreads by an average of 0.5 percentage points, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence’s LCD research service. In all, about 30% of new loans had to increase spreads during marketing in June and the first half of July—up from 12% in May.

According to bankers, the “upward flew” happened because fewer investors who don’t typically buy loans were bidding. A similar shift was observed in new issues of collateralized loan obligations, or CLOs, the debt-funded vehicles that buy more than half of all new loans and which have been among the factor cited for the loan market recently surpassed $1 trillion and is on pace to catch up to the slightly larger junk bond market.

Still, there is a long way to go before the loan market reaches full indigestion: while loan pricing may have moved against borrowers, for once, other terms remain very aggressive, even more so compared to 2007. For example, debt multiples on private-equity deals are as high as then at more than six times earnings on average, but investors complain that these earnings are often flattered by things like assumptions on cost savings. Also, as noted above, covenants that protect lenders by allowing them to act when things deteriorate have all but disappeared. They mostly still existed in 2007.

Meanwhile, worse quality loans means lenders will get less money back when defaults pick up. But even without defaults, the worry is that there won’t be enough lenders to cover borrowers’ refinancing needs in years ahead. Indeed, as we reported two weeks ago, a recent study by LCD looked at the debt cushion of outstanding loans – the amount of debt in a borrower’s capital structure that is subordinated to the senior loan – and found that, increasingly, today’s cov-lite deals have little or no debt cushion beneath them. This is important because the lack of a debt cushion significantly lessens what an investor will recover on a loan, if that credit defaults.

In fact, as of May 31, 23% of all cov-lite loans did not have any debt, such as a mezzanine tranche, high yield bond, or other, below the cov-lite facility. That’s an all-time high, and is up from 18% five years ago, and from just 10% at the end of 2007 (shortly before the financial crisis), according to LCD

The punchline: this means that cov-lite loan outstandings are not only at record levels, but a greater portion of these transactions do not have any debt cushion to absorb losses in case of a default. Which implies that during the next default cycle, whenever the business cycle finally turns, loan investors not only will have virtually no “secured” protection, but are now the de facto equity tranche in numerous deals, or said otherwise, for the first time in history, loan investors are looking at 0 recoveries in default.

Which is also why, as the WSJ concludes, this could leave lenders little choice but to extend the life of loans on whatever terms borrowers can afford, or as it warns “be careful what loans you buy now—you may end up stuck with them.”

And, ironically, instead of starting to tighten loan standards just as the party appears to have peaked and as rates continue rising, today’s Fed survey confirmed that banks are making it even easier for companies to borrow, in the process spiking the punch bowl, just to make sure that the party lasts just a little bit longer and everyone is thoroughly hammered when the end finally comes.

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Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I wrote just one post last week and it centered around the dangers posed to society by U.S. tech giants. I specifically called out Facebook, pointing out how company executives are currently groveling to politicians in order to prevent legislation that might deem it a monopoly and curtail its power.

I explained how U.S. politicians prefer to use the power and reach of tech giants for their own ends rather than take them down a notch. Politicians aren’t at all concerned about the outsized influence of centralized tech behemoths engineering society using secret algorithms, they just want to be in control of how this power is abused.

Meanwhile, today’s biggest news is the uniform move by three U.S. tech giants to de-platform Alex Jones and his Infowars website. The main companies involved are Apple, Facebook and Google (via YouTube), as reported in The Guardian:

All but one of the major content platforms have banned the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as the companies raced to act in the wake of Apple’s decision to remove five podcasts by Jones and his Infowars website.

Facebook unpublished four pages run by Jones for “repeated violations of community standards”, the company said on Monday. YouTube terminated Jones’s account over him repeatedly appearing in videos despite being subject to a 90-day ban from the website, and Spotify removed the entirety of one of Jones’s podcasts for “hate content”…

Facebook’s and YouTube’s enforcement action against Jones came hours after Apple removed Jones from its podcast directory. The timing of Facebook’s announcement was unusual, with the company confirming the ban at 3am local time.

Put aside what you think of Alex Jones for a moment. If they can do this to him and not fear the repercussions, they can do it to anybody. This is about power, and these platforms together account for a massive share of content distribution in the U.S. Ultimately, this is just a particularly muscular and in your face example of what’s known as Silicon Valley’s cultural imperialism.

I know a lot of people think the answer is to get Congress to do something, as if those monumentally corrupt donor puppets have any interest in helping the public.

I get it, you want Congress to call Facebook a monopoly and break it up.
Unfortunately,here are two hard truths:

1) Politicians would rather use Facebook as a weapon than reduce its power.
2) Politicians don’t work for you.

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) August 6, 2018

I’ve been saying this for a while. The momentum isn’t with the critics who would actually diminish the big tech companies’ power. The momentum is with people who see the corps’ concentrated influence as a tool to be used. https://t.co/FgczA4kYDj

— Jesse Walker (@notjessewalker) August 6, 2018

I’d also like to point out that Facebook’s stock was up over 4% today, completely shrugging off any potential backlash from users. Executives assume its users are all addled junkies unwilling to give up convenience and their addiction no matter what the company does. Are they right?

Speaking of which, on the same day the move against Jones was announced we learn Facebook is in talks with mega banks to get your financial information.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Facebook Inc.wants your financial data.

The social media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users.

Facebook increasingly wants to be a platform where people buy and sell goods and services, besides connecting with friends. The company over the past year asked JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and U.S. Bancorp to discuss potential offerings it could host for bank customers on Facebook Messenger, said people familiar with the matter.

Facebook executives don’t actually care about anything besides their profits and power, so the only way you can take any individual action against the company is to delete your account. I haven’t engaged with Facebook since 2012, so permanently deleting it wasn’t a personal sacrifice, but I did it anyway earlier today.

Stop bitching and take action.
Here’s how to delete Facebook, not deactivate, but DELETE (they make it hard).https://t.co/KfgGrfVOKQ

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) August 6, 2018

Don’t wait for other people to change things for you, stop whining and take some individual responsibility. If you agree that Facebook’s primarily a nefarious narcissism-factory wasteland masquerading as a platform just delete it… before it deletes you.

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Another day, another ‘apology’ for screwing up from Wells Fargo.

Six months after the Fed Slammed Wells Fargo with unprecedented sanctions – no more total asset growth until it cleans up its act – because of a pattern of consumer abuses and other lapses, that list grew over the weekend when the firm said it may have improperly foreclosed on 400 home loans.

As The Mercury News reports, Wells Fargo says a company mistake contributed to hundreds of foreclosures because it miscalculated customers’ eligibility for mortgage modifications.

The bank said in a filing Friday the error caused about 625 customers to be denied, or not offered, loan modifications they otherwise qualified for. Foreclosures were completed in about 400 of the cases.

The customers had been using federal programs that helped families at risk of losing homes. Spokesman Tom Goyda says there’s no breakdown of where the foreclosures occurred.

The error in the bank’s underwriting tool lasted from 2010 until it was fixed in late 2015, an internal review found.

The American Banker adds that the company accrued $8 million in the second quarter to remediate customers that may have been affected by an automated miscalculation of attorneys’ fees between April 13, 2010, and Oct. 20, 2015; and it may pay out more in the future.

“To the extent issues are identified, we will continue to assess any customer harm and provide remediation as appropriate,” Wells said in the filing.

Cowen & Co. analyst Jaret Seiberg wrote Monday in a note that “Wells Fargo is not making it easy for the Federal Reserve to lift the asset growth cap,” adding that “we don’t know how the Federal Reserve could lift the cap this year. And lifting it next year could become a problem if the Democrats retake the House in November as we expect.”

 

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Authored by Tom Luongo,

“Deserve’s got nuthin’ to do with it.”

— William Munny, Unforgiven

A couple of weeks ago I told you the first U.S. Civil War was here.

What I didn’t tell you was the face of that Civil War is Bill Browder.

Browder was responsible for The Magnitsky Act. It handed our government insane sanctions powers on individuals and companies in the name of punishing rogue, evil regimes who torture innocents.

His story is the thing of spy novels.  It reeks of power politics, market collusion and psychopathology.

And if only half of it is true, he and his associates deserve a fate worse than anything dreamed up by Dante and his Inferno.

Putin tried him in absentia for $230 million in tax evasion. Browder talks about Putin’s global reach, but men like him are the real power brokers: shaping policy, moving markets and destroying lives the world over.

Their current target is President Trump.

Let’s connect some dots:

First, Facebook, to salvage its stock price, finds new “PROOF” of Russian election meddling, from the same troll farm Robert Mueller indicted in February.

Second, two days later, Lindsay Graham has a shiny new sanctions bill to get ‘tough on Putin to stop meddling.’

Graham‘s bill will:

1) Cut Russia off from selling sovereign debt,

2) Stop them from funding any energy project the world over

3) Force a two-thirds majority vote before the Trump can pull the U.S. out of NATO.

All to stop election meddling?????

That last part is “curious.” 

Trump hasn’t talked about leaving NATO. So, why is Lindsay got his panties in a bunch over this?

This bill blatantly interferes with the President’s job to pursue foreign policy.

It is unconstitutional and, ultimately, unenforceable.

Graham knows this.  He and McCain will ram it through committee anyway.

There’s a second bill ordering Trump to sanction all companies working on the Nordstream 2 pipeline.

Because Russia isn’t allowed to get rich and Europe isn’t allowed to be free of NATO’s control.

This is Congress over-stepping their bounds to implement a soft coup against the President.

This is espionage, if not treason.

I cover a lot of this in this 6-minute video.

Browder knows Trump will throw him to the Russian Bear if it can avert a war.

To go further, however, we have to go to Istanbul.

Turkish Prison No More

Trump is pushing Turkey and Germany into the arms of Russia through sanctions and tariffs.  It’s counter-intuitive, but so is Trump.  You break NATO not by pulling out yourself but by giving Turkey and Germany every reason to.

Treat them like dirt and they will declare independence.

Hmmm. Turkey froze U.S. diplomat assets after the we sanctioned them for not returning Pastor Brunson, a CIA operative.

When was the last time someone froze the assets of a U.S. Diplomat?  A NATO ally no less?

Then Turkey announces Yuan-denominated bonds to wean itself off the U.S. dollar. 

Both China and Turkey announce they will buy more Iranian oil after sanctions are reinstated.

China joins Turkey in stopping the U.S.’s planned balkanization of Syria by announcing military support to oust the last of the rebels in Idlib province.

If Aleppo was the Battle of the Syrian Bulge, Idlib is the March to Jihadist Berlin.

There may be a method to Trump’s madness here.

The End of History

And this is connected to Browder’s campaign to destroy Russia.  Russia is the key to China’s future.  Without Russia, there is no Chinese century.

Guys like Browder use these post-WWII institutions — The IMF, World Bank, NATO and the EU — as sources of ‘perfect trades’ for themselves which impoverish nations, kill millions and maintain their power.

They aren’t great investors.  They are piranha who fed off the corpse of the Soviet Union. They still want Russia’s vast mineral and energy wealth for themselves.

Trump’s goal, to right the wrongs of world affairs, is the destruction of NATO and the EU.

Their goal is to stay in power and out of prison.  In Browder’s case the worst prison in Russia.

“Men” like Lindsay Graham and John McCain are placed to protect them at every turn.

But Trump is vulnerable.

The Mid-Term’s the Thing

More sanctions signals these mid-terms are their last stand against Trump.  They reek of desperation.
They know the poll numbers.  They know the Senate map is against them.

Trump’s approval rating is 50%.

He’s up double digits, nearing 50%, with Hispanics.

He could pick up at a minimum eight Senate seats, while McCain, Feinstein and others are put out to pasture.

China outed their agent in Feinstein’s office this week to weaken her.

The Deep State needs control of Congress to impeach Trump.  It needs the Senate to block him in committee.

His support from the people and the military are his bulwark against impeachment.

From here to November it will be all Russia all the time from the GOP and the DNC.

Return of the Chaos

The markets will be choppy because of this.  Investors won’t know who is winning from one day to the next.  But, some signals are already clear.

The dollar is rising as the world gets to cash.  Rates are rising.  Gold is falling.  Bitcoin got whacked.  Trade wars loom. Net short open interest on Gold and U.S. Treasuries are at record levels.

The Bank of Japan is losing control of its bond markets.  The euro sits on support.  China is actively devaluing the Yuan.

And Browder is beginning to panic.  That’s the most curious signal yet for a man who’s supposed to be a champion of human rights.

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The last 24 hours or so have seen Saudi officials escalate their retaliation against Canada, suspending diplomatic ties and halting new trade dealings following comments by Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland criticizing the kingdom for arrests of women’s rights activists.

Canada said it was ‘gravely concerned’ over a new wave of arrests of women and human rights campaigners in the kingdom, including award-winning gender rights activist Samar Badawi.

However, the Saudis may have gone a little too far with their threats after posting an image to Twitter that showed a passenger plane flying towards the CN Tower in Toronto, appearing to threaten a 9/11-style attack on Canada today.

The inflammatory photo was captioned:

“As the Arabic saying goes: ‘He who interferes with what doesn’t concern him finds what doesn’t please him.”

The text “sticking one’s nose where it doesn’t belong!” was also superimposed over the image.

As RT notes, the picture was produced by a group called @Infographic_KSA, which describes itself as a project “managed by a group of Saudi youth who are interested in technology and social media Facts backed by numbers & evidence.”

While the tweet doesn’t clarify what exactly would not ‘please’ the Canadians, the connotation with the terrorist hijacking of planes and ramming them into the World Trade Center towers (15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis) didn’t escape many Twitter commenters.

Will @twitter allow an account to exist on its system, overtly and clearly threatening #Canada to launch a 9/11 terrorist attack against it?https://t.co/t8opCQk7aN

— Elijah J. Magnier (@ejmalrai) August 6, 2018

Err, guys, you do know this looks suspiciously like you’re threatening to hijack a Canadian passenger plane and fly it into the CN Tower unless Canada recants its criticism of Saudi Arabia…? That’s not a good look, even 17 years after 9/11. https://t.co/28iYpMMqLv

— James Brownsell (@JamesBrownsell) August 6, 2018

All of which is ironic given the shadowbanning (and now total banning) of Alex Jones and InfoWars from various social media platforms.

The group later issued an apology, explaining that:

“Earlier we posted an image, which is why we deleted the post immediately.

The aircraft was intended to symbolize the return of the Ambassador, we realize this was not clear and any other meaning was unintentional. We apologise to anyone who was offended.”

The accounts, which were followed by a number of Saudi diplomatic figures, were verified and largely shared government announcements and pro-Riyadh messages. The Twitter account had been described as “an official government” account in Saudi-owned state media, although the relationship to the Saudi state was not clear.

But, as The Daily Mail notes, a few hours later, the Saudi Ministry of Media has ordered the shutdown of the @Infographic_ksa account on Twitter, “until investigations are completed.”

On the bright side, neither the Saudis nor Canadians have blamed Russia… yet.

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One of the most frequent complaints about institutional adoption of crypto-currencies is that holding the virtual currency in some server (or exchange) half way around the world tends to be a very risky proposition, following almost weekly reports of some exchange being hacked with funds getting syphoned out by skillful hackers.

That may change soon because as Bloomberg reports,  Goldman Sachs – which last year emerged as one of the staunchest backer of bitcoin – could start offering custody services for crypto funds, providing a boost for the growing universe of funds betting on cryptocurrencies. Goldman vouching for crypto custody – the equivalent of insurance on the underlying asset –  would mean that the bank would hold the securities on behalf of the funds, effectively eliminating the risk for clients worried about the threat of losing their investments to hackers of rogue attacks.

Should Goldman – which was among the first Wall Street firms to clear Bitcoin futures – officially launch such as service it would provide “a credible backing for crypto funds and could pave the way for more investors to bet on the asset class.” More interesting is Bloomberg’s observation that having a custody operation in place could also lead to other ventures, including prime-brokerage services, which suggests that hedge funds would not only be able to bypass the USD as a currency of exchange, but that Goldman would also accept cryptos as collateral, which could then be subsequently levered.

“In response to client interest in various digital products we are exploring how best to serve them in this space,” a spokesman for Goldman Sachs said. “At this point we have not reached a conclusion on the scope of our digital asset offering.”

Goldman won’t be the first to enter the space of cryptocustody: in May, Nomura joined other bank to create a custody consortium called Komainu. Meanwhile, Bloomberg notes that at least three giant Wall Street custodians – Bank of New York Mellon Corp., JPMorgan Chase, yes even Jamie Dimon’s bank, and Northern Trust – are concurrently “working on cryptocustody services or exploring it.”

Still thinking about #Bitcoin. No conclusion – not endorsing/rejecting. Know that folks also were skeptical when paper money displaced gold.

— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) October 3, 2017

While Goldman may be first in this venture on US soil, the bank has been cautious around cryptocurrencies and despite reports it was in the process of expanding its in house trading capabilities, it has yet to finalize setting up a full-fledged desk to trade the currencies since hiring Justin Schmidt, 38, earlier this year as head of its digital-asset markets.

Curiously, yesterday we noted that even as Goldman remains optimistic on the financial services that can be provided in the context of crypto, it is turning more bearish on crypto’s upside potential. In its 2018 Market Outlook, the bank highlighted “cryptocurrency mania” as one of several factors that could affect the bank’s initial market outlook for this year.

“Our view that cryptocurrencies would not retain value in their current incarnation remains intact and, in fact, has been borne out much sooner than we expected,” the team lead by chief investment officer Sharmin Mossavar-Rahamani said.

“We expect further declines in the future given our view that these cryptocurrencies do not fulfill any of the three traditional roles of a currency: they are neither a medium of exchange, nor a unit of measurement, nor a store of value.”

Of course, it is by now common knowledge that when Goldman tells its clients to do one thing, its own prop desk is usually doing the opposite, which begs the question if the recent sharp drop in crypto prices is just an opportunity for Goldman’s traders to accumulate ahead of the bank launching a highly profitable suite of services targeting crypto funds just as the next leg higher in the various cryptos kicks in amid growing institutional adoption, and draws even more buyers in.

Finally, recall what one of the big bullish catalysts for crypto was in late 2017: the lack of volatility in other asset classes. Well, in the aftermath of February’s VIXplosion, bitcoin lost its crown as the world’s most volatile asset. However, with VIX now normalizing and once again approaching single digits, traders may soon have no choice but to dip their toes in the crypto water if they hope to make any profits by daytrading.

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Authored by Toni Airaksinen via Campus Reform,

The University of California-Los Angeles has hired 18 students at $13 per hour to combat “social injustices” and “privilege and oppression” following a semester-long recruitment campaign.

Hosted by the UCLA Intergroup Relations Program, the Diversity Peer Leaders project is a year-long internship during which students facilitate workshops on social justice issues in exchange for leadership training and compensation from UCLA.

According to the job application, each DPL is paid $13 an hour in exchange for working 30-45 hours during each of UCLA’s four academic quarters, including summer. 

If all students put in just 30 hours per quarter, the program would cost at least $28,080 annually, but if all the DPLs were to work the maximum hours, the cost would rise to at least $42,120 per year. 

Reached by Campus Reform, a UCLA spokesman did not dispute these estimates, but stressed that the program is funded by the school’s Students Services Fee, rather than tuition or taxpayer dollars.

That $376 per term fee is not optional, costing each student $1,128 every academic year. Over a four-year degree, the fee amounts to at least $4,512 – more if a student takes longer to graduate.

UCLA student Arik Schneider mocked the DPL program as “a project of the Department of Redundancy Department,” asserting that “all the goals of this project seems to already be facilitated by multiple other programs, groups, and systems” on campus. 

Schneider – who is also the Chairman of the school’s Young Americans for Liberty chapter – also criticized the way that UCLA requires students to fund the program. 

“Students should only be forced to subsidize programs which are necessary. It is the perfect example of the worst of Big Government, Big Bureaucracy. It does nothing and turns into a bottomless pit for money,” Schneider told Campus Reform. 

The money could be spent elsewhere, he suggested. 

“The cost of the program alone could have gone to multiple scholarships, and potentially given a disadvantaged student a full ride through college,” Schneider pointed out. “Instead the money goes to luncheons and echo-chamber sessions, in which participants attempt to out-victimize each other and not actually solve any problems.”

The DPL program, he said, is just another way UCLA uses student funds “to promote an agenda at the expense of those very students.”

Louis Madrid IV, a senior studying History, is also displeased that mandatory fees are being used for projects like DPL.

“It should be financed by donations,” Madrid told Campus Reform.

“If UCLA is going to force students to pay for these programs through their fees then they should inform students exactly what these programs are attempting to do instead of hiding them behind student fees.”

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Paul Manafort testified on Monday against his former boss, Paul Manafort – telling the Virginia court that he committed crimes while working for the former Trump campaign aide. 

“Were you involved in criminal activity when you worked for Paul Manafort?” asked federal prosecutor Greg Andres.

“Yes,” Gates replied.

“Did you commit a crime?” Andres asked.

“Yes,” Gates said.

Gates, a 45-year-old father of four became the star witness against his former boss in February, following several weeks of legal turmoil in which his original lawyers suddenly withdrew as council. Weeks later, Gates hired attorney Thomas C. Green, a personal acquaintance of special counsel Robert Mueller. 

Three lawyers representing Trump associate Rick Gates in money-laundering case against him have asked to be dropped from the case. Meanwhile, Tom Green, a lawyer known for hammering out plea deals, stays on as counsel for Gates.

— Mike Levine (@MLevineReports) February 1, 2018

Green represented clients in the Watergate and Iran Contra scandals, and he has a long record of navigating complex white collar cases with legal and political elements. He most recently represented disgraced House Speaker Dennis Hastert. H/t @mattmosk

— Mike Levine (@MLevineReports) February 1, 2018

Gates’ testimony is vital to the case, according to the Judge in the trial, US District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III – as the prosecution “can’t prove conspiracy” unless Gates can be called to the stand. Ellis said this after prosecutors suggested Gates may not in fact testify. 

Manafort has not pleaded guilty to charges which include bank fraud related to his work in Ukraine. The former Trump aide’s legal team is focusing blame on Gates – “who handled some day-to-day business operations for Manafort,” according to Fox News. 

“Rick Gates had his hand in the cookie jar and couldn’t let his boss find out,” Manafort’s defense attorney Thomas Zehnle claimed during opening arguments.

Prosecutors have introduced a bevy of exhibits and are in the process of calling several witnesses as part of their effort to paint Manafort as a tax scofflaw who failed to report money spent on luxury items — then lied to get bank loans when his foreign consulting work dried up.

Prosecutors have introduced a bevy of exhibits and are in the process of calling several witnesses as part of their effort to paint Manafort as a tax scofflaw who failed to report money spent on luxury items — then lied to get bank loans when his foreign consulting work dried up. –Fox News

Earlier Monday, Judge Ellis threatened to boot reporters from the courtroom after they began rushing out into the hallway to report that Gates would testify. “If you cause a disruption, I will have you excluded!” Ellis said.

Also expected to testify is former Bernie Sanders campaign senior strategist, Tad Devine, who worked with Manafort on the 2010 campaign of now-former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych. The pro-Russian leader fled the country in 2014 following the Ukrainian revolution. 

MUELLER is interested in the work that @TadDevine, who was the chief strategist for @BernieSanders 2016 presidential campaign, did with MANAFORT on behalf of the RUSSIA-aligned Ukrainian Party of Regions, based on this list of exhibits to be presented at trial starting next week. pic.twitter.com/4giB1aj9K1

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) July 19, 2018

Devine’s consulting firm Devine Mulvey Longabaugh, maintains that they did nothing illegal in their work with Manafort on Yanukovych’s campaign. The firm says they are not at risk of legal jeopardy, according to a statement provided to the Washington Post.

In the statement, Devine Mulvey Longabaugh says special counsel Robert Mueller asked Devine “to assist in the prosecution of their case against Paul Manafort regarding his firm’s work on media consulting on past political campaigns in Ukraine.” –Mic

“We have been assured by the special counsel’s office that we have no legal exposure and did not act unlawfully,” the firm said in the statement to the Washington Post. “After the administration of the presidential candidate we had worked for arrested his political opponent [Yulia Tymoshenko in 2011], we quit. We then declined additional offers to work on his later campaigns.” 

The Manafort trial is expected to last approximately three weeks. 

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