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After Nasdaq very briefly rallied back to unchanged this morning (on headlines that Navarro may not replace Cohn), US equity markets are tumbling again… following Bitcoin lower.
Dead cat bounce… is dead again.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2tmRrYd Tyler Durden
Authored by Nicholas Colas via DataTrekResearch.com,
Every person who enjoys the gift of sight still has a blind spot in each eye.That’s natural – there is a tiny bit of your retina where the optical nerve connects that has no photoreceptor cells. In fact, all vertebrates have a blind spot in each eye. Our minds make up for it by assuming whatever we see near the blind spot is similar enough, and fills in the gaps without us even noticing.
In some sense, successful investing is a matter of exploiting the market’s collective blind spots. There are pieces of information that are very much visible but the crowd still doesn’t see them. Get the entire picture, blind spot included, and the way forward is much clearer.
Take as one example the recent furor over President Trump’s proposed trade tariffs on steel and aluminum. Conventional wisdom says they are misguided and potentially dangerous to economic growth. There seems to be a horse race, in fact, to see who can come up with the largest hypothetical dollar impact from the move. The last one we saw stretched well into the billions.
The math, robust or not, misses the point completely, because economic decision making in the real world doesn’t always use a calculator. We have mentioned a behavioral finance concept called the “Ultimatum Game” before, but here is a quick reprise:
Two strangers enter a room and a researcher has them flip a coin. The winner of the toss gets $100.
The winner has to offer a split of the $100 to the loser in one yes-or-no proposal. If the loser accepts the split, both get to keep the money. If the loser declines, neither party gets anything. Either way, the game is over.
Classical finance (the sort that comes up with tariff impact calculations, it seems) says the loser should accept $1. That’s more than they came in with, and the marginal utility of that dollar is positive.
In the real world, the loser rarely takes anything less than $30-$40. They will walk away if offered smaller amounts, even though it hurts their interests. Yes, they do it out of sheer anger at being offered too little. Spite is an economic motive. And it is powerful enough to cause self-harm as measured by classical economics.
This is the blind spot many market observers have when looking at the tariff debate. The political calculus – how Americans feel about the role of trade in their lives – is closer to the Ultimatum Game than classical economics. The math may be interesting to policy wonks and analysts, but it is not the defining issue that will determine the outcome of this debate. It is 100% political.
The other blind spot example that comes to mind is the notion that capital markets (especially equities) operate in part like a bookie, keeping odds on a range of potentially disruptive geopolitical events. We saw some of the narrative today, as North Korea seemed to make some overtures about giving up its nuclear arsenal in return for keeping its current government in place.
“Shave 3.7 basis points off the risk adjusted discount rate in your DCF valuation models… North Korea is coming to the table!” said nobody, ever.The current global geopolitical environment has no lack of concerns, and US equities still sport much higher than historically average valuations. That should put to bed the notion that equity valuations are a finely tuned radar system for potential inbound threats.
Our belief is that US equity markets actually discount geopolitical events only as they become credible near term problems and the major determinant of how much they will ding valuations is simple: will it hurt consumer spending?
Finding historically analogous situations to the current one in North Korea is difficult. You need a limited scope of engagement, one or more nuclear powers in the mix, and a “Big brother effect” (one or both parties must have a close superpower ally with their own nuclear arsenal). Here are three that fit the bill:
#1. The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). Net effect on the S&P 500 from October 16(Kennedy meets with select individuals in DC, and word starts to leak) to October 26 (the USSR agrees to remove the missiles): down 4.4%. At its worst, the crisis took 6.3% off the index. Now, 1962 wasn’t a great year for stocks – the S&P was down 8.8% – but this crisis was not the cause. At worst, it was half the decline.
#2. Lead up to the Israeli/Arab Six Day War (1967). Recall that common wisdom had it that Israel was a nuclear power at this point and closely allied with the United States. From May 14th, when Egyptian President Nasser moved troops into the Sinai to June 5th, the start of the conflict, the S&P 500 was down 5.4%. By the time the war was over, the index was only 2.5% lower. Worth noting: the S&P 500 was up 23.8% in 1967.
#3. Falklands War (1982). This one came by surprise; nuclear-armed Britain heard about it from a telex authored by the governor of the islands as Argentinian forces walked the streets. From start to finish (April 2nd to June 14th), the S&P 500 was down by 4.5%. Total S&P 500 return for the year: 20.4%.
The blind spot lesson here is that markets don’t dial in geopolitical risk factors the same way they anticipate corporate earnings or economic data. In the case of a “contained” crisis, they respond as it becomes a clear threat. After that, fundamentals reassert themselves.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2trx8Zw Tyler Durden
It’s not just the Second Amendment in the left’s crosshairs.
A. Barton Hinkle writes:
Many progressives have long believed America would be a much better place without the Second Amendment. These days, some of them seem to think we’d also be better off without the First.
That might sound like an exaggeration. But it’s hard to square the First Amendment with a recent proposal in The New Republic: “Ban Facebook Before Elections.” And yes, the headline accurately represents the text:
“If fake news truly poses a crisis for democracy,” writes Jeet Heer, “then it calls for a radical response. Instead of merely requiring greater transparency of social media and empowering the courts to ban users and websites… perhaps governments should outright ban Facebook and other platforms ahead of elections.
“A model for this already exists. Many countries have election silence laws, which limit or prohibit political campaigning for varying periods of time ranging from election day alone to as early as three days before the election. What if these laws were applied to social media? What if you weren’t allowed to post anything political on Facebook in the two weeks before an election?”
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The Securities and Exchange Commission clamped down on cryptocurrency firms last week in a major way.
The regulatory body issued dozens of subpoenas (some groups estimate more than one hundred) to companies that conducted or advised on initial coin offerings (ICOs).
Notes readers aren’t surprised, as I’ve long warned that the scammy ICO market is one of the biggest bubbles I’ve ever seen.
Before discussing the fraudulent nature of the space, a bit of background on ICOs…
A lot of people view ICOs as an asset class like stocks, bonds or real estate. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Initial coin offerings are simply a funding scheme. Companies looking to raise money will post a white paper on a website, post some pictures of their “C-suite executives,” and set up a Twitter account… that’s basically it.
The goal is to raise funds by issuing “tokens.” These tokens typically serve as pre-paid credits that can be used within the ecosystem of the company raising the funds. In other words, you’re not actually getting equity in the company… you’re buying a gift card.
Think of it like the in-game credits you would buy (with real money) to get ahead in the old Facebook game, Farmville. Outside of Farmville, those credits are worthless.
With almost no information, and the obvious, inherent risks to buying a prepaid service, investors are supposed to evaluate if there’s a valid, secondary market for these tokens.
In the face of these many flaws, prices of these ICOs would soar. Not for any fundamental reasons… simply because we were experiencing a massive bubble fueled by hype.
And the prevalence of outright fraud caught the attention of the SEC.
One company called Prodeum was allegedly developing a blockchain for agricultural commodities.
Prodeum raised $11 million through an ICO. Then the founders (who were likely made up in the first place) disappeared without a trace. And the only thing left on the company’s website was a single word – “penis.”
Despite the many warning signs, companies have still raised nearly $9 billion to date through ICOs. And a lot of that money has simply disappeared.
Bitcoin.com recently completed a study of the 902 ICOs that took place last year.
Of those, 142 failed at the funding stage.
Another 276 failed after either taking the money and running or simply failing as a business.
So a full 46% of all ICOs last year have already failed.
But it gets even worse…
An additional 113 ICOs, according to Bitcoin.com, are “semi-failed” because the founders have ceased communications with the public or because the community of users is so small there’s zero chance of success.
Once you add in these “semi-failed” firms, 59% of last year’s ICOs are goners.
Think about that failure rate… it’s astounding. And that’s in one year’s time.
I’m certain that percentage will only increase.
The vast majority (90+%) of cryptocurrencies and ICOs will fail for one simple reason… they have ZERO utility.
People forget, but when you participate in an ICO, you’re actually investing in a business. And that business has to provide value in order to justify its existence.
Let’s look a couple of the more useless offerings of the past…
Skincoin allows you to get new “skins” for guns in video games. It raised $3.3 million.
There’s also a TrumpCoin meant to “support President Trump and his vision of making America great again.” I have no idea how that’s even a token, but TrumpCoin was worth $3.38 million at its peak.
I seriously doubt there will be much demand for Skincoin or TrumpCoin over the long term. And the fact that these types of coins are on their way to extinction means the market is working.
And while I’m no fan of government regulation, operators in the crypto space are welcoming more regulation… because it gives them clear rules and guidelines to follow as a business. Some lawyers have said the SEC’s recent round of subpoenas was meant as an invitation to have a more open dialogue with these firms.
Of course, I could think of a better way to start a conversation.
But once there’s a clear delineation of what’s legal and what’s not when it comes to crypto and ICOs, more mainstream players and investors will get involved. And that will lead to a larger, less volatile marketplace.
But ultimately, the value of these tokens is driven by demand.
And in the long-run, demand has to be driven by some sort of utility. The coin must present some special benefit that other coins and tokens don’t have… and that people will actually NEED.
I’ve been talking a lot this year about avoiding big mistakes. Luckily, the ICO market is an easy one to avoid.
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By now you’ve probably heard about the Russian model trapped in a Thai jail who claims to have hard evidence of Russia meddling in America’s elections. Over the past week, Nastya Rybka’s story has been broadcast by major media outlets such as CNN and The New York Times—and largely received like just another gratuitous twist in the MAGA plotline, another pretty young thing who claims to have dirt on Donald Trump and has every reason in the world not to be trusted.
Rybka may turn out to know nothing at all about Trump, Russia, and election influence. But in theory, at least, she has a plausible claim to having obtained relevant dirt.
She left a trail of evidence of her 2016 affair with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska—a Vladimir Putin ally and Paul Manafort business associate—across Instagram, Periscope, and YouTube. These posts led Russian journalists to discover that Deripaska had been visited on his yacht off Norway by a high-ranking Russian official, and led Russian authorities to threaten to shut down YouTube and Instagram if they didn’t remove reports on this. And the Russian official was far from the only important figure that Deripaska met while Rybka was around, she says.
Rybka now claims to have audio of Deripaska’s conversations that could reveal information about Russia trying to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In a video from a Thai police car after her arrest, Rybka says she is “the only missing link in the chain related to Russia and elections in the United States”—a chain that links Deripaska, “Putin, and Trump”—and is “ready to provide” her evidence “to the United States, Europe, or any other country that can bail me out of Thai jail.”
Since Rybka’s story hit the U.S media, many have cast doubt on her claim by virtue of its timing, assuming it nothing more than a ruse to get out of trouble in Thailand. But Rybka—who has said her real fear is being sent back to Russia—was alluding to sensitive geopolitical information before her February 26 arrest.
“In my book ‘Who wants to seduce a billionaire’ there are many facts that hurt influential people of several countries,” Rybka wrote in a February 22 Instagram post. “Some readers have reacted to it skeptically, believing that the book has artistic fiction. But friends, EVERYTHING there is a real story.”
The real story of Nastya Rybka’s involvement in geopolitical intrigue is far weirder than has been widely told and may be more benign than many would assume.
Seduction School Meets Geopolitics
Neither the 21-year-old Moscow model nor her mentor seem to be political people.
Rybka was hired with a cabal of other young models to socialize at one of Deripaska’s yacht parties in 2016. She didn’t know who he was at first, she told the Russian news outlet Алексей Навальный, but was interested in him because he was confident and powerful.
Born in Belarus as Anastasia Vashukevich, Rybka has spent the past several years as a protegee of the pickup artist and seduction coach Alex Lesley. Along with a few others, Rybka and Lesley fly around the world teaching sexual skills and seduction techniques to men and women. Their books (both have authored a few) and social media accounts serve as marketing for these classes, by providing evidence of their prowess at seduction.
But Rybka also seems to vacillate between viewing seduction as a “game” she is playing on poor billionaires and having a real attachment to her “victims.” On Instagram, Rybka portrays herself not as a sex worker or companion-for-hire (as many places have reported) but a model, author, educator, and “huntress” with a passion for sex, travel, and collecting experience, not cash.
She calls herself “the Goldfish”—a nod to her status as a catch for wealthy men who like to go “fishing” for pretty young women—and can be found defending Harvey Weinstein and opining that only a “sexually ill society” attacks “healthy” oligarchs and politicians for “fishing and entertain[ing]…young girls. They give an opportunity to taste their fucking life with them!”
In a series of pre-arrest posts, Rybka details her feelings for Deripaska and her dealings with Progress Party leader (and fierce Putin critic) Alexei Navalny. Navalny revealed Rybka’s affair with Deripaska in early February, as part of a story on Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko vacationing on Deripaska’s yacht. He was able to tell the story thanks to audio and images Rybka had previously shared publicly online.
In an interview with Алексей Навальный, Rybka explained that the only reason she posted photos of her and Deripaska together and wrote books about her time with him was as a “seduction technique,” to get his attention, because he had stopped contacting her. Rybka apparently recorded her Deripaska-seduction techniques in a series of three books, though only two have been published so far. A political friend read the second one and said “we’re going to get killed if we publish it,” so they held off, Rybka said.
Her first book “details her training in seduction by sex guru Lesley, whose real name is Aleksandr Kirillov, and subsequent interactions with ultra-wealthy and powerful men,” writes Todd Ruiz at the Thai news site Khaosdenglish, which ran an English-language excerpt from the book in which Rybka explains how she got away with recording Deripaska. The recordings were Lesley’s idea, so they could use her experience to teach about seduction.
In his interview with Алексей Навальный, Lesley called himself a “seduction coach” and said the real story here is not the “political story” but that a girl from a humble roots in Belarus could get this powerful man’s attention and that her seduction methods “worked on the oligarch.”
You can watch these interviews for yourself below, and check out both Lesley and Rybka’s social accounts. Perhaps it’s all part of some bigger and yet untold con. But if their present tales are true, it would mean that in the middle of some sort of loopy pickup-artist pyramid scheme, they managed to unveil potential corruption within Russia and possibly even stumble on something much bigger.
Pleas From Prison
So what’s next for Rybka and Lesley? Both were arrested, along with eight others, in the Thai town of Pattaya last week.
The arrests took place after a raid “while they were giving certificates in sexual skills to 43 compatriots in a Pattaya hotel room,” according to the Bangkok Post. “A police investigation found that a Russian couple, who were among the arrested suspects, had set up an institute for sex science in Thailand.” All were charged with being and working in the country without permission, and Thai immigration police ordered them deported.
Thai authorities say a customer dissatisfied with the course reported them. But in a letter to the U.S. consulate, Lesley has suggested that their arrests and subsequent treatment stem from talking about the information they have on powerful figures in Russia.
In the weeks before being arrested, Rybka’s Instagram had taken a sudden political turn, ever since Navalney’s reporting had thrust her into the spotlight. On February 21, for instance, she complained that Facebook was censoring a video which many say “is the missing link proving Russia’s interference in US elections” and appealed to Americans to “deal with Zuckerberg! Now he decides – to hide or not the important clues for America.”
“Oleg Deripaska told me that all people are corrupt, both the media and the Internet, are all biased, and I can see it now,” Rybka’s post continuted. “The world is ruled by the limited group of people who make decisions for billions! I stand up for freedom of dissemination of information, especially if it concerns the shadow games that can lead to the third world war and the destruction of the earth!” A few days earlier she had posted that “because of the Goldfish, the next world war will be unleashed.”
More marketing hype? Perhaps. But even if that’s all it is, it’s possible Rybka’s game was good enough that people in power believed her.
“We know that Russia made in 1 day some criminal case and asked Thailand to give us to Russia,” Rybka posted to Instagram a few days after her arrest. “They tell that in 3-4 days Russians wait us. Don’t give them us, please USA save us from Russia!”
In a subsequent post that same day, she wrote: “If we go back to Russia we will die in Russian’s prison or they will kill us.”
A U.S. citizen in touch with the group (whom Rybka designated on Instagram as her spokesperson) told me this morning that he was not allowed to visit Rybka and the others today and that he was told he can’t for at least two more weeks because he helped bring in too many journalists earlier this week.
But while it remains to be seen whether any of Rybka’s recordings are actually relevant to Trump’s campaign or the U.S. election, is there anyone who would really be surprised one way or the other at this point? The past two years have been marked by ever-expanding political absurdity, a paradigm shift in geopolitical weirdness. It would be right in keeping with the general tenor of the Trump era if the key to this major geopolitical mystery was found in the Instagram posts of a small-town girl just trying to brag about how she seduced a Russian oligarch.
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At six facilities that stretch across the American heartland from West Virginia to southern Texas, workers build more than 1.3 million Toyota cars each year, accounting for more than half of all vehicles sold annually by Toyota in the United States.
Meanwhile, at plants in Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, workers on Harley-Davidson production lines churn out more than 230,000 motorcycles every year. About one in every five of them will be shipped overseas, mostly to Europe and Japan.
One is an Japanese company that has brought jobs and prosperity to Middle America. The other is an iconic American brand that exports the physical embodiment of freedom to the world. Both will be hurt if President Donald Trump goes forward with his plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on all steel imports to the United States, propping up America’s steel industry at the expense of almost everyone else. The Trump administration is also planning to hit aluminum imports with a 10 percent tariff.
Those levies “will adversely impact automakers, the automotive supplier community and consumers as this would substantially raise costs and therefore prices of cars and trucks sold in America,” Toyota Motor North America, the company’s American subsidiary, said in a statement.
It’s not just manufacturers who will be hurt. Tariffs will likely raise prices on all automobiles—indeed, on all products made with steel—setting off a chain reaction that will burn the entire industry.
“Auto sales have flattened in recent months, and manufacturers are not prepared to absorb a sharp increase in the cost to build cars and trucks in America,” says Cody Lusk, president of the American International Automobile Dealers Association. “These proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports couldn’t come at a worse time.”
If costs rise and automobile sales continue to decline, that’s nothing but bad news for the hundreds of thousands of Americans employed by auto manufacturers. That would be a major misstep for the president, who has prided himself on bringing jobs—and specifically automobile manufacturing jobs—into the United States.
Big announcement by Ford today. Major investment to be made in three Michigan plants. Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017
Meanwhile, the flipside of Trump’s tariff proposal will deal a second blow to American manufacturers already likely to face higher costs on steel and aluminum.
The European Commission outlined a plan yesterday to impose retaliatory tariffs against American-made goods such as bourbon whiskey and blue jeans. Included in the proposal, which was first reported by Bloomberg, would be a 25 percent tariff on motorbikes imported from the United States.
For Harley-Davidson, that means getting hit from both sides at once.
“Import tariffs on steel and aluminum will drive up costs for all products made with these raw materials, regardless of their origin,” the company told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “Additionally, a punitive, retaliatory tariff on Harley-Davidson motorcycles in any market would have a significant impact on our sales, our dealers, their suppliers and our customers in those markets.”
The proposed European tariffs have obvious political motivations. Harley-Davidson is based in the home state of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), while bourbon whiskey is produced only in Kentucky, home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Both Ryan and McConnell have spoken out against Trump’s tariff proposal this week, but neither has suggested what action, if any, Congress should take to block the administration from starting a trade war.
That trade war would be a potentially catastrophic blow for domestic Harley-Davidson workers. The company has scaled back its American production lines in recent years in favor of opening a new plant in India, where motorbikes are highly sought, to get around a massive import tariff imposed there. Harley-Davidson has plans to open another facility in Thailand for the same reason.
If Trump wants to hasten the demise of an iconic, blue-collar, American-made brand, a trade war would be a good way to do it. And if Trump wants to stop foreign companies like Toyota from investing in American facilities and hiring American workers, a trade war would be a good way to do that too. The administration can prioritize American manufacturing jobs, or it can prioritize economic protectionism; it can’t do both.
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Heading into the close of the European stock markets, Bitcoin and its crypto peers are tumbling…
Disappointment among Ripple holders last night with Coinbase is not helping but there is no clear catalayst for this most recent leg…
And Bitcoin is plunging…
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2G2gan6 Tyler Durden
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
In recent weeks, we have witnessed an unprecedented social media crackdown on conservative voices. YouTube’s war with Alex Jones has gotten the most attention, but literally hundreds of conservative content creators have had their accounts penalized, suspended or deleted by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants. There appears to be a coordinated effort to target conservative viewpoints, because similar voices on the left are not receiving equal treatment. If I win my race for Congress on May 15th, I am going to make fighting this sort of censorship one of my top priorities once I get to Washington.
How would you feel if you spent years creating videos and building up a subscriber base only to have all of that work wiped out in a single moment by a leftist YouTube moderator?
Sadly, that is precisely what is happening to dozens upon dozens of conservatives right now…
Writing for Polygon.com, Julia Alexander noted that, “Whenever YouTube institutes a tougher moderation stance, a common debate emerges over censorship—especially from notable conservative voices.”
Specifically, she explained, “Questions over YouTube’s moderators and the power they hold were raised this week after notable conservative pundits, gun advocates, conspiracy channels and other right-wing voices received community strikes or were locked out of their channels. Creators who are affected by lockouts, strikes and suspensions are referring to it as the ‘YouTube Purge,’ claiming that YouTube is purging all right-wing or pro-gun content. The move follows the company’s attempt to clamp down on dangerous content following the Parkland shooting.”
One of the most disturbing examples of censorship was what happened to the Health Ranger channel. Mike Adams is a personal friend, and I am extremely upset about what YouTube has done to him…
As we reported over the weekend, YouTube terminated the entire Health Ranger video channel on Saturday, wiping out over 1,700 videos and approximately 350K+ subscribers. This was done, of course, as part of the YouTube left-wing PURGE now being carried out against non-establishment speakers who are being targeted for political reasons.
YouTube’s censorship rampage also wiped out all my videos on the donkeys I rescued, the range-free chickens I raise and even the beautiful ice crystals I captured on video over the winter. In its censorship sweep, YouTube is obliterating thousands of videos without cause, violating the civil rights of informative internet users and functioning as a criminal techno-cartel.
There is absolutely no reason for YouTube to do this. Mike Adams has literally helped millions of people through his work, and I am urging all of my readers to contact YouTube and demand that they restore his channel immediately.
Of course YouTube is not the only one that is cracking down on conservative voices. Here are a few examples of what Facebook has been doing…
Young Cons: This very popular conservative news site had millions of daily readers during the recent election, and the site received nearly all its traffic from Facebook (Lesson: Never put all your marketing eggs in one basket). Facebook has been increasingly censoring Young Cons stories since 2016; now the site struggles mightily and regularly switches domains in order to maintain traffic.
SaraPalin.com: At one point the former GOP VP nominee and Alaska governor’s website was serving up stories to her four million Facebook followers, but she, too, had to begin switching domains in order to maintain traffic.
Right Wing News: This site grew to massive proportions over the past few years, in large part thanks to its meteoric popularity on Facebook. During one week in 2015, the site’s Facebook page reached 133 million people. The site was driving about the same amount of web traffic as some of the biggest newspapers in the U.S. But since 2016 Facebook began blocking traffic to the site; its owner, John Hawkins, announced he would shut it down in January (it’s still online but the content is not regularly updated).
Independent Journal Review: This, too, was a large conservative news and information source, but because it was overly reliant on Facebook traffic, the site had to terminate a number of its employees last week, leaving the fate of the Millennial-focused site in doubt.
And Twitter has been censoring conservatives as well.
In particular, Twitter seems to really dislike pro-life activists…
Pro-life group Live Action cried foul in 2017 after Twitter demanded it delete pro-life images, such as fetal ultrasounds, from its Twitter feed and website before allowing the group to run advertisements. Live Action refused the request.
Another pro-life group, the Susan B. Anthony List, was barred in October from running a video advertisement, because it used the phrase “killing babies” to refer to abortion. “No advertiser is permitted to use the phrase ‘killing babies,’” Twitter told the group.
That same month, Twitter blocked an advertisement by Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s campaign for Senate in Tennessee. Twitter objected to one line Blackburn said: “I’m 100% pro-life. I fought Planned Parenthood, and we stopped the sale of baby body parts –thank God.”
If you don’t stand up when you see others being censored, then please don’t complain when the social media giants censor you as well. I think that Dr. Michael Brown made this point exceedingly well in his most recent article…
First they came for Infowars, and I did not speak out—because I found them offensive.
Then they came for Geller and Spencer, and I did not speak out—because I found them obnoxious.
Then they came for Prager U, and I did not speak out—because I found them opinionated.
Then they came for a host of others, and I did not speak out—because I have my own life to live.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
This is why we need good liberty-minded people to run for office all over the nation.
* * *
If we do not fight back, this sort of oppression is only going to get worse. Right at this moment I am engaged in an extremely tight race for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and if you want me to go to Washington and defend our free speech rights, please consider making a contribution because we desperately need it right now.
In the entire history of the Internet, we have never seen this sort of a coordinated purge before.
The left believes that they are going to win, but we are definitely not going to allow that to happen.
Michael Snyder is a pro-Trump candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District. If you would like to help him win on May 15th, you can donate online, by Paypal or by sending a check made out to “Michael Snyder for Congress” to P.O. Box 1136 – Bonners Ferry, ID 83805. To learn more, please visit MichaelSnyderForCongress.com.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2Hc4PjW Tyler Durden
In a note published overnight, Barclays explains what may be the primary motivation for Trump to keep pushing through with his desire to impose import tariffs despite getting substantial pushback from both Republicans and (now former) members of his advisory circle.
As Barclays strategist Aziz Sunderji notes, amid declining employment in manufacturing and stagnant wages, a portion of the American electorate has become more skeptical toward free trade, and as a result “Politicians from both parties have channeled that skepticism.”
Aziz then notes the asymmetrical gains/losses that make declarations of trade wars often times desirable: according to the Barclays strategist protectionist rhetoric can be a useful political strategy, because while the benefits of free trade are widely dispersed among many, the beneficiaries are likely to protest only mildly to protectionist measures. Meanwhile, the costs of free trade tend to be acutely borne by a few, with whom protectionism resounds strongly.
It is this relatively modest group of people that Trump is targeting.
It is worth noting, however, that Trump’s approach is a notable departure from the norm for a Republican according to the British bank:
President George W Bush raised tariffs on steel, too, but as his trade representative Robert Zoellick explained, these were used merely to create coalitions and manage political support in the US amid a broader move toward increasingly free trade (see “The US Admits That Politics Was Behind Steel tariffs”, New York Times, March 2002).
On the other hand, antipathy toward free trade is especially strong among Republican voters. Only 36% agree that free tree trade agreements have been good for the US, down from 57% in 2009 (Pew Research Center).
So going back to Trump’s thought process, Aziz argues that having achieved some success elsewhere in his agenda (tax cuts, deregulatory efforts, conservative judicial appointments), “the president may now be willing to engage in more controversial measures such as tariffs.”
In the case of steel and aluminum, the president may be emboldened by the Commerce Department’s report that justified tariffs on economic and national security grounds. This strategy may not work, though. The steel and aluminum manufacturing industries are smaller employers than the industries that use these metals as inputs (Figure 1).
Barclays concludes that Trump’s strategy may backfire in the long run, and over time, “tariffs may be deleterious to regions where Trump enjoys strong support. Indeed, many Republican leaders have urged the president to reconsider.”
Things could get more complicated, of course, if the initial round of tariffs progresses into full-blown trade war. Here’s Barclays:
A single round of tariffs and foreign retaliation does not constitute a trade war. For that, further measures from the US would be needed. We think President Trump likely favors such further measures.
We think this for two reasons. First, because of the political considerations we described above: the unpopularity of free trade among his political base and his apparent view that these actions will help the GOP in the November mid-term elections. Second, due to the economic reality that, amid fiscal stimulus from the tax cut and higher budget caps heating up the domestic economy and boosting imports, the US trade balance is likely to worsen.
The president has faced substantial friction on these tariffs within his party. However, in terms of domestic law, the president has wide-ranging powers to restrict trade unilaterally. Any president can, through executive authority, impose unilateral sanctions on any country that violates trade agreements or engages in other “unfair” trade practices. The definition of “unfair” is subject to broad interpretation, as the law is designed to give the president considerable discretion. In terms of international law, protectionist measures the US takes can be challenged at the WTO. President Bush’s steel tariffs were ultimately reversed after trading partners mounted such a challenge successfully. But these take time, and WTO rulings have sometimes been ignored. Furthermore, President Trump could continue to levy tariffs on national security grounds, which have not been challenged successfully in international courts.
The good news is that, if this morning’s press reports are correct, the speculation over either the announced tariffs or the imminent retaliation won’t take too long as Trump is said to formalize the first round of the trade wars tomorrow. Whether or not this proves to be a prudent and tactical political move remains to be seen.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2oOG9Hw Tyler Durden
Indiana has repealed its ban on Sunday carry-out alcohol sales, allowing people to buy beer, wine, and liquor on the Lord’s Day for the first time since 1816. From now on, Indiana residents won’t be forced to shuttle across the Ohio border when they need to pick up some last-minute booze for a party, nor will anyone be reminded mid-checkout that she must forgo that bottle of Merlot until Monday.
While 10 states still prohibit the sale of liquor on Sundays, Indiana had been the only one with a statewide ban on all alcoholic beverages.
“We couldn’t unlock the doors until noon,” Joel Massoth, owner of Decatur Package Liquors, told WANE on Sunday. “I got here at about ten ’til, and the whole parking lot was packed. Everyone was waiting at the door wanting to be the first one to walk in. Kind of a day in history. It’s pretty cool seeing all the customers excited.”
But Hoosier State drinkers have many battles left to fight. For instance, Indiana remains the only state to regulate beer based on temperature. Yes, temperature: Gas stations and convenience stores aren’t allowed to sell carry-out alcohol that is “iced or cooled.” If you want to take some beer home that’s already been chilled, you need to get it at a restaurant or a liquor store.
In 2017, the state Senate voted against the repeal of cold beer laws. Public support for repeal was high—around 61 percent, according to a Ball State study—but the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers lobbied successfully to retain the restrictions. Worse yet, the legislature made the laws more restrictive: A convenience-store chain had added seating and fast-food service to a few of its stores, so they could obtain restaurant status and sell carry-out beer, so Indiana mandated that 60 percent of all alcohol sales must be for on-site consumption if you want that restaurant classification. Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb called that “common sense.”
Yet the fight is far from settled. Shortly after he signed the bill, Gov. Holcomb was asked whether Hoosiers could expect a change in cold beer laws.
“We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” the governor said.
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