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Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett sees a big split in how blockchain-based digital cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are viewed on Wall Street versus in Silicon Valley. On the East Coast, the idea of a cryptocurrency replacing a fiat currency is still met with skepticism. But in the Valley, they seem “all in.” In this opinion piece he offers his views on this corner of fintech.

I spent the first week of the New Year with a great group of Wharton undergraduates visiting many of our tremendous alumni in the San Francisco Bay Area. To say it felt very different from the East Coast is an understatement. And I am not talking about missing the “bomb cyclone,” which we did.

I am talking about blockchain/bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, which are much more than a speculative Chinese-cum-millennial obsession.

Whereas most people on Wall Street remain skeptical, playing a wait-and-see game, Silicon Valley is all in. Literally every meeting I participated in, from the biggest tech companies to the smallest startups, was rich with enthusiastic and creative crypto conversations.

I used to think “fintech” meant the end of physical cash – replaced by mobile payments platforms owned by big multinational firms and currently led by China, in established currencies regulated by national governments and international agreements.

I now wonder whether the ultimate fusion of technology and finance will mean “the end of money,” at least as we have known it for the last millennium. It’s no longer sci-fi to imagine the replacement of dollars and other “fiat money” with open sourced, radically decentralized, deeply encrypted and self-regulating transactions in digital units of exchange that are “mined” rather issued by central banks.

A true fintech revolution.

I have to admit I went west very much in the Jamie Dimon mindset. The JPMorgan CEO and voice of Wall Street since the financial crisis famously dismissed bitcoin’s virtual rise in 2017: “I could care less about bitcoin.” Strip out his typically gruff rhetorical flourishes, and Dimon was making 2 fundamental points.

Dimon’s first point was that “blockchain” — a globally distributed ledger of financial transactions made secure by advanced cryptography and competition among “miners” (computers competing to execute and record transactions, and being compensated for doing so) — has massive upside. But to become central to mainstream commerce, blockchain will have to lose its unregulated open source roots, be managed by a big multinational conglomerate (think some combination of Visa/Mastercard transactions and SWIFT international transfers), and fall under the clear jurisdictions of national governments and international agreements.

His second point was that the transactions that blockchain records will ultimately be in “cryptodollars”, or cryptoeuros, cryptoyuan, etc. — not bitcoin, ethereum, or any other “non-fiat,” purely “digital” currency that is not issued by central banks. This is because there is literally no underlying value to a bitcoin (“worse than tulips,” to use the oft-cited example of the Dutch “tulip bubble” in the 17th century). In contrast, there is underlying value to a dollar — guaranteed by the US Federal Reserve tied to the strength of the American economy.

The more I talked with people in the Valley, the less convinced I became of these two points.

This is very disconcerting to people like me, steeped in more than 200 years of macroeconomic thought. All the giants (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, and others) not only assumed the centrality of currencies as we have known them. They also valorized money as literally the foundation of a well-functioning economy — both a unit of exchange and a store of value.

In Silicon Valley, there is a healthy disregard for all things Washington, government, and regulation – and of course for the status quo. It’s no surprise there seem to be many more bitcoin believers on the West Coast.

Source

They ask powerful rhetorical questions.

Don’t governments and central banks always face the temptation of printing more money? Are you really so happy with the fees credit cards and banks charge? Wouldn’t it reduce our worries about hacking and cyber security if financial transactions were better encrypted and recorded on millions of computers rather than a handful? Isn’t the genius of bitcoin that there is a finite limit to how many can be produced (by the “halving” algorithm at the center of bitcoin mining)?

I tend to get lost as soon as the blockchain/bitcoin evangelists get into the real data science behind these technologies, but I do think there is real merit to their rhetorical questions. And I increasingly sense I am not alone.

Consider these simple facts.

We now can trade bitcoin futures on a crusty old financial exchange. There is lots of VC money pouring into crypto. Asset managers are starting to think about cryptocurrency indexes as a great diversification strategy, because bitcoin risk is likely uncorrelated with any “regular” economic risk. All are powerful indicators that the leading edge of “conventional” finance is taking very seriously the prospects for very radical financial innovation.

 

Finance meets technology, harnessing the combined power of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Not only the end of cash, but also the end of money. That is the prospect and potential of fintech. What will happen and when it will happen is impossible to predict — as is invariably the case with the most radical innovations. But there is little doubt that an enormous amount of capital, energy and creativity will pour into cryptocurrencies in the coming months and years — even if bitcoin proves the biggest bubble since tulips.

*  *  *

Geoffrey Garrett is Dean, Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise, and Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Follow Geoff on Twitter. 

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There is a growing consensus among many observers in Washington that the national security agencies have become completely politicized over the past seventeen years and are now pursuing selfish agendas that actually endanger what remains of American democracy.

As Philip Giraldi notes, up until recently it has been habitual to refer to such activity as the Deep State, which is perhaps equivalent to the Establishment in that it includes financial services, the media, major foundations and constituencies, as well as lobbying groups, but we are now witnessing an evolutionary process in which the national security regime is exercising power independently.

Nowhere is that “independence” of the ‘state within a state’ more evident than in the blatant and egregious news this week that The National Security Agency destroyed surveillance data it pledged to preserve in connection with pending lawsuits and apparently never took some of the steps it told a federal court it had taken to make sure the information wasn’t destroyed, according to recent court filings.

As Politico reports, the agency tells a federal judge that it is investigating and “sincerely regrets its failure.”

Since 2007, the NSA has been under court orders to preserve data about certain of its surveillance efforts that came under legal attack following disclosures that President George W. Bush ordered warrantless wiretapping of international communications after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. In addition, the agency has made a series of representations in court over the years about how it is complying with its duties.

However, the NSA told U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White in a filing on Thursday night and another little-noticed submission last year that the agency did not preserve the content of internet communications intercepted between 2001 and 2007 under the program Bush ordered. To make matters worse, backup tapes that might have mitigated the failure were erased in 2009, 2011 and 2016, the NSA said.

“The NSA sincerely regrets its failure to prevent the deletion of this data,” NSA’s deputy director of capabilities, identified publicly as “Elizabeth B.,” wrote in a declaration filed in October.

“NSA senior management is fully aware of this failure, and the Agency is committed to taking swift action to respond to the loss of this data.”

Defiance of a court order can result in civil or criminal contempt charges, as well as sanctions against the party responsible. So far, no one involved appears to have asked White to impose any punishment or sanction on the NSA over the newly disclosed episodes, although the details of what happened are still emerging.

“It’s really disappointing,” said David Greene, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been leading the prolonged litigation over the program in federal court in San Francisco.

“The obligation’s been in place for a really long time now. … We had a major dust-up about it just a few years ago. This is definitely something that should’ve been found sooner.”

Word of the NSA’s foul-up is emerging just as Congress has extended for six years the legal authority the agency uses for much of its surveillance work conducted through U.S. internet providers and tech firms.

Antiwar activist Justin Raimondo believes that something like a civil war is coming, with the war party Establishment fighting to defend its privileged global order while many other Americans seek a return to normal nationhood with all that implies.

If true, the next few years will see a major internal conflict that will determine what kind of country the United States will be.

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Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

Note from Jose: This is information compiled by myself and from my trusted sources, who are near the place where this event took place. Some other references are from the Miami Herald and Venezuelan press. The events of January 15 were confirmed to me by the above-mentioned sources. There is a remarkable inconsistency between the information provided by the videos chronology and the official version.

Oscar Perez: The Rebel Cop of Venezuela

In the 2017 protests, thousands of Venezuelans took the streets, patriotically and initially in a pacificist mood, responding to the call of our nation that cried out for Freedom.

The state security agencies, that both God and the world knows have become no more than a Praetorian Guard of the communist regime, fiercely attacked hundreds of Venezuelans with the intention to stop the demonstrations by force.

Now, it is known that some officials refused the orders to shoot to their own people, and understanding the great historical responsibility they faced, sacrificed their own comforts and careers, and placed themselves on the side of Venezuela.

Who was Oscar Perez?

This was the group led by Oscar Perez, known now as the Rebel Pilot.

He was a high-level agent, a member of the Special Action Brigade of the Scientific Police or CICPC, and former operations chief of the police force Air Division. His leap to the fame came with his role as the main character, a policeman in 2015 in the rescue of a kidnapping in the film ‘Suspended Death’.

The images of his alleged actions, in command of a helicopter, have reached an international audience as he would hardly have reached with the cinema. His latest movements had alerted the government of Venezuela and President Maduro described them as an “escalating coup”.

Oscar Perez, also a combat diver and a free parachutist, is a man who, according to the newspaper Panorama(2015), “goes to work without knowing if he would come back home…because death is part of the evolution”. Perez was the main suspect of having piloted a stolen helicopter, the property of the Scientific Police, that shot and threw flashbang grenades against buildings of the Venezuelan government, the Supreme Court, and frightened its neighbors in the center of Caracas.

The Massacre

Then, January 15, they paid the price. Their lives were taken in an operation with a personnel team of over 500 trained agents from different organizations massacred 10 persons inside a house, including a pregnant woman.

It is said that the position of the rebel group was compromised by some anonymous traitor. Theories about an insider are still to be proven.

Oscar Perez’s group expressed their desire to surrender to many of their former coworkers and partners in the different security agencies. Their message expressed explicitly their desire to capitulate, surrendering in peace to avoid harm to the unaware civilians living in the vicinity and the officers of the operation. In spite of this, and in a typical move of the communist regimes, these patriots whose only crime was to raise themselves for a better country and fight against a criminal regime that had Venezuela under their boots, were executed without compassion with high caliber war weapons, with a deployment of forces, weaponry and violence never seen before in similar operations.

One of the government officers killed in action was the leader of a “Colectivo” gang, known as “Tres Raices” or “Three Roots”, and he had two identification cards under different names, one as an agent and another as a civilian.

The surrendered rebels had already negotiated, when another large group of agents appeared and took over the control of the entire operation.

The leader of the rebel group uploaded a video to his Instagram account several videos with his face covered in blood, stating that they had already surrendered but the officials were shooting to kill them.

[Perez’s account has since been removed from Instagram.]

Why the government wanted them dead

This group of Venezuelan patriots, trained in different security corps, led by the CICPC official Oscar Pérez, decided to honor their oath to defend their homeland Venezuela. They rose against the tyranny, under the Article 350 of our Constitution that allows the right to rebellion. This happened after the government finally neutralized the Parliament, or National Assembly, which had been controlled by the opposition parties since 2015.

The government then made their moves to impose a “Constitutional Assembly”, acknowledged by the election systems company Smartmatic as a monumental fraud, and they have focused on this inquisitional organization in the only objective: subdue citizens by every means possible including selective/random assassinations, to continue imposing their plans of domination, hunger, fear and death to the Venezuelans, to perpetuate themselves in power.

Oscar Perez and his fellow agents summoned Venezuelans to a civic and military disobedience, based on the mentioned Article 350 so that together as a nation, we could end to the Castro-communist usurpation that generated the worst massacre in our history in the months April-May 2017.

At that time, the ORDEN Nationalist Movement issued a statement, giving total credibility to the rebels. However under the pernicious government propaganda unfortunately confused many Venezuelans, spreading the misinformation that the leaders of the ruling Socialist Party PSUV and the Opposition coalition (MUD) were responsible for the Oscar Perez and his companions’ actions, and of detonating a smoke bomb in a false flag attack to divert the public opinion of the real effect of the demonstrations. They depicted the rebel group and their videos as another spectacle of this government.

Perez made great effort to avoid loss of life

It is important to note in this moment, after the massacre of the rebels that were protected by our Article 350, that the nature of their intentions was proved to harm no people. In mid-December, they took by assault a command post in San Pedro de Los Altos, in the Miranda State, 45 minutes away from Caracas, the capital. Oscar Perez and his companions demonstrated the nobility of their actions, by conducting a clean, flawless operation without injuring anyone, much less killing or even beating their uniform partners. They stated repeatedly they did not intend to kill the troops who were in the place. The rebel group respected the lives and gave a proper treatment to their fellows imprisoned until they leave with AKs, ammo and hand grenades.

The 1992 coup was a very different situation. This coup, led by Mr. Hugo Chávez, the troops executed civilian personnel, private guards that worked for Venezolana de Televisión channel. In the struggle throughout the city, hundreds of Venezuelans died. Even civilians were gunned down in their cars, completely unaware of what was happening that early in the morning.

The actions of the Oscar Perez rebel group were different, mostly aimed to bring the people out of their homes to defend their freedom.

The helicopter where the rebels ran away to their clandestine hideouts showed a banner, with the inscription “350 Libertad“, in reference to the article 350 of the Constitution, urging the Venezuelans to not recognize a regime that contradicts the democratic freedoms that Bolivar described.

The 36-year-old police instructor had uploaded a video to his Instagram account in which, with his uncovered face, surrounded by four soldiers armed with rifles and covering their faces, proclaimed: “We have two options, to be judged tomorrow by our consciences, or to get rid today of this corrupt government, we are Warriors of God and our mission is to live at the service of the people, Long live Venezuela!”

In another video, part of a series of 5, he appealed to the support of Venezuelans, denying a partisan association, but letting people know very clearly that he was on the side of Jesus Christ. He claimed to be part of “a coalition of officials, police, and civilians on the lookout for balance, and against this transitory and criminal Government”.

The harmless attack (15 shots to the walls and roof, and 4 flashbangs, one of them shattering a window) to the Court took place in the midst of a violent hostilities escalation in the streets, protests and repressive actions that left 80 dead due to police violence. The demonstrations grew exponentially, and they became chronic once the Venezuelan Supreme (illegally designated by President Maduro and the leaving members of the Assembly, after they already had lost the position and before giving control to the new Assembly in January 2016) decided to assume the control and power of the National Assembly, declaring an Assembly chosen by 11 million as being under “disobedience”. Judges of a Court, named by Maduro, without the needed academy for those positions, ignored the decision of more than 10 million electors. The legislature organization then left under heavy fire, being disqualified because they were mostly opposed to Maduro.

Oscar Perez could still be victorious

The good news is that the extrajudicial execution of the rebel policeman officer Óscar Pérez and his small rebel group by the Venezuelan dictatorship last January 15, could have a further impact that will be much greater in the coming events than what many could believe. This extremely excessive use of brute force against a group of agents and civilians protected by the Article 350 will be a powerful evidence to help open an investigation into President Nicolás Maduro in the International Criminal Court.

Unlike the Human Rights Commissions of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, the ICC can prosecute individuals, including presidents, instead of the diluted responsibilities when the state prosecutes. If the ICC decides to open an investigation and Maduro is found guilty, an international warrant for his arrest could be issued.

The OAS General Secretary, Luis Almagro, and other leading organizations are close to completing the filing of cases against Venezuela at the ICC. This should happen in the next three weeks.

To open formal investigations into the Maduro´s regime, the ICC prosecutor must find criminal evidence against humanity, and these should be widespread, in long scope, and systematic. The evidence quoted by legal experts show the Maduro decrees. These executive orders explicitly authorized the brutal repression of street protests that left over 100 people dead last year, over 5,400 arbitrary arrests by street protests in the last 12 months, and 114 political prisoners, including the opposition leader Leopoldo López.

Meanwhile, the economic and supply crisis, a brutal inflation and a rise in violence and homicides continued to hit the daily lives of Venezuelans.

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Today for only the 19th time in history, the US government has found itself in a “funding gap”, a technical term for shut down. One of the reasons why this event is not being taken too seriously by the financial punditry, markets or much of the media, is that looking back not only have most government shutdowns been brief affairs, lasting less than 10 days – with the occasional outliers, such as the 21-day closure in 1995 and the 16-day halt in September 2013 – they have had little to no impact on either the market or the economy.

And yet, as Goldman writes, after the two political parties breached the shutdown Rubicon, there is a distinct possibility that this time the shutdown lasts “a few weeks” if not longer. The reason is one of both optics and motives: according to Goldman’s political economist Alec Phillips, “both sides appear to think they could gain from a [lengthy] shutdown.”  He explains:

Democratic leaders appear to believe that a shutdown would highlight the DACA immigration issue, which a large share of the public, including a majority of voters who supported President Trump in 2016, generally support according to most public opinion polling (87% of the public and 79% of Republicans according to a CBS News poll released January 18).

Meanwhile “Republican leaders appear to believe that Democrats, who are in a good political position going into the midterm election according to generic ballot polling and other metrics, would suffer from a shutdown.”

In other words, “If both sides believe the other side will be blamed, neither has the incentive to avoid a shutdown.”

Making matters worse, there is nothing in the immediate future that will make conflict resolution an urgency: traditionally a drop in the market would serve as an incentive for political parties to reach a compromise, although as we have extensively discussed in the past year, risk assets no longer respond to political events or narrative. This means that without the market intervening as an “arbiter” – i.e., underoging a sharp correction –  the two sides are likely to dig in and avoid any tangible negotiations, let alone a compromise.

As a result, while a bitter episode of fingerpointing has erupted, with both sides trying to make the other look like the villain, the US now faces the threat of a protracted shutdown with no end in sight.

* * *

In practical terms, events from the first day of the shutdown seem to confirm this scenario. As The Hill reports, Republican and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill lashed out at each other on Day One of the government shutdown Saturday, trading barbs and casting blame “as a resolution to the funding impasse appeared nowhere in sight.”

The rhetoric took a harsh turn, with Democrats complaining that President Trump is an erratic, unreliable negotiating partner and Republicans bemoaning Democrats’ intransigence over what the GOP sees as unreasonable immigration demands.

“Both sides are dug in. … I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re here tomorrow,” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) told The Hill after huddling with fellow House Democrats in the basement of the Capitol.

And, if Goldman is right, he shouldn’t be surprised if he is still there in several weeks time.

There is of course, hope for a breakthrough: both chambers are in session Saturday –– a rare weekend workday when many lawmakers were griping about risking vacation plans and overseas trips. But it appears to be largely a day dedicated to theatrics and PR management: no votes are scheduled to reopen the government as the sides continue to air their grievances in press conferences and on cable news shows.

Meanwhile, with neither Republicans nor Democrats willing to budge, congressional leaders let the insults fly on Capitol Hill and it increasingly looked like the shutdown would run into the  work week, furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters trying to work out a deal with Trump was like “negotiating with Jell-O,” while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) used a floor speech to decry Trump’s “all-around incompetence” and “inefficiency.”

Schumer: “Negotiating with this White House is like negotiating with Jello.” (via CBS) pic.twitter.com/zGq2xiIGBc

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 20, 2018

On the other side, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) placed blame for solely at the feet of Senate Democrats: “One party in one house of this Congress is deliberately holding this government hostage.”

Trump also got involved in the spat using his favorite medium: “Democrats are holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration. Can’t let that happen!” Trump tweeted.

Democrats are holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration. Can’t let that happen!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018

 

But the most direct confirmation that nothing will change for a while came from Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) who after the House Democratic Caucus meeting said that he’s increasingly “pessimistic about reopening the government in any kind of expeditious way.“

The reason?  “Largely because of the intransigence of Republican leadership,” he said even though it was the Democrats votes that led to the shutdown. 

* * *

Meanwhie, and as further indication that the shutdown will last, neither party appeared to even agree on what should be the first step to ending the government shutdown. Republicans insist that the government should reopen before they would resume negotiations on immigration, a non-starter for democrats.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has been in talks with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), said “we’ll go back to the table when the government’s back open.” GOP leaders, particularly Ryan, have been adamantly opposed to attaching any DACA provision to a spending bill, saying it’s an independent issue that should be addressed separately.

Members of both parties have been in talks about shielding young undocumented immigrants from deportation in exchange for enhanced border security. The Trump administration first made plans to rescind the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program last year, which granted temporary work permits for qualifying immigrants brought the U.S. illegally as children.

“We have been, and we continue to be, willing to work together in good faith on immigration,” Ryan said Saturday on the House floor.

Pelosi, meanwhile, insisted that lawmakers need to agree on parity between defense and nondefense spending, disaster relief, a path for DACA and other priorities before supporting another stopgap measure, or continuing resolution (CR).

“It’s no use having another CR unless we have the terms of engagement of how we go forward on the … parity, on the pay-fors, on the pensions, on the DACA and on the border security,” Pelosi said at a press conference in the Capitol. Many House Democrats are hinging their support for a CR on stronger assurances that DACA protections become law.

“Let’s say they give them a vote in the Senate. It doesn’t solve the impasse if Republicans in the House [don’t follow suit],” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) said Saturday. “This is going to take Speaker Ryan to say, ‘I will give them a vote.’ ”

In a word: chaos. And what’s worse, now that the natural offset to any government shutdown no longer works, namely a market crash which tends to push both sides to the negotiating table quickly and efficiently, it is unclear what if anything with lead to a resolution from the current standoff.

Unless, of course, there is a market crash.

Going back to the Goldman analysis, the bank was sanguine on market risks, at least in the near-run. However, in case the shutdown drags on for weeks, it will get very messy. Here’s why:

The main risk around the funding deadline is that it could eventually interact with the debt limit, which will need to be raised in March, we estimate. By resolving the DACA issue in the near term, this would reduce the risk that the issue comes back into play around the much more important debt limit deadline. Unlike government shutdowns, which financial markets tend to shrug off, markets could have a stronger negative reaction if the upcoming debt limit increase became entangled in the current set of issues.

In other words, should the government shutdown persist, eventually stretching into late February or even early March when the debt ceiling fiasco will also be on deck, then stocks just may do something they have not experienced in years – a drop of more than, gasp, 5%…

 

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As 1000s of Women’s March protesters gather in cities across America on the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration, a class taught this spring at Ohio State University will review a parade of reasons why white heterosexual masculinity is allegedly problematic, tackling the topic from the constructs of racial issues, bullying, pop culture, societal expectations and much more, according to its syllabus.

As The College Fix’s Amanda Tidwell reports,  the syallbus states that masculinity simultaneously harms yet privileges men.

The course, “Be a Man! Masculinities, Race and Nation,” includes a variety of readings to that end, including its required textbook “Dude, You’re a Fag!” by C.J. Pascoe, which analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process, but sexual one, its Amazon description states.

Other assigned reading excerpts include: “Masculinity as Homophobia” by Michael Kimmel; “Advertising and the Construction of Violent White Masculinity” by Jackson Katz; “Dude Sex: Dudes Who Have Sex with Dudes” by Jane Ward; “Looking for My Penis” by Richard Fung; “Sodomy in the New World” by Jonathan Goldberg; and “Teaching Men’s Anal Pleasure” by Susan Stiritz.

The class is also expected to screen “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” the dashcam footage of Philando Castile’s murder, Key & Peele’s “Hoodie Skit,” and an episode of “The New Normal.”

 

The course is ultimately presented as a study in “feminist masculinity” that seeks to explain how ideas about masculinity “simultaneously harm yet privilege” men, the syllabus states. It also aims to explain how “beliefs regarding masculinity serve to justify certain kinds of violence by men against others, and violence against particular groups of men.”

Before outlining any academic criteria of the course, the syllabus states that the class meets “on land taken by force from Native Americans.” On the first day of the “Be a Man!” class in early January, students went over a “male privilege checklist,” according to the syllabus.

The course was created and is taught by Jonathan Branfman. Branfman is a doctoral candidate in Ohio State’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and a recent recipient of a 2017-18 Presidential Fellowship, the most prestigious award given to students by the OSU Graduate School, according the the department’s website.

Branfman is also author of the new children’s book “You Be You!” intended for 7- to 12-year-olds that gives parents a “simple and accessible way” to introduce children to gender and sexual identity “in hopes of decreasing stigmas associated with the LGBTQ community,” the Lantern campus newspaper reports.

“It was really a result of teaching women’s, gender and sexuality studies classes at OSU,” Branfman told the Lantern.

“I often found myself thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if everyone got really clear, unstigmatized information about gender and sexual diversity at a young age instead of them having to unlearn all kinds of harmful false ideas when they’re 12 instead of when they’re 20?’”

Branfman did not respond to requests from The College Fix seeking comment.

“The goals of this course are both scholarly and practical. On a scholarly level, students will trace the scholarly debates about masculinity, and understand how these questions have emerged out of feminist and queer research. On a practical level, this knowledge may help students to understand the ideologies they encounter in daily life. In turn, this understanding may help students to navigate the pressures, exclusions and violence they face in order to enhance their own wellbeing and others,” the syllabus states.

Never one to shy away from expressing his feelings, Paul Craig Roberts recently opined: Americans – especially white people who are the target of the deadly ideology of Identity Politics and are placed by the ideology in the same position as Jews in Nazi Germany and capitalists in Soviet Russia – are unaware of the extent to which Identity Politics is now the dominant force in American culture.

Initially, white males – such as the University of Virginia history professor on NPR who obligingly demonized the white males who do not accept their second class status – survive by mouthing Identity Politics and crawling on their knees. But this is a temporary respite.

For Identity Politics the only acceptable white heterosexual males are those who admit their gender and sexual preference guilt and accept their punishment for being the victimizers of women, blacks, and homosexuals.

As anti-white male propaganda is apparently the only mental activity of which the liberal/progressive/left is capable, America, broken into pieces by Identity Politics, is heading into civil war.

I wonder which side will control the nukes and bio-chemical weapons.

If the white heterosexual males lose, I wonder who will protect the white women. Are they destined for the same rape and butchery as befell German women from the Russians and Americans once the Wehrmacht surrendered?

Of course, this is an impermissible question.

Identity Politics always leads to violence, and Americans will not be spared.

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It appears Billionaire Clintonite Tom Steyer is surprised that the nationwide ad campaign he bankrolled to urge members of Congress to impeach President Trump hasn’t yielded results by now.

Steyer went off on both Republicans and Democrats Friday after a House vote on articles of impeachment garnered a paltry 66 votes.

“This vote is not a reflection of whether or not Trump has passed the threshold for impeachment, which he did months ago,” Steyer said Friday in a press statement after the vote. “It is a failure by members of Congress to do what’s right to keep the American people safe.”

Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund manager from liberal California, launched his ‘Need to Impeach’ movement in October of 2017. While more than four million people have signed his petition, Democrats aren’t particularly happy with the initiative. Democratic leaders believe pushing for impeachment could hurt their party’s chances in the midterms later this year. Steyer underscored his campaign by sending copies of Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” to every lawmaker.

 

Nancy Pelosi has criticized an impeachment campaign as being impractical and suggested it distracts from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Steyer, who supported former Secretary for State Hillary Clinton’s presidential run, backs the Mueller investigation but thinks there is an “open and shut case that [Trump] has met the criteria for impeachment” – though he has yet to produce specific evidence of this.

According to the Daily Caller, there was speculation that Steyer was using his $20 million impeachment drive to run for office. But he rebutted this earlier this month during a press conference in Washington. Steyer said he will spend 2018 dumping millions of dollars into campaigns to unseat Republicans instead of campaigning for California’s open gubernatorial seat.

But regardless of whether Steyer ultimately runs, this cringe-worthy video he made to kick off the “Need to Impeach” campaign will live on the Internet forever…

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Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,

Oops, they’re already rising.

The US government bond market has further soured this week, with Treasuries selling off across the spectrum. When bond prices fall, yields rise. For example, the two-year Treasury yield rose to 2.06% on Friday, the highest since September 2008.

In the chart, note the determined spike of 79 basis points since September 8, 2017. That was the month when the Fed announced the highly telegraphed details of its QE Unwind.

September as the month of the QE-Unwind announcement keeps cropping up. All kinds of things began to happen, at first quietly, without drawing much attention. But then the trajectory just kept going.

The three-year yield, which had gone nowhere for the first eight months of 2017, rose to 2.20% on Friday, the highest since October 1, 2008. It has spiked 82 basis points since September 8:

The ten-year yield – the benchmark for financial markets that most influences US mortgage rates – jumped to 2.66% late Friday.

This is particularly interesting because the 10-year yield had declined from March 2017 into August despite the Fed’s three rate hikes last year, and rising short-term yields.

At 2.66%, the 10-year yield has reached its highest level since April 2014, when the “Taper Tantrum” was winding down. That Taper Tantrum was the bond market’s way of saying “we’re shocked and appalled,” when Chairman Bernanke dropped hints the Fed might eventually begin tapering what the market had called “QE Infinity.”

The 10-year yield has now doubled since the historic intraday low on July 7, 2016 of 1.32% (it closed that day at 1.37%, a historic closing low):

Friday capped four weeks of pain in the Treasury market. But it has not impacted yet the corporate bond market, and the spread in yields between Treasuries and corporate bonds, and particularly junk bonds, has further narrowed. And it has not yet impacted the stock market, and there has been no adjustment in the market’s risk pricing yet.

But it has impacted the mortgage market. On Friday, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with conforming loan balances ($417,000 or less) for top-tier borrowers, according to Mortgage News Daily, ended at 4.23%, the highest in nine months.

But historically, 4.25% is still very low. And likely just the beginning of a long, uneven climb higher.

And the impact on mortgage payments can be sizable. When rates rise for example from 3.5% to 4.5%, the payment for a $250,000 mortgage jumps by $144 to $1,267 a month. This can move the payment out of reach for households that have trouble making ends meet.

A one-percentage-point increase takes on larger proportions in a place like San Francisco, where it might take a mortgage of $1.25 million to buy a median home. At 3.5%, the monthly payment is $5,613. At 4.5%, it jumps to $6,334, an increase of $721 a month and an increase of $8,652 a year.

A mortgage rate of 4.5% is still very low! And it is likely headed higher.

Since the Financial Crisis, the ultra-low mortgage rates were among the factors that have caused home prices to soar. But as rates are heading higher, the housing market is in for a big rethink. These higher rates are going to be applied to the now prevailing sky-high home prices.

This will come in addition to the rethink triggered by what the new tax law will do to the housing market.

 

There’s another aspect to this equation: Homebuyers who are willing and able to stretch to cough up those higher mortgage payments can’t spend this money on other things. Falling mortgage rates gave a huge boost to home prices and to the entire economy in numerous ways. But that process will go into reverse.

So where will it go from here? The 10-year yield is still historically low and has a lot of catching up to do with regards to the trajectory of shorter-term yields. In addition, the Fed will continue to push its buttons – gradually hiking its target range for the federal funds rate and proceeding with its “balance sheet normalization.” And as the 10-year yield rises, mortgage rates will respond, and Housing Bubble 2 will get a lot more costly to deal with.

Even the bond market’s inflation expectations now exceed the Fed’s target. Read… Bond Market Smells Inflation, Begins to React

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On Friday  we showed that according to the latest fund flow data, anecdotal speculation of a marketwide melt-up was indeed the case. As a reminder, earlier in the week, we discussed how  market optimism among both professional and retail investors had hit the highest level since just before the crash of 1987…

… with a recent E-Trade survey disclosed  that 8 out of 10 retail investors – the highest on record – were certain that stocks would continue to rise in Q1. Then, BofA calculated that the 4-week inflows into equities was not only “thundering”, it was the largest ever. This is the result of a massive $23.9bn weekly inflow into equities which brings the 4-week inflow to stocks to the biggest ever, $58bn as shown in the below…

and there was even some good news for active managers: the 4-week inflows to active equity funds was at a 4-year high, although the relentless market share theft by ETFs is unlikely to change any time soon, and certainly not if the market keeps levitating with virtually no volatility.

Now it’s JPMorgan’s turn to opine on recent market euphoria, which – in the aptly named weekly “Flows and Liquidity” report, arguably JPM’s most interesting publication – it says that as of Friday, “momentum signals have reached extreme levels for the S&P” which to JPM’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou suggests that “equities are vulnerable to near-term profit taking.“

Why? JPM observes that after revisiting the bank’s momentum-based indicators, shown in Tables A5 and A7 below which it uses to infer how CTAs and other momentum-based investors are positioned across various commodities as well as equity indices, US sectors, bond futures and currency pairs….

 

 

… JPM noted that “momentum was approaching extreme levels in the S&P 500, along with the Nikkei as well as crude oil futures.”

 

 

The tables reveal, that in the just passed week, the continued strong momentum in risky asset prices saw the z-score of JPM’s S&P signal triggering the mean reversion overlay on Thursday after pointing to longs for around a year and a half.

This means that at long last, the market “could be at levels where momentum-based investors would begin to take profit on their positions.”

Additionally, the continued sell-off in bond markets has seen z-scores for US Treasury futures shift further into negative territory, “but they remain some way away from extreme levels.” Finally, for oil, momentum retraced some of the recent strong gains after Brent oil prices declined from a peak of just over $70 per barrel, though as Chart A39 in the Appendix shows speculative.

To recap: CTAs and other momentum-factor based investors are now at and beyond levels where they traditionally take profits. This could start happening as soon as next week, especially should the market be spooked by the uncertainty surrounding the government shutdown, which as Goldman said yesterday “could last a few weeks”, and near the date of the US debt ceiling D-date, some time in early March, by which point stocks will really sell off if there still is no funding deal.

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Foreigners are being asked by their respective governments to exercise extreme caution and stay within the perimeter of their resorts in Montego Bay, Jamaica, after a wave of out of control violence has overpowered local authorities. On Thursday, the country’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, declared the state of emergency in the St. James parish to “restore public safety,” and also thwart a mass exodus of international investment and tourism.

In response, the government deployed the Jamaica Defense Forces onto the city streets in what is described as a “major military operation.”

Maj. Gen. Antony Anderson, Jamaica’s national security advisor, told CTV News Channel on Friday that authorities imposed a military lockdown of the area, following 335 homicides in 2017, and as reported by CTV that is “twice the tally of any other parish” in the country.

Anderson noted that the number of shootings and homicides have been growing for some period of time, but last year, the surge in deaths could not be ignored rolling into 2018. He said much of the problem resides on the outskirts of Montego Bay and that “Jamaica is still open for business.”

Life in a state of emergency. #MontegoBay #JLPGovernment pic.twitter.com/FL4Rm3EI8w

— State of Jamaica (@JamaicaState) January 20, 2018

The recent crime surge in Jamaica has been driven by conflicts between criminal gangs over the control of the lottery trade, drug wars, and even turf wars.

Maj. Gen. Anderson describes the state of emergency which gives military troops “more freedom of action.”

“For instance, they can do searches without a warrant, so if they get information that something is occurring somewhere, they can respond rapidly to it. They can respond to a series of intelligence-driven operations to target and capture the people who are doing these things and generally disrupt the gangs in their activities,” he added.

Police officers in St. James have listed the top five most wanted men in the parish. They are urged to turn themselves in immediately. Call the Montego Bay Police at 953-6191, or call/text/WhatsApp information to the tip line @ 837-8888. pic.twitter.com/NHVgt3V64n

— Jamaica Constabulary (@JamaicaConstab) January 19, 2018

According to Loop Jamaica,

The entire parish of St James is now locked down by members of the military in what is being reported as a limited state of emergency that has been imposed by the Government. Soldiers are visible stopping and searching motor vehicles at various points in the parish where 335 murders were recorded last year.

There has been no let up to the bloodletting in the parish this year, with criminal attacks there moving to the point where in a daring attack by gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles, a man was killed and others injured in an incident on the roadway near the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, the parish capital and the national tourism centre, earlier this week.

Government forces are conducting door to door operations in St. James.

Police personnel search a house on Codac Lane in Flanker, St James while soldiers patrol the area where a major military operation is under way. https://t.co/R9o2Eq84Lp #glnrNews pic.twitter.com/kC3gIFTmjd

— Jamaica Gleaner (@JamaicaGleaner) January 18, 2018

Military checkpoints are situated throughout St. James.

Members of the Jamaica Defence Force at work in the parish of St. James. State of emergency limited to the entire parish has been declared. pic.twitter.com/Jp2Vn8w6TD

— Abka Fitz-Henley (@AbkaFitzHenley) January 18, 2018

The U.S. State Department issued this warning: “Expect to encounter increased police and military presence, checkpoints, searches of persons/vehicles within St. James Parish.”

#Jamaica: Effective January 18, the Government of Jamaica has declared a limited state of emergency for St. James Parish, to counter criminal activity. Expect to encounter increased police and military presence, checkpoints, searches of persons/vehicles within St. James Parish. pic.twitter.com/mt0pGLnZtZ

— Travel – State Dept (@TravelGov) January 18, 2018

“Military forces have been deployed to the area in an attempt to stabilize the situation,” reads a safety and security notice posted by Travel Canada.

FCO travel advice for British nationals living and traveling abroad in Jamaica:

#Jamaica State of Emergency declared in St James Parish which includes Montego Bay, in response to recent violence including shooting incidents. Follow local advice including restrictions in selected areas, exercise particular care if travelling at night. https://t.co/WFuJiHEW0d

— FCO travel advice (@FCOtravel) January 18, 2018

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