With his apparent arch-nemesis President Trump just across town, billionaire globalist investor George Soros is about to sit down for a conversation among the world’s elites in Davos…
Here is what Soros said in 2017:
On Trump as president: “Trump stands for a form of government that is a dictatorship or mafioso state. He would be a dictator if he could get a way with it.”
On Trump and China: “Trump will do more to make China look respectable in the eyes of the international community than China could have ever done on its own.”
On Trump and markets: “Long-term investors don’t like uncertainty. I don’t think the market will do very well [under Trump].”
And Soros begins on a down-note… commenting on the “bleak state of the world”…
Live Feed (via Bloomberg) (click image for link to feed)
The economy no longer generates secure, purposeful jobs for the working class, and so millions of people live in a state of insecure despair.
The opioid epidemic is generating a lot of media coverage and hand-wringing, but few if any solutions, and this is predictable: if you don’t face up to the causes, then you can’t solve the problem. America is steadfastly avoiding looking at the causes of the opioid crisis, which is soberly reflected in these charts of soaring opioid-caused deaths:
If we are going to have an honest conversation about the opioid epidemic, then we need to recognize the real causes of the epidemic:
1. The Pharmaceutical industry falsely claimed synthetic opioids were non-addictive, and a complicit, toothless regulatory system did nothing, egged on by politicians who were bought off by mega-bucks campaign contributions from Big Pharma.
2. Our sickcare system is very good at over-prescribing painkillers as a substitute for treating the source of the pain, which is often complex. Our “healthcare” system, much of which consists of endless TV adverts promoting one costly medication after another, is basically a conduit from Big Pharma to poorly informed “consumers” (quaintly referred to as “patients” to mask the actual dynamic).
This system has trained “consumers” to expect a magic pill for every ailment or pain, and any doctor who refuses to over-prescribe is risking blowback from the “patients” and the rest of the system. Americans have been trained to avoid treatments that require effort and changing their lifestyle; they demand a magic pill that works right away, with no effort required.
3. The economy no longer generates secure, purposeful jobs for the working class, and so millions of people live in a state of insecure despair, a state devoid of purpose, meaning, and ways to contribute to their families and communities. People stripped of meaningful livelihoods are prone to finding escape in destructive addictive drugs and habits.
4. The counterproductive War on Drugs has effectively outlawed cannabis for decades, depriving the public of a pain-reducing natural product. While the law-enforcement status quo, exemplified by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, still makes factually false claims about the dangers of cannabis, the truth is that if cannabis were legal, affordable and easily available, tens of thousands of Americans would still be alive, because cannabis doesn’t kill people and you can’t overdose on it.
Go ahead and do your own research: I couldn’t find a single verified instance of a cannabis-caused death in the U.S. when I sought verifiable statistics on cannabis-caused deaths a few years ago.
So while law enforcement got helicopters and other toys to play with and the War on Drugs Gulags filled up with citizens who should never have been imprisoned, the War on Drugs has killed tens of thousands by outlawing a safe pain-killer and legalizing deadly, highly addictive pain-killers because those deadly, highly addictive pain-killers reaped Big Pharma billions of dollars in profits.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We have the means to generate meaningful work in our communities–I’ve laid out one system to accomplish this in my book A Radically Beneficial World.
We should legalize cannibis immediately at the federal level. While law-enforcement bureaucracies will mourn the slashing of their bloated War on Drugs budgets, the nation will finally put the destructive, failed, counter-productive War on Drugs in the ash heap of history.
You can’t just give people and communities a subsistance entitlement like Universal Basic Income (UBI) and expect them to thrive. If we look deeply into the opioid epidemic, we find a crisis of purposelessness fueled by a lack of meaningful work and ways to contribute and earn financial security by serving others in the community.
If we don’t face up to the essential role of meaningful work in human fulfillment and security, then we’ll never solve our addicition epidemic and all the related social ills.
After Stephen Mnuchin failed to arrest the dollar’s freefall this morning, it appears to have been left to President Trump to ‘fix’ it. In a brief clip from a longer CNBC interview, Trump explained “ultimately he wants to see a strong dollar” and the dollar spiked…
Trump said “Mnuchin’s comment was taken out of context” and added that “as the economy strengthens, the dollar will get stronger and stronger and ultimately I want to see a strong dollar”
And the reaction was instant buying of the dollar…
We do note that actually this is exactly what Mnuchin said this morning… that in the long-run we want a strong dollar… and offers no content for the short-term plunge. For now the Trump spike is not erasing the day’s losses.
New York City is home to some of the world’s worst public schools for children with special needs, places that warehouse students in chaotic and unsupportive environments. A growing number of affluent families have successfully sued the city on the grounds that these schools are so bad that taxpayers should pay to send their learning-disabled children to elite private institutions instead. It’s a de facto private voucher system that is largely inaccessible to poor families.
What if the city were to provide all families with school choice, so that even disabled kids from poor homes could get an excellent education?
The status quo is the source of enormous inequities: Upper-middle-class parents are able to work the system to get the very best for their kids. But who can blame them?
Click here for full text, a transcript, and downloadable versions
A thaw in North-South relations that began early this year as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in has accelerated into a full-on reversal. To wit, North Korea on Thursday issued a rare message for “all Koreans at home and abroad,” saying they should make a “breakthrough” for unification without the help of other countries, its state media said.
Reuters reports the North Korean press are also saying, “all Koreans” should “promote contact, travel, cooperation between North and South Korea” while adding Pyongyang will “smash” all challenges against reunification of the Korean peninsula.”
Relations between the two countries warmed when the South agreed to suspend the military exercises that the North has described as a preamble to war earlier this year, and the neighboring countries – which have technically been at war since the 1950s – agreed to field a combined women’s field hockey team during the upcoming Winter Games in PyeongChang.
A liberal who campaigned on forging closer ties with the North, Jae-in has butted heads with President Trump and the US military, which remain wary of the North. US military leaders worry that Kim is deviously trying to create a wedge between the US and its main regional ally in its struggle to contain the North’s nuclear program.
The announcement, which was issued after a joint meeting of government and political parties, also called for Koreans to “defuse military tensions” and create “a peaceful atmosphere” on the peninsula.
The North’s official news agency explained that military tensions on the peninsula were a “fundamental obstacle” to improving inter-Korean relations. Now that they have ceased, an amicable relationship is developing for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
North Korea did not provide details about the purpose for the meeting, saying only that it was aimed to support leader Kim Jong Un’s remarks regarding unification from his New Year’s address. It said this year is meaningful for both North and South Korea as it is the 70th anniversary of the founding of North Korea while South Korea will be hosting the Winter Olympics next month.
Of course, all this peace talk hasn’t stopped the North from continuing to advance their nuclear program, as well as the country’s testing of ballistic missiles. CIA Director Mike Pompeo warned earlier this week that the North is only “a handful of months” away from being able to launch a nuclear strike on the Continental US with a high degree of accuracy.
It’s clear to me now that Wall St. is behind the failure of the New York Agreement. Roger Ver and his championing Bitcoin Cash was used as a stalking horse to destroy Bitcoin’s ability to function in the marketplace.
But, it is this very kind of attack that betrays the weakness of their position.
The news of the week is payment processor Stripe just dropped Bitcoin as a means of payment saying the fateful words, “It fails as a currency.”
“Over the past year or two, as block size limits have been reached, bitcoin has evolved to become better-suited to being an asset than being a means of exchange,” the company said in a statement.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that Stripe still believes in cryptocurrencies, just not Bitcoin. The company’s statement makes it clear it understands the issues and that other projects may be suitable for future needs, most notably Litecoin and Steller Lumens.
Stripe added that it remains bullish on cryptocurrencies, naming the most promising projects, including Lightning, OmiseGO, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. The company will probably include Stellar cryptocurrency in the list of services it provides.
What becomes immediately obvious is that governments and the banking industry/cartel are fighting a war of attrition against cryptocurrencies. By consistently throwing up roadblocks, perceived or real, to their adoption, they seek to simply slow down their development as a challenge to the existing financial order.
Ultimately, this is a good thing…
First They Laugh At You
Then They Fight You
Then You Win.
Never Attack Down
The establishment never attacks down if it isn’t fundamentally threatened by something or someone. It’s the first rule of politics.
In 2008, Rudy Guiliani ended his political career by attacking Ron Paul at an early primary debate. In their hubris, they thought they could blind-side and intimidate Dr. Paul by allowing then front-runner Adolph Rudolph Guiliani to grandstand on 9/11 to boost himself to the Republican nomination.
Dr. Paul stood his ground and famously said “NO!” and then proceeded to bring up the concept of blowback. It awoke an entire generation that there was someone running for President who wasn’t a complete tool.
Guiliani was soon hounded out of the race and Dr. Paul started the counter-revolution here in the U.S. that culminated in Donald Trump’s election in 2016.
Guiliani’s mistake was attacking down. In politics, the front-runner has everything to lose in engaging with someone below him in the polls. It’s a sign of weakness and insecurity in your lead. By even acknowledging Paul’s presence on the stage to score cheap points, Guiliani showed weakness and Paul became a rock star.
The Future is Bright
I know we’re on the right track here because they are fighting cryptos in the trenches now. And they are trying to kill the momentum of crypto being on everyone’s lips. While the DOW is at all-time highs all anyone can talk about is Bitcoin.
Think about that for a second.
And then think about what’s coming next. Because you can see what’s happening within the market. The applications platforms projects like Ethereum, EOS, STEEM, NEO, OMG, KMD and others are all not only holding onto most of their 2017 gains, they are also the first to rally on any bullish day, outperforming Bitcoin and most of the alternate currency coins like BTG, BCH, LTC and the privacy coins.
It’s especially gratifying to see STEEM do this.
STEEM is now in the top-25 of all cryptos by marketcap. And considering that Steem held as Steem Power is proportional to your voting power withing the network, using the term “market cap” for STEEM is appropriate.
The only one of these offerings with a widely-used working product and a thriving user-base is not only attracting financial capital but intellectual and human capital (the most important kinds) at the right moment in the story.
It’ll be the growth of STEEM which helps spear-head the acceptance of these other blockchain-based projects. It’s frankly silly to see all of the developers on sites like Medium but not here. This place is the best advertisement for the potential of their products. It’s not the competition, it’s their advertising platform.
So, keep this in mind when you see yet another post on here about Bitcoin dropping. The Empire is striking back because it has to.
If the 2 Year auction earlier this week was described by many as “tremendous”, today’s 7Year “belly buster” was nothing short of spectacular.
Pricing at a high yield of 2.565%, today’s 7Y auction stopped through the When Issued 2.77% by a whopping 1.2bps; as expected the yield was the highest since April 2011.
However, it was the internals where the auction true impressed, printing at a bid to cover of 2.73, this was far higher than last month’s 2.550 and well above the 2.50 6 month average.
And just like in the recently completed 2Y auction, the biggest surprise was the influx of foreign buyers, i.e. Indirect Bidders, who were awarded a near record 78.11%, a jump from December’s 60.5%, and far above the 6 month average of 65% and just shy of the all time high of 81.7%.
Directs were awarded 10.2%, a drop from last month’s 13.1% and below the 6MMA of 14.6%, while the Dealer takedown was 11.7%, a sharp drop from the 6 auction average of 20.5% as a result of surge in Indirects.
Overall, an impressively strong auction, which was not helped by a short- squeeze or any concession; in fact, the auction was so strong, it has managed to pull the entire yield curve lower by the “belly.”
Did you know that the government doesn’t insure the cargo it sends into space? That means that when a satellite carrying government cargo explodes during or after launch, taxpayers are left footing the entire bill. This issue has become topical with the recent loss of a Northrop Grumman satellite launched by Elon Musk’s privately-owned company SpaceX earlier this month. Shooting a satellite into orbit is obviously inherently risky; however, that is all the more reason to protect taxpayers when the federal government contracts with private companies like Musk’s.
We know little about the contract or the mission of the launch itself because that information is classified. What we do know for sure is that on Jan. 7, a top-secret satellite (code-named “Zuma”) was launched on one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets. Though the rocket didn’t explode upon launch this time (something that has happened twice in recent years), the satellite—which is rumored to have cost upward of $3 billion—seemingly failed to maintain orbit and is believed to have ended up in the Indian Ocean.
About the only other thing we know is that taxpayers will eat the loss. In fact, because the mission was classified, we can only speculate as to which government agency was responsible for the mission, not to mention what went wrong, writes Veronique de Rugy.
The missing text messages from a critical five-month period between Trump-bashing FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who both served on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, have been located, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has told Sen. Charles Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson according to Fox News.
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page
This confirms a report from last night according to which the DOJ was in the process of recovering the five months worth of missing text messages between the two FBI employees. And, as asked last night, “here’s a big question tonight: was the deputy FBI director, Andrew McCabe cell phone impacted by this so-called glitch? McCabe, he was Lisa Page’s boss, and both she and Strzok talked about “the insurance policy in Andy’s office,” we believe that was McCabe.“
The recently revealed text messages from Clinton operatives within the FBI that spoke about a “secret society” within the agency that met to discuss ways to take out President Trump have led many to question how those involved still have a job at the agency despite the mounting evidence of widespread corruption.
Keep in mind that it has already been revealed that top counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, along with his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, were directly involved in a conspiracy to protect their preferred presidential candidate in Hillary Clinton while doing everything in their power to hurt her opponent, Donald Trump.
Now we know that those two, along with a slew of others within the federal government, actually continued their operation against Trump after he was democratically elected, even taking their conspiracy so far as to set up a sort of secret society which included the same key figures who helped jump start the sham Russian investigation in the first place.
Amazingly, there are apparently agents with the FBI itself who are just as angry about said conspiracy as are the American people and are now telling reporters that they are concerned that those involved still work for the FBI in any capacity.
According to a report from investigative journalist Sara Carter, agents within the FBI have told her that they question how anti-Trump operatives such as Strzok and Page even still have a job after all the shocking revelations surrounding their work to protect Clinton and hurt Trump.
Carter pointed out that previously revealed Strzok-Page texts alluded to an “insurance policy” that could be used if Trump won the presidency.
“Their worst nightmare has come true, the president is elected. That is something they did not expect. FBI sources said from the very beginning that they didn’t want Trump to make it into office.”
“I’m concerned that they’re still working at the FBI,” Carter said. “I’m hearing from my sources, too. FBI agents are saying, ‘Why are they still there?’”
“The Lovebirds. They were having an affair, they were both married, they’re working counter-intelligence. That’s enough for blackmail,” Carter said. “Now they’re sending text messages on an unsecured phone. Believe me, the Germans, the Russians, the Israelis, everybody is going into those phones and trying to suck out all the information they have.”
One has to wonder if they simply know too much and cannot be fully fired over fears that they may spill the beans on the entire conspiracy which many now believe to be worse than Watergate.
Carter also touched on the laughable claim that the missing text messages (from a key point when those involved would actually be carrying out key parts of the conspiracy) were lost due to some sort of cellphone glitch.
About the FBI’s claim that the Samsung phones are responsible for the 50,000 additional missing text messages, Carter says: “I can tell you this, a lot of people within the DOJ, possibly even the inspector general himself, a lot of people within these committees do not buy this.“
Did you know that the government doesn’t insure the cargo it sends into space? That means that when a satellite carrying government cargo explodes during or after launch, taxpayers are left footing the entire bill. This issue has become topical with the recent loss of a Northrop Grumman satellite launched by Elon Musk’s privately-owned company SpaceX earlier this month. Shooting a satellite into orbit is obviously inherently risky; however, that is all the more reason to protect taxpayers when the federal government contracts with private companies like Musk’s.
