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Submitted by Justin Raimondo via AntiWar.com,

Remember “We’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here”? That was the justification for the worldwide war on terrorism the Bush administration trumpeted in the early days of the post-9/11 era. Keeping in mind that the American people don’t really care about what goes on thousands of miles away, and that the purpose of our foreign policy is – ostensibly – to keep us safe here at home, the Bushies and their neocon Praetorian Guard always kept their focus on the threat that was supposedly hanging over our heads: another 9/11. As that Old Right prophet Garet Garrett put it some sixty years ago, US foreign policy was rationalized to the public with “a complex of vaunting and fear,” and this was the fear part.

But now we hear that the latest iteration of the Terrorist Threat – ISIS – is losing ground in Syria, its home base: some 12 percent of its territory has been lost to a combination of opponents, and the Caliphate, we’re told, is shrinking. So does that mean the Terrorist Threat is abating, and we can get back to living our lives?

Heck no!

As CNN reports:

“IHS [Information Handling Services] senior analyst Columb Strack says that ‘as the Islamic State’s caliphate shrinks and it becomes increasingly clear that its governance project is failing, the group is re-prioritizing insurgency."

 

“He told CNN: ‘As a result, we unfortunately expect an increase in mass casualty attacks and sabotage of economic infrastructure, across Iraq and Syria, and further afield, including Europe.’

 

“In other words, ISIS is going to become a more ‘traditional’ terror group, boasting of its international reach to attract recruits and bolster morale as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria.”

So let’s see if I have this straight: we fought them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here, but now that we’re winning over there they’re coming over there.

Got that?

This preposterous shell game is becoming so transparently phony that not even the “experts” and government officials pushing it can possibly believe it.

In reality, the “war on terrorism” had nothing to do with protecting the American people from harm: it was always all about projecting US power as far as possible and effecting “regime change” throughout the Middle East. And not only there …

The real regime change came about right here in the good ol’ US of A: a system of universal surveillance was instituted as the “Patriot” Act was passed by a Congress that never bothered to read it. The police were militarized – after all, the Bad Guys were about to launch an attack on Peoria, or wherever, and we had to be ready. The banks were forced to report all “suspicious” transactions, and if you bought a pressure cooker your name went on a list of “terror suspects.” This was followed, more recently, by an attack by the Left on the Second Amendment: if your name is on a “terrorist watch list,” or the mysterious “no fly list,” the Nanny State would prevent you from getting your hands on a gun – and screw the Constitution.

Regime change at home and abroad – that’s the real point of the “war on terrorism.” The idea was and is to overthrow not only whatever government dares to get in the War Party’s way, but also to overthrow the Constitution and the rule of law in the United States. A real double-header!

In fact, our “strategy” empowers what might have been marginal terrorist groups, and seems almost designed to do so. We attacked Iraq, and created a power vacuum which al-Qaeda and ISIS filled: then we aligned with “moderate” jihadists in Syria in order to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and drain off support from ISIS. Instead we accomplished exactly the opposite of our intended goal: the “moderates” defected to ISIS and al-Qaeda, and the “Caliphate” grew in size and stature. Thousands of Muslims flocked to the region to fight the latest holy war. So we essentially re-invaded Iraq – Obama just sent in more troops, with more to come – and retook 12 percent of their territory. And now they’re spreading into Europe – and trying to reach the US, as they did in San Bernardino and Orlando.

ISIS split off from al-Qaeda over a strategic issue: where to concentrate their forces. The original strategic vision of Osama bin Laden was to go after the “far enemy” – that is, to hit America – and wait until going for their ultimate goal: the creation of a global “Caliphate.” ISIS disagreed with this gradualism, and determined that it was time to establish the Caliphate here and now. The advantages of this strategy were twofold: 1) It would show that they could actually govern, and that their program wasn’t just a nihilistic vision of destruction for its own sake, and 2) The Caliphate would attract foreign fighters in sufficient numbers to fight the infidels and win.

Like all successful revolutionaries, the leadership of ISIS employs an entrepreneurial strategic and tactical flexibility while never losing sight of its ultimate goal. So while the Caliphate may be losing territory at the moment, it is extending its reach to make the enemy pay a high price – and attracting more recruits in the process.

The idea that we can stamp out these terrorist outfits by going on the offensive in distant Syria, or wherever – denying them “safe havens” – is a delusion that never seems to die. That’s because the delusion serves the domestic interests of our rulers so well.

The “nations” of the Middle East were never real entities to begin with: the borders of Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and the Gulf states were determined by the European colonialists who carved up the remnants of the old Ottoman empire to suit their own purposes. And when these “nations” achieved “independence,” they did not suddenly become more real. What is happening today is the shakeout of competing factions along religious and ethnic lines: the Sunnis, the Shi’ites, the Kurds, etc. etc. are all asserting their right to self-determination. When ISIS demolished the flimsy barrier that separated Syria from Iraq, and proclaimed the abolition of the Sykes-Picot agreement, they were expressing their contempt for the post-World War I order imposed by the West – an order that is dying a bloody and chaotic death in spite of our futile efforts to preserve it.

So what’s the solution?

Terrorist attacks on the West won’t stop any time soon, no matter what we do or don’t do. Too much blood has been spilled, and the dead cry out for vengeance. We can’t undo the invasion of Iraq – the single most destructive act in the modern history of the Middle East – but we can stop making the same mistake unto eternity. As I’ve written before, we should quarantine the entire region. Stop intervening, and let the religious fanatics who are making the region a killing field stew in their own poisonous juices. Stop supporting the Saudis – the main agitators of jihadism; stop supporting Israel: stop supporting the Iraqi “government”; stop sending in troops – and concentrate our limited resources on making sure the terrorists don’t make it to the continental United States.

And if this be “isolationism,” then let the War Party make the most of it. Because the American people are done with global crusading. Enough is enough: let them kill each other if that’s what they’re intent on doing. Let’s just make sure that they aren’t killing us.

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When last night we previewed next week’s Republican National Convention, we noted the concern by one of the republicans who will actually participate: “one senior Republican National Committee official wrote that he is “concerned as heck about the potential for some homegrown violence/native ISIS type threat. If you want to make a statement in America, what better place to do it?”

Well, it may not be ISIS, but according to Reuters, the New Black Panther Party, a “black power” movement, will carry firearms for self-defense during rallies in Cleveland ahead of next week’s Republican convention, if allowed under Ohio law, the group’s chairman said.

The group revealed its plan to pack heat this weekend as police in Cleveland brace for an influx of groups that plan demonstrations before and during the presidential nominating convention. What makes this announcement a major cause for concern is that several other groups, including some supporters of Donald Trump, have said they will also carry weapons in Cleveland.

“If it is an open state to carry, we will exercise our second amendment rights because there are other groups threatening to be there that are threatening to do harm to us,” Hashim Nzinga, chairman of the New Black Panther Party, told Reuters in a telephone interview.  “If that state allows us to bear arms, the Panthers and the others who can legally bear arms will bear arms.” And since the laws do not expressly forbid what the New Black Panthers plan to do, expect the convention to be an armed warzone in which one stray shot could unleash a tragic event of epic proportions between the various weaponized groups.

Officials in Ohio have already said it will be legal for protesters to carry weapons at demonstrations outside the convention under that state’s “open carry” law, which allows civilians to carry guns in public.

Who Are The New Black Panthers?

The New Black Panther Party, whose 10 point platform can be found at the following link, has long called for a separate black nation. But Nzinga said the movement was now focused on protecting black Americans’ rights. Academics say the New Black Panther Party remains marginal and largely representative of an older generation, in their 30s and 40s, rather than younger activists drawn to groups such as the Black Lives Matter movement.

The New Black Panther Party was founded in 1989 and adopted a more radical approach than the 1960s Black Panther Party. Members of the original group have denounced the New Black Panther Party as racist, but Nzinga says his movement includes original Black Panthers.

Nzinga said he expected “a couple hundred” members of the New Black Panther Party to participate in and protect a black unity rally — the “National Convention of the Oppressed” — that is scheduled to begin in Cleveland on Thursday evening and end on Monday morning. Nzinga said he and the Panthers plan to leave Cleveland on Sunday, the day before the convention officially opens.

“We are there to protect … We are not trying to do anything else,” he said. “We are going to carry out some of these great legal rights we have — to assemble, to protest and (to exercise) freedom of speech.”

What can possibly go wrong?

According to Reuters, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate group watchdog, describes the New Black Panther Party as “a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers.“

The center tracks years of public statements by the New Black Panther Party and other groups. Nzinga denied the group was racist but said it was a fact that Jews control Hollywood and the U.S. media. The center said the group is not known to have carried out any violent attacks. The black shooter in the Dallas killings “liked” the New Black Panthers and other black nationalist groups on Facebook but was not a member.

Nzinga said his group has 36 chapters nationwide but declined to reveal membership numbers. “I have people literally calling me saying this is the first time in my life I protested and I loved it.” Nzinga told Reuters. “They want to be a part of something. They tried to be a part of the system and the system let them down so they want to be part of a rebellion.”

All that is left is for them to become “martyers” for their cause, much like many black power groups described the Dallas shooter.

In other words, an armed group who wants to inflict maximum pain on both whites, Jews and cops is warning it will come armed, most likely heavily. All that will be missing is the first short, or failing that, an act of sabbotage, or failing that a simple false flag event.

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By EconMatters

Last week it was gasoline that disappointed traders, this week it was distillates that had the large build in inventories. Watch for several tests of the $44.50 area in Oil the next couple of days.

© EconMatters All Rights Reserved | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Email Digest | Kindle   

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One glimpse at the massive variance between the last two days polls in swing states suggests something very odd is going on.

Quinnipac:

• Pennsylvania Trump +2
• Ohio Tied
• Florida Trump +3

Monmouth:

• Iowa Trump +2

NBC/WSJ:

• Pennsylvania Clinton +9
• Ohio Tied
• Iowa Clinton +3

Or graphically…

[Pennsylvania white voters: Trump, 40% Clinton, 40% Pennsylvania black voters: Trump, 0% Clinton, 91%; Ohio white voters: Trump, 43% Clinton, 33% Ohio black voters: Trump, 0% Clinton, 88% — WSJ/NBC/Marist poll]

Simply put, as The Daily Bell notes, given the post-Email-gate disapproval ratings…

A majority of Americans disapprove of the FBI’s recommendation not to charge Hillary Clinton with a crime over her handling of email while secretary of state, and a similar number in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll say the issue leaves them worried about how she would handle her responsibilities as president if elected.

 

Most also say the email controversy won’t affect their vote in the presidential election. But 28 percent say it leaves them less likely to support her, versus 10 percent who say it makes them more likely to do so. -ABC Poll

Pro-Hillary Clinton polls don’t make sense.

In fact, polling with such tiny samples doesn’t make sense anyway, but coming on the heels of other questionable polls favoring Hillary, this widely quoted poll only seems to raise further questions.

The poll, above, has been widely cited as presenting a negative picture of Clinton.

But as it attempted to question “younger” Democratic voters, perhaps the results could have been even worse than they were.

Maybe it is normal to seek out younger age groups, but certainly younger voters may be seen as even more emphatic in their preferences than older ones.

Alternatively, younger voters might have been less apt to pay attention to the questions, or more more malleable and eager to provide answers they felt would be seen as appropriate. In any case, emphasizing one demographic over another may be seen as injecting additional bias into the results.

It’s been pointed out that younger voters are often supportive of Bernie Sanders rather than Hillary, but these questions dealt directly with whether or not Hillary’s behavior changed voting decisions.

The answer was dramatically “no.”

In fact, according to the poll, two-thirds of Democrats approve of the decision not to charge Clinton and think the issue is unrelated to what she would do as president. Only three in 10 Democrats think she should have been charged.

We looked up the polling methodology HERE and found this.

Within each landline household, interviewers ask to speak with the youngest adult male or female at home; if no person of that gender is at home, interviewers ask to speak with the youngest adult of the other gender. Cell phone interviews are conducted with the adult answering the phone.

Some of those involved with Langer have faced polling questions in the past. HERE from the Huffington Post:

Emmy-Winning Iraq Polls May Have Been Tainted By Fabrication, Researchers Say

 

The Huffington Post Public opinion polls in Iraq since 2003 have been crucial to understanding the war-torn country. ABC News relied on polls for reporting that was awarded two Emmys — the first to mention public opinion polling.

 

But two researchers looking at Iraq polling data in 2011 found alarming patterns that they said suggested some results may have been fabricated by people in Iraq.

 

They wrote a paper describing their findings and sent it to the U.S. company in charge of the data collection, D3 Systems …

 

Representatives of Langer Research Associates, the company later formed that includes the pollsters who worked for ABC, and Lev & Berlin didn’t immediately respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment after business hours on Friday.

Questions have been raised about ABC and the other big media companies in the past. CBS and NBC have been accused HERE of oversampling Democrats in polls, leading to skewed results.

But ABC has also been criticized as regards polling. An April Newsbusters article revealed ABC news stations featured negative Trump polling but didn’t report polls that showed negative Hillary results. See HERE.

Meanwhile, a Reuters Ipsos poll HERE shows Hillary Clinton extending her lead Donald Trump to 13 percentage points. This is up from 10 points last week.

Given the amount of controversy regarding Clinton, the advances she managed to make are certainly astonishing. Trump actually is seen to have lost ground in the same poll.

Conclusion: It’s been shown that people may change their minds about candidates depending on the messages received from polling, among other ongoing results. And the results of polling can be dramatically influenced based on the demographics involved.

Generally speaking, mainstream polling raises questions regarding a regular, pro-Hillary slant, and that’s not going to change.

*  *  *

However, as Liberty Blitzkrieg's Mike Krieger explains "People just want to kill the status quo," and mainstream media-ites just don't understand (or don't want to)…

We are living in an era of justified general disgust. While this disgust manifests itself in all sorts of unproductive ways, the root cause is completely and entirely justified. People see so-called “elites” as the cause of their suffering and they are correct in that assessment. When I say elites, I refer to people who are in charge of crafting our public policy (politicians), those who bribe them (oligarchs) and the pundits who defend them (the mainstream media).

 

These three groups comprise much, but certainly not all, of what many of us refer to as the “status quo.” These crony capitalists, corrupt legislators and their media gatekeepers have been absolutely instrumental in creating the wretched, lawless and disintegrating socio-economic fabric that anyone with an open mind can clearly see around us. As such, it comes as no surprise to me that Trump has now taken the lead in two swing states, and is tied in a third. Actually, that’s not entirely true, I am pretty surprised about Florida.

 

…

 

All indications are that both Gary Johnson and Jill Stein will be on the ballot in a majority of states, so what does this mean for the general election? I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.

 

What really surprised me today is the continued cluelessness of even the somewhat enlightened, celebrated thinkers out there. In this case, I’m referring to Robert Reich, who I applaud for having done some very good work which I have specifically highlighted on these pages. As such, I was stunned to see the following tweet from him earlier today (my response included).

 

How is it possible? Are we watching the same race?
Hillary Clinton is the nominee. That's how it's possible. https://t.co/7gfZdnnU22

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) July 13, 2016

 

Robert Reich gets it more than most, yet still harbors an enormous blindspot. How is that? First, I think that most of his conversations in everyday life are with people from deep within the “status quo.” As such, he’s having discussions within an echo chamber of incompetent and corrupt people. The ones who aren’t incompetent or corrupt are simply in a state of complete denial as to the reality around them.

 

Here’s the thing Robert. The American public is far more pissed off than even you’d like to admit. Part of the reason you refuse to admit it is that this reality is truly terrifying. You’d have to acknowledge that people are so upset, they so want to blow up the status quo, that they’d even vote for the buffoon Trump to do it. While I’m not 100% sure we’re there yet, we’re much closer than most people care to admit.

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While much of the recent public attention surrounding Tesla has focused on the car’s self-driving or “autopilot” feature, which was implicated in the May 7 deadly crash and has resulted in a NHTSA probe as well as a potential SEC inquiry into whether the company misled investors by not reporting the death at the time of Tesla’s May equity offering, the real problems facing Tesla is not so much whether its cars are safe but the increasingly evident lack of demand at any price point.

Last month, Tesla cut the base price of its Model S sedan to $66,000; this happens at a time when Tesla has missed its sales targets in the first two quarters this year. Then earlier today, Musk also added a lower-priced version of its Model X crossover. The new Tesla Model X 60D is priced from $74,000, $9,000 less than the Model X 75D. Equipped with a 60kWh battery,

But the real sign that Tesla is concerned about flailing demand for its cars came later in the day, when Tesla said it had discontinued its resale value guarantee program that assured buyers that cars would retain value over time.

As Reuters adds, the discontinuation of the buyback program, as of July 1, shows the company stepping back on a pledge begun in 2013 that Tesla would buy back its cars financed through specified loan partners for a predetermined resale value after three years. The program was intended to help Tesla control its secondary market and assure buyers that cars would retain value.

This means that used Tesla values are dropping faster than the company had expected in its worst case scenario, and as a result it can no longer afford to fill the gap. With this program ending, demand for new vehicles is set to slump even more as concerns about resale prices emerge.

A Tesla spokesperson said the program was discontinued to “keep interest rates as low as possible and offer a compelling lease and loan program to customers.”

What he really meant but would never say is that demand for Teslas, both new and used, is cratering, something which will promptly be reflected in prices of used Teslas as they suddenly hit the market now that the company is no longer backstopping all repurchases. And, we expect, once the public realizes what the true clearing price of these vehicles is, demand for new cars will slump even further in a feedback loop that ends with Tesla eventually running out of cash. 

But not quite yet.

The most recent publicly disclosed valued of Tesla’s liability created by the resale value guarantee was $1.58 billion as of March 31. The resale value liability had increased by more than 20 percent since the end of 2015. Needless to say, the ending of the program simply means that Musk no longer wanted to accumulate a massive liability which would, sooner or later, have to be met with actual cash outflows by a company which already burn $2 billion annually in a good year.

* * *

Meanwhile, courtesy of our friends at Probes Reporter, we learn of another potentially far more troubling problem facing Tesla: namely another SEC investigation, one which has not been previously disclosed. In a note titled “New Data Reveals the SEC Was Already Investigating Tesla Before Any News Surfaced about an Autopilot-Related Crash”, John Gavin writes that “Through clever language and careful omission, we think Tesla is misleading investors about SEC investigative risk. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal broke a story claiming the SEC was investigating Tesla’s disclosure practices. The company promptly issued a widely-reported denial, leaving investors to wonder. Doesn’t matter. Tesla’s denial was too narrow; deliberately we say, and does not cover our newest data.”

We now know, with certainty, that as of 06-Jul-2016, Tesla was involved in an undisclosed SEC investigation that was on-going at the time. It was and remains undisclosed. Further, and this is important, we received an earlier response from the SEC dated 27-Jun-2016, that makes it clear there was already an SEC investigation of Tesla before 30-Jun-2016, the day the company first disclosed news of a recent crash of one of its cars. That means the SEC was investigating something else, something unrelated to the disclosures of the crash. With the cleverly narrow language we saw coming from the company earlier this week, this is the SEC probe Tesla avoided speaking to. We explain in this report.

 

The best way forward is for Tesla to answer this very simple question: What contact has Tesla had with the SEC’s Division of Enforcement in the past two years regarding any matter? Monday’s denial did not answer that question. It only spoke to the issues raised in the Journal story. It’s time Tesla gives investors a more complete answer regarding its interactions with the SEC.

 

Facts of Interest or Concern: Monday, the Wall Street Journal published a story claiming the SEC was investigating Tesla’s disclosure practices regarding a recent Autopilot-related crash. As the story gained traction, the company issued the following denial, which was widely reported in the media: “Tesla has not received any communication from the SEC regarding this issue. Our blog post last week provided the relevant information about this issue.” [Emphasis added to draw attention to the narrowness of this denial as it speaks only to a sole “issue”, on which we comment below]

 

For our part, in a letter dated 27-Jun-2016, we received information from the SEC suggesting Tesla Motors was involved in unspecified SEC investigative activity that was undisclosed at the time. We filed an appeal, and now, in a letter dated 06-Jul-2016, the SEC confirmed this company’s involvement in on-going enforcement proceedings (excerpt below). No clear disclosure of SEC investigative activity was found in a search of Tesla Motors filings dating back to Oct-2012.

* * *

Our Take: Because of the timing of SEC responses to us, we think Tesla could easily be under investigation for matters related to governance, potential conflicts of interest, and/or proposed or past transactions of Elon Musk’s public companies. The SEC could even be investigating the pending SolarCity deal. We wrote on related matters before (See our report of 27-Jun-2016, Tesla/SolarCity: Governance Conflicts, Disclosure Shortcomings.)

 

Keep in mind the SEC also could be investigating something unrelated to the SolarCity deal. For that matter, the SEC probe may pertain to something investors might not even care about.

 

But couldn’t the SEC have been investigating the car crash at the time it gave us its response of 27-Jun-2016? Probably not. According to the company, the NHTSA had not even opened its “preliminary evaluation” of Autopilot until 29-Jun-2016. By then we already had in hand the SEC response of 27-Jun-2016. While the company had contacted the NHTSA earlier, on 16-May-2016, we strongly doubt the SEC was contacted by that agency about Tesla’s crash. There would be no reason to. This tells us the SEC was already investigating something unrelated to the car crash by the time that news came out on 30-Jun-2016.

 

Tesla’s cleverly narrow response to the Wall Street Journal story Again, after Monday’s Wall Street Journal story broke, a company spokesperson was widely reported to say, “Tesla has not received any communication from the SEC regarding this issue. Our blog post last week provided the relevant information about this issue.”

* * *

Dodgy statements from Tesla regarding SEC investigative activity are not new to us. In the past a Tesla representative called our work “rumor and speculation” as a way to avoid speaking directly to it. This is despite the fact that every single time we report on a company’s involvement in an undisclosed SEC probe, like today, we can back it up with a response from the SEC – in black & white on government letterhead.

 

There is no rumor. The confirmation of an on-going SEC probe of Tesla is not speculation. It’s time Tesla speaks to this directly.

We hope Elon Musk will address these allegations head on, especially since the credibility of the company – intimately tied to any hope it may ever have of being profitable – in recent weeks has been significantly shaken.

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Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

In early 1870, the Kingdom of Prussia and French Empire were about to go to war.

It was one of countless conflicts between the dozens of European kingdoms and empires throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and this one was over before it even started.

Prussia’s military might was legendary. They had recently beaten the pants off of Austria and Denmark, and they’d go on to neutralize or capture over 80% of French soldiers within a matter of months, while losing just 2% of their own.

Very few wars have been so one-sided.

And yet despite its nearly unparalleled military successes and clear dominance in European politics, Prussia lacked something critical: financial power.

Prussia’s economy was robust and healthy. But businesses across all German kingdoms depended almost exclusively on the British banking system to conduct international trade.

It was similar to how nearly the entire world depends on Wall Street mega-banks today for global trade. Germany lacked its own strong financial system.

So on March 10, 1870, King Wilhelm I of Prussia (soon to be German Emperor) granted a banking license to a trio of local entrepreneurs and gave them explicit instructions to establish a banking powerhouse.

And that’s exactly what they did. The bank was called Deutsche Bank, and it eventually grew into one of the largest banks in the world.

Deutsche Bank has seen a lot in its years; multiple world wars and the devastation of Europe. Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic. Nazi Germany.

The bank even outlasted its own country, as the Kingdom of Prussia was formally abolished in 1947.

But as the world learned in 2008 when the 158-year old investment bank Lehman Brothers went bust, even giant, centuries-old financial institutions can collapse.

Banking is such a bizarre industry when you think about it.

Regular, everyday people like you and I fork over our hard-earned savings to banks.

They take our money and do some of the most insane things with it… whether loaning it to jobless, homeless people, or buying the negative-yielding debts of bankrupt governments.

You and I would never do anything so foolish with our own funds. Yet we hand everything over to banks and give them full license to engage in this madness.

And even when their decisions blow up and they go to the taxpayer with hat in hand for a bailout, they prove that they have memories like goldfish.

Today, banks are up to the same tricks as they were 10 years ago, except they’ve taken things to a whole new level.

And Deutsche Bank is leading the charge.

One of the major issues in the 2008 crisis was that banks were over-leveraged and had very thin levels of capital.

In other words, the banks’ rainy-day reserve funds as a percentage of their overall balance sheets were extremely low, so even a small loss in their investment portfolios would cause financial Armageddon.

That’s precisely what happened.

Lehman Brothers famously had a capital ratio of less than 3% of its assets. So when the value of its assets fell by more than 3%, the bank was finished.

Well-capitalized banks are supposed to have double-digit capital levels while making low risk investments.

Deutsche Bank, on the other hand, has a capital level of less that 3% (just like Lehman), and an incredibly risky asset base that boasts notional derivatives exposure of more than $70 trillion, roughly the size of world GDP.

Even the IMF has stated unequivocally that Deutsche Bank poses the greatest risk to global financial stability.

And the IMF would be right… except for all the other banks.

Because, meanwhile in Italy, nearly the entire Italian banking system is rapidly sliding into insolvency.

Italian banks are sitting on over 360 billion euros in bad loans right now and are in desperate need of a massive bailout.

IMF calculations show that Italian banks’ capital levels are among the lowest in the world, just ahead of Bangladesh.

And this doesn’t even scratch the surface of problems in other banking jurisdictions.

Spanish banks have been scrambling to raise billions in capital to cover persistent losses that still haven’t healed from the last crisis.

In Greece, over 35% of all loans in the banking system are classified as “non-performing”.

This is astounding. But what’s even more incredible is that the ratio of non-performing loans has actually been increasing for several years since the country’s supposed bailout.

Banks in Cyprus and Portugal are hemorrhaging cash and reporting widespread losses.

And banks’ stock prices across the region have practically collapsed in recent weeks as investors have started to realize that Bancopalypse 2.0 may be upon us.

(Oh, and lest anyone think that the United States is a banking safe haven, it’s worth noting that the non-performing commercial loan ratio in the US banking system has tripled in 18-months… but we’ll save that for another time.)

Here’s the bottom line: the banking crisis of 2008 never fully healed.

It just got shuffled under the carpet while the public was fed a phony narrative that everything is fantastic.

This turned out to be a gigantic farce; many of the world’s banking systems are just as risky as they were back in 2008.

Do yourself a favor: don’t keep 100% of your savings trapped in a risky banking system.

What’s the point? They’re only paying you 0.1% anyhow. Why take on so much risk?

If you have savings of even more than $10,000 (and definitely if you’re in the six to seven figure range), move some funds to a stronger, better capitalized banking system abroad.

And definitely consider owning precious metals, plus holding at least a month’s worth of expenses in physical cash in a safe at your home.

Given how low interest rates are, you won’t be any worse off. But should Bancopalypse 2.0 be upon us, cash and gold could end up being a phenomenal insurance policy.

via http://ift.tt/29xBQXD Tyler Durden

Every time we believe Venezuela has hit rock bottom, president Nicolas Maduro finds a way to surprise us. In the latest installment of Venezuela’s social collapse, we find that the president of the socialist utopia has put the armed forces in charge of a new food supply system aimed at alleviating crippling shortages, in the process ceding even more power to a military apparatus that is already involved in everything from banking to imports. According to some interpretations, this is merely the latest step in the military’s takeover of a government that has now lost virtually all support as well as authority to govern.

As WSJ reports, the head of the armed forces, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino – who now becomes one of the most powerful people in the socialist government – will be in charge of transporting and distributing basic products, controlling prices and stimulating production, according to a decree published Tuesday in the official gazette.  “All the ministries, all the ministers, all the state institutions are at the service and in absolute subordination” to Padrino’s so-called Great Sovereign Supply Mission, Maduro said in a televised address Monday night.

Venezuelan Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino.

The appointment comes at a time of unprecedented crisis for Venezuela, where a full-blown food crisis has emerged over the past few months. Entire days are now spent outside stores waiting to buy a handful of basic items, with protests and looting rising sharply. Hoarding and flipping scarce goods have become a growth industry. Those who buy and resell, known as bachaqueros, are among the few succeeding in this economy.

Venezuelans carrying groceries cross the Simón Bolívar bridge from Colombia

As a result, the armed forces have swiftly repressed all opposition rallies as well as the food riots that flare up daily across the country. 

As Bloomberg adds, in an attempt to regain control, President Nicolas Maduro has tapped loyal neighborhood groups, called CLAPs, and put them in charge of distributing as much as 70 percent of the nation’s food. The committees, whose meetings start with socialist anthems, are told they must wrest control of the food market from those reselling it illegally.

“There is an economic war being waged,” said Janette Carillo, 45, a local CLAP member who helped oversee the Catia food delivery. “Our job is to break the arm of the bachaquero,” she said. After taking on global powerhouses like Exxon Mobil and PepsiCo., the government is now targeting bachaqueros — frantic, ordinary people who have abandoned jobs to wait in line all night in order to get by. The notion that they are part of a capitalist assault on Venezuela is hard to square with the facts. Meanwhile, opposition leaders contend that the food trucks exclude their followers.

“This is now a completely militarized government,” said Luis Manuel Esculpi, a security analyst in Caracas and former head of the armed forces commission in the congress. “The army is Maduro’s only source of authority.”

To be sure, since coming to power three years ago, Maduro has relied increasingly on the armed forces as a spiraling economic crisis pushed his approval ratings to record lows and food shortages led to lootings. Generals are already in charge of state companies importing the bulk of Venezuela’s food; they run the country’s largest bank, a television station and a state mining company.

Some see through the latest news as a de facto takeover by the local military, one which allows Maduro to quietly exit the scene of the crime and leave the local army to handle the upcoming revolution.

“Maduro is giving the keys to Miraflores [presidential palace] over to a military leader who is unable to confront the economic crisis,” said opposition deputy Julio Borges. “What this means is more roadblocks, more corruption and less production.”

The problem for the military is that by fully aligning themselves with the Maduro regime, they will also lose the people’s trust, making violent conflict virtually inevitable.

A former high-ranking general said the new measures would end up discrediting the armed forces, “because now they’ll be responsible for sustaining a model that has no viability.” He said the move would also open more doors for corruption in a country the watchdog group Transparency International considers among the world’s more corrupt.

Meanwhile, the Maduro regime continues to hand over increasingly bigger chunks of the local economy to the army, most recently confiscating the plant of Kimberly-Clark which announced over the weekend that it was abandoning its local operations.

“If all the factories now have to run everything by the military, this isn’t going to make raw materials appear all of the sudden,” said Juan Pablo Olalquiaga, president of Venezuela’s industrial chamber, Conindustria. “The president is showing he does not understand how to manage the economy.”

Ultimately, Venezuela’s real food shortage problem is less due to distribution, no matter if tasked to the military or private sector, it is the supply. The government plans to halve imports to make good on billions of dollars of bonds maturing later this year.

What is most surprising, however, is that Venezuela continues to sacrifice the well-being of its people to placate its creditors: for some inexplicable reason, the completely insolvent country, which recently may have seen much of its gold confiscated by Citigroup, refuses to default and instead allocate its dwindling reserves to providing the bare necessities for the population. But then we are reminded of an article we wrote in December 2014:

• How Goldman Sachs Became Broke Venezuela’s Loan Shark

And suddenly everything becomes clear.

via http://ift.tt/29Ic8Da Tyler Durden