Category: zerohedge

Forget war with Russia, China, or nuclear threats from North Korea; ignore Middle East chaos; and don’t worry about global cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure. The Economist Intelligence Unit ‘scores’ the greatest global risk right now is a “prolonged fall in major stock markets.”

EIU begins by pointing out that, there has arguably never been a greater disconnect between the apparent strength of the global
economy and the magnitude of geopolitical, financial and operational risks that organisations are facing.

Despite the encouraging headline growth figures, the global economy is facing the highest level of risk in years. Indeed, this favourable economic picture appears to come from a completely different world to the one where headlines are dominated by protectionist rhetoric, major territorial disputes, terrorism, surging cyber-crime and even the threat of nuclear war. The global economy has seen periods of high risk before, with threats emanating from the regional and the national level, as well as from state and non-state actors.

What is unique about this period of heightened risk, however, is that unlike other periods in recent decades, risks are also originating from the global level, as the US questions its role in the world and partially abdicates from its responsibilities. These moves have signalled the end of the US-led global order and the beginning of a new order. Although the new order will emerge over the next decade, there will be a period of uncertainty as multiple global and regional powers vie for power and influence. For organisations attempting to negotiate these concerns in order to take advantage of the numerous and growing economic opportunities, the stakes are obviously high.

In this report EIU identifies the top ten risks to the global political and economic order…

The Economist Intelligence Unit sees a number of risks, with their roots in the US, China and the EU. However, these risks are not limited to those geographies alone, and they could morph into threats that destabilise large parts of the world. In addition, there are risks that either come from smaller regional hotspots, or are global in nature.

This table highlights The Economist Intelligence Unit’s top 10 global risks, ranked in order of intensity. Risk intensity here is measured on a 25-point scale, and is a product of the probability of that risk taking place and the potential impact it would have on the global economy.

Ironic that a US-led global trade war is ranked #1 along with a sustained stock market slump as the greatest risks facing the world right now.

The global economy is moving into a new phase, where more and more central banks will begin to wind down or reverse their loose monetary policy positions in response to vigorous growth rates, giving rise to significant uncertainty.

Any ramp-up in protectionism would certainly have repercussions beyond North America and China. Prices and availability for US and Chinese products in the supply chains of companies from other nations would be badly affected. Consequently, global growth would be notably curtailed as investment and consumer spending fall back.

*  *  *

The full EIU Document can be found below:

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2oP7LeF Tyler Durden

Authored by Derrick Broze via ActivistPost.com,

As the 9/11 trial faces further delays, the United Nations has issued a report calling for the immediate release of a man accused of helping plan the 9/11 terror attacks.

A new report from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Definition condemns the illegal detention and torture of a man who was once accused of assisting the plotters of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City, the Pentagon, and other planned attacks. The UN WGAD issued the new report outlining the detainment and torture of Ammar al Baluchi and calling for his immediate release and financial compensation. Al Baluchi was captured in Pakistan in April 2003 before being turned over to U.S. authorities. He has been held at a secret military prison in Cuba since 2006 after being accused of assisting the alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

“Mr al Baluchi has been subject to prolonged detention on discriminatory grounds and has not been afforded equality of arms in terms of having adequate facilities for the preparation of his defense under the same conditions as the prosecution,” the report states. The report indicates a source close to the situation has stated that al Baluchi was held without charge or access to a lawyer until at least April 2008, at which point he was unable to choose his own representation and instead given a military lawyer.

“He has been deprived of due process and the fair trial guarantees that would ordinarily apply within the judicial system of the United States.”

The 2014 US Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture found that al Baluchi was taken to the CIA black site known as the Salt Pit, where he faced torture in the form of waterboarding and other simulated drowning techniques as well as physical beatings. The UN Working Group said this “widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty” is in violation of the rules of international law which “may constitute crimes against humanity.”

In response to the report, Cmdr Sarah Higgins, a Department of Defense spokesperson, told the Independent,

“The U.S. government has the legal authority to detain al Baluchi. Until we have time to analyse the basis of their claim, we will delay further comment.”

At the same time as the UN is seeking the release of al Baluchi, the trial of KSM may face yet another delay after nearly 15 years of dead-end hearings. Military.com reports:

The judge in the Sept. 11 terror case said in court Monday that he would order Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to explain in writing why he suddenly fired the top official overseeing the war court.

Defense attorneys in the case are calling the dismissal foul play, in part because some had been hopeful of negotiating a deal in the death penalty case with Harvey Rishikof, a Mattis appointee who until Feb. 5 served as Convening Authority for Military Commissions.

Judge Army Col. James L. Pohl stated that the court needs to know why the dismissal took place. Pohl has been overseeing the case of the five men accused of directing or funding the 19 hijackers accused of crashing planes in New York City, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001. According to Military.com, Pohl will issue an order in writing this week and give Mattis a deadline of March 17 for a written response explaining the reasons for the firings.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the 9/11 trial has dealt with funny business from the government. On May 11, 2016, defense lawyers for KSM asked for judge Col. James Pohl and the prosecution team to be recused from the trial, and for the case to be shut down. Defense lawyers David Nevin and Maj. Derek Poteet say that the U.S. government destroyed evidence related to the case, according to the New York Times. The two men are unable to provide further details because the issue is classified, but Mr. Nevin said the evidence was “favorable” to the defendants.

Major Poteet also told the Times that the defense was first informed in February that Colonel Pohl would provide them with a “summary of a substitute” for the original, classified evidence. The defense requested Colonel Pohl to preserve the evidence for the record and Pohl complied. Or so they thought.

“But they learned in February, they said, that about 20 months earlier, and without their knowledge, prosecutors had obtained from Colonel Pohl a secret order that reversed his previous decision,” the Times writes.

“By the time they found out, the government had already destroyed the evidence, giving them no opportunity to challenge the move.”

Major Poteet said the situation created the appearance that Colonel Pohl was “colluding with the government.” The Times reports that the original, now destroyed evidence, may have been related to one of several foreign black site prisons operated by the Central Intelligence Agency in Thailand, Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Afghanistan, and at a secret site at the Guantánamo base. KSM was tortured for several years at one of these sites before being transferred to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba in 2006.

It is unlikely that the public will ever get the truth about the 9/11 attacks or the trials. These men will likely rot away in secret prisons for the rest of their lives.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FfES2f Tyler Durden

President Trump will be slapped with obstruction of justice, predicts former Attorney General Eric Holder.

“You technically have an obstruction of justice case that already exists,” Holder, who served under then-President Obama, said on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” “I’ve known Bob Mueller for 20, 30 years; my guess is he’s just trying to make the case as good as he possibly can. So, I think that we have to be patient in that regard.”

The president’s foes point to Trump’s alleged interactions with former FBI Director James Comey leading up to his dismissal amid the agency’s ongoing investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia – including a conversation in which Comey says Trump said “I hope you can let this go,” in regards to his investigation in to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. 

Last May in an NBC interview with Lester Holt, Trump made clear he was frustrated that the Russia allegations had become “an excuse for having lost an election,”  and that Comey was clearly on the chopping block:

HOLT: Monday you met with the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

TRUMP: Right.

HOLT: Did you ask for a recommendation?

TRUMP: What I did is I was going to fire Comey. My decision. It was not…

HOLT: You had made the decision before they came into your office (ph).

TRUMP: I — I was going to fire Comey. I — there’s no good time to do it, by the way.

In December 2017, Trump told thje New York Times “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.”

Holder has long suggested that an obstruction charge was possible – however, this is the first prediction he’s made that Mueller would actually bring the charge. 

Meanwhile, liberal legal scholar Alan Dershowitz disagrees:

“You cannot charge a president with obstruction of justice for exercising his constitutional power to fire Comey and his constitutional authority to tell the Justice Department who to investigate, who not to investigate,” said Dershowitz last December. “That’s what Thomas Jefferson did, that’s what Lincoln did, that’s what Roosevelt did. We have precedents that clearly establish that.”

The controversy over whether or not Trump obstructed justice was one of the primary drivers behind Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel following Comey’s dismissal. Notably, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from all things related to the Russia investigation – frustrating many who say he’s simply been sitting on his hands while Mueller and his fleet of trump-hating Democrat investigators gun for the President. 

“I don’t want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him,” Trump told the New York Times. “When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest.”

Holder shot back fast and furiously on Real Time with Bill Maher – stating “The difference between me and Jeff Sessions is that I had a president I didn’t have to protect.” Perhaps he forgot about the selective targeting of conservative groups by the IRS, lying about the cause of Benghazi, Obama’s knowledge of Hillary’s private server, the Solyndra green energy and similar crony capitalism scams, spying on journalists, the Secret Service hooker scandal, and of course Fast and Furious.

Holder thinks Sessions should resign in the wake of President Trump openly criticizing him. “At some point, though, you would hope that you would have the intestinal fortitude or the pride to simply say, you know, ‘I wanted this job all my life, but it’s not worth it, and I’m not going to take that kind of abuse, and I’m simply going to tell you, you know, go screw yourself, and I’m out,’” Holder told Maher.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2CZL9gt Tyler Durden

In anticipation of the Italian election results, which is due later on Sunday and overnight, activist fireworks erupted when former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi arrived to cast his vote in today’s Italian election, at which point a topless FEMEN protester jumped on a table shouting “Berlusconi, you’ve expired.”

Footage posted online by Ruptly showed Berlusconi arriving at the polls in Milan amid a sea of journalists. As he smiles at the cameras, he is startled by a topless girl with “Berlusconi, your time has run out” scrawled across her chest, and “FEMEN” written on her back.

Photographers in the room then scrambled for position amid the sheer chaos.

After he spent a few seconds admiring the view, Berlusconi was quickly escorted out as the woman continues to shout the slogan “Berlusconi, you’ve expired” The cameras then turned to the protester, who is eventually dragged away.

It’s not the first time the 81-year old has been confronted by bare-chested protesters from the movement. The same thing happened in 2013, when three FEMEN activists approached him in a similar way, according to Italian news outlet Rai.

Founded in Ukraine in 2008, the FEMEN movement has become known for its topless public stunts against religious, government and other public institutions. It fled Ukraine in 2013, citing fears for the “lives and freedom” of its members, and has since branched out to a number of other countries, with its main headquarters now located in Paris.

As for the Italian election, while the centre-right coalition has capitalized on anti-migrant sentiment in recent polls, analysts predict the likeliest outcome is a hung parliament. More than 46 million Italians were eligible to vote from 7am to 11pm, including Italians abroad who already posted ballots.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2oP0ADf Tyler Durden

Mainstream media organizations haven’t devoted much time to covering it, but the West Virginia teachers’ strike is undoubtedly one of the most important stories unfolding today in the US – if only because it exposes the consequences of unsustainable public spending. As debt servicing and expensive employee benefits eat away at budgets, the battles over the crumbs that remain will inevitably tear at the fabric of America’s social order.

In West Virginia, it’s starting with the schools – W.Va. school teachers are among the lowest paid in the country – but it could just as easily be the fire department or the police who decide to strike.

For those who haven’t been following, about 20,000 teachers have been on strike since Feb. 22, keeping 300,000 students out of the classroom. Teachers’ unions have vowed their members must receive a 5% pay hike before returning to work.

The West Virginia legislature argued for hours on Saturday, but the two Republican-controlled chambers remained at an impasse. A bill negotiated between West Virginia’s recently-converted Republican Gov. Jim Justice and the state’s union leaders managed to pass the House, but the Senate could only agree on a 4% wage hike.

Per CNN, Republican Senate President Mitch Carmichael and other legislators have argued the state cannot afford a raise large enough to end the walkout.

The debate took a farcical turn last night, when the Senate “accidentally” passed the 5% wage hike, before repealing it – over the objections of Democratic leaders, who cheered the mistake and supported making it permanent, per the Hill.

 

So, get this. Delegates of both parties, plus Senate Dems are saying the Senate accidentally passed the bill with the House version language and pay scales pic.twitter.com/H5mciu68Vi

— Brad McElhinny (@BradMcElhinny) March 4, 2018

Unless a last-minute agreement is reached on Sunday – an outcome that’s possible, but unlikely – the strike will enter its eighth day on Monday. Teachers were initially motivated to strike by high health-care costs and years without a raise.

Gov. Justice urged the Senate to approve the plan he worked out with the unions.

 

Mistakes and differences aside, we’ve got to get our kids back to school. While everyone is focused on the mistakes, my focus is solely on getting our children back to school. It’s time to quit playing politics and get our kids back in school.

— Governor Jim Justice (@WVGovernor) March 4, 2018

 

But it appears the egos of legislative leaders, who are bucking both the governor and the unions, will stand in the way of a deal at least for the time being…

Democrats called on their Republican colleagues to approve a deal negotiated by Gov. Justice and the unions for a 5 percent pay hike.

“We’re all caught up in our egos,” said Democratic Sen. Douglas Facemire of Sutton, reports the Chicago Tribune. He noted the impact of the impasse on students, including those who depend on schools for their meals. “For 1 percent we’re going to let kids go hungry,” he said, per Fox

Justice has said he prefers a 5% pay increase for teachers and would like to negotiate the larger increase for all of the state’s public employees as well.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FffVYQ Tyler Durden

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Normally the action in the gold and silver futures markets tends to be pretty similar, since the same general forces affect both precious metals. When inflation or some other source of anxiety is ascendant, both metals rise, and vice versa.

But lately – perhaps in a sign of how confused the world is becoming – gold and silver traders have diverged.

Taking gold first, the speculators – who tend to be wrong at major inflection points – remain extremely bullish. Commercial traders, meanwhile – who tend to be right when speculators are wrong – are extremely bearish, with short positions more than double their longs. Historically that’s been a setup for a big drop in gold’s price.

Viewed as a chart with the gray bars representing speculators and red bars the commercials, and where divergence is bearish and convergence bullish, the result is pretty ugly.

But now check out silver. Where gold futures speculators’ long positions are three times their short bets, silver speculators are actually more short than long. In other words, the people who are usually wrong are bearish. The commercials, meanwhile, are almost in balance, which is usually bullish for silver’s subsequent action.

Shown graphically, speculators and commercials are meeting the middle at zero, something that’s both very rare and very positive.

In fact this is the first time that speculators have been net short Silver futures since 2003…

What does this mean? One possible explanation is that silver has gotten too cheap relative to gold and needs to be revalued. That could happen in several ways, with both metals rising but silver rising more, or both falling but silver falling less. Or with gold dropping while silver rises, as improbable as that seems.

As the chart below illustrates, gold has recently been rising relative to silver (or silver has been falling relative to gold) with the gold/silver ratio now close to 80, meaning that it takes 80 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold. It’s been there two other times in the past decade and both times gold subsequently rose while silver rose a lot more.

Based on this (admittedly short) bit of recent history, an interesting trade might be to short gold and go long silver on the assumption that silver bullion will outperform gold bullion going forward. Or just stack more silver than usual for a while.

With the world’s mines producing only about 10 times as much silver as gold while silver stockpiles are dwarfed by those of gold because so much silver is used and then lost in industrial applications, this might be a trade that works for years rather than months.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2GZyCvO Tyler Durden

As left-wing advocacy groups and its mainstream media allies continue their daily bombardment of the National Rifle Association (NRA), desperately seeking to make gun enthusiast groups a scapegoat for the Parkland high school massacre, it now appears their efforts have embarrassingly backfired, having only succeeded in dramatically boosting memberships in the NRA and pro-gun groups, according to Time (magazine).

Over the past two weeks, leftist organizations mounted an all-out assault on the NRA, terrorizing their corporate partners on social media who offer discounts for NRA members. We have seen this before; the tactic is part of a Democrat-led agenda, and for the most part, it worked, as major corporations across the entire United States were forced through public and internal pressures to sever their NRA relationship.

According to CNN, here are some of the companies that have distanced themselves from the NRA over the past few weeks: 

• Delta Air Lines: Delta said it’s ending discounted flights for NRA members. The airline said the decision reflected “the airline’s neutral status in the current debate over gun control.” Since then, Delta has faced a backlash from Georgia Republicans, who have responded by saying blocking a state tax break that would benefit the carrier.

• Avis Budget Group: Avis and Budget Rent a Car, which are owned by Avis Budget Group (CAR), said that both brands will stop offering discounts on car rentals to NRA members beginning March 26.

• First National Bank of Omaha: The bank said it will stop issuing an NRA-branded Visa card. A bank spokesperson said “customer feedback” prompted a review of its partnership with the NRA, and it chose not to renew its current contract.

• MetLife: The insurance giant said it’s ending discounts on home and auto insurance for NRA members.

• TrueCar: The car buying service said its partnership with the NRA would end February 28.

• United Airlines: United will no longer offer discounts on flights to the NRA’s annual meeting.

Left-wing organizations claimed immediate success and indeed won the battle over the past few weeks. Time (magazine) indicates the war is far from over, as the NRA and gun rights groups across the country have seen a surge in new members.

Well, that was not supposed to happen…

This is not surprising said Time (magazine), who indicate “such increases happen whenever people feel their Second Amendment rights are under threat, and many groups reported similar surges after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.”

Here is an example: 

“Wake up people and see what’s happening!!!!,” Charles Cotton, a member of the NRA Board of Directors, wrote on a message board, TexasCHLforum.com, a site described as “the focal point for Texas firearms information and discussions, earlier this week. “[Former New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg and Hollywood are pouring money into this effort and the media is helping to the fullest extent. We’ve never had this level of opposition before, not ever. It’s a campaign of lies and distortion, but it’s very well funded and they are playing on the sympathy factor of kids getting killed. If you really want to make a difference, then start recruiting NRA members every single day.”

“The NRA better be 15 million strong soon, or this is only going to get worse,” Cotton, who did not respond to a request for comment from Time (magazine), added on the message board.

Over a dozen plus leaders from gun rights organizations and shooting associations in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia told Time (magazine) their membership base has seen a dramatic increase since the February 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 killed and 16 wounded or injured.

According to Time (magazine), two sources familiar with the internals of the NRA, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said since the horrific shooting in Florida, memberships and donations have increased “more than usual.”

And two people familiar with the workings of the NRA, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss membership numbers, said that since the shooting the NRA has also seen more people than usual join, renew memberships or donate money as President Donald Trump and other Republican Party leaders have signaled an openness to gun control policies that are anathema to the powerful group. A spokesperson for the NRA, which says on its website that it has more than five million members, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“As soon as anti-gun attacks started coming in on Twitter, Facebook, and in the media, we began to hear from people who didn’t even own guns who wanted to join up or contribute out of solidarity in defense of the Second Amendment to the Constitution,” said Patrick Parsons, who heads the Georgia Gun Owners, an independent gun rights organization in Georgia. Parsons added the group’s membership, which he estimated at 13,000, had increased by 1,000 after the Florida shooting, and that he had been “working around the clock taking calls, answering emails from interested people, sending out new member packets.”

Time (magazine) also documented Dudley Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, which he estimates his entire organization could have “grown by 30%” since the February mass shooting in Florida.

Dudley Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, estimated his organization — which claims more than 4.5 million “members and supporters” on its website — estimated online membership applications at his organization could have grown by 30% over the last week, a number he expected to rise after Trump this week called for comprehensive gun reform legislation, including raising the age limit for buying certain weapons to 21. The Connecticut Citizens Defense League, which has a membership of almost 29,000 people, said it typically gets 15 or 20 applications a week, but received almost 200 in the last week.

Gun Owners of America, which says it has 1.5 million members, amassed “hundreds” of new members in the last week, according to an official at the organization familiar with membership numbers who spoke on condition of anonymity. The organization said it has seen it’s membership grow by thousands since the Las Vegas shooting last October. Don Turner, the President of the Nevada Firearms Coalition and NRA member, estimated membership renewals and requests had increased by 20 percent at his organization since Parkland, although this is an increase he said he did not witness after the shooting in Las Vegas.

Perhaps, the statement below is crucial in understanding why the NRA and gun rights groups are experiencing an influx of new members and support:

“Gun owners themselves weren’t being demonized [after Las Vegas]” Turner explained. “But after the Florida shooting, there was a definite push to demonize honest gun owners and to demonize the NRA. And I think that’s what’s provoked their response.”

Time (magazine) provides historical data and specifies that after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA added nearly 100,000 new members in 18 days.

After the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, when the gun control debate also reached a fever pitch, the NRA said it had gained 100,000 members in 18 days; NRA executive Wayne LaPierre announced that May that the organization’s membership had reached 5 million, although that claim is impossible to independently verify since membership rolls and figures are not publicly released. NRA tax filings from 2013, published by ProPublica, show that in 2013, overall revenue increased by more than 35% from the previous year, with a nearly $10 million increase in contributions. Revenue from membership growth from 2012 to 2013 increased by nearly $70 million, and the percentage of membership dues contributing to total revenue growth increased from 42 percent to 50 percent, the tax filings show.

So far, experts who closely monitor gun rights groups said the NRA has remained quiet about its internal membership numbers after the Florida shooting, nevertheless, the unconfirmed surge in members demonstrates the grassroots mobilizing power that is still key to the NRA’s influence.

“It’s not just a gun lobby, it’s much bigger than that,” said Scott Melzer, a sociology professor at Albion Colege who has spent almost a decade researching the NRA and is the author of Gun Crusaders: The NRA’s Culture War.

“It relies on the support of a very large and activist membership base, and that base and that movement is connected to the broader conservative movement,” he added.

A gun rights activist, Cleta Mitchell, an NRA member and former Oklahoma state lawmaker who sat on the NRA’s board from 2002 to 2013, stated in an email to Time (magazine):

“You can rest assured that the NRA will not lose a single member as a result of this. “If anything, it should spur people to join the NRA as a means of demonstrating that we who believe in the Second Amendment will not be bullied by these left wing multi-billion dollar corporations.”

What left-wing advocacy groups and their mainstream media counterparts neglect to understand is that by thrusting the NRA to the center stage of the gun control debate, the leftist have given the second amendment supporters a way to fight back by providing further support to the gun rights group. Once again, the mainstream media has vastly underestimated the silent majority of Americans by humiliating millions of law-abiding gun owners.

Google Trends reveals the true state of how American’s feel about pro-gun groups:

Americans search term for “how to join the NRA” has exploded since the Parkland shooting and breached above its Sandy Hook highs in 2012:

Americans are frantically searching for ways on how to “donate to NRA.”

 

The search term “NRA membership” has reached new highs as well…

Contrary to the mainstream media’s narrative, the search term “support the NRA” has seen a parabolic since the Parkland shooting.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2tfxxy3 Tyler Durden

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

Every year, it seems like more and more retail outlets are going out of business, resulting in the loss of jobs and local supplies. Last year, hundreds of stores closed, and this year, even more shops are scheduled to shut their doors for good.

The 2018 Death List

This year, in an effort to save their businesses, the following retailers will close hundreds of their stores, according to Fox Business.

• Abercrombie & Fitch: 60 more stores are charted to close

• Aerosoles: Only 4 of their 88 stores are definitely remaining open

• American Apparel: They’ve filed for bankruptcy and all their stores have closed (or will soon)

• BCBG: 118 stores have closed

• Bebe: Bebe is history and all 168 stores have closed

• Bon-Ton: They’ve filed for Chapter 11 and will be closing 48 stores.

• The Children’s Place: They plan to close hundreds of stores by 2020 and are going digital.

• CVS: They closed 70 stores but thousands still remain viable.

• Foot Locker: They’re closing 110 underperforming stores shortly.

• Guess: 60 stores will bite the dust this year.

• Gymboree: A whopping 350 stores will close their doors for good this year

• HHGregg: All 220 stores will be closed this year after the company filed for bankruptcy.

• J. Crew: They’ll be closing 50 stores instead of the original 20 they had announced.

• J.C. Penney: They’ve closed 138 stores and plan to turn all the remaining ones into toy stores.

• The Limited: All 250 retail locations have been closed and they’ve gone digital in an effort to remain in business.

• Macy’s: 7 more stores will soon close and more than 5000 employees will be laid off.

• Michael Kors: They’ll close 125 stores this year.

• Payless: They’ll be closing a whopping 800 stores this year after recently filing for bankruptcy.

• Radio Shack: More than 1000 stores have been shut down this year, leaving them with only 70 stores nationwide.

• Rue 21: They’ll be closing 400 stores this year.

• Sears/Kmart: They’ve closed over 300 locations.

• ToysRUs: They’ve filed for bankruptcy but at this point, have not announced store closures, and have in fact, stated their stores will remain open.

• Wet Seal: This place is history – all 171 stores will soon be closed.

And these are just the people who have announced store closures so far. In an environment hostile to brick and mortar businesses, more are sure to come.

Tens of thousands of jobs will be lost.

Even if you don’t like to shop, this is a sign of economic trouble. The malls that sit empty are a sign of massive unemployment.

Jobs in the retail sector are the most prolific in America, employing 4.3 million workers as salespeople and 3.3 million workers as cashiers. (source) The current store closures mean the end of employment for tens of thousands of workers.

All in all, the collapse of the retail industry could, at some point, put the livelihoods of more than 7 million people in jeopardy. Perhaps the doomsaying economists like Peter Schiff and Dave Kunstler are right when they warn that a Great Depression the likes of the one in the early 1900s is upon us. That means not only massive unemployment but also massive hyperinflation, making it nearly impossible to stay fed.

Let’s add to rising retail unemployment the move to more self-checkout, more AI, and more computerized systems instead of human staff. It’s not too hard to understand why people could soon be dependent on a Universal Basic Income and a return to an almost feudal society.

*  *  *

A Great Depression now would be far worse than the historic one we all look back on.

And if that’s the case, it’s bound to be even worse. Back in 2006, our urban population exceeded our rural population for the first time ever. This means that people will be unlikely to have the space to grow food for self-reliance.

As well, we’ve gotten so far away from the skills of self-reliance that it’s practically a lost art. Our society is one of consumers, not producers, and this means that in a depressed economy, many more people will be at the mercy of government handouts. And let’s face it, in a depression, those handouts, if they happen at all, will be very sparse.

These days, most folks don’t know how to grow food, preserve food, sew, or build. For a list of self-reliant skills and links to places that will help you learn them, go here to my Self-Reliance Manifesto. No matter where you live, some of these skills will be applicable you, and it’s more urgent now than ever to put them into practice. To learn more about living through a societal and economic collapse, check out articles by Jose, who is currently trying to get his family out of Venezuela due to their own crisis. (Here’s one that is really enlightening.)

*  *  *

Is the retail apocalypse a sign of impending financial doom or merely a move toward a more digital society? Will unemployment begin to rise even further?

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2teiqoB Tyler Durden

Last weekend, in our latest report on the unsustainable US public pension system, we quoted  Steve Westly, the former California controller and Calpers board member who made a stunning admission  about the largest public pension fund in the US, i.e. California Public Employees Retirement System, namely that “The pension crisis is inching closer by the day. @CalPERS just voted to increase the amount cities must pay to the agency. Cities point to possible insolvency if payments keep rising but CalPERS is near insolvency itself. It may be reform or bailout soon.”

The “admission” will not come as a surprise to readers who have followed our series on US public pensions (here, here, here, here, and here) and who are aware that one of the key reasons behind the systematic underfunding of US public pension funds has been the chronic optimism that they can continue to generate outsized investment returns. Recall that it was only in December 2016 that Calpers voted to lower its earnings projection to 7.0% – it had been 7.5% – hoping to avoid another disaster were the economy to turn sour. Prior to 2016, the last time Calpers lowered its investment expectation was in 2012 when the rate dropped from 7.75% to 7.5%

So while the Sacramento-based CalPERS may be on the verge of insolvency, it is at least taking baby steps to admit it has a problem and to address the “new normal” reality of far lower projected returns (as a reminder, just last month the San Fran Fed concluded  that “that the current price-to-earnings ratio predicts approximately zero growth in real equity prices over the next 10 years“).

Meanwhile, to the shock and dismay of muni and pension analysts everywhere, Calpers’ peer over in Trenton stunned many last week when it decided to go the other direction: on Thursday New Jersey’s acting state treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muolo said that she will increase the expected rate of return for the state’s struggling public pension system which manages over $76 billion in assets, from 7% to 7.5%, “then lower it again over time” in hopes that the recent market surge persists indefinitely into the future and quietly wipes away some of the state’s massive underfunding.

The announcement prompted Bloomberg’s Muni expert Joe Mysak to simply exclaim that “this is madness.“

@JoeMysak just commented on this on @bloombergradio: “This is madness.”

— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) March 2, 2018

The accounting switch to a higher assumed rate means that the state, and participating local governments in New Jersey, will for now escape the higher costs that arise when investment return assumptions are lowered.

This accounting sleight of hand comes at a “fortuitous time” for new New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who took office in January and is facing a major funding shortfall ahead of his first budget proposal in mid-March.

The higher rate – based on nothing but the Treasurer’s sheer optimism – will save about $238 million for the state and more than $400 million for local governments in the near term, according to Reuters. Of course, in reality it won’t “save anything”, and will merely defer the moment when the state’s pension fund finally has to admit that its participants are either looking at a massive haircut, or state taxpayers will have to bail it out.

State Sen. Anthony R. Bucco, R-Boonton Township, blasted Muoio’s pension change, noting that the Christie administration’s moves to lower the assumed rate of return to 7% in steps from a high of 8.25% was praised by actuaries and ratings agencies. He said “rosier assumptions” would result in lower required payments into the pension funds.

“Our pension funds got into bad shape by making overly optimistic projections on the rate of return that we could expect,” said Bucco in a statement. “We need to stay the course and keep making the biggest pension payments that we can.”

New Jersey’s heavy pension burden has weighed heavily on the state, playing a major role in 11 rating downgrades from 2010 to 2017. The Garden State has general obligation bond ratings of A3 from Moody’s Investors Service, A-minus from S&P Global Ratings and A from Fitch Ratings and Kroll Bond Rating Agency.

According to Bond Buyer, Moody’s analyst Tom Aaron said that the revised assumptions are a “a relative credit negative” for New Jersey because they are higher than other large public pension funds. Aaron said Moody’s generally views the lowering of pension fund investment return assumptions as a credit positive for the sponsoring government.

“Lower return assumptions tend to force more contributions by governments, and sooner,” said Aaron. “While initially more expensive, front-loaded contributions mean less long-term risk that unaffordable unfunded liabilities will accumulate.”

Meanwhile, as New Jersey is bucking the trend adopted by virtually all other states who like Calpers are gradually reducing their expected returns, in the process raising the amount of capital that has to be raised by “other means” to satisfy pension promises, the Pew Charitable Trusts’ public sector retirement systems project found that investment returns that fell short of assumptions were the biggest contributor to worsening financial positions of the pension plans studied.

Furthermore, Pew found that New Jersey has the worst pension funding level of the 50 U.S. states at only 37% for the 2015 fiscal year.

Ultimately, Jersey is simply hoping that the recent market euphoria will persist: while Muoio is moving New Jersey’s rate up beginning in fiscal 2019, her plan will then step down the rate over the following five years, falling back to 7% in fiscal 2023.

The change took place just month after former Treasurer Ford Scudder cut the pension funds’ rate of return to 7% from 7.65% in November, but Muoio – who was appointed by Chris Christie’s replacement Phil Murphy – said that move was too drastic and would saddle local governments with heavy additional costs.

Instead, the logic supposedly goes, it’s best to pretend there is no problem and just hope the central banks can keep pushing stocks higher indefinitely: “A gradual path to a lower rate will help mitigate the undue stress that would otherwise have been placed on local governments,” Muoio said.

And who knows: maybe they can pull it off. New Jersey’s five main pension funds, which as noted above were responsible for nearly $76 billion in pensions, performed well in fiscal 2017, returning 13.07% according to a February report from the state investment council. Unfortunately, that strong performance followed 2016, when the funds lost nearly 1 percent net of fees. The funds’ 20-year annualized return was 6.79 percent.

But here’s the bad news: even if the fund manages to return 7.5% for the next 4 years, Jersey pensioners are still out of luck: according to the state Treasury’s annual report, the pension system’s total funded ratio is a shocking 49%. Indicatively, a ratio of at least 80% is often considered healthy.

Meanwhile, New Jersey state workers are realistically looking at a “half-off” haircut on the post-retirement income that was promised to them.

One wonders if when this latest act of desperation fails, whether the final Hail (or rather fail) Mary for the various members of America’s insolvent pension system will be to put all their cash in cryptocurrencies and pray…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2CXzVcx Tyler Durden

Having lost at both ice hockey and curling at the Olympics, Canadians may have just witnessed their ‘3rd strike’ as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attempted to ‘explain’ his nation’s trade surplus, no wait deficit, no wait surplus, with America…

Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau talks trade… 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/H5d8S2AHzF

— LEAVE.EU 🇬🇧 (@LeaveEUOfficial) March 4, 2018

Oh, Canada… indeed. It’s enough to make you cry…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2Fn0LQA Tyler Durden