Category: zerohedge

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

The bubble keeps on bubbling, the never ending rally keeps on rallying and the charts keep getting ever more dangerously stretched.

Intra-day price discovery is virtually absent as volatility remains woefully compressed and $SPX barely moves.

It’s become quite the scene to watch an index representing 500 stocks with a combined market cap of $27 trillion “trade” in a 0.1% price range for hours on end:

Now let’s make a new, even smaller price range. pic.twitter.com/wzogJo9sgd

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) January 16, 2020

Worse, the price advance action is mostly driven by up gaps that rarely if ever fill and market open ramps that settle into tight price ranges during the day.

While Fed critics are dismissed as QE conspiracists, we can either choose to be believe the Fed or our own lying eyes as the repo machine continues to execute relentlessly:

Open gaps in markets are not unusual, some stay open for weeks, months, even years. Some may never fill.

But it is when you get gap after gap after gap that the action becomes incredulous and challenges conventional market wisdom. I’ve seen 3 or 4 unfilled gaps in a short time frame, I’ve even seen 5, but I can’t recall seeing anything like this:

That’s the $SPY since not QE which is now widely acknowledged to be quasi QE. Count the unfilled gaps.

And here, for granularity, here’s the $SPX since just December:

Resistance is futile if you can just gap above it and never actually have any price discovery in between. It is impressive to say that this market finds support on top of each gap each time, but I suppose extraordinary liquidity measures produce extraordinary results.

But don’t take my criticisms seriously. I’m just a “swashbuckling pirate QE conspiracist” according to Neel Kaskari president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis:

1 thing I’ve learned abt twitter is the louder the critic, generally the thinner the skin. I confess finding amusement in needling critics calling them conspiracists or goldbugs. Its fun to watch swashbuckling pirates of free market capitalism get easily upset. I mean no offense. https://t.co/dMgSsk2pBR

— Neel Kashkari (@neelkashkari) January 17, 2020

My skin is plenty thick, thank you very much, but evading answers and accountability by those in power is pet peeve and when they think it’s all worth a giggle on twitter I find myself unimpressed by the institutional arrogance on display.

Fun and giggles over substance apparently:

Glad you find amusement in needling critics Neel.
If you engaged the “swashbuckling pirates” on substance you may find that there are well founded concerns that deserve much deeper attention.
The Fed is not beyond criticism & fault even if it acts like it. https://t.co/HivnNTsabZ

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) January 17, 2020

It’s a shame and a sham really. The Fed deserves to be criticized. If it wants to claim the banner of transparency it needs to earn it, and denying reality while labeling critics as “conspiracy theorists” is just not credibility building:

QE conspiracists can say this is all about balance sheet growth. Someone explain how swapping one short term risk free instrument (reserves) for another short term risk free instrument (t-bills) leads to equity repricing. I don’t see it. /end

— Neel Kashkari (@neelkashkari) January 17, 2020

Especially as parts of the Fed have already admitted it:

They all know:
“My own view is [buying bills] is having some effect on risk assets. It is a derivative of QE in that when we buy bills and we inject more liquidity, it affects all risk assets,” Kaplan said.https://t.co/l5WAviQkV1

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) January 16, 2020

And the bubble blowing recognition has also now extended to the Financial Times:

“The Federal Reserve is the cause of the bubble in everything.
QE is here to stay. We should expect QE5, QE6, QE7 and beyond.
Enjoy the party, yes. But dance near the door.”

h/t @jennablan https://t.co/RhFpmNsHjq

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) January 16, 2020

Maybe they too are now pirates sailing the stormy sea of QE conspiracies. Looks like the number of pirates is increasing outside the sound proof walls of cushy Fed offices.

No, keep denying the bubble and claiming to not to see the relationships in policy and price action as you wish. But the gaps are there. And they demand filling. Not only the gaps in the charts, but also the gaps in credibility.

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Bitcoin topped $9,000 overnight for the first time since early November…

Source: Bloomberg

Notably this latest surge in demand from crypto began after Iranian General Soleimani was killed, and is now testing its 200DMA…

Source: Bloomberg

Year-to-date, all major altcoins are soaring led by Bitcoin Cash…

Source: Bloomberg

And in what we were stunned to note, this is the best start to a year – ever – for Bitcoin…

Source: Bloomberg

The rally in cryptos comes as CoinTelegraph’s William Suberg notes, bitcoin derivatives trading looks set to reach record levels this month as volume spikes and open interest hovers near all-time highs.

Data from CME Group shows that as of Jan. 16, open interest for its futures products alone totaled 5,328 contracts — or 26,640 BTC ($237 million).

Open interest on track for record

The figure is higher than any monthly close CME has seen since it debuted in December 2017, with July 2019 currently in the lead with 5,252 contracts.

Open interest did surpass current levels earlier in January, reaching around 5,400 according to the latest data from United States regulator the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, published on Jan. 7.

As Cointelegraph reported, futures offerings have received significant attention from both investors and commentators as new participants appeared to fuel a Bitcoin price rise in 2020. 

Bitcoin futures 1-month overall volume. Source: Skew Markets/ Twitter

As BTC/USD accelerated towards $9,000 this week, overall futures trading volume likewise saw a significant uptick. According to unofficial data from monitoring resource Skew Markets, worldwide volume hit $25 billion — the most since late October. 

“I think that’s a strong signal indicating that we’re reversing now and probably have bottomed out,” regular Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe commented about the latest data.

2020 the year of “clear” institutional adoption

CME launched a new product in the form of options on Bitcoin futures earlier in January. The release came just days after competitor FTX did likewise.

The company said it considered the options a “success” as volumes reached 275 BTC by day two.

Catering to long-term demand from institutional investors has long been a preoccupation for cryptocurrency businesses. In its 2019 retrospective this week, venture capital giant Grayscale revealed annual investment totals of over $1 billion. 

A record for the firm, executives announced they now it was “clear” that the industry was seeing institutional adoption.

Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

Two of America’s largest companies, Apple and Amazon share an ugly truth. It is rooted in exploitation and how they excel in exploiting America. Due to their strong ties to America’s government, both these companies have been allowed to create a persona or facade that far outshines reality. Not only do they exploit workers but each in its own way, mask the huge amount of income they pluck from our government on all levels while avoiding paying taxes. The situation has become so obvious to many people that while moderating the Golden Globes awards, comedian Ricky Gervais in a joking manner slammed actors for calling themselves “woke” while taking money from Apple, Amazon, and Disney, who use slave labor.

Years ago I penned an article titled, “The Poison Apple” where I questioned how Apple remains the darling of so many Americans while stories continue to surface on how those they have contracted to make their products abuse their workers? This coupled with the widespread criticism for its environmental practices and tax avoidance schemes would have caused major damage to the corporate image of most companies resulting in large protests outside their offices and massive boycotts of their products. We should remember, Apple is a company that Fortune magazine has called the most admired company in the United States and in the world, this is a company that the Economist called a “phenomena” and questioned if “it was a bubble” even years before its stock price soared.

A More Truthful Logo

Some time ago the Paradise Papers highlighted the murky dealings by Apple that allowed it to pay a mere 3.7% in corporate taxes in 2017. This is a fraction of the worldwide average and well below what most people would imagine It detailed how Apple’s tax-avoidance strategies, which are infamous, allowed it to find different avenues at securing its worldwide profits, which accounted for roughly 55% of its total income in 2017. In August of 2016, Apple was ordered by the European Commission to pay €13 billion in taxes, which Tim Cook called ‘total political crap’ at the time. None of this has altered how Apple has moved forward.

It is as if people are totally blind to the less tasty side of Apple that appeared in a 2006 report focusing on the deplorable working conditions at factories in China where the contract manufacturers Foxconn and Inventec produced the iPod. The article stated that one complex of factories that assembles the iPod and other items had over 200,000 workers, that lived and worked in the factory. Employees regularly worked more than 60 hours per week making around $100 per month and were required to pay for rent and food from the company.  This generally amounted to a little over half of the workers’ earnings. While things may have improved a bit over the years it is difficult to think the lives of these workers has become anything to brag about.

Four months ago China Labor Watch issued a lengthy report accusing Apple and its manufacturing partner Foxconn Technology Co Ltd of breaching numerous Chinese labor laws. Yet, as big an issue as the history of worker exploitation of workers in China is the fact that since Apple manufactures in China it creates few jobs in American. Is the typical Apple user so self-centered that they just don’t care, or do they lust for the product so much that they bury and ignore their social conscience?  These consumers are even willing to pay higher prices to lock themselves into a closed system tightly controlled by Apple.

For a moment let us put aside Apple and explore some of Amazon’s corporate tactics as well as some of the recent stories and the ever-growing political power of the very influential Washington Post which is owned by Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, which at times has claimed the title of the worlds richest man. Among the goals of this online retail mogul is replacing workers with robots which his company will both build and market.

Bezos Quietly Shapes Public Opinion

Bezos is also the head of Blue Origin, a company with big plans to pioneer the frontier of space. Last but far from least as Amazon’s CEO Bezos ties this all together with Amazon Web Service or AWS. This is a cloud service that also collects data and has strong ties to the government. This means they know when you are sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they know when you are bad or good. This all constitutes a great deal of power in the hands of one man.

Because of Amazon’s strong ties with the government and what is often referred to as the “deep state,” we should be concerned about whether The Washington Post is making a concerted effort to shape public opinion in a way that is at odds with our current President. Lurking in the back of my mind is that it was the Washington Post and not a newspaper located in Alabama that broke the Roy Moore story which has turned many women against the Republican party. This brings up the question of just how much the Roy Moore story also has fed into the “me too” movement that had huge ramifications across society. Are stories like this a coincidence or is a strong hidden agenda at play?

All this could be one of the reasons President Trump has voiced concern about Amazon as a force in America.

I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2018

The bottom-line is that Apple and Amazon, both receive and feed at the teat of our government and receive a lot of American tax dollars. We should never forget that in America the government and schools use taxpayer money to buy countless numbers of Apple products produced in China adding to Apple’s credibility and helping to carry tax-evading Apple to the next level. While this is happening the money-losing United States Postal Service bends over backward to deliver Amazon products while the American government pays out billions to AWS for its services in collecting and storing data on American citizens.

Time and time again it has been pointed out that Amazon is one of the world’s most valuable companies, valued at nearly $800 billion. Even after the e-commerce giant pulled in $232.9 billion in global revenue in 2018, it paid $0 in federal taxes. In fact, Amazon was said to be getting a federal tax refund of $129 million this year, this is in spite of Amazon nearly doubling its taxable income in 2018 to $11.2 billion, from $5.6 billion a year earlier. The matter of Amazon’s check to the IRS reading exactly $0.00 was also confirmed in a report published by Fortune which stated, the e-tail/retail/tech/entertainment/everything giant would not be paying a cent in federal taxes for the second year in a row.

It should be noted that President Trump is not the only politician that has taken aim at Amazon. current Presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has also criticized Amazon for not paying higher federal taxes and is not a fan of the company. Particularly troubling is money from our government flowing into Amazon adds to its war chest and feeds its ability to continue exploiting the brick and mortar stores that line the streets of our communities. These are the real businesses that provide jobs to millions of Americans. All in all, it is a bit ironic that so many people are infatuated with these two companies that seem hell-bent on taking far more from us than they are willing to return. To us not so enamored with these two companies the fact is, we just don’t get it.

The inmates are officially running the asylum. 

Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, who recently announced he wants to live in the woods in Africa instead of sitting behind a desk managing the two massive public companies he is at the helm of, has reached out to Elon Musk for advice on how to improve Twitter.

Yes, gone are the days of market research and focus groups and in are the days of reaching out to another airheaded Silicon Valley CEO – who happened to have committed arguably the most egregious securities fraud in history on social media – and asking him for advice on how he’d improve the platform. 

The two spoke on a video link in front of thousands of Twitter employees Thursday, according to Business Insider. During the conversation, Dorsey asked for “direct feedback on Twitter and asked Musk what he would do if he was running the platform.

Oh, I don’t know, maybe release a version that won’t be available for 6 years and take deposits on it?

Musk’s advice was tools to “help differentiate” between real and fake users. Because maybe coming right out and just asking Jack to ban short sellers would have been a bit much…

“Is this a real person, or is this a bot net, or a sort of troll army, or something like that?” Musk said.

What @elonmusk thinks Twitter could be doing better. #OneTeam pic.twitter.com/BvAUee7rmn

— Mary Kate (@_maryjordan) January 16, 2020

Musk continued: “Basically, how do you tell if the feedback is real or someone trying to manipulate the system, or probably real, or probably trying to manipulate the system. What do people actually want? What are people actually upset about versus manipulation of the system by various interest groups?”

Despite Twitter being smaller than most social networks, it is still growing and Dorsey has committed to “healthier conversation” on the platform. You know, like calling international heroes pedophiles…

Musk has 30 million followers on the platform and spends his days on it dealing with individual Tesla service complaints, making stupid Monty Python jokes and finding new various way to ridicule the SEC. 

In 2016, Dorsey praised Musk’s used of Twitter, calling his account “a really good model of how to use it well.”

Some people on social media disagree:

Twitter CEO asks guy who used Twitter to commit the single biggest securities fraud in history how to fix Twitter.

How much longer can this POSSIBLY go on, lol? https://t.co/24nhrhDAxd

— Mark B. Spiegel (@markbspiegel) January 17, 2020

 

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

So titanically self-unaware is the Democratic Resistance that it failed to grok it was actually signing the party’s death warrant Wednesday, complete with official Nancy Pelosi commemorative black-and-gold signature pens. And that their solemn, prayerful journey from one side of the Capitol building to the other was actually the conveyance of that death warrant in what amounted to the party’s funeral march. Remember this eternal paradox of the human condition: people get what they deserve, not what they expect.

Could you look at the line-up of Democratic impeachment managers without laughing? Was there ever such a band of hapless, misbegotten ninnies assembled for a suicide mission? Led by the waddling homunculus, Jerrold Nadler, side-by-side with Adam Schiff, oozing a flop-sweat of falsehood, a rank cloud of bathos trailed the procession to the Senate side with its pathetic bill-of-particulars.

Could they actually be so dim as to proffer “abuse of power” and “obstruction of congress” as articles of impeachment? These two figments would be laughed out of a second-year law school mock court. Legal necromancers of the future, with all the time in the world, may never unpack the intended meaning of these charges besides “we hate you” and “you hurt our feelings.” But it’s up to the Senate of today to dispose of them procedurally one way or another, and the exercise is sure to be a high order of entertainment.

In a sane world of rational adults, these charges would be coolly dismissed out-of-hand as lacking any discernible malfeasant substance. As we live in a time of hysteria, the normal rules don’t apply. That being the case, the defense should spare no mercy in unmasking the bad faith and fraud on offer by doing what the House Democrats have asked for, calling witnesses, so as to walk the Democrats into the fiery furnace of humiliation and infamy they so richly deserve.

Wouldn’t you like to hear from the legendary “whistleblower,” since his actions provoked this chapter of the three-year orchestrated coup to oust Mr. Trump?  If it’s a basic tenet of law that a defendant has a right to face his accuser, can there be any further excuse for concealing this person’s identity — whose supposed right to anonymity, by the way, has been one of the signal frauds of the whole episode.

Would it not be instructive to seat his mentor and former boss, John Brennan, in the witness chair and give him another opportunity to perjure himself? We must also hear from Michael Atkinson, the “whistleblower’s” enabler and Lawfare warrior Mary McCord, Atkinson’s former boss at the DOJ national security desk, who apparently stage-managed the “whistleblower’s” doings through Adam Schiff’s House intel Committee. Mr. Schiff would be the ripest witness of all, of course, since he has left a trail of falsehoods and fabrications longer than the Pacific Trail — but it’s unclear just now whether the Senate rules will allow a manager to be called to testify.

There is also much to be unraveled about the American mischief in Ukraine — which includes, but goes far beyond — the arrant grift of Hunter Biden. For example, the relationships between between the George Soros-backed NGO Atlantic Council and Burisma, the NatGas company that put Hunter B on its board, and Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk, board member of the Atlantic Council (and $25-million contributor to the Clinton Foundation), and Dmitri Alperovitch (also Atlantic Council) co-founder of Crowdstrike, the company that “examined” the supposedly “hacked” DNC servers, and Hillary Clinton herself, the self-dealing Secretary of State behind the international pay-for-play charity fraud she operated while in office. Also bring back former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch to ‘splain the actions she took to conceal all these machinations, as well as her role in operating the 2016 Kiev Hillary campaign office.

What would soon be obvious is that the precipitating “whistleblower” caper was an effort to divert attention from a network of Americans that used a politically captive Ukraine — following the Maidan Revolution of 2014 — to protect an enormous racketeering operation threatened by the candidacy, and then the election, of Mr. Trump. Naturally, they are desperate to get him out of the way. So many of the facts are already publicly known and documented about these matters that the legal machinery has yet to catch up with it all.

And when it does, the Democratic Party will have driven a wooden stake through its own depraved heart.

Boeing shares were hit early on following reports that the Air Force’s top military officer has sent Boeing Co.’s new CEO a blunt reminder that the ill-fated 737 Max passenger jet isn’t the only troubled project he has to rescue. There’s also the company’s failure to provide a combat-ready refueling tanker, nine years after Boeing won a competition for the $44 billion project.

“We require your attention and improved focus on the KC-46” tanker, General David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, warned in a letter four days before Dave Calhoun took over as chief executive officer of the company.

“The Air Force continues to accept deliveries of a tanker incapable of performing its primary operational mission.”

But things just got even worse on reports that Boeing has found another software issue with the 737. ABC News’ David Kerley reports that during testing audit last weekend the 737’s two flight computers weren’t talking to each other at startup. It is unclear how long the fix will take, but will be done as other return to service work is conducted.

Boeing tells CNBC that it is “making necessary updates and working with the FAA on submission of this change, and keeping our customers and suppliers informed.”

But that was enough to send the stock down once again…

Leaving Boeing back near crucial support…

 

With the S&P hitting daily record highs, the financial media has been flooded with analogies to January 2018 which was the last time that the market saw a similar “blow-off top” meltup, one which ended in tears in the first week of February when the negative gamma complex imploded as a result of massive vol selling and inverse VIX ETFs blew up overnight, sending the S&P lower by 10% in days. Perversely, that VIXtermination event removed what was traditionally a handbrake to market meltups and without a market manifestation of the retail “short vol” trade, it is quite possible that the current meltup will continue indefinitely.

Which is why the correct comp to the current market move may be not to Jan 2018, but to January 2000.

At least that’s the assessment of BofA’s chief investment strategist, Michael Hartnett, who writes in his weekly Flow Show that “Q1’2020 = Q1’2000” and notes that inflows to bond funds are annualizing at a remarkable $1tn in the past 2 weeks…

… resulting in echoes of 2000, with investor euphoria sending bond yields lower despite stronger global macro, such as a rebound in Asian export cycle, and a 30%+ surge in US mortgage applications.

But the clearest indication that this is the second coming of the tech bubble is the rampage of “trillion dollar babies“, the direct result of $12 trillion of QE “since Lehman” – in this case, Hartnett’s term, not ours:

… in addition to $1 trillion in stock buybacks past 5 years by top 20 US companies (amounting to $381,000 per employee), and resulting in APPL, MSFT, GOOG all worth >$1tn; meanwhile, the S&P 500 is just 5% away from becoming largest bull market of all time (3498) even as the Fed is now stuck and can never again allow stocks to drop as US financial assets (i.e., Wall Street) is a record 5.5x size of GDP (Main St). In short, the entire market is now “too big to fail.”

Looking at the market, Hartnett then divides assets into two categories:

• The froth: assets that deliver “growth” & “yield”…palladium, global tech (SOX, QQQ, KWEB), CCC-rated HY bonds; record lows in IG & HY CDX…

• The sloth: oil, commodity currencies, banks, materials, value all lagging.

And as long as “the sloth” refuses to rise, the market is telegraphing that there is no organic growth possible (i.e., inflation), that the Fed remains in charge of everything, and that growth will continue to trounce value, making a mockery of active investing.

Looking ahead, Hartnett sees more of the same, i.e., a “Rotation-less 2020” in which there is no Main St inflation, no rotation from IG→HY, US→EAFE, large→small, tech→banks, growth→value (EM the anomaly driven by “peak US$” belief), as a result price action implies new lows in government bond yields, which paradoxically means that a crash – which sends yields to new record lows – may well be bullish for stocks.

So how does one trade all of this? Two ways, first the bullish one.

As Hartnett puts it, “we stay irrationally bullish until peak Positioning & peak Liquidity incite a spike in bond yields & a 4-8% equity correction; sell into strength as MOVE Index <40, IG CDX <40, SPX approaches 20x (3500) all challenge Fed financial stability mandate.“

Unfortunately, judging by Neel Kashkari’s tweets today, the last thing the Fed is worried about is financial stability, which brings us to the second point, namely the end of the rally, which according to Hartnett will play out as follows:

Feb’18 & Oct’18 sell-offs driven by QT and combination of higher yields & lower stocks; best trading strategy was long cash, gold, copper; short credit, tech, private equity, oil…

Finally, on timing, Hartnett sees the above trading pattern repeat once we reach the top…. sometime in Q1 2020.

Authored by John Vibes via TheMindUnleashed.com,

The infamous UK Police department Scotland Yard is refusing to reveal Prince Andrew’s location on the night that he is accused of being with Virginia Giuffre, one of the young girls trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein who was underage at the time she claims the Duke had sex with her.

Members of the royal family are regularly accompanied by police guards in their day to day activities and there are records of where and when the officers were sent—or at the very least a record of which officers worked on which day. If these records were to be made available investigators could easily determine where Prince Andrew was on the night in question, but police are saying that handing over such information could pose a threat to national security.

During his disastrous BBC interview, Andrew claimed that he was at a Pizza Express in Woking on the night then 17-year-old Giuffre (nee Roberts) says the pair visited a club and later had sex. If the Duke is indeed telling the truth, then his claims could be very easily corroborated by whichever guard was on duty at the time.

Unfortunately, Scotland Yard has not been willing to cooperate.

In a statement responding to the inquiry, Scotland Yard said that revealing information about the disgraced prince’s whereabouts on the night in question could “undermine the safeguarding of national security,” according to the Sun.

“It would allow those with a criminal intent to gain an operational advantage over the MPS and place those who the MPS have confirmed are afforded protection, as well as protection officers, and members of the public at risk,” the statement continued.

The investigation into Prince Andrew’s location on that night of the alleged crime is part of a case involving numerous Epstein victims who have been seeking justice for many years. As the Mind Unleashed reported last month, lawyers representing the victims have said they intend to subpoena Prince Andrew so he is forced to testify in court about his relationship with Epstein and his victims.

Andrew has already been caught in several lies since his appearance on BBC including a leak of private emails where he mentioned Virginia Giuffre by name despite claiming to have never heard of her during his interview.

At a sensitive moment that Trump-Ukraine dealings are being spotlighted in US politics and just before Senate impeachment proceedings move forward which the president has called a “hoax” — it just so happens that explosive wiretap recordings of top Ukrainian government officials are being mysteriously released to shake up the Zelensky administration.

No less than Ukraine’s prime minister has resigned after he was caught on an audio recording allegedly making disparaging comments about Zelensky’s ability to understand and form economic policy. According to the bombshell WSJ report Friday: 

Ukraine’s prime minister tendered his resignation following the release of an audio recording in which he appeared to make disparaging comments about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s understanding of economics.

Mr. Zelensky’s office said the president is considering the resignation of Oleksiy Honcharuk, who has been in office since August.

Honcharuk is allegedly caught in the recording saying his boss President Zelensky “has a very primitive understanding of economic processes.” The alleged recording surfaced earlier this week and immediately sparked controversy; however, it remains unclear as to the ultimate source of the audio’s creation and leak. 

PM Honcharuk affirmed it is his voice on the audio, but suggested it was heavily edited to create a false impression. He said it was different dialogue from multiple government meetings strung together to present a falsehood, according to the WSJ.

“This content artificially creates the idea that my team and I do not respect the president,” Honcharuk explained in a statement on his Facebook page. “But this is not true.”

No decision yet from Zelensky on Honcharuk’s resignation. But he’s ordered Ukrainian law enforcement agencies to investigate how confidential government meetings were recorded and then leaked online. He gave a two-week deadline. https://t.co/3rfmPMEt8P

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) January 17, 2020

President Zelensky appears to be withholding judgement for now, and has reportedly ordered security services to investigate the origins of the tape, as well as how it was leaked online. The president has reportedly issued a two week deadline for Ukrainian law enforcement to the get to the bottom of it. 

Honcharuk, himself relatively politically inexperienced like his boss former comedian Zelensky, was tasked with rooting out corruption in a country considered among Europe’s most endemically corrupt governments. He suggested Friday while tendering his resignation (Zelensky has initially rejected the resignation) that this is likely the work of his political enemies who hide “in the shadows”.

Per the WSJ, Honcharuk said:

“Unfortunately, in a few months it is quite difficult to destroy criminal schemes that have been in place for decades,” he wrote. “Our opponents are accustomed to living in the shadows.”

The now embattled prime minister, seen as a key anti-corruption reformer, assisted in Ukraine’s securing tentative approval for $5.5 billion in loans from the IMF in December. 

Ukraine’s reformers do the right thing again. After some dirty antireformer tries to expose PM Honcharuk with a mildly embarrassing tape recording, Honcharuk correctly offered his resignation & @ZelenskyyUa rightly turned it down. Well done!

— Anders Åslund (@anders_aslund) January 17, 2020

Curiously, the WSJ report offers no suggestions as to the origins of the audio which swiftly brought Honcharuk down this week, but it obviously comes in a pressurized and explosive context for Kiev when both Western and Ukrainian domestic intelligence are no doubt scrambling to dig up information in the wake of the dramatic impeachment proceedings as well as Trump’s public accusations of Joe Biden and the Burisma affair.

So the question remains: in light of this mysterious wiretap and audio, are we perhaps witnessing yet more Washington deep state maneuvering in Ukraine? 

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Nearly 40% of countries across the globe will see some form of civil unrest or riots in 2020, according to a new study.

Political analyst firm Verisk Maplecroft predicts that 75 out of the world’s 195 countries will see some form of social disorder this year.

That’s an increase on the 47 countries, about a quarter of the world’s total, that saw civil unrest in 2019.

The report predicts that the intensity of unrest is likely to be higher than 2019 due to the danger of protesters being on the receiving end of human rights abuses by authorities.

The study names major countries such as Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Thailand and Brazil that are all likely to experience major social disorder.

It also warns corporations that they will be seen to be siding with authoritarianism unless they act responsibly in the affected countries.

“Companies are at substantial danger of complicity if they employ state or private security forces that perpetrate violations,” states the report.

As we previously highlighted, the end of globalization may bring with it a tumultuous decade that causes commodities like precious metals and real estate to soar.

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