For those wondering how to make sure that any trade “ceasefire” between the US and China falls apart faster than a trip on board the Lolita Express, here is a suggestion: today the US State Department approved the possible sale to Taiwan of M1A2T Abrams tanks, Stinger missiles and related equipment at an estimated value of $US2.2 billion despite vocal Chinese criticism of the deal, AAP reported.
As a reminder, one month ago China’s Foreign Ministry last month said it was seriously concerned about US arms sales to self-ruled Taiwan, and urged the United States to halt the sales to avoid harming bilateral ties.
The proposed sale also comes at a perilously sensitive moment: at the start of June, during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe warned the United States not to meddle in security disputes over Taiwan and the South China Sea. He also launched into a bellicose attack on opponents to China’s expansionist plans towards the South China Sea and Taiwan, declaring: “If they want to fight, we will fight till the end”.
China’s Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe
In response, acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told the meeting that the United States would no longer “tiptoe” around Chinese behavior in Asia. Confirming that, a sale of more than $2 billion in weapons to Taiwan would be seen as a provocation to China’s national interest in the region, and a clear signal that the gloves are now off when it comes to geopolitical claims, potentially resulting in a worrisome escalation of a war which has so far been confined to the sphere of trade.
The sale of the weapons requested by Taiwan, including 108 General Dynamics Corp M1A2T Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger missiles, would not alter the basic military balance in the region, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.
DSCA has notified Congress of the possible arms sale, which it said could also include mounted machine guns, ammunition, Hercules-armoured vehicles for recovering inoperative tanks, heavy equipment transporters and related support.
The United States is the main arms supplier to Taiwan, which China deems a renegade province. Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in March that Washington was responding positively to Taipei’s requests for new arms sales to bolster its defences in the face of pressure from China.
While the US has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide it with the means to defend itself.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NEMuE4 Tyler Durden
Though we’re still a good distance away from the 90% uranium enrichment level it takes to build nuclear weapons, at this rate Iran will get there fast. After confirming Iran has broken past the cap placed by the JCPOA, nearing 5% Monday, Iranian nuclear officials are now threatening to boost enrichment to 20% purity, reports Bloomberg, citing state sources.
“Earlier today, the level of enrichment reached 4.5%,”confirmed the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Behrouz Kamalvandi, to state-run ISNA on Monday. He separately told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that 20% purity levels are “among the options considered,” which would require activating more advanced centrifuges.
Reactor building of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, just outside the southern city of Bushehr, Iran. Image source: AP/Mehr News Agency
Confirming that Monday’s announcement was no mere empty threat, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that Iran surpassed the enrichment threshold. The UN-linked Vienna-based nuclear watchdog stated “that Iran is enriching uranium above 3.67%,” but without saying how far past the threshold they’d gone. Previously Iranian officials said it would be enough to help power the country’s only nuclear power plant, the Bushehr reactor.
“We have no hope nor trust in anyone, nor any country, but the door of diplomacy is open,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Monday. This follows a new 60-day deadline that Iran set Sunday for Europe to save the deal which Washington quit in May of 2018.
At that point in September Iran warns it will take a third step away from the deal, but without specifying the nature of that would entail. However, clearly at that point it would bring the world much closer to witnessing a nuclear Iran.
“If the remaining countries in the deal, especially the Europeans, do not fulfill their commitments seriously, and not do anything more than talk, Iran’s third step will be harder, more steadfast and somehow stunning,” the foreign ministry spokesman said.
Late Sunday after Iran announced it would bust through the cap, President Trump saidIran “better be careful”— something unlikely to give Tehran’s leaders pause, especially given that the US president’s prior rhetoric was much more aggressive and bellicose.
Iran’s latest expansion of its nuclear program will lead to further isolation and sanctions. Nations should restore the longstanding standard of no enrichment for Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s regime, armed with nuclear weapons, would pose an even greater danger to the world.
And even Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s response lacked the warmongering bluster and bravado which characterize prior administration statements in the days leading up to Iran’s shoot down of a US drone last month.
All of this shows Iran has definitely moved closer to a place where it feels it has nothing to lose, now brazenly using its only leverage in the form of its centrifuges while inundating the West with threats of ramping up enrichment levels.
Multiple analysts have noted that Iran appears to now be waging its own “counter-pressure” campaign against the White House as its economy continues to be crippled by sanctions, and as its oil tankers are under threat of seizure on the high seas. But with each new uranium threshold passed it’s now firmly in the driver’s seat compared to a mere three weeks ago.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2S19kV4 Tyler Durden
Today we have 3 suggestions for portfolio positioning in 2H 2019. First, overweight US equities; ever more negative global interest rates over recent weeks are a warning sign. Second, expect more volatility from late July (post Fed meeting) through October; seasonality and fundamentals align on this point. Lastly, be cautious on US small caps; they are more cyclical than large caps and are levered to financial conditions.
From a fundamental standpoint, nothing much good happened in the first half of 2019. Specifically:
We didn’t get a US-China trade deal, and based on current press accounts we’re further away now than we were on January 1st. Moreover, bilateral tariffs are higher now than just a few months ago and apply to more goods.
Corporate earnings growth has been slipping. For example, first quarter S&P 500 earnings were slightly negative as compared to last year. Analysts expect the same for Q2, and margins are lower than a year ago for both quarters.
Slowing global growth. The export-driven German economy, long a bright spot in the Eurozone, likely slipped into contraction in Q2. Japan’s economy managed to post +2.2% GDP growth in Q1, but Q2 will almost certainly be slower. China’s economy has benefited from some easing of financial conditions, but trade tensions are clearly taking a toll as we start Q3.
But all this added up to a nice rally for global equities for the first 180 days of the year.
The S&P 500 is up 19.3% YTD
The MSCI EAFE (developed Europe plus Japan) is +12.6% in dollar terms
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is 10.0% higher in dollar terms
The reason for this seeming dichotomy: capital markets have reset their assumptions not just for current central bank policy but more importantly for long run “neutral” interest rates. Here is how that played out in 1H 2019:
On January 4th, Fed Chair Powell morphed from hawk to dove. The reason: then-elevated US stock market volatility caused by US-China trade war uncertainty. Over the course of 1H 2019, markets have baked in expectations that the Fed will cut rates twice in the second half. Long-term rates have declined in sympathy, with the 10-year Treasury at 2.04% today versus 2.70% in January.
But the truly important shift happened in late May, when German 10-year Bunds moved to new record low negative yields. That siren’s call, which grows louder by the day, is pulling global interest rates deeper into uncharted waters. As we have recently highlighted in these notes, over $13 trillion of global debt now “pays” negative interest rates and 25% of that is corporate (not sovereign) paper.
While the shift in Fed policy is cyclical, what’s going on outside the US is clearly structural and it is informing asset prices everywhere. A global economy awash in debt (both at record levels) is forcing both policymakers and markets to accept the fact that the neutral rate of interest is lower than either thought possible just 6 months ago. Fold in a global economic slowdown, necessitating a monetary policy response, and you get today’s ultra-low yield environment.
As far as what this means for making money in the back half of 2019, we have 3 suggestions:
Favor US equities over all other geographic regions. At least American companies are still very profitable, which allows them to buy back stock, and the US economy remains stable. Yes, the S&P 500 is expensive at 17.1x forward earnings versus 12.1x for Emerging Markets and 13.6x for EAFE. But US markets also represent global best-of-breed companies, especially in Technology. There will be time for bargain hunting later, but now is not the time. That will come when global rates see their nadir.
Expect to see significantly more global equity market volatility later in Q3 and through early Q4. Lower rates are juicing global stock markets just now, and that should continue through the July 31st Fed meeting. But both seasonality and common sense says ever more negative global interest rates are a storm flag, not a sign that says “come on in, the water’s fine”.
Underweight US small caps. Recall that the Russell 200 is most heavily weighted to Financials and Industrials (15% apiece) where the S&P 500 is 13% Financials and just 9% Industrials. Further, about 30% of the companies in the Russell are unprofitable, necessitating access to outside capital which tends to grow scarce as markets wobble.
The bottom line here: in the first half of 2019 lower interest rates helped risk assets like stocks, but we feel that the second half will see some of erosion of that positive dynamic.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2L8ZYG3 Tyler Durden
Skywatcher Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands recently snapped an impressive photo of the US Air Force’s most secretive space plane orbiting Earth.
The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic space plane, was conducting a top-secret mission in low Earth orbit when Vandenbergh recorded the image.
“When I tried to observe it again [in] mid-June, it didn’t meet the predicted time and path,” Vandebergh explained.
“It turned out to have maneuvered to another orbit. Thanks to the amateur satellite observers’ network, it was rapidly found in orbit again, and I was able to take some images on June 30 and July 2.”
The X-37B resembles a smaller version of NASA’s retired Space Shuttle orbiter.
“It is a small object, even at only 300 kilometers [186 miles] altitude, so don’t expect the detail level of ground-based images of the real space shuttle,” Vandebergh said.
Vandebergh said the newly captured images exceeded his wildest expectations.
“We can recognize a bit of the nose, payload bay and tail of this mini-shuttle, with even a sign of some smaller detail,” he said.
Vandebergh noted that he used a 10-inch F/4,8 aperture Newtonian telescope with an Astrolumina ALccd 5L-11 mono CMOS camera (both can be bought over the internet under $10,000).
Space.com said the X-37B had achieved 666 days of flight on OTV-5 mission.
Notice how each OTV mission has a longer duration in space…
OTV-1 launched on April 22, 2010, and ended on December 3, 2010 (224 days in space).
OTV-2 began March 5, 2011, and landed on June 16, 2012 (468 days).
OTV-3 launched on December 11, 2012, and came down on October 17, 2014 (675 days).
OTV-4 lifted off on May 20, 2015, and landed May 7, 2017 (718 days).
OTV-5 began on September 2017 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with experimental cargo: electronics and oscillating heat pipes for long-duration stints in the space environment. The payload’s top science objectives are to measure the thermal performance of extended space travel to asses any lifetime degradation.
The 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron oversees OTV-5 at the Schriever Air Force Base, has sparked suspicion that the space plane’s payload could be carrying intelligence-gathering sensors to spy on China and or Russia.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XyVrhS Tyler Durden
Even the corporate media are losing enthusiasm for the US government’s ploy to replace the democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela with the US-anointed security asset Juan Guaidó.Reutersreports in a July 1 article, “Disappointed Venezuelans lose patience with Guaidó as Maduro hangs on,” that the US-backed “military uprising” has “unraveled.” A critical reading of the article explains why.
Reuters correctly notes that “the 35-year old (Guaidó) had risen to prominence three months before,” though a little more background information would have been helpful. For instance, Guaidó was unknown to 81% of Venezuelans a little more than a week before he got a telephone call from US Vice President Pence telling him to declare himself interim president of Venezuela, which Guaidó dutifully did the following morning at a street rally flanked with US and Israeli flags. A member of a marginal far-right Venezuelan political party, Guaidó was not even in the top leadership of his own grouplet.
For background, Reuters tells the reader that President Maduro “took office in 2013 following the death of his political mentor, Hugo Chávez,” but fails to mention that Maduro took office via a democratic national election. Guaidó has never stood in a national election. He was elected to the National Assembly but became head of that body through a mechanism where the political parties in the legislature rotate which party’s representative occupies the office.
Reuters continues that after Maduro took office, he “has overseen an economic collapse that has left swaths of the once-wealthy country without reliable access to power, water, food, and medicines.” Not mentioned by Reuters is the economic war being waged against Venezuela by the US and its allies that has employed unilateral coercive measures – sanctions – responsible for taking the lives of some 40,000 people.
This illegal collective punishment of the Venezuelan people by the US government has diverted legitimate funds of the Venezuelan government. Reuters obliquely mentions “Guaidó has gained control of some of the Venezuelan assets in the United States.” In fact, the US government seized those assets, which would have gone to preventing the “economic collapse” that Reuters supposedly laments.
Reuters reports: “The opposition’s momentum has slowed since the April 30 uprising. Attendance at Guaidó’s public rallies has dropped and the opposition has held no major protests since then.” Reuters hints why Guaidó’s fortunes are eclipsing: “the opposition says it is…seeking to build a grassroots organization.” That is, the US surrogate does not have a meaningful grassroots presence.
This is further confirmed by Reuters’ admission that Guaidó’s organization is now “focused on expanding a network of Help and Freedom Committees…to organize at the local level – something the ruling Socialist Party has done successfully.” Reuters continues, “so far the committees have gotten little traction.” That is, Guaidó lacks significant organized popular support outside of Washington and its allies.
Guaidó visited Washington shortly before his self-appointment and subsequently toured a number of Latin American countries but has “only traveled to 11 of Venezuela’s 23 states,” according to Reuters. Guaidó’s handlers have directed him to “travel to at least five more this month to motivate his supporters.”
Recent polls cited by Reuters show support for Guaidó is falling. Reuters quotes a paid political consultant for Guaidó: “We can expect Guaidó’s popularity to continue to erode the longer he is not exercising power.”
President Maduro, according to Reuters, had waged a “crackdown on the opposition.” That is, the Venezuelan government has defended itself against US-backed assets who have actively engaged in attempts to violently overthrow the democratically elected government and assassinate key government and social movement leaders.
In the alternative universe of corporate media, which ignores the economic war being waged against Venezuela, Reuters bemoans that the “crackdown” on Guaidó’s agents has failed to receive “significant retaliation from the international community.” In reality, Venezuela has massively suffered from the US-orchestrated punishments for resisting reverting to the status of a client state.
While not consulting anyone associated with the elected government of Venezuela, Reuters gives full voice to an anonymous “US administration” official as is the practice of the corporate media. The US official states: “The United States continues to execute the president’s strategy of maximum pressure to achieve a peaceful transition to democracy in Venezuela.” Not mentioned is that the “military option” is a prominent part of the “peaceful transition”; deposing a democratically elected president is part of the “transition to democracy”; and “maximum pressure” is preventing vital foods and medicines from reaching Venezuela.
The anonymous US government official further claims, “Only Maduro wishes for the US to give up now.” Reuters does not question how incredibly circumscribed is the universe occupied by that official, which renders invisible the two-decade-old Bolivarian grassroots movement in Venezuela in support of their elected government and its international allies. The Venezuelans most adversely hurt by the US sanctions are those most militantly in support of their government.
Nor does Reuters question why in the US, with the conceit of a supposedly free press, the government is allowed to hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Reuters cites the names of a Venezuelan taxi driver, doctor, former police student, and teacher to give a patina of authenticity to the article but can’t name an official US government functionary who is quoted authoritatively.
Reuters reports Guaidó’s supporters “have demanded that Guaidó shift strategy and request a US-led military intervention.” So much for democracy! “We can’t get rid of Maduro with votes. It will have to be a violent exit.” Meanwhile, the polling firm Datanalisis, according to Reuters, tells us that less than 10% of Venezuelans support such an action.
In short, a critical reading between the lines of the Reuters article confirms that Washington has failed to cobble together a united opposition in Venezuela that is popular enough to win in the polls, so the alternative is violent regime-change supposedly in the name of “democracy.” The lesson that the Venezuelans themselves are the best agents of history to address their own destiny has yet to be learned by the world’s hegemon and its media apologists.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NEe1FJ Tyler Durden
“Tens of thousands” of fish are dying from water contaminated with Jim Beam after a previously reported warehouse fire resulted in 45,000 barrels being displaced, Bloomberg has reported. And while the fish aren’t dying from alcohol poisoning, they reportedly can’t breathe due to sugar from the alcohol, creating a microbe feeding frenzy in the water where they swim, which is reducing oxygen levels in the water and suffocates the fish.
The plume of alcohol in the river stretches 23 miles long, according to a state news release, and the river near the Jim Beam warehouse has seen its fish death toll run into the “tens of thousands”.
Barges are now trying to mix air into the water using pumps, hoping to provide more oxygen to the fish. “Optimistic” authorities are predicting that the death count will not reach the hundreds of thousands of fish that the state estimates were killed in a 2000 fire that destroyed 17,000 barrels of Wild Turkey at a nearby warehouse.
Jimmy Russell, master distiller with Wild Turkey told the University of Kentucky in an oral history project on the fire that “The reason they quit pumping is they didn’t know whether to charge by the drink or by the gallon coming into town.” This doesn’t look to be the case with the recent Jim Beam fire:
The Jim Beam incident has had a smaller impact on drinking water. There have been some reports of locals saying there’s a slight smell and discoloration to their water, but water treatment plants have tested the water and it’s safe to drink…
Last week we reported that the Jim Beam warehouse containing 45,000 barrels of “relatively young whiskey” had caught fire, according to a statement from Beam Suntory, parent of Jim Beam. The warehouse was in Versailles, Kentucky; 40 firefighters from five counties responded especially after a second warehouse also caught fire, but was later contained.
The initial warehouse collapsed, and Woodford County Emergency Management Chief Drew Chandler called the warehouses “massive”, describing them as the same area as a football field, but 6 to 7 stories high.
8+ hours later, the fire continues to burn at this Jim Beam property in Woodford County. Emergency Management officials tell me they expect it to last for several more hours. @LEX18Newspic.twitter.com/RHqJrQ36xd
Authorities thought that lightning in the area was responsible for the blaze. Previously, authorities had decided to let the fire burn longer, specifically to minimize the impact of the alcohol. Chandler said, at the time:
“It’s purposefully being allowed to burn for several more hours. The more it burns, the less distilled spirits are in the debris.”
Allowing the fire to burn will prevent any runoff from “polluting” nearby sources of drinking water, Chandler concluded. Alas, that didn’t quite work out as expected.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30j49CP Tyler Durden
In this article, I’d like to explain how I learned to love Bitcoin. Why it’s a wonderful thing. Its potential as a speculation. How the government is going to co-opt it. And how this is all likely to end.
I was first introduced to Bitcoin several years ago in Cafayate, Argentina. A young Belgian guy came to visit, I bought him lunch, and we discussed Bitcoin. He was a very early enthusiast, and he gave me a physical Bitcoin as a souvenir. They’re now collectibles, but the digital codes are inscribed on them. I still have that Bitcoin. It was worth $13 at the time.
I wish I had listened to his argument more carefully, because I could have made millions. Over 600-1 in just a few years… that’s rare indeed. I was inclined towards it philosophically, but outsmarted myself on an investment level. Because Bitcoin was pitched to me as an alternative currency, and I failed to see all of its advantages in that role.
My original objection was that Bitcoin isn’t backed by anything. It’s really a private fiat currency. It’s very much like the Zambian Kwacha, the Argentine peso, the US dollar, or any of the other 150-plus currencies in today’s world. It’s a floating abstraction. Unlike state currencies, though, its acceptance isn’t enforced by laws. But, on the other hand, its quantity is limited. Would that be enough to get large amounts of people to use it as a currency?
I missed something when I said, back then, that it had no value. It’s a fiat currency, yes, but it has much more practical value than any other.
A currency has to be a good medium of exchange, and a store of value. I’ll have more to say about this in a few paragraphs, but Bitcoin’s big fault is that it’s so volatile. In other words, it’s nice to see your savings perhaps double in value over a few weeks. But few want to risk them losing value the way Bitcoin did in the recent crypto winter, when it went from about $20,000 to about $3,000 in 15 months. That said, as more people adopt Bitcoin, it should stabilize. But Bitcoin has already gone from being a wild speculation to a useful monetary tool. I believe it will keep improving, rapidly.
Why? Analyze the situation rationally, using Aristotle’s five characteristics of a good money. Aristotle defined the five characteristics of good money in the 4th century BC. His analysis is as accurate now as it was then.
A good money must be durable, divisible, convenient, consistent, and have use value in and of itself. Based on that, Aristotle believed gold and silver were best suited for use as money. How does Bitcoin compare using these five criteria?
Durable. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are definitely durable – unless we have a major electromagnetic pulse (EMP) or a significant solar flare that wipes out all the computers. Bitcoins are not as durable as the metals, but they’re adequate, barring a veritable collapse of civilization.
Divisible. Bitcoin is infinitely divisible. Better than the physical metals, actually – although the metals can be accounted in tiny fractions too.
Convenient. Yes – as long as you have a smartphone, Bitcoin is very convenient. But your smartphone, or something like it, may not always be with you. And your counterparty also has to have one. And it’s not very convenient if someone doesn’t know or trust Bitcoin. Right now, that’s still probably 98% of humanity.
Consistent. Absolutely. Every Bitcoin is exactly like another one. It’s at least as good as .999 fine gold that way.
The problem I had with Bitcoin was the fifth point: Does it have use value in itself, so you can’t get stuck holding the bag?
If you have a million US paper dollars, and nobody accepts them, they have no use in and of themselves – except as wall decorations or kindling. They’re just unsecured liabilities of a bankrupt government. In essence no better than a million Zimbabwe dollars, although there’s obviously a continuum. Fiat currencies can be easily destroyed by their issuers. The things are burning matches. They have half-lives, like radioactive elements.
Sure, there were advantages to Bitcoin being a privately issued fiat currency. But I didn’t see its real use value; that’s where I went wrong.
Bitcoin is certainly a fiat currency like the dollar or the Kwacha. But it’s also an excellent transfer device. You can move wealth from one country to another, or to another person, quickly and privately. I’d say secretly, but you’re not supposed to say “secret” anymore, you can only say “private.” Part of the politically correct corruption of language, I might add.
Better yet, you can do so outside of the banking system, which is increasingly important. If you use Bitcoin, you don’t need a bank to store your money.
Cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoins, are just the first, and most obvious, application of blockchain technology. Hopefully, among other things, blockchain and Bitcoin are going to destroy the SWIFT system, the vehicle for wiring money from one bank to another. SWIFT is expensive (typically $50-100 per transaction), slow (generally a day or two, sometimes a week or more), and insecure (who trusts either big banks or the US Government?). And SWIFT requires that all dollars clear through New York; non-Americans don’t care for that. SWIFT is used by thousands of banks around the world to send payment instructions worth trillions of dollars each day.
So, this is one big use value of Bitcoin. It allows you to transfer something that is accepted as money outside of the banking system, privately, and outside of government fiat currencies.
Bitcoin is well on the way to being accepted as money. I think it will succeed. Remember, money is just a medium of exchange and a store of value. Almost anything can be used as money. Some things are just much better than others.
Salt, seashells, and cows have all historically been used as money. After all, the word “pecuniary” comes from the Latin pecus, which means cow; cows were used as money. And “salary” comes from the Latin sal, which is salt, which was also a money. Wampum were seashells. Cigarettes are money in prisons and war zones. Giant Yap island discs were used as money.
Bitcoin is becoming more and more accepted as a medium of exchange, while most government fiat currencies approach their intrinsic values – essentially zero.
Bitcoin is a bit more problematic as a store of value. Once again, let’s get back to the basics. You’ve got two kinds of currencies: commodity currencies and fiat currencies.
The commodity currencies are actual physical commodities. You know they have use value. Fiat currencies, on the other hand, are just made up. They’re totally arbitrary and political.
It’s like that old joke about sardines. You’ve got eating sardines and trading sardines. Commodity currencies are eating sardines. Fiat currencies are trading sardines. Of course, there’s no guarantee that Bitcoin is going to be accepted a year or two from now. It’s a high tech innovation, and maybe a Version 2.0 will collapse the value of the current version. So in a few years, we may find that Bitcoin fails the store of value test. But it’s accepted at the moment. And its acceptance is growing at a crazy rate – unlike fiat currencies, which have almost all been falling against real goods and services at about 5-10% a year. Incidentally, I don’t put much faith in the accuracy of government inflation figures.
Bitcoin has been a great speculation so far. But is it a store of value? Bitcoin is a technological innovation. There likely will be Bitcoin 2.0 and 3.0, not to mention other, even more advanced cryptos. What will the current Bitcoin then be worth? There’s a reason the expression “High tech, big wreck” is true. Just because it’s been a great speculation, doesn’t mean it’s a good store of value. Technology, a solar flare, or even government action could wipe it out.
The bottom line? Bitcoin passes the medium of exchange test for the moment and store of value test for the moment. So you can definitely say it’s money – for the moment. But so does the Argentine peso – for the moment. I have little confidence, however, Bitcoin will be here, say, five years from now. Buying cryptos is not like socking away gold coins.
The $64 question is: Where are we in the market cycle for cryptos? Clearly, we’re no longer early in the game. It’s like getting into the Internet stocks back in 1998 – they weren’t cheap, but the bubble got much, much bigger. And the Internet – contrary to what people like Paul Krugman thought – was not itself a bubble. Up till now, the main way to play this has been tokens, like Bitcoin. There are perhaps two thousand of them out there now, and most of them are garbage.
Because I think the crypto bubble will be reinflated now that the crypto winter that started in December 2017 is over, I’m getting involved in these cryptocurrencies on several levels. I’m trying to make the trend my friend. But cautiously.
* * *
Our resident crypto expert, Marco Wutzer, has been following digital currencies for decades. He was an early investor in bitcoin. And like Doug, he’s truly an “international man.” He made so much money from cryptos, he dropped everything and traveled the world for five years. And now, he’s ready to share the details on his latest discovery… A new and exciting tech opportunity that could make early investors a fortune. You haven’t heard anything like this before. Marco just released an urgent video with all the details. Go here to get the full story.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32cTmf8 Tyler Durden
Attorney General William Barr said on Monday that the Trump administration can legally add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, which had been excluded for the first time in US history by President Obama.
Barr told the Associated Press that he has been in regular contact with President Trump over the matter.
“I agree with him that the Supreme Court decision was wrong,” said Barr – referring to the USSC’s June Decision to block the citizenship question, adding that there is “an opportunity potentially to cure the lack of clarity that was the problem and we might as well take a shot at doing that.”
According to the report, President Trump is likely to issue a presidential memorandum to the Commerce Department over the next several days ordering it to include the citizenship question.
Last week the Justice Department appeared to cave to legal pressure to keep the question off the census, only for President Trump to reverse course the next day – tweeting that the efforts to print the question would move forward.
“The tweet this morning was the first I had heard of the president’s position on this issue, just like the plaintiffs and Your Honor. I do not have a deeper understanding of what that means at this juncture other than what the president has tweeted,” DOJ attorney Joshua Gardner told a federal judge during a Wednesday teleconference, adding “But obviously, as you can imagine, I am doing my absolute best to figure out what’s going on.”
The DOJ on Sunday also announced that it would be replacing its entire legal team dealing with the citizenship issue – replacing them with other government attorneys.
Barr recuses from Epstein
On Monday, Barr told reporters that he had recused himself from the case involving billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested over the weekend on charges of sex-trafficking minors, according to the Washington Times.
Barr says that he used to work for one of the law firms representing Epstein “long ago,” though he did not name the firm.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Xx6SeV Tyler Durden
Of course the two large earthquakes that we just witnessed in southern California were not along the San Andreas fault, and we should be extremely thankful for that. Because they happened in remote areas, those two quakes didn’t cause an enormous amount of damage, but they should still be taken as a warning. The magnitude 7.1 earthquake that rattled southern California on Friday night was felt in San Francisco, Las Vegas and northern Mexico simultaneously, but if a magnitude 9.0 earthquake suddenly hit the San Andreas fault it would be 707 times more powerful than the quake that we just witnessed, and it would happen in a very heavily populated area. Needless to say, the death and destruction would be unimaginable, and scientists keep telling us that southern California is way overdue for “the Big One” to strike.
So if you live in California right now, you have a decision to make.
Right now the crust of our planet is becoming exceedingly unstable, and the infamous Ring of Fire runs directly along the west coast of the United States.
Do you really want to keep pressing your luck? Yes, things had been rather quiet for the last couple of decades, but now California is starting to shake like a leaf. According to the Los Angeles Times, there have been at least 3,000 earthquakes in southern California since the 4th of July…
Since the Fourth, Caltech seismologists have detected at least 3,000 smaller earthquakes.
Those include 340 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 3, 52 with a magnitude greater than 4, and six with a magnitude greater than 5, Hauksson said Saturday.
In total, this earthquake sequence is expected to generate about 34,000 aftershocks with a magnitude 1 or greater over the next six months, he said.
These days Caltech seismologist Lucy Jones has become “the go to expert” that everyone in the mainstream media wants to talk to about California earthquakes, and according to her there is a “nearly 11%” chance that southern California will get hit by another magnitude 7 or greater earthquake this week…
The odds that Southern California will experience another earthquake of magnitude 7 or greater in the next week are now nearly 11%, according to preliminary estimates from seismologists.
And the chances that a quake will surpass the 7.1 temblor that struck near Ridgecrest on Friday night are roughly 8% to 9%, said Caltech seismologist Lucy Jones.
Of course Jones previously told us that there was only a very small chance that the magnitude 6.4 Ridgecrest earthquake was a foreshock for a larger event, and yet that is precisely what happened.
Ultimately, just like everyone else, Jones is essentially giving us her best guess. It may be an educated guess, but it is still a guess.
And she is also telling us that the aftershocks from the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that we just witnessed could “last for years”…
Though such quakes would be more likely to occur in the next few days, the shaking could continue for quite some time.
“A magnitude 7 usually has aftershocks that last for years,” Jones said.
But aftershocks are not a reason to move out of the state of California.
Very small earthquakes are not going to change history, but when “the Big One” finally arrives, nothing will ever be the same again.
Earlier today, I came across a CNN headline which boldly declared that they had “debunked” the “myth” that a portion of southern California could one day go into the ocean.
Here’s some comforting words for every California resident contemplating a permanent relocation.
The USGS calls the the idea that the state will be swept out to sea “absolutely impossible.”
What will continue to happen however, is the slow — about two-inches-per-year slow — northward movement of southwestern California toward Alaska, as it slides past central and eastern California.
Wow, that is quite a powerful argument they laid out there.
I assume that what is being referred to here is the idea that a portion of California could snap off the continent like a cookie and sink into the ocean, and of course that isn’t going to happen.
However, much of southern California is barely above sea level, and scientists have discovered that past earthquakes have caused the ground in the region to sink by as much as three feet. If such an earthquake happened today, vast stretches of southern California could suddenly go underwater as the Pacific Ocean came pouring in.
So instead of talking about southern California “going into the ocean”, perhaps it would be more accurate for us to talk about “the Pacific Ocean going into southern California”.
Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby was one of the lead researchers on the groundbreaking study that alerted all of us to this possibility, and he says that if a large enough earthquake happened today “you would see seawater rushing in”…
‘It´s something that would happen relatively instantaneously,’ Kirby said.
‘Probably today if it happened, you would see seawater rushing in.’
Southern California is essentially a time bomb, and it is absolutely riddled with fault lines. In fact, a Fox News article says that there are more than five hundred active fault lines in the region right now…
Like a major river, the San Andreas has many tributaries – faults big and small that fan out and fracture the state from top to bottom. As a result, most Californians live within thirty miles of an active fault line, of which there are more than five hundred.
So do you feel lucky?
Maybe you do, and that is fine.
But someday your luck will run out.
We have entered the time of “the perfect storm”, and major seismic events are going to become increasingly common. As sure as you are reading this article, someday the kind of earthquake that I am talking about will come to California, and the death toll will be off the charts.
Unfortunately, most Californians are not going to listen to the warnings. For example, one small business owner named Albert Adi told CNN that the risk of earthquakes is something he is willing to tolerate in order to live in a place “with beautiful weather and good job opportunities”…
Ultimately, he said, it’s just one of the tradeoffs of living in a place with beautiful weather and good job opportunities.
“It’s the risk you have to accept by living here in Southern California,” he said.
“Hopefully,” he added, “everything will work out.”
Blind hope is not a strategy.
Today, California is on the cutting edge of everything that is wrong with America. The state is at the forefront of our moral, social and political decay, and the filth being produced by our entertainment industry has infected the entire globe.
Unless you have an overwhelming reason to stay, I don’t know why anyone would possibly want to live on the west coast at this point.
A day of reckoning for the state of California is approaching very rapidly, and you don’t want to be there when that day finally arrives.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YFap7f Tyler Durden
If President Trump follows through on his threats to issue an executive order to try and force the ‘citizenship question’ on to the 2020 census, a majority of Americans would have his back.
The latest Economist-YouGov poll found that 53% of Americans feel the census should include a question asking respondents whether or not they are citizens. Only 32% said they would oppose including such a question. Another 14% said they weren’t sure how to answer.
This was how the question from the Economist-YouGov poll was worded: “Do you think the federal government should, or should not, ask people whether they are American citizens as part of the 2020 census?”
The Supreme Court rejected including the question – or at least the way the Trump Administration would have worded it – on the 2020 census, but left the door open to another version, which Trump is reportedly considering, as the president revealed in a tweet last week.
The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.
Legal expert and George Washington University Law professor John Banzhaf told the Washington Examiner that what Trump is suggesting in the tweet above could absolutely be accomplished.
“There are several rationales – including one based upon the Constitution itself – which could well still persuade the courts to permit a citizenship question on the census, especially if the explanation were included in the executive order now being considered, rather than in some new declaration by the Secretary of Commerce,” he said.
That’s simply not accurate. The fact is, Trump is only trying to follow what until recently had been an established norm. President Obama was the first president to exclude the question on citizenship, naturalization and nativity in almost 200 years. The Trump Administration is merely undoing Obama’s 8-year effort to distort the status quo.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32fQEFF Tyler Durden
