Category: zerohedge

Authored by Kit Klarenberg via SputnikNews.com,

Steele was cut off by the FBI for revealing his relationship with the Bureau to the media – but Ohr continued to pass information from Steele to his colleagues, regularly spoke to him via email and phone, and met up with him face-to-face on several occasions.

Information watchdog Judicial Watch has released 339-pages of US Department of Justice records, revealing former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr remained in regular contact with ex-MI6 operative Christopher Steele after Steele’s status as a paid confidential informant was terminated by the FBI in November 2016.

“These smoking gun documents show Christopher Steele, a Hillary Clinton operative and anti-Trump foreign national, secretly worked hand-in-glove with the Justice Department on its illicit targeting of President Trump. These documents leave no doubt that for more than a year after the FBI fired Christopher Steele for leaking, and for some 10 months after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, Bruce Ohr continued to act as a go-between for Steele with the FBI and Justice Department. The anti-Trump Russia investigation, now run by Robert Mueller, has been thoroughly compromised by this insider corruption,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

NEW: JW announced it received 339 pages of heavily redacted records from the DOJ which reveal that former Associate Deputy AG Bruce Ohr remained in regular contact Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 (1/3)https://t.co/lckhuDySHr

— Judicial Watch 🔎 (@JudicialWatch) March 7, 2019

​Whether an accurate appraisal or not, it’s clear from the assorted communications Ohr was determined to ensure Steele retained access to the Bureau, and this contact remained hidden from public view – for instance, when acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired by Trump January 2017, Steele feared Ohr would be fired too, and texted him to express his “sympathy and support”.

“If you end up out, I really need another contact point/number who is briefed. We can’t allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous all round, though his position right now looks stable. A million thanks,” Steele wrote.

In response, Ohr assured the Orbis chief he could “certainly” give him an FBI contact “if it becomes necessary”.

On 6 March that year, Senator Chuck Grassley wrote to then-FBI Director James Comey, seeking clarity on the nature of Steele’s relationship with the FBI. The next day, Steele texted Ohr to say he was “very concerned” by the letter, and its “possible implications for our operations and sources…We need some reassurance…Really fundamental issues at stake here”.

Days later, with Comey scheduled to testify before Congress, Steele told Ohr he was “a bit apprehensive” and hoped “important firewalls will hold”. On 24 March, Ohr and Steele discussed their “response” to the testimony, as he understood “an approach from the Senate Intelligence Committee” to Orbis was imminent.

On 26 October, Steele said he’s “very concerned” about documents the FBI intended to turn over to Congress about his work and “relationship with them”.

“Can we have a word tomorrow please? Just seen a story in the media about the Bureau handing over docs to Congress…Peoples live may be engangered [sic],” he despaired.

On 18 November, an again anxious Steele told Ohr it’d been “another tough week here” due to being “under the media spotlight” and the “legal pressures bearing down on us”.

“Also, we remain in the dark as to what has been briefed to Congress about us, our assets and previous work. I know you understand the importance of all this and have done your very best to support us…Sincere thanks for everything you are doing and I hope to speak to you again soon,” Steele texted.

In response, Ohr said he appreciated the “difficulties and uncertainty” he’d been experiencing.

Adding to the intrigue, the documents also reveal Ohr’s wife Nellie – hired as an ‘independent contractor’ by Fusion GPS during the November 2016 Presidential election – sent numerous emails and reports to her husband and other Justice Department officials on Russia issues. Ohr has never been questioned about this clear conflict of interest since, much less punished.

Judicial Watch has unearthed a vast number of documents exposing Steele’s intimate relationship with US authorities and the Clinton campaign – in July 2018, the organization released 412 pages of documents related to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser. The organization claimed the files confirmed the FBI and Department of Justice misled courts and withheld information proving Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee provided the “intelligence” used to persuade the courts to approve FISA warrants targeting the Trump team.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2F0bzTs Tyler Durden

It’s looking increasingly likely that disgraced former attorney Michael Cohen will face a perjury investigation over statements made during last month’s appearance before the House Oversight Committee.

At least that’s what California Democrat Katie Hill told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace.

“I don’t know if he lied or not,” Hill said. “I think that this is, Chairman Cummings is incredibly deliberate. I know that he’s reviewing the entire testimony, all the transcripts with Jim Jordan who also is going to make sure that we get to the bottom of this.”

“He’s not going to let this go.”

She added that she would guess that Cummings would end up referring Cohen’s statements to the DOJ for a full-fledged perjury investigation.

“I would imagine that in the panic that was going on when you’re about to go down, right, that you’re going to say like ‘yeah, figure out whatever you can do,'” Hill said. “And I imagine that Chairman Cummings will end up referring him. That’s just my guess.”

“When Chairman Cummings says something like I’m going to nail you to the cross, he means it,” Hill said.

For context, Cummings warned Cohen that the chairman would “nail him to the cross” if he lied to Congress again.

Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) on Cohen testifying last week pic.twitter.com/GE3LNCsEdw

— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) March 10, 2019

Cohen attorney Lanny Davis told the Wall Street Journal last week that a previous attorney for Cohen had asked members of Trump’s legal team about the prospect of a presidential pardon following raids on Cohen’s home, office and hotel room by the FBI. It was later revealed that Cohen had explicitly asked his attorney, Stephen Ryan, to inquire about the possibility of a pardon. However, Davis insisted that Cohen’s comment to the committee that he had never asked for – nor would he have accepted – a presidential pardon was consistent with the facts. The pardon request purportedly came when Cohen was still participating in a joint defense agreement with Trump’s legal team, which he eventually left.

And on Friday, President Trump claimed that Cohen had personally asked him for a pardon – and that he had turned him down.

Republicans, meanwhile, are also looking into whether Adam Schiff and his staff improperly ‘coached’ Cohen before his testimony.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2C8RV5R Tyler Durden

Submitted by Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

“Significant monetary policy stimulus will continue to be provided by forward guidance on the key ECB interest rates, reinforced by the re-investments of the sizable stock of acquired assets and the new series of TLTROs,” said Mario Draghi, tightening his neck brace and abruptly throwing Europe’s central bank into reverse.

Just 2 months after ending 4yrs of quantitative easing, Europe’s central bank flipped back into easing mode. With overnight interest rates still at -0.40% no one quite knows why the policies of the past didn’t work, or what will happen next. And everyone is wondering what exactly is wrong with Europe?

* * *

“They just were more polished than he is,” said Ilhan Omar, describing the American Presidents that came before Trump, critical of them all.

“And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore,” she continued. “We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished,” she said, attacking Obama and his 542 drone strikes that killed an estimated 3,797 (including 324 civilians).

“We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.” Ilhan was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, 1981. Fled the civil war for Kenya, spent 4yrs in a refugee camp. Emigrated to the US, naturalized in 2000. She’s a Millennial, a Muslim, an American, and now a Congresswoman, committed to speaking her truth to power.

And with that unique life experience, you can be sure her truth will collide with much that is commonly held in today’s America. The debates she’ll spark will be ferocious. But such conflict is of course the greatest strength of our union, the wellspring of introspection, inspiration, transformation, evolution. Our salvation.

“There is limited support for strict enforcement of the stability and growth pact among member states in the European Council,” reported the frustrated Dutch finance minister to his government, objecting to Brussel’s deceptive leniency toward Italy’s deficit overshoot. But you see, no one in Europe is being honest.

The truth is that a currency union is destined to fail without fiscal union. And fiscal union is doomed without political union.

Europe’s architects believed their citizens couldn’t handle that truth. So they locked themselves into a structurally flawed currency union almost impossible to exit, hoping to backdoor their way into fiscal and political union without their subjects quite realizing it. It’s the lie at the heart of Europe. Debilitating, cancerous. And all the polish in the world will not conceal the deception.

* * *

Bringing Them Home

US military spending exceeds the next 12 largest spenders combined. 165k military personnel are deployed at US bases in 150 countries – it’s a practice started after WWII. Germany pays the US $1bln/year (28% of the cost of hosting our 33k troops). Some others share a bit of the load.

America has been eager to share the burden for decades. Seems fair. Successive presidents asked nicely. They were all ignored.

Then came Trump. He’s considering demanding they pay the US 150% of our cost to deploy troops on their soil.  

* * *

Anecdote

“See that hotel?” I asked the kids, driving. They unentangled themselves from iPads. In the distance was a sprawling relic, nestled in New Hampshire’s vast wild.

“It’s one of the world’s most historic places – The Mount Washington Hotel, in Bretton Woods.” Charlie asked for the story.

In the closing year of World War II, we knew we’d win. With the rest of the globe demolished, destitute, desperate, we’d have free reign to do whatever we wanted. Through the ages, victors took treasure, territory, taxes, tribute. This naturally fueled the never-ending cycle that defines humanity’s bloody history.

With the war still raging, we secretly invited 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations to Bretton Woods to agree to our plan to redesign the world. They were nervous, proud nations. Many had built and lost empires. But each knew that without America’s support, they were now finished. “Guess what we did?” I asked. We guaranteed global security, the free movement of goods across the world’s oceans, and free access to our market to sell their goods, rebuild their wealth.

“What did we ask from them?” asked Teddy. Nothing but allegiance. We paid for it all. We even let them protect their industries at our expense. Over 11 days in the Mount Washington Hotel, we agreed on the details. Every nation signed and bolted before we changed our minds. It was the boldest geopolitical bet in human history. It yielded an era of global peace and prosperity previously unimaginable, an anomalous period, with America as the indispensable center.

“Sounds like the cleverest thing we could’ve done. We made everyone completely dependent on us,” said Olivia. I smiled. And now, 75yrs after Bretton Woods, we’re reconsidering that agreement. Renegotiating, withdrawing. Things will change in ways no one can know. And this is the world you will all inherit.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2VSLj3h Tyler Durden

Being a billionaire, Bill Gross probably won’t ever want for anything in this life or the next, whether that’s food, shelter, companionship – or access to the world’s largest trove of financial data.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate a generous birthday gift from a longtime friend (and fellow billionaire), according to the Financial Times.

To honor Gross’s legendary four-decade run as America’s “bond king,” Michael Bloomberg has gifted the bond investor a free lifetime subscription for Gross’s three Bloomberg terminals, which Gross – who revolutionized the world of bond trading and founded the world’s biggest fixed-income focused asset management firm – will probably use while managing the bulk of his fortune in a one-man family office.

“I didn’t want to lose my Bloombergs,” Gross told the FT. “So they contacted me and said we appreciate all our years together, so your Bloomberg are free for the rest of your life. It was a nice touch.” A year-long BBG subscription costs $24,000 a year, making it far and away the most expensive financial data platform.

Though competitors continue to try and chip away at BBG’s dominance by taking aim at its chat function and its data sets, BBG still controls roughly 32% of the market for financial data products. Its closest competitor, Refinitiv/Reuters News, controls roughly 22%. The rest of the market is controlled by smaller providers like FactSet and S&P Global. Despite the advent of new competitors like Sentieo, the number of active Bloomberg subscriptions climbed to 330,068 last year, a new record, according to the FT.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2J1uK3v Tyler Durden

Was that it for China’s “Shanghai Accord 2.0”?

One month after the PBOC injected a gargantuan 4.64 trillion yuan ($685 billion) into the economy – more than the GDP of Saudi Arabia – in the month of January in the country’s broadest credit measure, the All-System Financing Aggregate, a credit injection that was so massive it even prompted the fury of China’s prime minister Li Keqiang who lashed out at the central bank for its unprecedented debt generosity in a time when China was still pretending to be on a deleveraging path, the PBOC once again shocked China-watchers, only this time to the downside, when overnight the Chinese central bank reported that in February, aggregate financing increased by a paltry 703 billion yuan, roughly half the expected 1.3 trillion…

… and the lowest print on record in the recently revised series.

On a year-over-year basis, TSF stock growth (after adding local government special bond issuance) was 10.1% in February, vs 10.4% in January, according to Goldman calculates; if adding all local government bond net issuance to TSF flow data, adjusted TSF stock growth at 11.0% yoy in February, lower than 11.2% in January. The implied month-on-month growth of adjusted TSF was 11.9% SA ann, lower than 17.2% in January, all suggesting the January record outlier credit surge may have been just that.

In terms of the impacts of the liquidity supply on the economy, sequential growth of broadly defined TSF (which includes all local government bond issuance) was 11.9% month-over-month annualized after seasonal adjustment, still above its year-over-year growth of 11.0%. This is not particularly low, just not as high as its 17% growth pace in January.

Curiously, new yuan loans increased by 886BN yuan in February (of which new loans to the real economy were 764BN) also below the 950BN consensus, and more notably, above the total system financial aggregate…

… which meant that after surging in January, when shadow banking added some 343BN yuan in new credit, the first positive print in one year, in February shadow banking reversed sharply, and posted a significant drop to the tune of 364.8BN as China’s shadow deleveraging appears to have returned with a bang, after the forceful political pushback against the re-emergence of shadow banking following the January print. Virtually all shadow banking components posted a drop in February, with trust and entrust loans down RMB 55bn (vs RMB -35bn in January; Jan-Feb average RMB -45bn), and bank acceptance bills were down RMB 310bn in February (vs an increase of RMB 379bn in January; Jan-Feb average RMB +34bn).

The sudden reversal in shadow credit follows Premier Li Keqiang urging last month that banks should supply more longer-term loans to the real economy after a surge in short-term bill financing. Even so, corporate bond net issuance slowed down sharply to just RMB 81BN in February, down from RMB 499bn in January.

Meanwhile, growth in China’s broad money supply, or M2, once again slumped and after a modest rebound in January, in February M2 Y/Y growth dropped back to 8.0%, the lowest print in series history.

The February collapse in credit creation following January’s extravagant print likely means that just like most other Chinese data in the pre-New Year period, this too was distorted by the Lunar New Year, and as a result the January surge, far from indicative of a major new reflationary boost may simply suggest that China will maintain a prudent approach to overall economic leverage, which however will be bad news for the stock market which in the second half of February went all in on bets that China has doubled-down on reflating both its, and the global economy.

So how did Chinese credit creation look like for the combined Jan-Feb period? While aggregate financing in the first two months was 5.31 trillion yuan, 1.05 trillion yuan higher than in the same period last year, the annual increase was far more tame than when comparing just January 2019 vs January 2018. At the same time, the shadow banking sector shrank 21.7 billion yuan for the two months:

• Entrusted loans (organized by a bank between borrowers and lenders) were down 120.8 billion yuan
• Trust loans (made by trust companies to finance infrastructure and real estate) rose 30.8 billion yuan
• Bankers’ acceptance (short-term credit issued by a company with a bank’s guarantee) up 68.3 billion yuan

Within February total social financing flows data, new RMB loans to the real economy were RMB 764bn vs Jan RMB 3.6 trillion; Jan-Feb average RMB 2.2 trillion), trust and entrust loans were down RMB 55bn in February (vs RMB -35bn in January; Jan-Feb average RMB -45bn), and bank acceptance bills were down RMB 310bn in February (vs an increase of RMB 379bn in January; Jan-Feb average RMB +34bn). Corporate bond net issuance was RMB 81bn in February (vs RMB 499bn in January; Jan-Feb average RMB 290bn).

Commeting on the disappointing February credit data, Goldman’s China analysts led by MK Tang said that they see the slowdown in credit growth as a result of a less supportive policy stance, which is in turn affected by

1. a rapid rebound in the equity market which started to pose threat of a repeat of the 2015 boom and bust,
2. positive developments on trade talks and better than expected January export data,
3. signs of growth holding up into the new year (better export growth, better Caixin manufacturing PMI), which alleviated the concerns about further economic slowdown,
4. criticism of January loosening in terms of overly loose overall amount and particularly the discount bill component.

Adding to the seasonality commentary, Goldman also noted that while there are technical reasons such as the timing of the Chinese New Year, if the government wanted they could have kept liquidity supply loose despite these reasons if the economy and markets were very weak and trade talks weren’t progressing well.

Another observation: contrary to tradition, where the monthly Chinese monetary data is released in the middle of the month, the February data was released relatively early as there was a press conference hosted by PBOC Governor Yi Gang and 4 deputy governors.

In the conference Governor Yi said January and February data should be viewed together and is clearly more than the same period last year. But this is still not free from the Chinese New Year effects, and January-March data will give a better view. This comment is important since the impact of the holiday on March data is usually limited but this was not the case last year because of the late timing of the festival. To Goldman, this may be a hint that March liquidity supply will once again be relatively ample, and a reversal of the February plunge.

Several other comments made by the governor are particularly worth noting:

• RRR level is no longer very high after the five cuts since early last year, though there is still room for further reduction. It is necessary to maintain an appropriate level for a developing country.
• The PBOC has “mostly exited” from the direct management of the FX rate. FX rate flexibility can serve as an automatic stabilizer of the economy and external account. China will not actively use FX as a policy tool to gain export competitiveness. There was no statement on currency stability as a part of the trade deal. Instead the governor said the two sides discussed the need to respect the right to make monetary policy independently and respect market forces in terms of how the FX rate is determined. Note the lack of direct intervention doesn’t mean there has been lack of indirect intervention and the fact that FX flexibility has advantages doesn’t mean the government will not intervene indirectly to maintain stability, with or without pressures from the US.
• Interest rate level is down, and the key to lower lending rate is to lower risk premium. These need to be addressed by making the rate setting mechanism more market-based and through structural reforms to lower transaction costs. For example improving the bankruptcy system and reinforcement of law.
• The PBOC reiterated that interest rate arbitrage activities related to discount bills existed but the amount was limited.

To Goldman, the PBOC’s comments suggest a reduced likelihood of further RRR and market interest rate cuts (the bank didn’t expect benchmark rate cuts to begin with). Credit supply in March (seasonally adjusted) is likely to be higher too, especially because bullish financial market sentiment was at least a partial contributor to regulatory tightening in February. Furthermore, given the equity market has already corrected slightly and these data may dampen sentiment even further, policy makers will be sure to watch against risks of shifting too quickly back toward tightening.

So while today’s data will likely lead to even more bearishness for China’s stock market, which as we noted on Friday plunged after state-owned broker CITIC downgraded a state-owned insurer which had become the poster child of the latest market euphoria, sending the Shanghai Composite tumbling almost 5% on Friday, what does all of this mean for Chinese economy? Here Goldman is slightly below market consensus forecasts in terms of January-February industrial activity growth though even with our forecast, the implied sequential growth would still be a little higher than the level in 4Q 2018. And so while January-February activity data together are still subject to slight downside Chinese New Year distortions on net, Goldman expects March data to be stronger on a year-over-year basis. What happens then will depend on whether Beijing once again open up the credit spigots, or if the current sharp slowdown in credit growth persists indefinitely, further depressing China’s already slowing economy.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2VRnatP Tyler Durden

Authored by Hayden Williams, op-ed via USAToday.com,

The punch I took on campus was not an isolated incident. Leftists are targeting conservative students across the country for their political beliefs.

A man promoting conservative views was punched on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in February 2019. Screenshot from YouTube. (Photo: YouTube)

The past two weeks have been surreal. On Feb. 19, while recruiting conservative students on campus at the University of California-Berkeley, I was assaulted by a violent leftist. A little more than a week later, I got to shake hands with the president of the United States and address an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference about why it’s more important than ever to protect free speech on our college campuses.

As a field representative for the Leadership Institute, I travel to campuses throughout California helping conservative clubs recruit and train new members. I’ve seen the intolerance and hate toward conservatives on our  campuses with my own eyes, and the only difference between what happened to me on Feb. 19 and every other day is that the event was caught on video.

Conservative students across the country have suffered verbal and physical assault, social ostracism and even academic persecution for voicing their opinions on political topics. This is because young liberals believe that they are on the morally righteous side in a culture war and, in order to win, they must silence any form of dissent. Leftists and the progressives aspire to nothing less than to make it de facto impossible to be conservative in public.

The United States is well on its way to achieving this goal, based on the Covington Catholic High School incident. Wearing a red hat near the Lincoln Memorial was apparently enough for the news and social media personalities to label the act provocation, and commentators worked  aggressively to “dox” the students. In their frenzy, students were even misidentified, and  at least one boy and his family were allegedly harassed. By contrast, there was not a similar rush to expose the identity of the man who was caught on video assaulting me.

Differing political ideas treated as violent

Increasingly, leftists believe they are justified to respond to ideas disagreeable to them with open hostility and even force.  Students are commonly told now that words are literally violent and can be responded to with physical force. I don’t mean verbal threats of violence or efforts to intimidate, I mean words that express ideas that the listener finds offensive or disagrees with.

The message that provoked my attacker was our sign that read “Hate Crime Hoaxes Hurt Real Victims,” a reference to the  recent case of Jussie Smollett, who was charged by Chicago police with filing a false police report about an apparently fictitious attack. My attacker said we were promoting violence, which, in his view, gives him permission to use any means necessary to shut us down. The irony is that the sign was intended to warn of the danger of disregarding facts and jumping to judgment in an effort to confirm a narrative our feelings tell us is true.

The message applies to more than the Smollett story, and the search for truth is certainly relevant on campuses of higher education, where students are supposed to grow personally and intellectually — not only through textbook and classroom learning but also by exchanging ideas, debating tough topics, and being challenged to defend their views. This growth cannot happen when speech is restricted — that’s not only a disservice to students but a threat to our republic as well.

Berkeley’s anti-conservative record

The Berkeley administration in particular has allowed a culture of intolerance and violence toward conservatives to grow. The College Republicans club has had its  property vandalized, and critics have called for the members to be lynched. When there was a pro-Trump rally in April 2017, a former community college professor was arrested for allegedly assaulting multiple supporters with a bike lock. He later accepted a plea deal. 

When Milo Yiannopoulos visited in February 2017, the campus became the site of violent riots. Some people even  threw Molotov cocktails and fireworks, injuring students and causing  $100,000 worth of damage to the school. Berkeley police canceled the speech after “an apparently organized violent attack and destruction of property” forced them to evacuate Yiannopoulos for his own protection.

After I was assaulted, a university employee  tweeted (now deleted), “The MAGA people on UC Berkeley campus yesterday got punched in the face by someone this makes me feel emotionally so much better.” 

Since the arrest last week of the person who assaulted me, we have learned that he was once a student and employee of UC Berkeley.

Progress depends on the freedom of the human person to develop ideas and voice them. And we’re all better when this intellectual growth happens. The battle to protect free speech is one of the most important culture battles facing our nation today.

There are so many students across the country fighting for their right to free speech. They don’t do it for recognition; they do it because they understand how imperative this human right is and are willing to defend it.

President Donald Trump’s forthcoming executive order requiring colleges and universities to protect free speech in order to receive federal funds shows that he agrees. I’m proud of our president and, as I get ready to head back out in the field, I draw strength in knowing that we have his support and the support of conservative students who continue to stand up for their political beliefs.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Hp0GMM Tyler Durden

Here is an inconvenient truth for the Democratic socialists that control New York City: Gotham is “careening closer to all-out financial bankruptcy,” according to New York Post.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to add billions of dollars more to the budget, amid a slowing economy and outward migration caused by tax reform, a recession would send the city into a “fiscal disaster,” according to the report.

“New York City could go bankrupt, absolutely,” American Institute for Economic Research economist Peter C. Earle told the Post. “In that case, the city would get temporary protection from its creditors, but it would be very difficult for the city to take on new debt.”

Financial analysts warn tax burdened businesses and individuals would flee in droves, and public spending would have to surge to record levels, which would set off a fiscal nuclear bomb.

Long-term debt is about $81,100 per household, and Mayor de Blasio will spend as much as $3 billion more in the new budget for a total of $89.2 billion.

Analysts said Mayor de Blasio had detailed $750 million in savings for the preliminary fiscal 2020 budget, but that amount won’t be enough to create a soft bottom during the next recession. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s preliminary budget has $600 million in cuts for the city in 2020.

Spending is up 32% since Mayor de Blasio took office, the analysts told the Post that more spending cuts would be needed to get the fiscal house in order to avert bankruptcy during the next recession. 

NYC’s long-term pension obligations have also expanded to levels that may not be manageable.

New York state is ranked No. 1 in the nation for the highest taxes, and the top 1% of NYC earners pay some 50% of income tax revenue, per the Post. If businesses and people continue to flee to lower tax states while spending continues to rise, it could lead to financial hardships for the city, analysts warn.

“The city is running a deficit and could be in a real difficult spot if we had a recession, or a further flight of individuals because of tax reform,” Vested’s chief economist Milton Ezrati told the post.

And how close could the bankruptcy of the NYC be? Well, it depends on when the next recession strikes. For more color on timing, New York Fed President John Williams has signaled a slowdown in U.S. economic growth has already started, as the Federal Reserve is in “wait” and watch mode on incoming data.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XPQAtX Tyler Durden

Authored by Neil Howe via Forbes.com,

Is technological progress bad for human autonomy? That’s the question posed by Shoshana Zuboff in “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” a book that recounts the ways in which corporations and governments are using technology to influence our behavior. Zuboff is just the latest to chime in on “totalitarian technology” (or “total tech”), a term that describes devices and algorithms by which individuals forfeit their privacy and autonomy for the benefit of either themselves or some third party.

In the United States, total tech can be sorted into three different categories, or “spheres” of life: consumer services, the workplace, and government and politics.

Is there such a thing as too much technology?

Total tech is pervasive in the increasingly data-driven world of retail. Many shopping apps tap into your phone’s GPS to access your location, allowing retailers to send you advertisements the moment you’re walking past their storefront. Personalized pricing enables retailers to charge you the exact maximum that you would be willing to pay for a given product. Your personal data isn’t safe at home, either: Digital assistants like Amazon Alexa store your query history, meaning they know everything from your unique shopping history to your travel patterns to your music preferences.

Employers are also using total tech to track and monitor their workers. A growing number of companies use biometric time cardsthat scan an employee’s fingerprint, hand shape, retina, or iris. UPS outfits its trucks with sensors that track the opening and closing of doors, the engine of the vehicle, and the clicking of seat belts. Amazon is patenting an electronic wristband that would be used to track hand movements—making sure, for instance, that a warehouse worker stays busy moving boxes. Global freelancing platform Upwork runs a digital “Work Diary” program that counts keystrokes and takes screenshots of workers’ monitors.

Uptake of total tech has been particularly striking in government and politics. The New Orleans Police Department runs a “predictive policing” program that uses Big Data to compile a heat list of potential criminal offenders. The TSA operates its own total tech program, called Quiet Skies, which monitors and flags travelers based on “suspicious” behavior patterns. Travelers can land themselves on the Quiet Skies list by changing their clothes in the restroom, being the last person to board their flight, or even inspecting their reflection in a terminal window. More nefariously, software developed at Stanford University enables anyone to manipulate video footage in real time. Now, anyone with a grudge could alter the facial expressions of a prominent politician making a speech, and then dub in new audio that completely changes the speech’s contents.

Abroad, China is the poster child for extreme total tech programs. By 2020, China’s “social credit system” will monitor the behavior of each and every citizen, keeping tabs on everything from speeding tickets to social media posts critical of the state. Everyone will then be assigned their own unique “sincerity score”; a high score will be a requirement for anyone hoping to get the best housing, install the fastest Internet speeds, put their kids into the most prestigious schools, and land the most lucrative jobs.

Why has total tech picked this moment to explode onto the scene? Because the public demands it. Throughout history, the application of technology has been shaped by our wants and needs as a society.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, as the world moved broadly toward individualism, free-agency, smaller government, and globalism, the tech breakthroughs of that era were mainly deemed supportive of such libertarian trends. Just after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Ronald Reagan declared that “the Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.” But in recent years, the world has been moving in a very different direction—toward community, populism, centralized control, and nationalism. Not coincidentally, today’s tech breakthroughs are again moving in tandem—toward empowering the group, not the individual (who now understands he is the product, not the customer).

Generational dynamics augment this shift toward group-minded total tech systems. While older generations feel that sacrificing their privacy is inherently risky, Millennials naturally see the safety-enhancing implications of total tech. They are also naturally optimistic about the potential of technology: According to a 2015 survey, 25% of 18- to 24-year-olds believe technology has a “mostly positive” impact on their privacy, the highest share of any age group. (The figure is just 12% for 60- to 64-year-olds.) What’s more, Millennials implicitly trust large institutions to safeguard their personal data. Some Millennials even view personal autonomy as a burden to be offloaded rather than a benefit to be protected.

Most of the objections against total tech today are voiced by older consumers. A 2017 report by Pew Research Center finds that 60% of 50- to 64-year-olds and 56% of the 65+ say their data are less secure today than five years ago—compared to just 41% of the under-50 crowd. Older Americans are also far more likely to report varying their passwords across sites and keeping them secret from friends and family to avoid compromising their data.

The future of total tech in America and elsewhere in the west will be a battle between the drive for efficiency and the preservation of privacy and autonomy.

How will this battle shake out?

We can look to history for the answer. The last time we saw a mood shift toward national community assisted by promethean new technologies was the 1930s, when in the midst of the Great Depression, beleaguered citizens empowered FDR and his New Deal Democrats to make sweeping changes to society. Back then, government harnessed huge technological breakthroughs to arm the nation and vanquish the enemy (in this case, fascism) – from mass radio broadcasts to mass assembly lines, from radar and code-breaking computers to proximity fuses and atomic fission.

National leaders backed by a resolute public used new technology to achieve a peaceful and democratic world in which dangerously authoritarian regimes could be kept in check. Today, the players may be different – but the story could wind up the same.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TtMnhj Tyler Durden

As of March 7, US immigration officials have quarantined at least 2,287 migrants carrying everything from mumps to chickenpox, according to Reuters, citing an ICE official who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

ICE health officials have been notified of 236 confirmed or probable cases of mumps among detainees in 51 facilities in the past 12 months, compared to no cases detected between January 2016 and February 2018. Last year, 423 detainees were determined to have influenza and 461 to have chicken pox. All three diseases are largely preventable by vaccine. –Reuters

“When there is just one person who is sick, everybody pays,” said 19-year-old Christian Mejia, who was put on lockdown in rural Louisiana’s Pine Prairie immigration detention center along with hundreds of other detainees. According to internal emails reviewed by Reuters, outbreaks such as the one in Louisiana are difficult to manage, as immigrant detainees are often shuttled around the country, and many diseases don’t necessarily show symptoms during the contagious phase. 

Since January, the 1,094-bed Pine Prairie facility has had 18 detainees with confirmed or probable cases of mumps compared to no cases in 2018, according to ICE. As of mid-February, 288 people were under quarantine at Pine Prairie. Mejia said his quarantine ended on Feb. 25. –Reuters

Disturbingly, emails reveal that the warden at Pine Prairie decided not to quarantine 40 new arrivals from Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, despite concerns raised by the medical staff. Warden Indalecio Ramos – who referred Reuters’ outbreak-related questions to ICE and the GEO Group, which owns the facility – said in a Feb. 7 email that quarantining detainees would prevent them from attending their immigration court hearings. 

Two weeks later, ICE requested that Pine Prairie medical staff clear a quarantined detainee for travel, referring to him as a “high profile removal scheduled for deport.” Warden Ramos wrote in an email later that day that medical staff wanted to exclude the detainee from transfer, however “ICE wants him to travel out of the country anyway … Please ensure he leaves.”

An ICE spokesman said that people who have been exposed to diseases but are asymptomatic can travel, while anyone known to be contagious cannot. 

On Feb. 28, ten Democratic members of Congress sent ICE acting director Ronald Vitiello to inquire about viral disease outbreaks at immigration detention centers in Texas, Arizona and Colorado. Pine Prairie outbreak was not mentioned. 

Pablo Paez, a spokesman for The GEO Group, the private prison operator that runs Pine Prairie under government contract, said its medical professionals follow standards set by ICE and health authorities. He said medical care provided to detainees allows the company “to detect, treat and follow appropriate medical protocols to manage an infectious outbreak.” –Reuters

Of note, while last year’s high-profile migrant caravans accounted for a fraction of overall border crossings, in November Fox News reported that out of 6,000 migrants residing in Tijuana, more than 1/3 of them were being treated for health-related issues, including hepatitis, infections, three cases of tuberculosis and four cases of chickenpox. 

The first cases at Pine Prairie were detected in January in four migrants who had been recently transferred from the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, according to internal emails.

Tallahatchie, run by private detention company CoreCivic, has had five confirmed cases of mumps and 18 cases of chicken pox since January, according to company spokeswoman Amanda Gilchrist. She said no one who was diagnosed was transferred out of the facility while the disease was active.

Tallahatchie houses hundreds of migrants recently apprehended along the U.S.- Mexico border, ICE officials said. –Reuters

“We are seeing migrants arrive with illnesses and medical conditions in unprecedented numbers,” said US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan last Tuesday. He added that changing demographics on the southwest border – which has seen more immigrants from Central America traveling long distances, has raised health concerns and overwhelmed border officials. 

Several other detention centers in other states have also seen a rise in outbreaks. Texas facilities have seen at least 186 cases of mumps since October – the largest outbreak in years among detention centers, according to Texas Department of State Health Services press officer Lara Anton. 

In Colorado, the GEO-Group-run Aurora Contract Detention Facility near Denver has seen 357 people quarantined after eight confirmed and five suspected cases of mumps detected since February – along with six chickenpox cases diagnosed in early January, according to Dr. Bernadette Albanese from the Tri COunty Health Department in Colorado. 

That said, vaccination rates in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are above 90% according to the CDC, while ICE detainees come from all over the world. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2u0cCwH Tyler Durden

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

In last week’s Weekly Market Brief I made the case for a coming $VIX spike: “With a $VIX now at 13.5 and a big open gap at 24+ the $VIX is setting up for a rebellion”. Indeed $VIX rebelled this week with a move from 13.5 to above 18 a move of 33%. The first real volatility spike and directional change in $VIX since the beginning of the year.

While all this may simply be a reaction of overbought conditions following a 10 week uninterrupted rally the context of the when, where, and why may suggest otherwise. “I’m the one who knocks” Walter White famously exclaimed in Breaking Bad.

Markets just knocked on a key trend line and broke badly away from it with a weekly outside reversal candle (bearish engulfing):

I’ve been vocal about stating that the bull or bear cases for 2019 remain very much unproven. We’ve had a very aggressive rally from deep oversold conditions at the end of December. This rally has become very overbought and was due for a pullback/breather.

However I’ve been pointing to larger structural charts that leave room for the possibility of this having been a bear market rally if a larger bear market is to unfold. I can’t overstate how important these structural charts are.

The biggest challenge for most people (myself included) is patience, waiting for structures to build and ultimately unfold. The daily noise gets in the way, the back and forth can take nauseatingly long and extremes can become more extreme, gnawing on psychology and letting everyone lose sight of the bigger picture.

In “Curb Your Enthusiasm” I outlined specific factors to keep a close eye on the weeks ahead. For me the biggest risk factors that pose the danger new lows include: Technical structural patterns, the fact that the rally has been driven by “jawboning” and buybacks as opposed to improving fundamentals, the lack of confirmation from the bond market, vast technical divergences, and a pervasive bullish sentiment that places 100% faith in central bankers reversing policy being sufficient in keep an aging business cycle at bay yet again.

In light of the price action last week I wanted to take a closer look at these structural charts, their context and their potential relevance as indices broke their 2019 trends again last week. In light of the detail I’ve decided it’d be best to give this a voiceover hence the video below whereI’m outlining the risk factors, but also a potential bullish path forward:

*  *  *

For the latest public analysis please visit NorthmanTrader. To subscribe to our market products please visit Services.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2SV2dMv Tyler Durden