iftttwall

It was clear in yesterday’s press briefing during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the White House, where he didn’t actually receive much push back from either President Trump or the press (at one point Trump requested that only a “friendly” reporter from Turkey ask questions of Erdogan), that the touchy subject of Turkey’s acquirement of Russia’s S-400 anti-air system was front and center in closed door conversations. 

But Erdogan appeared unmoved by whatever pressure he may have faced in the Oval, given he later told reporters while standing next to the US president that Turkey cannot possibly discard the S-400 due to its strategic ties wit Russia, but he also added, “I’ve told Mr. Trump that we’re ready to buy Patriots.”

And according to Bloomberg, his only hint at “compromise” came in the form of offering to participate in a NATO-coordinated working group where defense officials from both sides would resolve issues of top concern for the alliance related to NATO’s second largest military deploying a Russian advanced system on its soil.

But more interesting are the details which came out of the unprecedented meeting with five Republican Senators at the White House who are lead Congressional skeptics of Turkey – unprecedented given that it was attended by Erdogan – in order to “clear the air” as the White House previously described it.

It appeared to to do anything but, as Axios reports, the whole meeting was upended took a “dark turn”:

An Oval Office meeting yesterday with Turkey’s President Erdoğan took a dark turn when Erdoğan pulled out his iPad and made the group watch a propaganda video that depicted Kurds as terrorists, according to three sources familiar with the meeting.

To be expected, what was described as a “clunky propaganda film” was unpersuasive, given that Sen. Lindsey Graham, perhaps the most vocal Republican Erdogan critic, questioned sarcastically immediately after— 

“Well, do you want me to go get the Kurds to make one about what you’ve done?”

The short film had depicted US-backed Kurdish militias operating in Syria and along the border as “terrorists”. 

According to sources privy to the meeting, a heated exchange ensued focused on Turkey’s controversial ‘Operation Peace Spring’. Per Axios: “A source in the room said Erdoğan took exception to Graham using the word ‘invasion’ and that Graham also rebutted Erdoğan when he claimed that Turkey had fought ISIS.” Erdogan later quipped that he gave Graham “a lesson” – as reported by Bloomberg.

Sen. Graham afterward said in a statement: “The Turkish narrative that they have done more to destroy ISIS, I rejected forcefully, and I let Turkey know that 10,000 SDF fighters, mostly Kurds, suffered, died or injured, in the fight against ISIS, and America will not forget that and will not abandon them.”

On the whole during the day long events at the White House Erdogan seems to have gotten his way. During the ending press conference he even ranted freely and without interruption against the Kurdish PKK and Syrian YPG. 

Later, Sen. Ted Cruz said in a statement that he took the Turkish president to task on the S-400 issue, making it “clear to President Erdoğan that so long as Turkey continues to procure or deploy the S-400 air defense system from Russia, the U.S. will not sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey.” All the senators in the room were said to be unified on the S-400 issue. 

And Sen. Rick Scott raided the NATO issue, questioning to Erdogan “why Turkey should enjoy the protections of NATO when they’re cozying up to Russia,” according to a source cited in the Axios report. 

Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com

For those who have at times struggled to understand the difference between COMEX inventory categories ‘registered gold’ and ‘eligible gold’, now your head can spin even more, since the CME’s COMEX has just introduced a new category – ‘pledged gold’.

This pledged category was first noticed on the infamous COMEX warehouse gold stocks report late last week by Nick Laird of GoldChartsRUs fame, with the pledged gold column intriguingly populated with an entry next to the New York vault of bullion bank, HSBC. What did this pledged column entry mean, we wondered, and where did it come from?

Pledged gold category – Newly added to the COMEX approved vault report

After some digging on the CME website, the answer was revealed. Pledged is a new gold inventory category representing COMEX gold warrants which have been deposited with CME Clearing as performance bond collateral, in other words margin collateral. CME defines performance bonds as follows:

“Performance Bonds, also known as margins, are deposits held at CME Clearing to ensure that clearing members can meet their obligations to their customers and to CME Clearing.”   

Before looking at how this relates to COMEX gold, a quick recap and some definitions are in order. Although COMEX gold futures rarely settle physically in gold, they are physically deliverable contracts which are capable of being settled in real gold. believe it or not. However in 2018, for example, COMEX gold deliveries totalled just 1.6 million ounces (51 tonnes), meaning that 99.98% of COMEX gold futures did not result in physical delivery, a Ponzi scheme if ever there was one.

But since 0.02% of COMEX gold futures do physically settle, at least by some shuffling of  warrants between bullion banks, the CME has therefore approved the vaulting facilities operated by nine vault providers in and around New York City and Delaware, which it refers to as depositories or approved warehouses, which can store gold that can be used for contract settlement. In New York, these vaults are run by HSBC, JP Morgan, Scotia Mocatta, MTB, Brinks, Malca-Amit and Loomis, and in Delaware the vaults are operated by Delaware Depository and IDS of Delaware.

Eligible – No relation

In COMEX parlance, “eligible gold” is all gold residing in an approved COMEX vault which is acceptable for delivery against COMEX gold futures contracts. This includes 100 gold oz bars and gold kilo bars, but not 400 oz gold bars. Importantly however, eligible gold just happens to be gold that is residing in the approved facilities that meets the eligibility requirements of the COMEX. It does not necessarily mean that the gold is in the approved vaults for trading purposes. Some of it may have been deposited in the vaults by owners who are trading COMEX gold futures, but other eligible gold could be deposited in the approved vaults for a host of other reasons unrelated to gold futures trading.

“Registered gold” on the other hand, is eligible gold for which a warrant has been issued by an approved warehouse. These warrants, not to be confused with equity warrants, are ‘documents of title’ issued by the warehouse in satisfaction of delivery of a gold futures contract. They confirm title to a certain quantity of gold of acceptable quality that is stored in that warehouse. A warrant will therefore specify a certain number of gold bars, the serial numbers of those bars and the refiner brands of those bars.

 

Now this is where it gets interesting as regards the new “Pledged gold” category. Starting on Monday 4 November, the CME began allowing its clearing members to deposit and use COMEX gold warrants as collateral in meeting performance bond requirements for its Base Guaranty Fund Products and Interest rate Swaps (IRS).

To reflect this change, the CME therefore needed to amend Chapter 7 of its NYMEX/COMEX Rulebook which covers “Delivery Facilities and Procedures” to reflect the acceptance of COMEX gold warrants as collateral. It did so by adding a reference to “pledged” precious metal, while defining “pledged” metal as “registered metal for which the warrant that has been issued is on deposit with CME Clearing for performance bond.”

Pledging Gold = Freezes Registered Gold

Furthermore, the amendment also added “the requirement for approved facilities to report pledged metal to the Exchange”, hence the appearance of the new pledged gold category on the COMEX daily warehouse report.

Critically, the amendment also clarified that “clearing members that have deposited gold warrants as performance bond with CME Clearing may not use these warrants to satisfy their delivery obligations.” Simply put, this will therefore mean that any registered gold whose warrants are used as collateral cannot be used to settle gold futures.

Finally, the amendment also adds that “gold warrants that are deposited with CME Clearing as performance bond cannot be cancelled without the consent of CME Clearing.” All of these changes can be seen in the recent one page CME summary titled “Addition of COMEX Gold Warrants as Acceptable CME Clearing Performance Bond Collateral”.

Prior to the acceptance of COMEX gold warrants as collateral, the CME had already been accepting “London gold bullion” as collateral for these performance bond requirements, so in effect COMEX gold warrants have now been added to the mix. What exactly this “London gold bullion” takes the form of is not clear, for example, is it real physical gold or unallocated bullion bank created book entries? If there are no fees for storing, insuring and handling any “London gold bullion” deposits, you can bet your bottom dollar that it is not physical gold.

Whatever it is, the CME is also now increasing the collateral limit from a previous $250 million per clearing member for “London gold bullion” to a new combined limit of $750 million per clearing member for both “London gold bullion” and COMEX gold warrants.

Oil prices extended gains overnight after API reported a surprise crude draw and OPEC’s top official talked about the potential for a “sharp” slowdown in American shale output next year.

“Today, the market will focus on the release of official U.S. oil statistics by the Energy Information Administration,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas SA in London.

“As usual, the mood ahead of the EIA release is being set by the preliminary numbers released by the API the day before.”

Of course, all that enthusiasm could evaporate if inventories are seen surging…

API

• Crude -0.5mm (+1.5mm exp)

• Cushing -1.2mm

• Gasoline +2.3mm

• Distillates +0.8mm

DOE

• Crude +2.22mm (+1.5mm exp)

• Cushing -1.229mm

• Gasoline +1.861mm

• Distillates -2.477mm

Completely reversing last night’s API-reported draw, official data shows a bigger than expected 2,.22mm crude inventory build

Source: Bloomberg

While OPEC hopes for a decline, US crude production surged to a new record high despite the collapse in rig counts

Source: Bloomberg

Crude imports fell hard last week to the lowest levels in over two decades. Thanks mostly due to declines in oil flows from Canada because of the Keystone outage.

WTI was hovering around $57.60 ahead of the print and dropped on the surprise build…

Finally, we note Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Energy Analyst Vince Piazza warns that OPEC is hoping for tighter balances next year from cuts to crude supply by non-cartel countries, but we think demand remains the critical unknown. If global output were the main concern, we would be seeing a higher risk premium following the recent attacks against Saudi oil fields and an Iranian tanker. Furthermore, we sense U.S. output will be more resilient than believed thanks to cost deflation and efficiency gains boosting productivity.

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

I just keep tripping on how dumb this latest US-backed military coup is. It’s in Bolivia in case you’ve lost track, which would be perfectly understandable since US-backed coups have become kind of like US mass shootings — there’s so many of them they’re starting to blend into each other.

I mean, for starters the justifications for this one are so cartoonishly reachy and desperate it boggles the mind a bit. The main argument you’ll see in favor of the coup is that Evo Morales was elected after Bolivia’s high court ruled that he could run for a fourth term, but the (democratically elected) court ruled against a 2016 referendum on presidential term limits.

That’s it. That weird, pedantic appeal to a particular interpretation of bureaucratic technicalities is the whole entire argument in support of a literal military coup backed by the United States.

And make no mistake, that’s exactly what this was: the military ousting a government is precisely the thing that a coup is. The coup’s Christian fascist leader Luis Fernando Camacho openly tweeted that the military was actively pursuing Morales’ arrest prior to the ousted leader’s escape to Mexico, a tweet he later deleted presumably because the admission makes it much harder to call this military coup anything other than the thing that it is. The Grayzone has published an article documenting this coup’s many ties to Washington. Put it all together, and you’ve got a US-backed military coup.

Camacho has deleted the tweet Golinger links to openly admitting that the military were pursuing the arrest of ousted Bolivian president Evo Morales. Luckily it’s been archived here: https://t.co/yGjN2YEvYz https://t.co/fkn0uwFLqr

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) November 14, 2019

As happens every single time the US tries to overthrow a government these days, social media is currently swarming with small, brand-new and suspicious-looking accounts, many of which are publishing the same words verbatim, all defending and supporting the coup. Some of them try to argue that Morales rigged last month’s election, but that’s totally bogus and evidence-free. Others try to claim that “the people” of Bolivia opposed Morales, strongly implying that he was universally loathed, but that claim is invalidated by the election results and the massive demonstrations against the coup.

So the only actual argument really boils down to “Well he ran for another term, and yeah he won, and yeah the democratically elected high court ruled he could run again, but a loud and violent minority of Bolivians don’t want him to be president. What choice do you have in such circumstances other than to support a literal military coup?”

Which is just so crazy. That’s how low the bar has sunk for supporting the toppling of a government today. They don’t have to claim he’s starving his own people. They don’t have to claim that he’s using chemical weapons. They don’t have to claim that he’s governing without the consent of the voting populace. Just “Yeah well some of us don’t like him and there’s some paperwork we disagree on.”

I mean really, how much lower can the bar get for when a US-backed military coup is justified? “Oh, that government needed to be toppled because the leader got a parking ticket once”? “Well the president wore white after Labor Day, and that’s a fashion atrocity”?

So the Morales-supporting line of succession has been ousted and many of his supporters in the government arrested by masked men, and now the US-approved interim president is an appalling racist and absolute dimwit who calls to mind a very low-budget Bolivian version of Sarah Palin.

Bolivian Sarah Palin is the nation’s new US-approved interim president. https://t.co/stUNRC4HK6

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) November 14, 2019

It’s absolutely amazing how many people all across the political spectrum have been sucked in by this ridiculousness. How lost do you have to be to believe that this US-backed military coup is different from all the others? How many times is Charlie Brown going to run up and try to kick Lucy’s football?

That bitch is never gonna let you kick that goddamn football, Charlie Brown. And this US-backed military coup isn’t going to be any more moral, legal or beneficial than all the others.

*  *  *

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Two months after Uber decided to ignore new ignore new California legislation requiring companies to reclassify contract workers as employees – a measure which would affect up to one million residents who work as contractors and drastically impact Uber’s bottom line – more states are lining up to demand a pound of flesh from the world’s formerly most valuable startup (and subsequently one of the year’s worst IPOs).

On Thursday, New Jersey picked up where California left off and found that Uber owes the state about $650 million in unemployment and disability insurance taxes because the rideshare company has been misclassifying drivers as independent contractors, the state’s labor department said.

As Bloomberg reports, Uber and its subsidiary Rasier LLC were assessed $523 million in past-due taxes over the last four years, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development said in a pair of letters to the companies. The rideshare businesses also are on the hook for as much as $119 million in interest and penalties on the unpaid amounts, according to other internal department documents.

The New Jersey labor department has been after Uber for unpaid employment taxes for at least four years, according to the documents, which Bloomberg Law obtained through an open public records request. The legal battle goes back to 2015, when New Jersey first informed Uber that it had obtained a court judgment ordering the company to pay about $54 million in overdue unemployment and temporary disability insurance contributions. It’s not clear whether the company ever paid any of that bill.

While the debate over whether an Uber driver is an employee or an independent contractor will have profound implications for the coming years across the US, in New Jersey the state’s determination was limited to unemployment and disability insurance, but it could also mean that Uber is required to pay drivers minimum wages and overtime under state law.

As a result, if ride-sharing companies are forced to reclassify workers as employees, Uber’s and Lyft’s costs per driver could jump by more than 20%, Bloomberg calculated.

To be sure, the ridesharers’ rapid success is emerging as their biggest enemy as states are now scrambling to extract as much cash from the business models. And there is no greater threat than having to reclassify workers – the biggest expense – from contractors to full-time employees. As such, the NJ notice marks the latest attack on the rideshare companies’ business model, which treats drivers as self-employed entrepreneurs rather than employees — a classification that deprives the workers of certain benefits.

As we discussed in September, Uber and Lyft pledged $30 million each to fight a new California law that is expected to force them to reclassify drivers as employees. They’re also prepping for a similar lobbying battle in New York, where lawmakers are planning to take up gig worker legislation next year. They will end up having to spend far, far more if they hope to prevail as the windfall to the state, as NJ just showed, could approach a billion dollars.

In fact, if taken to an extreme, such accrued obligations could cripple the companies.

“I expect we may see more of this,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney who has sued Uber on behalf of drivers in California and Massachusetts, said of New Jersey’s tax claim against Uber. “Uber and Lyft, by misclassifying drivers, are harming not only the drivers but also the states and the public at large. The money that they’re not paying into the unemployment and disability systems is being picked up by the states and the taxpayers.“

When reached by Bloomberg, the NJ state labor department declined to comment on the Uber situation, but Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said in a prepared statement that “cracking down on employee misclassification” is a “priority” for Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) administration.

“For those who say properly enforcing our unemployment laws will stifle worker flexibility, let’s be clear: there is no reason temporary, or on-demand workers can’t be treated like other employees who work flexible hours for short durations,” Asaro-Angelo said.

In response to the news, Uber stock dropped more than 2%, sliding back to its post-IPO, all-time lows hit last week when the company reported a huge loss, and insiders started to sell stocks.