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In light of Thursday’s public release of a ‘whistleblower’ complaint, who was “not a witness to most of hte events described” in their allegation that President Trump abused his office to request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s dealings in the country, former CIA analyst and National Security Council (NSC) official Fred Fleitz has provided his take on the whole thing via Twitter. 

Notably, Fleitz – CEO of the Center for Security Policy – points out that “The way this complaint was written suggested the author had a lot of help,” adding “I know from my work on the House Intel Commitee staff that many whistleblowers go directly to the intel oversight committees. Did this whistleblower first meet with House Intel committee members?” 

Fleitz then writes that “that this whistleblower complaint is too convenient and too perfect to come from a typical whistleblower,” adding “Were other IC officers involved? Where outside groups opposed to the president involved?“

Read the thread below (emphasis ours): 

1/ As a former CIA analyst and former NSC official who edited transcripts of POTUS phone calls with foreign leaders, here are my thoughts on the whistleblower complaint which was just released. . . intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…

2/ This is not an intelligence matter. It is a policy matter and a complaint about differences over policy. Presidential phone calls are not an intelligence concern. The fact that IC officers transcribe these calls does not give the IC IG jusrisdiction over these calls.

3/ It appears that rules restricting access and knowledge of these sensitive calls was breached. This official was not on this call, not on the approved dissem list and should not have been briefed on the call.

.3/ The way this complaint was written suggested the author had a lot of help. I know from my work on the House Intel Commitee staff that many whistleblowers go directly to the intel oversight committees. Did this whistleblower first meet with House Intel committee members?

.4/ It is therefore important that Congress find out where this complaint came from. What did House and Senate intel committee dem members and staff know about it and when? Did they help orchestrate this complaint?

5/ My view is that this whistleblower complaint is too convenient and too perfect to come from a typical whistleblower. Were other IC officers involved? Where outside groups opposed to the president involved?

6/ This complaint will further damage IC relations with the White House for many years to come because IC officers appear to be politicizing presidential phone calls with foreign officials and their access to the president and his activities in the White House.

7/ Worst of all, this IC officer — and probably others — have blatantly crossed the line into policy. This violates a core responsibility of IC officers is to inform, but not make policy.

8/ This is such a grevious violation of trust between the IC and the White House that it would not surprise me if IC officers are barred from all access to POTUS phone calls with foreign officials.

New data from Dealogic, first reported by the Financial Times, shows the global initial public offerings (IPO) market is imploding as a synchronized global slowdown gains momentum. 

Nearly 845 companies listed their shares via IPOs globally so far this year, that’s a 25% decline versus the same period in 2018 and the lowest level since 2016. 

“In more than two decades in the IPO market I’ve never seen so many risk factors and uncertainties,” said Martin Steinbach, IPO leader for Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa for EY, the consultant. “These uncertainties create volatility like we saw over the summer period and volatility has a negative correlation with IPO activity.”

Dealogic said Europe was the worst region for IPOs in 2019. Activity plunged by nearly 40% so far this year compared to the same period last year. The US posted a 23% decline. 

As shown in a series of charts below, 2019 IPOs in the US have been a complete bust. Any millennial who bought into the whole CNBC hype of buying Lyft and Uber at IPO day is significantly in the red, and will be in the red for a generation to come. 

Other IPOs, including Levi Strauss and Pinterest, are also underperforming as well.

WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann was removed from management this week. The company, only several months ago, had an estimated $47 billion valuation, then dropped from $20 billion to $10 billion for its IPO in the last several weeks, now has been put on hold. 

The IPO of Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, was put on hold last week after missile and drone attacks damaged one of its facilities in Saudi Arabia. The IPO is now slated for 2020 to 2021 – depending on market conditions and of course crude prices. 

In the Asia-Pacific region, IPO activity so far this year dropped 9%, versus the same time last year.

The window to IPO companies around the world appears to be rapidly closing as a global trade recession is imminent.

We noted earlier this week that a fascinating trend is developing among the ultra-wealthy: the dash for cash ahead of the next market crash. 

Via SchiffGold.com,

During a recent podcast, Peter Schiff talked about the student loan debacle.

In a nutshell, it’s the government’s fault.

Democratic presidential candidates have been talking about the student loan crisis. And it is indeed a crisis. The total of the outstanding student loans in the US has more than doubled since 2009 when it was $675 million. The rate of delinquency on student loan debt pushed up to 9.5% in the first quarter of 2019, even as total student loan debt climbed to $1.49 trillion. Currently Americans owe more than $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. That’s more than their outstanding credit card balances.

Democrats running for president have proposed government solutions, most involving forgiveness of most or all outstanding debt and making college “free.”

The problem with this solution is it will actually make the problem they want to solve worse. Or actually, it will create a bigger problem than the problem that they’re trying to solve. But the most ironic aspect of the whole thing is that the problem was created by government.”

Before the government got involved, college wasn’t all that expensive. It was government policy that made it unaffordable. And not only did it manage to dramatically drive up the cost of a college education, but it also succeeded in destroying the value of that degree.

Before the government tried to solve this ‘problem,’ it really didn’t exist.”

Peter isn’t just spouting rhetoric. Actual studies have shown the influx of government-backed student loan money into the university system is directly linked to the surging cost of a college education.

Peter traces the federal government getting involved in education back to the GI Bill passed in 1944. In the 1960s, the federal government began guaranteeing student loans. Before that, there wasn’t a big market for them.

The only reason that student loans exist is because of the government. Without the government, there were no student loans. I mean, who would loan money to a student? … They have no money; they have no collateral; they have no job. They’re a lousy credit risk. The free market is not going to loan money to students.”

But when the government effectively cosigned student loans, they became one of the least risky loans to make. It’s like loaning money to the federal government.

Obviously, all the banks wanted to make student loans because you couldn’t lose. All you could do was make money because there was an interest rate attached to the student loan. So, the government made a thriving industry of student loans. Without the government, it wouldn’t exist.”

Once colleges realized all of this money was coming their way, they recognized it was a money machine and they started raising tuition.

Because there was now no longer any kind of objection in the market because whatever the price was, the students just borrowed the money because the government was making all the loans available.”

Universities became bloated. They built new facilities. They began competing for students and their student loan money. Today we have dorms with granite countertops and Tempurpedic mattresses.

Meanwhile, well-meaning officials pushed the narrative that everybody needs to go to college. This increased the demand for a degree higher. And as economics 101 would predict, the cost continued to skyrocket.

The only thing we succeeded in doing by keeping kids in school to get a college degree is we simply delayed by maybe four, five, or six years, when they enter the workforce. So, those five or six years when they could have been earning money and developing skills on the job, instead they’re developing no skills and they’re racking up a huge debt.”

Peter cites a string of fascinating statistics to drive home his point.

This is a disaster. This entire problem never would have existed. Students wouldn’t have all this debt. College wouldn’t be so expensive but for government interference in the market.”

And now you have the very same people who caused the problem clamoring to solve it. That should go well…

US equity markets have taken another leg lower this morning, erasing all of yesterday’s gains, after US officials confirm that the Trump admin is unlikely to extend temporary waivers to supply Huawei.

Clearly, following Trump’s UN speech, the relationship with China is not getting closer to a deal – no matter how many times Trump drops an algo-trigering headline on a deal being close…

Yuan also dropped on the news…

Source: Bloomberg

Beijing is less-than-thrilled about American and British politicians offering words of encouragement and sympathy to  Hong Kong’s protesters. It has made no secret of this.

But as the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 finds growing support in Washington, Beijing is doubling down on its criticism of the US.

Hedge Funder Kyle Bass, who has been closely monitoring the situation in China and HK and frequently comments on twitter, recently bet against the Hong Kong dollar, which has been pegged to the dollar for 36 years. Bass claimed in a letter to investors earlier this year that the loss of Hong Kong’s special economic privileges via a change in US law or an executive order from the president would be economically devastating for Hong Kong. The subsequent economic shock would likely be enough to force the HKMA to abandon its currency peg, he said.

Beijing likely understands this, and knows that without these special privileges, Hong Kong will be rendered useless as a pathway for capital flowing to and from the West.

With this animosity weighing on the US-China relationship, it’s difficult to imagine how a trade breakthrough might be reached next month. But setting the issue of trade aside, the deputy commissioner of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has some more scathing comments about western interference in Hong Kong as Beijing doubles down on a narrative that’s at the center of state propaganda about the protests. (of course, that narrative is aided by protesters waving American flags and appealing to President Trump to save them from China).

This time, they went a step further, accusing ‘senior’ US officials of personally meeting with the “anti-China” forces (apparently a reference to protest leader Joshua Wong’s recent trip to Washington to testify at a Congressional hearing).

Song Ruan, deputy commissioner of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong, told foreign media that the U.S. and other Western countries were playing a “negative and disgraceful role” in the demonstrations that have gripped Hong Kong for more than three months. He said some foreign politicians “have sided with anti-China forces” in order to “sow trouble in China as a whole, and hold back China’s development in every possible way.”

“American senior officials had high-profile meetings with and spared no effort to cheer the anti-China forces who intend to mess up Hong Kong,” Song said at the briefing, during which he also extolled China’s decades of economic accomplishments less than a week before the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1.

“They have distorted the truth, condoned the rioters and claimed support for the right to peaceful protests, but turned a blind eye to the crime of the rioters, who undermined law and order and assaulted the police and citizens,” he said.

Echoing President Trump’s own tactics, the deputy commission blamed the foreign press for writing stories that are “unfair to China.”

“The top priority is to stop violence, end the chaos and restore order,” Song said.

He also scolded journalists working for foreign media for what he described as unfair coverage of the political turmoil.

“Some foreign media have confounded right with wrong, applied double standards and acted selectively in reporting the Hong Kong situation,” he said. “Instead of telling the truth, they have fanned the flames and cheered the opposition and violent extremists by offering them a platform to spread rumor.”

Like Bass, China’s Song warned that if Washington passes the Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, it could hurt Chinese and American businesses alike.

But Song warned that such a bill would have a negative impact on Hong Kong and the “one country, two systems” legal framework. “If the act is passed, it will undermine the confidence of international investors in Hong Kong, and stakeholders – including American businesses – will suffer,” he said.

But the protests have already caused tremendous damage to the HK economy. The Asian Development Bank on Wednesday slashed its Hong Kong growth forecast for 2019 to just 0.3% from 2.5% in the prior forecast. Meanwhile, the protests have shown no signs of slowing down, as violent clashes between demonstrators and police continue, prompting many Hong Kongers to explore the possibility of emigrating.

Authored by Peter Svab via The Epoch Times,

Apocalyptic climate and environmental catastrophes of global proportions have decimated the world many times over in recent decades – at least based on dozens of predictions made by various scientists, experts, and officials over the past 80 years.

Newspaper clippings documenting the predictions were recently published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Many of those were first collected by geologist and electrical engineer Tony Heller, who frequently criticizes—on his RealClimateScience.com website—what he considers fraud in the current mainstream climate research.

The predictions, some going as far back as 1930s, not only at times contradict each other, but sometimes foretell the same imminent catastrophe repeatedly for years, even decades, seemingly undeterred by past failures.

Arctic Meltdown

“All the glaciers in Eastern Greenland are rapidly melting,” the Harrisburg [Pennsylvania] Sunday Courier reported on Dec. 17, 1939.

“It may without exaggeration be said that the glaciers—like those in Norway—face the possibility of a catastrophic collapse,” the paper quoted Prof. Hans Ahlmann, a Swedish geologist, from a report to the Geographical Society after his Arctic expedition.

Ahlmann, a world authority on climate and glaciers in his time, was even more graphic eight years later.

“The possibility of a prodigious rise in the surface of the ocean with resultant widespread inundation, arising from an Arctic climate phenomenon was discussed yesterday by Dr. Hans Ahlmann, a noted Swedish geophysicist at the University of California Geophysical Institute,” a 1947 article in The West Australian said.

“The Arctic change is so serious that I hope an international agency can speedily be formed to study the conditions on a global basis,” Ahlmann said.

Stories about a melting Arctic were still in vogue with the media in the 1950s.

“The glaciers of Norway and Alaska are only half the size they were 50 years ago,” said Dr. William Carlson, an Arctic expert, according to the Feb. 18, 1952, edition of The Cairns [Australia] Post.

“There are now six million square miles of ice in the Arctic. There once were 12 million square miles,” said Arctic explorer Adm. Donald McMillan, according to the March 10, 1955, issue of Rochester, New York’s Democrat and Chronicle.

‘Population Bomb’

In the 1960s, a new environmental prediction was on the rise—overpopulation.

“It is already too late for the world to avoid a long period of famine,” The Salt Lake Tribune reported in 1967, citing Paul Ehrlich’s prediction of famines by 1975.

Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist and author of “The Population Bomb,” proposed lacing staple foods and drinking water with sterilizing agents to cut the growing population of the United States, according to the report.

Ehrlich was on fire by 1970, getting two dozen speaking requests per day and predicting that America would be rationing water by 1974 and food by 1980, California’s Redlands Daily Facts reported.

But around the same time, a new prognosis was on the horizon.

Global Cooling

“Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century,” The Boston Globe reported on Apr. 16, 1970, saying that pollution expert James Lodge predicted that “air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the new century.”

In 1972, two Brown University geologists wrote a letter to President Richard Nixon, reporting that a conference attended by “42 top American and European investigators” concluded “a global deterioration of climate, by order of magnitude larger than any hitherto experienced by civilized mankind, is a very real possibility and indeed may be due very soon.”

“The present rate of cooling,” they said, “seems fast enough to bring glacial temperatures in about a century, if continuing at the present pace.”

By 1975, the writing was on the wall, with major publications including The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Time magazine running their own stories on the predictions of a coming ice age.

“An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere,” The New York Times reported in 1978.

A year later, the paper was reporting the opposite—a prediction of an Arctic meltdown, blaming global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

“There is a real possibility that some people now in their infancy will live to a time when the ice at the North Pole will have melted, a change that would cause swift and perhaps catastrophic changes in climate,” the 1979 article said.

Apparently, The Chicago Tribune didn’t get the memo, still reporting the “global cooling” narrative in 1981.

Arctic Meltdown 2

By the late 1980s, the narrative had switched to global warming for good, again predicting polar ice melting on a catastrophic scale.

“A senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000,” California’s San Jose Mercury News reported on June 30, 1989. “Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ‘eco-refugees,’ threatening political chaos, said Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program.”

The first to disappear were to be the island nations teetering just a few feet above the ocean level.

The small nation of Maldives was threatened to be completely covered by “a gradual rise in average sea level,” Agence France-Presse reported in 1988, noting that “the end of the Maldives and its people could come sooner if drinking water supplies dry up by 1992, as predicted.”

Yet 31 years later, the Maldives are thriving. Its population has doubled since the 1980s, and its picturesque islands are “set for a flurry of new resort openings,” Hotelier Maldives reported in 2018.

After a pause from the 1950s to the 1980s, the predictions of an Arctic meltdown are back in full swing in recent decades. The region was meant to be ice-free in summer by 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2018, based on various predictions.

Yet the Greenland Climate Research Centre reported plenty of ice in the Arctic in August 2019.

Some scientists have argued the earth is currently undergoing warming largely caused by carbon emissions due to fossil fuel burning; other scientists disagree, assigning the dominant effect to other forces or even disregarding the warming as insignificant.