According to a new survey by Chicago-based advisory firm Sikich LLP, approximately two-thirds of manufacturers are preparing for a recession, with 27% of firms expecting a shock to the economy in the next 12 months.
The Federal Reserve has communicated a rate cut cycle could be imminent, and rate traders are pricing in three, 25bps cuts by January 2020. The Fed is more than nine months too late in cutting – so any cut today would be less pre-emptive than most of Wall Street believes. That is why 63% of the companies surveyed are taking immediate action to weather an imminent downturn in the economy.
The survey was conducted in April, had online responses from 310 companies spanning many industries, including wholesale and distribution; industrial equipment; metal fabrication; apparel, footwear and textiles; chemicals and petroleum; aerospace and defense; and food and beverage.
About 27% of respondents said a recession is very likely in the next 12 months, and the study noted that “there was a significant gap in the outlook between small and large firms.”
Just 21% of firms with less than $500 million in annual revenue expected a recession, but much larger firms had about 49% of them expecting an imminent downturn.
Jerry Murphy, partner-in-charge of Sikich’s manufacturing and distribution practice, said larger multinationals typically prepare more in advance than smaller firms.
“They don’t often share that kind of visibility with their smaller suppliers, so the small and medium-sized businesses may not be learning of this slowdown or this pipeline as quickly,” Murphy told BizTimes Media. “It’s not uncommon for them to learn about it rather quickly or abruptly.”
Murphy said preparations for a recession are likely the result of a maturing expansion, one that is in later innings, which could become the longest on record next month. Executives feel that the economy could be vulnerable to shocks as growth rates in the US slump.
“The pain of 2008 and the Great Recession is still pretty vivid in most business owners and management teams and they learned a great deal from that experience,” Murphy said. “Preparation for an eventual slowdown, they know how to do (that) effectively and they’re taking steps so they don’t get caught off guard.”
Recently, JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI fell into contraction with a sub-50 print, the weakest reading in data since mid-2016.
The Milwaukee-area PMI, part of the Marquette-ISM Report on Manufacturing, printed 47.83, which is the first time the southeastern Wisconsin manufacturing sector contracted since October 2016. The PMI has trended down since 1H18 as manufacturers deal with supply chain uncertainty, surging prices, and tariffs when exporting their products.
“Despite a long run of impressive economic growth, manufacturers face challenges related to rapid changes in the industry, geopolitical uncertainty and the prospect of an eventual economic downturn,” Murphy said.
Executives in the survey were undecided on the impact of tariffs and retaliatory tariffs between the US, China, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. About 38% of them said tariffs would have a positive impact on their business, while 35% expected a negative effect.
Murphy said companies importing from China have seen a significant deterioration in their profit margin and will make substantial changes to their supply chains in the coming quarters.
“They did a lot of buying prior to some of the more drastic tariffs,” Murphy said. “I know clients were doing everything they could to get as much product into the United States or at least on the water to avoid the tariffs or the higher tariffs.”
At some point, with enough companies preparing for a recession, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy by the next presidential election – but, in the meantime, economic shocks could develop in the back half of the year, due to trade disputes and faltering global growth.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2X6YZYk Tyler Durden
The city of Los Angeles is quickly descending into a cesspool of decay and disease. With bubonic plague now likely present amongst residents, the city and the state of California are on the verge of becoming a third-world hellscape. Some say that that’s already happened…
Tucker Carlson had historian Victor Davis Hanson on his show just last week, where the latter said that California is on the verge of becoming the nation’s first Third World state. From trash being illegally dumped to city hall becoming a rat-infested den in the city of LA, it all points to the decay suffered when Democrats run things. Even police stations in the city are loaded with rats and according to Townhall, one was fined $5,000 over its conditions that left one officer stricken with typhoid fever. California’s descent has gotten to the point where there is a possibility that bubonic plague (the black death) may now be present in the city.
This isn’t new information either.Typhus outbreaks were being reported back in February. Typhus is not transmitted person-to-person, and flea-borne typhus can spread to people from infected fleas and their feces. Typhus infection can be prevented through flea control measures on pets, using insect repellent to avoid flea bites and clearing areas that can attract wild or stray animals like cats, rats, and opossums, according to the Department of Public Health.
Typhus is spread by fleas hitching a ride on rats. While the general population struggles under the weight of the government (local, state, and federal in LA’s case) and the homeless population continues to climb up, the same cannot be said for the rats that carry fleas the cause typhus. The rat population in LA is doing just fine, however, as piles of garbage dot the cityscape, making it Thanksgiving Day every day for the city’s fat, happy rodents, wrote the American Thinker. -SHTFPlan
California’s burgeoning homeless camps are not the most hygienic places to live, obviously. And with the homeless population growing daily, the encampments are becoming more dangerous when it comes to crime and disease. Dr. Drew Pinsky said this month that there has been a total and complete breakdown of services in the city that has placed the population at risk of infection and other health-related issues.
“We have a complete breakdown of the basic needs of civilization in Los Angeles right now,”Pinsky told Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
“We have the three prongs of airborne disease, tuberculosis is exploding, rodent-borne. We are one of the only cities in the country that doesn’t have a rodent control program, and sanitation has broken down.”
Pinsky said bubonic plague, which is also known as the “Black Death,” a pandemic that killed off millions in the 14th century, is “likely” already present in Los Angeles. The plague is spread by infected fleas and exposure to bodily fluids from a dead plague-infected animal, with the bacteria entering through the skin and traveling to lymph nodes.
“This is unbelievable. I can’t believe I live in a city where this is not Third World. This is medieval,” Pinsky said, according to Fox News.
“Third World countries are insulted if they are accused of being like this. No city on Earth tolerates this. The entire population is at risk.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZU2Vhc Tyler Durden
Despite SpaceX’s latest launch ending in a fiery crash,as we noted earlier this week, that hasn’t stopped employees from apparently “rejoicing” about the Falcon Heavy’s launch delivering 24 satellites into orbit, according to Bloomberg.
Apart from the center booster failing to land on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, the mission is being deemed a success, and was once dubbed “SpaceX’s toughest test”.
As it has been making progress, SpaceX has become one of the world’s most valuable closely-held private companies. It’s now worth $34 billion, and SpaceX equity is starting to become far more in demand than Tesla’s equity, which has fallen 33% this year.
As such, Musk’s personal net worth picture is shifting accordingly, with SpaceX now his most valuable asset. It makes up more than two thirds of Musk’s net worth now – a reversal from previous years where Tesla was responsible for most of his fortune.
Recall, in early June, we wrote an article about how Musk’s net worth had fallen $4.9 billion since the beginning of the year. Musk’s net worth now stands at $19.7 billion and this has bumped Musk from #29 on the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index down to #46.
Ellison bought 3 million shares last year and joined the company’s board in December.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2J9kVgK Tyler Durden
As modern man continues to wantonly deviate, flaunt, and reject the natural law and the Divinely-created order from which it derives, it is not surprising that illusions like Bitcoin and other crypto currencies have captured the imagination of many and have provided a vehicle for scammers to rip off their fellow man.
Crypto currencies are a more complex, yet still devious derivative of the immoral, economic destructive, and social debilitating system of central banking. In response, Bitcoin pumpers have craftily tried to portray digital currencies as a “decentralized” alternative to the present fiat, paper-money standard.
While this has attracted many libertines and “fast buck” speculators, Bitcoin is more similar to the present fractional-reserve monetary order than a real honest-to-goodness money and banking system based on 100% redeemable currency. Moreover, crypto currencies’ initial allure was that they could be used as a general medium of exchange, but as time has gone on, their sycophants have had to concede that none of these Ponzi schemes can act as money.
Unlike a metallic monetary order where gold and silver have to be mined and brought into use through land, labor and capital, Bitcoin, like paper money, is created out of thin air. In this sense, however, paper money is superior to Bitcoin because it can be used for other purposes albeit severely limited – wall paper. Bitcoin, instead, has NO intrinsic, or “use” value, as precious metals did prior to their use as general medium of exchanges.
Crypto currencies also fit nicely in the on-going efforts by the Establishment and monetary authorities to eliminate cash in transactions. Despite the talk of “decentralization” and privacy that crypto currencies’ supposedly provide, all transactions on the computer and across the Internet can be recorded and traced which governments will use to spy on their tax slaves. In direct contrast, gold and silver carried on one’s person or stored for safe keeping is the most private and secure means of wealth preservation ever known.
The banksters have been pushing a cashless world to reduce their operating costs as Bank of America’s CEO Brian Moynihan recently called for:
We want a cashless society. We have more to gain than anybody from a pure operating cost (perspective).*
If anyone believes that the only reason banksters like Moynihan want a cashless society is to reduce costs, they are incredibly näive. Banks and other credit institutions have, from orders of the surveillance arms of the national security states across the globe, de-platformed and tried to silence all sorts of alternative and politically incorrect websites and groups by shutting down their bank and credit card accounts. If cash is outlawed, it will have a devastating effect on dissonant outlets and true free speech in general.
The efforts to get rid of cash has been a long held goal by the ruling class that began with the introduction of paper notes which were granted legal tender status. Irredeemable notes for specie followed and outright confiscation and prohibition of gold ownership took place in America and other jurisdictions in the 20th century. Internationally, gold was finally severed from monetary use with President Nixon’s insane decision to no longer redeem US dollars for gold in 1971.
More importantly, and what infuriates Left-Libertarians of the crypto movement is that the precious metals were created by Divine Providence to be used by His creatures to augment their lives and eventually create sophisticated societies.
The qualities and quantity of gold and silver were designed in their optimal amounts to serve as a medium of exchange. There are ample historical episodes of the social and economic disasters which have occurred when “natural money” was replaced by a man-made substitute. The powers-that-be are certainly aware of this historical “law” and have long understood that to maintain their hegemony gold and silver must not be a part of a monetary order.
The contemporary world is in a state of perpetual crisis because it has persistently violated the natural law. The creation of more illusions such as Bitcoin and other crypto currencies is not a solution, but are diversions which prevent mankind from returning to a natural monetary order.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2xn3bZz Tyler Durden
Put your hand up if you know what an autocallable is. Put your other hand up if you also know that ground zero of the next volatility catastrophe could be South Korean autocallables.
Not a lot of hands in the air, so let’s back up.
As the “world’s most bearish hedge fund manager”, Horseman Global’s Russell Clark explained back in January, autocallables, which are fundmentally structured products that are extremely popular with South Korean traders, are best thought of as a service. A bank will offer to sell insurance on the stock market on your behalf, so that you can generate an income from the premiums received. So rather than buying an autocallable, it’s better to think of an investor as posting collateral for a bank to sell puts on their behalf. Typically, the bank will tell the investor what sort of yield they can generate, for a certain level of insurance. For example, a 5% return as long as the S&P 500 does not fall to 2000, from roughly 2900 today.
Typically, when markets fall, the price of insurance rises, and the bank does not need to sell that much insurance to meet a 5% yield target for an investor. Conversely, when markets rise, insurance prices fall, and banks would need to sell more insurance to meet the target yield. Hence, in normal markets, the risk to clients is balanced. More insurance is sold when market rise as insurance prices are low, and less insurance is sold when market fall as insurance prices rise.
However, there are increasing signs that this market dynamic is breaking down.
According to Horseman research, Europe’s Stoxx 50 is the most popular underlying index in the entire autocallable industry globally. Why is the Euro Stoxx 50 so popular among autocallable products? Clark believes that there are two reasons.
Until very recently, the Euro Stoxx 50 has tended to have a higher implied volatility, which has meant that yields on Euro Stoxx autocallables have tended to be higher.
The second reason is that the biggest structurers of autocallables tend to be French banks, so it would be easier for them to use their local index. Euro Stoxx 50 was weak in 2018, falling 18%. Volatility rose a little bit during the same period, but is still at a much more subdued than level seen in 2016 and 2015 for equivalent market movements.
However, as Horseman cautions, the relatively subdued level of Euro Stoxx 50 increasingly looks out of sync with underlying features of the European financial markets. Euro Stoxx volatility rarely trades below S&P volatility, but currently this is the case. It is possible to argue that lower recent historic volatility in the Euro Stoxx 50, relative to the SPX 500 has caused this, but given that Europe has many structural issues, and far fewer stocks in its index, this tends to be an aberration.
This is even more striking when one observes that a classic risk indicator such as the spread between French and German Collateralised Debt Securities (“CDS”) is beginning to diverge.
While the divergence in French and German CDS is bearish in itself, it is having a feeback, or “knock-on” effect for French banks, which are key autocallable structurers. Two of these banks are also members of the Euro Stoxx 50, which creates the potential for a vicious cycle – just recall the trading blows ups at Natixis and SocGen earlier this year, much of this came from the structured market.
As such, a French CDS widening could cause problems for French banks, which could cause problems in autocallables, which then could cause more problems for French banks and so on.
Besides European banks, autocallables are especially sensitive to changes in Korean (South, of course) risk assets. Or rather, the other way around.
The amazing resilience of the Kospi to virtually any stress in the past decade having traded in a tight range around 2000, is – according to Clark – explained by the fact that Korean volatility is been kept subdued by a large increase in the amount of autocallables outstanding. This can be seen from the NICE P&I annual review of Korean Autocallables; the review gives the number of new issues, as well as existing issues that have been redeemed. Redemption occurs when the underlying index rises above an upper barrier. As markets were weak over the last year, fewer redemptions have occurred, implying a substantial increase in outstanding autocallables. This would imply not only increased downward pressure on the price of volatility, but also a substantial increase in hedging needed for these products or volatility selling.
For those who see analogues between autocallables and inverse VIX ETFs, or VIX futures, that’s not by accident – as a result of the reflexive nature of the market, trading the derivative of market vol, when in sufficient size and scale, can reverse the arrow of causality and lead to vol derivatives determining which way the underlying (in this case market) moves.
Going back to autocallables, historically their supply and demand has been kept in check by rising markets. If the market rises over an upper barrier, old autocallables are redeemed, reducing supply from the market, alternatively they can be cancelled by being “knocked in” (a situation where the underlying investor no longer receives a yield, but the underlying index is at current value). The lower barrier is usually between 25% and 40% below market levels and if “knocked in” the buyer of the autocallable will lose capital equal to the fall in the index.
So what does all of this mean?
Well, as Clark wrote back in February, “in my opinion, the market has become overburdened with autocallables. In the short term they tend to reduce volatility of the underlying market. But if the underlying index, in this case the KOSPI falls – for example because due to a plunge in semiconductor stocks – it will likely result in autocallables getting ‘knocked in” and the pressure on Korean volatility disappear, “the resulting rise in Korean volatility will likely lead to significant rise in the price of volatility.”
That was 6 months ago… where are we now?
Well, after a brief period of market turmoil, the Kospi resumed its upward grind, and as stocks rose and vol dropped, autocall issuance exploded. According to Bank of America, Korean autocallable notes continue to get issued at a record-high pace of > $8 BN per month (nearly double the monthly average last year was US$4.9 Bn).
As for the underlying assets, at US$ 2.8 BN notional, the most popular basket remained HSCEI + SPX + SX5E.
As BofA further adds, Korean autocalls are likely to knock out as stocks continued their upward grind.
So what does all this mean? Well, in a somewhat deja vu repeat of what happened in February 2018, an instrument that not only benefits from lower vol, but its purchases actually lead to lower volatility, is now being purchased (and issued) at never before seen levels, in the process resulting in subdued equity vol across such global markets as the HSCEI, the S&P and Stoxx 50.
And yet this is precisely the trade that Clark believes will end in tears as everyone is one again on the same side of the vol trade, which as readers may recall ended spectacularly on Feb 5, 2018 when too many investors had purchased the XIV only to see it meltdown following a somewhat modest increase in volatility.
Which begs the question: could autocallables be ground zero – in S.Korea of all places – for the next volatility catastrophe? To Clark the answer is yes. As he told Bloomberg last month, investors hungry for yields have piled into autocallables, artificially suppressing stock market instability. This is “unsustainable and will end badly. I’ve seen it twice, three times even. And it feels so close to that inflection point. Everyone’s in the same trade.”
He is, of course, correct, but just as the XIV doomsayers were ignored up to Feb 2018, so too those who forecast the collapse of the autocall market will be ignored until it is too late. The question is what happens once the autocall house of dominoes starts to collapse – will it result in a contained implosion, much the same way the inverse VIX ETF disaster failed to shock the market for too long – or will the negative feedback loop only escalate as one after another autocallable is knocked in, resulting in a volatility shockwave that spreads instantly around the globe?
The answer will likely be revealed during the next VIX spike, and if Clarke is correct, the outcome will be the worst possible one.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31WW8oQ Tyler Durden
Right now the entire nation is buzzing about the very first debates for Democratic presidential contenders in 2019, and much of the focus of those debates should be on the economy. A total of 20 candidates will participate in those debates, and the vast majority of them don’t have a prayer of actually winning the nomination. Of course all of them will have “plans” for “fixing” the economy, but the truth is that most of those plans really aren’t that radically different from what has been tried in the past.
No matter who has been in the White House, our insatiable appetite for debt has allowed us to enjoy a tremendously bloated standard of living that was far beyond what we actually deserved. We have been consuming far more wealth than we have been producing for so long that most Americans have come to accept this state of affairs as “normal”. And under no circumstance will Americans elect any presidential candidate that would suggest that we should be willing to accept a lower standard of living and quit going into so much debt.
Everyone wants to hear that we will be able to have an even higher standard of living in the future, and of course that is what a lot of our politicians eagerly tell them.
But it isn’t true.
Sadly, the reality of the matter is that we are at the very end of the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and the way we live is about to dramatically change no matter who we send to Washington.
As I discussed yesterday, the evidence that the U.S. economy has already entered a significant downturn continues to grow. All of the economic numbers that we have been getting lately have been bad, and yet so many of the “experts” continue to claim that the U.S. economy is in great shape.
In fact, a survey that was just released had some rather starting results. 100 percent of the “experts” that were surveyed rated the performance of the U.S. economy as either “excellent” or “good”, but average hard working Americans were a lot more evenly split…
A new survey from financial information website Bankrate.com found that everyday Americans have a less favorable view of the economy than experts do. All the experts rated the economy as being “excellent” or “good,” compared to just 59 percent of others. And 39 percent of everyday Americans said the economy was “not so good” or “poor.”
Bankrate surveyed around 1,000 people and nine economic experts for the study.
The survey also included a question about when the next recession would begin. Approximately 40 percent of average hard working Americans felt that a recession had either already begun or would begin very soon, but none of the “experts” felt that way…
Everyday Americans also said they expect a recession to hit sooner than the experts predict. A fifth of Americans polled said they believe the recession has already begun, and 21 percent said they expected it to begin within six months or a year. However, all the experts said they don’t expect a recession to begin for either one to two years or more than two years.
Perhaps we should stop calling them “experts”, because they appear to be completely and utterly clueless.
And we had better hope that the economy can hold up, because a different survey has found that 71 percent of all Americans say that they “are unprepared for another financial crisis”…
Meanwhile, 43% of Americans say they feel financially insecure and 71% are unprepared for another financial crisis, such as going bankrupt or losing their home, a survey of 24,070 adults released this week by market researcher YouGov found. Some 55% of those who feel unprepared say they’re not confident that they will be able to afford retirement; they’re more likely than those who feel financially secure to say the government should make sure everyone has health insurance.
Today, 59 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and U.S. consumer debt just soared to another brand new record high. People are partying when they should be preparing, and this new economic downturn is going to catch most of us completely off guard.
And day after day we continue to get more numbers that are telling us that the economic outlook is very bleak. For example, it is now being projected that U.S. auto sales will drop substantially over the next two years…
The U.S. auto market hit a record for new cars, with 17.5 million in sales, in 2015. Sales the following year were flat then dipped to 17.2 million in 2017 and rebounded in 2018, rising to 17.3 million. But the first half of this year has plunged into negative territory. Edmunds anticipates sales for all of 2019 will drop to 16.9 million. That’s the same estimate from AlixPartners, which is forecasting a further dip to 16.3 million in 2020 and just 15.1 million in 2021.
Now we are in election season, and all sorts of different candidates will be touted as the one “that can turn the economy around” and restore “the promise of America’s future”.
Every election cycle they spout the same nonsense, and it is amazing that anyone still falls for it anymore.
Right now, America is on a highly self-destructive path that only leads to economic oblivion. We are 22 trillion dollars in debt, we have been adding more than a trillion dollars a year to the national debt for more than a decade, state and local governments are drowning in record levels of debt, corporate debt has more than doubled since the last financial crisis, U.S. consumers are almost 14 trillion dollars in debt, and the world as a whole is now 244 trillion dollars in debt.
If we keep doing the same things over and over again, we are going to keep getting the same results.
Under our current system, there is no way that this game is going to end well for any of us. The only thing left to do is to extend the party for as long as possible, and that is precisely what our politicians have been doing for a long time.
But at some point “extend and pretend” simply won’t work anymore, and a day of reckoning for America will finally arrive.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZQZho5 Tyler Durden
The pharmaceutical industry has been commercially harvesting blood from the Limulus Polyphemus-the Atlantic horseshoe crab for decades- for a very special reason: “blue gold” as it is called, can fetch tens of thousands of dollars per gallon, reported Bloomberg.
The 450 million year crab was discovered in the 1960s to have unique blood that would revolutionize medicine. Unlike the blood of vertebrates, horseshoe crabs don’t use hemoglobin to carry oxygen throughout their body. Instead, they use hemocyanin, a protein that transports the oxygen, turns the blood blue, and has specialized immune cells that are extremely valuable.
Invertebrates like the horseshoe crab carry amebocytes instead of white blood cells in vertebrates. Amebocyte is the cell that has the medical community demanding more. When the cell comes into contact with a pathogen, it releases a chemical that causes the blood to clot, which is the mechanism for isolating dangerous pathogens.
The blue blood extracted from the horseshoe crab is called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) and is worth its weight in gold. The blood can demand as high as $60,000 per gallon.
Once the blood is extracted, the horseshoe crabs are released back into the ocean. Estimates show that 15% to 20% die as a result of the process.
Bloomberg says horseshoe crab populations have collapsed by 80% in the last four decades.
A professor at the National University of Singapore invented a synthetic solution two decades ago that would substitute horseshoe crab blood. But it seems the pharmaceutical industry prefers to keep bleeding horseshoe crabs until they become instinct.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XbenrH Tyler Durden
The Trump-Putin meeting in Japan is crucial for both leaders… and for the world…
Despite determined attempts in Washington to sabotage such a “summit,” as I reported previously, President Trump and Russian President Putin are still scheduled to meet at the G-20 gathering in Japan this week. Iran will be at the top of their agenda. The Trump administration seems determined to wage cold, possibly even hot, war against the Islamic Republic, while for Moscow, as emphasized by the Kremlin’s national security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, on June 25, “Iran has been and will be an ally and partner of ours.”
Indeed, the importance of Iran (along with China) to Russia can hardly be overstated. Among other reasons, as the West’s military alliance encroaches ever more along Russia’s western borders, Iran is a large, vital non-NATO neighbor. Still more, Teheran has done nothing to incite Russia’s own millions of Muslim citizens against Moscow. Well before Trump, powerful forces in Washington have long sought to project Iran as America’s primary enemy in the Middle East, but for Moscow it is a necessary “ally and partner.”
In normal political circumstances, Trump and Putin could probably diminish any potential US-Russian conflict over Iran—and the one still brewing in Syria as well. But both leaders come to the summit with related political problems at home. For Trump, they are the unproven but persistent allegations of “Russiagate.” For Putin, they are economic.
As I have also previously explained, while there was fairly traditional “meddling,” there was no “Russian attack” on the 2016 American presidential election. But for many mainstream American commentators, including the editorial page editor of The Washington Post, it is an “obvious truth” and likely to happen again in 2020, adding ominously that Trump is still “cozying up to the chief perpetrator, Russian President Vladimir Putin.” A New York Times columnist goes further, insisting that Russia “helped to throw the election” to Trump. Again, there is no evidence whatsoever for these allegations. Also consider the ongoing assault on Attorney General William Barr, whose current investigation into the origins of “Russiagate” threatens to conclude that the scandal originated not with Russia but with US intelligence agencies under President Obama, in particular with the CIA under John Brennan.
We should therefore not be surprised, despite possible positive national security results of the Trump-Putin summit in Japan, if the US president is again widely accused of “treason,” as he so shamefully was following his meeting with Putin in Helsinki in July 2018, and as I protested at that time. Even the Times’ once-dignified columnist pages thundered, “Trump, Treasonous Traitor” and “Putin’s Lackey,” while senior US senators, Democrat and Republican alike, did much the same.
Putin’s domestic problem, on the other hand, is economic and social. Russia’s annual growth rate is barely 2 percent, real wages are declining, popular protests against officialdom’s historically endemic corruption are on the rise, and Putin’s approval rating, while still high, is declining. A public dispute between two of Putin’s advisers has broken out over what to do. On the one side is Alexei Kudrin, the leading monetarist who has long warned against using billions of dollars in Russia’s “rainy day” funds to spur investment and economic growth. On the other is Sergei Glaziev, a kind of Keynesian, FDR New Dealer who has no less persistently urged investing these funds in new domestic infrastructure that would, he argues, result in rapid economic growth.
During his nearly 20 years as Kremlin leader, Putin has generally sided with the “rainy day” monetarists. But on June 20, during his annual television call-in event, he suddenly, and elliptically, remarked that even Kudrin “has been drifting towards” Glaziev. Not surprisingly, many Russian commentators think this means that Putin himself is now “leaning toward Glaziev.” If so, it is another reason why Putin has no interest in waging cold war with the United States—why he wants instead, indeed even needs, a historic, long-term détente.
It seems unlikely that President Trump or any of the advisers currently around him understand this important struggle—and it is a struggle—unfolding in the Russian policy elite. But if Trump wants a major détente (or “cooperation,” as he has termed it) with Russia, anyone who cares about international security and about the well-being of the Russian people should support him in this pursuit. Especially at this moment, when we are told by the director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research that “the risks of the use of nuclear weapons…are higher now than at any time since World War Two.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Xdnw3c Tyler Durden
A group of U.S. asylum officers is challenging President Donald Trump’s policy of making migrants wait in Mexico prior to their immigration court dates, saying it is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.”
The American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924—the labor union for federal asylum officers—asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday to stop the program. They filed an amicus brief in support of the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, which in February filed a federal lawsuit to put an end to the practice.
Called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, the policy is colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico.” Prior to its implementation, the U.S. “ensured that people fleeing persecution would not be—pending adjudication of their asylum application or anytime thereafter—returned to a territory where they may face persecution or threat of torture,” the union wrote.
The suit filed by the asylum officers says that under the new policy, many immigrants now “face persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” The union argues that the practice of forcing them to apply for asylum from outside the U.S. “abandons our tradition of providing a safe haven to the persecuted and violates our international and domestic legal obligations.”
MPP was instituted amid the increase of migrants from Central America. The amicus brief says that asylum seekers making their requests from Mexico face violence from drug gangs and that officers have heard “reports of kidnapping migrants for ransom or conscription into criminal activity.” Ethnic minorities from indigenous communities throughout Central America have the hardest time, officers say. These migrants allegedly face the same kind of persecution in Mexico that drove them from their home countries, and that many indigenous women are sexually assaulted.
The union name argues in its filing that MPP is not only unethical, but it also “does nothing to streamline the process, but instead increases the burdens on our immigration courts and makes the system more inefficient.”
The program has added more immigration cases to a massive pileup, as asylum officers now cannot discriminate between applicants based on whether someone presents a “credible fear” of deportation. Previously, migrants who failed to meet that standard were not allowed to formally plead their case in front of a judge. Somewhat ironically, they are now given that opportunity under the Trump administration’s new directive. “In other words,” the union writes, “individuals who would never see an immigration judge under the expedited removal procedure are now added to the backlog of cases in line for a full hearing.” MPP has also increased the administrative workload of asylum officers, who say in their filing that they are spread thin.
The amicus brief comes as the Trump administration struggles to quell growing public outrage over reports that a father and his daughter from El Salvador were found dead after fleeing a migrant camp in Mexico—which reportedly didn’t have enough food—and attempting to cross the border into the U.S. to request asylum.
“We have a crisis at our southern border,” Ken Cuccinelli, the acting Director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, tweeted in response to the filing. “While the union plays games in court, @POTUS and this Administration is taking action to secure the system and prevent the further loss of lives.” He added that “MPP protects both the vulnerable, while they wait for their hearing, and our asylum system from choking on meritless claims. THAT is what protection officers signed up for.”
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A group of U.S. asylum officers is challenging President Donald Trump’s policy of making migrants wait in Mexico prior to their immigration court dates, saying it is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.”
The American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924—the labor union for federal asylum officers—asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday to stop the program. They filed an amicus brief in support of the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, which in February filed a federal lawsuit to put an end to the practice.
Called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, the policy is colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico.” Prior to its implementation, the U.S. “ensured that people fleeing persecution would not be—pending adjudication of their asylum application or anytime thereafter—returned to a territory where they may face persecution or threat of torture,” the union wrote.
The suit filed by the asylum officers says that under the new policy, many immigrants now “face persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” The union argues that the practice of forcing them to apply for asylum from outside the U.S. “abandons our tradition of providing a safe haven to the persecuted and violates our international and domestic legal obligations.”
MPP was instituted amid the increase of migrants from Central America. The amicus brief says that asylum seekers making their requests from Mexico face violence from drug gangs and that officers have heard “reports of kidnapping migrants for ransom or conscription into criminal activity.” Ethnic minorities from indigenous communities throughout Central America have the hardest time, officers say. These migrants allegedly face the same kind of persecution in Mexico that drove them from their home countries, and that many indigenous women are sexually assaulted.
The union name argues in its filing that MPP is not only unethical, but it also “does nothing to streamline the process, but instead increases the burdens on our immigration courts and makes the system more inefficient.”
The program has added more immigration cases to a massive pileup, as asylum officers now cannot discriminate between applicants based on whether someone presents a “credible fear” of deportation. Previously, migrants who failed to meet that standard were not allowed to formally plead their case in front of a judge. Somewhat ironically, they are now given that opportunity under the Trump administration’s new directive. “In other words,” the union writes, “individuals who would never see an immigration judge under the expedited removal procedure are now added to the backlog of cases in line for a full hearing.” MPP has also increased the administrative workload of asylum officers, who say in their filing that they are spread thin.
The amicus brief comes as the Trump administration struggles to quell growing public outrage over reports that a father and his daughter from El Salvador were found dead after fleeing a migrant camp in Mexico—which reportedly didn’t have enough food—and attempting to cross the border into the U.S. to request asylum.
“We have a crisis at our southern border,” Ken Cuccinelli, the acting Director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, tweeted in response to the filing. “While the union plays games in court, @POTUS and this Administration is taking action to secure the system and prevent the further loss of lives.” He added that “MPP protects both the vulnerable, while they wait for their hearing, and our asylum system from choking on meritless claims. THAT is what protection officers signed up for.”
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