Over 1 million Hong-kongers (according to the organizers; 240K according to the police), or one in seven, flooded Hong Kong’s streets on Sunday to oppose a proposed extradition bill that would allow Beijing to take people from Hong Kong to stand trial in mainland China.
According to the SCMP, it was the most unified protest march in the city in more than a decade, with some calling it the ultimate showdown over the bill, which goes to a vote on June 12 and if passed would allow the transfer of fugitives to jurisdictions.
If turnout numbers are accurate, it would represent the biggest protest since 2003, when 500,000 people demonstrated against national security legislation that was later withdrawn by the government. The sea of marchers set off from Victoria Park just before 3pm and streets in nearby Causeway Bay were soon brought to a standstill as protesters clad in white chanted and sang songs as they walked in the oppressive heat, according to the SCMP.
Tensions escalated in recent weeks as Hongkongers from all walks of life have spoken out against the proposal. Petitions against the bill have circulated, thousands of lawyers staged a silent march and several chambers of commerce have voiced concerns. The bill’s proponents, mostly the city’s administration, see it as vital tool to fight transnational crime and maintain the rule of law.
“This is the last fight for Hong Kong,” the WSJ quoted Martin Lee, a veteran opposition leader who founded the city’s Democratic Party. “The proposal is the most dangerous threat to our freedoms and way of life since the handover” of sovereignty, he said.
The massive turnout, with crowds filling public parks and roads up to six lanes wide for more than a mile and a half, heaps pressure on the city’s leaders and their political masters in Beijing to shelve the law, although unlike 2003, China’s ruling Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has in recent years taken a much stronger line against dissent in the former British colony.
The Special Tactical Squad has been deployed because of a perceived increase in threat to public safety
Crowds were so massive that some train stations across the city were temporarily closed and protesters had to line up in sweltering heat to enter a local park, chanting slogans to oppose the law and cheering each other on taking to the streets to express their discontent.
The proposed law, which would allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial, has sparked anger in an unusually wide swath of the population, from teachers to lawyers and business leaders. The uniting fear is that the law, if passed, would expose citizens to the mainland’s more opaque legal system, where detainees could be subject to torture and other abuses of human rights. It would also remind the local population that HK is merely a Chinese colony now, and its own unique laws could be subverted overnight.
It is the latter that is the biggest concern for foreign business groups and diplomats, who have warned the proposal poses a threat to the rule of law that has helped Hong Kong prosper for decades as an international financial center, and which was guaranteed by China when it resumed sovereignty over the city from Britain in 1997. As the WSJ notes, opposition has grown even after the city’s leader, Carrie Lam watered down the bill slightly by removing offense categories liable to extradition from 46 to 37.
Lam’s government has said fears about the law are unfounded and stressed that only those suspected of the most serious crimes would be subject to extradition. The government says there will be safeguards against abuse and that the law won’t damage the city’s business environment or relate to offenses of a political nature. China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the protests and their potential impact on the proposed extradition law. Phone and fax lines to China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, which oversees Beijing’s policies to those territories, rang unanswered Sunday.
Anger over the extradition helped revive an opposition movement that dwindled after street protests in 2014 paralyzed parts of the city for 79 days, but ended without achieving their goal of obtaining more democracy. Meanwhile, Beijing’s influence over the city has grown since, while room for dissent has shrunk as the government has jailed protesters, declaring a pro-independence political party illegal and expelling a foreign journalist.
While the protests were mostly peaceful, there were occasional reports of scuffles between protesters and police, seven arrests and a fire in Central – but no major violence. Police gave the protesters a midnight deadline to disperse from government headquarters.
“I needed to let my voice be heard,” said Kitty Wong, a 38-year-old teacher who joined a protest for the first time. Gesturing to her two children, ages 8 and 9, she said: “We need to defend our home for the next generation.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wLDVfv Tyler Durden
In last weeks missive, I noted the oversold condition of the market and the likelihood of a bounce:
“This week we are going to look at the recent sell-off and the potential for a short-term ‘sellable’ rally to rebalance portfolio risks into.
The markets only need some mildly positive news at this point to spur a ‘short-covering’ rally. I would encourage you to use it to reduce risk, rebalance holdings, and raise cash until the ‘trade war smoke’ clears.”
The market did indeed rally last week. While the initial sell-off in the market was attributed to potential tariffs on Mexico, which were indefinitely suspended on Friday, the real reason was the dismal employment report of just 75,000 jobs.
A couple of months ago, I warned of the potential for weaker employment as the “household” survey had already dropped sharply. It is likely, that without some major natural disasters which spurred a temporary bump in hiring in 2018, that official employment rates are going to play catchup.
If we just use a simple 12-month moving average of the non-seasonally adjusted data, we get a better picture about what is actually happening in the economy. (NOTE: the official BLS measure consistently OVERSTATES employment during expansions and plays catchup during recessions.)
“So, why are the markets rallying?”
Two words – Rate. Cuts.
With employment weakening, along with a wide swath of economic data, stocks rallied sharply on Friday as the bond market priced in a certainty of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve.
“Stocks initially sold off on the report but then moved higher as the market took the news as a sign the Fed would cut interest rates. In the Treasury market, yields, already in steep decline this week, fell further. The 2-year yield closely reflects expectations for Fed policy, and it fell to 1.77% from an intraday high of 1.89%. The 10-year yield, which influences mortgages and other loans, fell to a low of 2.059%.” – CNBC
There is a very important misconception at play here.
What the report implies is that the “economy” is just a reflection of whatever the stock market does. However, that is inaccurate. Given that corporate profits are driven by the products they sell, and the price of stocks is based upon future expectations of the cash flows and earnings, ultimately the price of the market is slave to the direction of the economy.
Interest rates are the best predictor of the economic strength, and the yield curve has been screaming both “deflation” and “economic weakness” for months. (We have repeatedly warned on this issue – see here)
But more importantly, is the inversion of the Fed Funds rate to the 10-year Treasury.
Here is the MOST important point of both charts above. Recessions don’t kick in until these inversions are reversed.
This is why David Rosenberg was absolutely correct last week when he stated:
“You don’t go long the first rate cut, you go long on the last one.”
This is because by the time the Fed quits cutting rates, the recession will be near its trough and the corresponding bear market in equities is almost complete.
As I stated, the rally this past week was expected. In fact, we alerted our RIA PRO subscribers(FREE 30-day trial) to a “trading opportunity” in the market on Monday. To wit:
SPY has corrected the overbought condition and is testing the 200-dma.
The “buy” signal in the lower panel was massively extended, as noted several weeks ago, which as we stated, suggested the reversal we have seen was coming.
The correction last week has set up a tradeable opportunity into June.
Short-Term Positioning: Bullish
Add 1/2 position with a target of $290.
Stop-loss remains at $275
The question to answer this week, is whether there is more left to this rally before the next decline?
More To Go
I think the answer to that question is “yes.”
I recently interviewed Charles Nenner who is a practitioner/forecaster of long-term stock market cycles. As he correctly predicted in our discussion, this current rally would start at the end of May and last into July before the next more serious decline begins. (Forecast begins around 1:30)
His comments align much with ours from last week:
“In the very short-term the markets are oversold on many different measures. This is an ideal setup for a reflexive rally back to overhead resistance.”
Chart updated through Friday’s close:
The have only reversed about half of the previously oversold condition which leaves some “fuel in the tank” for a continuation of the rally this coming week.
However, that doesn’t mean the “bull is back” and you should be complacent about your portfolio. The market remains on an important SELL signal as shown below. The last two times the S&P 500 has triggered a similar sell signal, there were sharp, aggressive, rallies which were fully reversed just a few weeks later. The current market action is extremely similar to those previous events.
The difference this time, is that many of the supports which drove the recoveries previously are either a) not present, or b) have already been priced in. As I said, while I think there is more to go in the short-term, it is highly likely the current rally will fail.
While it’s good that “potential” tariffs on Mexico were delayed, there were only a threat. Tariffs are still in play with China and there has been NO progress on a trade deal.
Earnings estimates are still far too high going into the end of 2019 and 2020. Read This
Economic data has turned markedly weaker both globally and domestically.
Expectations for a positive effect from more QE and rates cuts are likely misplaced. Read This.
At the end of September, Congress will face a debt ceiling and potential Government shutdown. The subsequent $4 Trillion continuing resolution will likely undermine confidence in economic sustainability as the deficit surges will past $1.5 Trillion.
There are no current supportive tailwinds (disaster recovery, tax cuts, etc.) to support economic growth.
We remain primarily long-biased in our portfolios, but are also slightly overweight in cash, and portfolio weight in fixed income. We are also carrying some hedge by having overweighted “defensive” stocks a couple of months ago which have continued to provide outperformance.
There is a very good possibility this rally will continue next week as momentum and short-covering levels have been breached. However, if the market fails to set a new high and turns lower, the risk of a downside break will grow as we progress into summer. The weekly chart below, is also suggestive the recent rally is likely unsustainable as with a “sell signal” in place, and our volume signal back at extremely low levels, suggesting a lack of commitment from traders, and volatility still at elevated levels and rising, have marked the last two tops.
Remain cautious for now. The market is still at the same level as it was 18-months ago, and it is quite likely it will be at these levels, or lower, by the end of the summer.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XyyXyx Tyler Durden
A Texas prosecutor on Friday said that investigators have linked a 79-year-old California inmate to more than 60 killings in 14 states dating back to the 1970s, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in US history according to AP.
The inmate, Samuel Little, claims he killed more than 93 women as he traversed the country living a nomadic lifestyle. He is currently serving life sentences for killing three Los Angeles-area women, and pleaded guilty last year to killing a Texas woman in 1994. Now in failing health and having exhausted his appeals, Little is cooperating with investigators.
“At this point in his life I think he’s determined to make sure that his victims are found,” said Ector County District Attorney, Bobby Bland, who added that investigators from around the country have traveled to interrogate him in prison about cold case killings.
Among those who spoke to him were investigators from Ohio, where Little grew up and where he’s suspected of killing at least five women. –AP
When Little went on trial in 2014, prosecutors said he was likely responsible for at least 40 murders since 1980, and were probing deaths in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Texas. At the time, however, Little did not cooperate.
Bland credits a Texas Ranger named James Holland with gaining Little’s trust and convincing him to confess.
Holland traveled to California last year to speak with Little about cold cases in Texas. That led Little to be extradited to Texas and his guilty plea in December in the 1994 strangulation death of Denise Christie Brothers in the West Texas city of Odessa. But Holland’s conversations with Little have continued, even after Little was returned to California to serve his sentences, and it was Holland who determined that he was responsible for 93 deaths, said Bland, who received an update from Holland this week.
Information provided to Holland was relayed to law enforcement agencies in several states, leading to a revolving door of investigators who traveled to California to corroborate decades-old deaths. –AP
On Friday, prosecutors announced charges against Little for the 1981 deaths of two Cleveland women. Separately, he was charged in a second Cincinnatti killing, while he also confessed to another murder in Cleveland – however investigators are still attempting to identify the victim.
In many cases Little’s victims had been suffocated or strangled, leaving few physical marks which in many cases led investigators to presume the women had overdosed or died of natural causes.
“There’s still been no false information given,” said Bland of the new information Little has been providing on the cold cases. “Nothing has been proven to be false.”
Most prolific in US history
Currently, the most prolific serial killer in US history is Gary Ridgeway. Known as the Green River Killer, Ridgeway was initially convicted of murdering 48 women and girls, and was able to cut a deal for life in prison without parole in a plea bargain over his 49th victim. Ridgeway claims he has murdered at least 71 women and girls, most of whom were either prostitutes or in vulnerable situations.
Meanwhile, serial killers John Wayne Gacey and Ted Bundy confessed to 33 and 30 homicides respectively in the 1970s.
Globally, the deadliest serial killer who was not a world leader is English general practitioner named Harold Shipman, who was determined to have killed at least 250 people. He was convicted in 2000 for the deaths of 15.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Zgy9OW Tyler Durden
Democrats want to make Donald Trump the issue in 2020.
If they do, they will lose again, the way they lost in 2016.
Instead, the 2020 election should be about corporate power in all of its manifestations, its hold on the culture, our country and both major political parties.
Take the case of the two Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane crashes — the Lion Air crash off the coast of Jakarta, Indonesia in October 2018 that killed all 189 on board and the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019 that killed all 157 on board.
During his time as President of the United States, Barack Obama promoted the sale of Boeing planes — including the 737 Max 8 planes — around the world.
In November 2011, in Bali, Indonesia, President Obama announced an agreement between Boeing and Lion Air.
“For the last several days I’ve been talking about how we have to make sure that we’ve got a presence in this region, that it can result directly in jobs at home,” Obama said.
“And what we see here — a multibillion-dollar deal between Lion Air — one of the fastest-growing airlines not just in the region, but in the world — and Boeing is going to result in over 100,000 jobs back in the United States of America, over a long period of time.”
“This represents the largest deal, if I’m not mistaken, that Boeing has ever done. We are looking at over 200 planes that are going to be sold.”
In September 2014, Obama met with the Prime Minister of Ethiopia at the White House.
“We’re strong trading partners,” Obama said. “And most recently, Boeing has done a deal with Ethiopia, which will result in jobs here in the United States.”
“I’m expecting a gold watch from Boeing at the end of my presidency because I know I’m on the list of top salesmen at Boeing,” Obama said at an export forum at the White House in September 2013.
Of course, Obama got more than just a gold watch from Boeing when he left the White House.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Boeing donated $10 million to the Obama presidential library and museum in Chicago. And earlier this year, Obama dropped in to speak to a Boeing leadership retreat at a swank resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. Obama gratefully waived his $400,000 speaking fee.
While pushing the sale of Boeing planes around the world, the Obama administration was at the same time fast tracking a dangerous deregulatory process at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that effectively put the corporations in charge of the safety certification process — and that in effect put Boeing in charge of certifying it’s faulty MCAS software that led to the tragedies in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
The FAA certification system is known as the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) program. Under that program, companies like Boeing can appoint their own representatives to act in the place of FAA inspectors.
In 2004, one of the unions representing FAA inspectors – Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) – criticized the proposed ODA program as “premature and reckless.”
“Allowing the aviation industry to self-regulate in this manner is nothing more than the blatant outsourcing of inspector functions and handing over inherently governmental oversight activities to non-governmental, for-profit entities,” PASS wrote in its 2004 comments to the FAA.
Would a more independent FAA have prevented the two recent Boeing crashes?
Yes, says Paul Hudson of Flyer’s Rights.
“The ODA program has allowed Boeing to effectively self certify the MCAS software as safe,” Hudson told Corporate Crime Reporter.
“Boeing ‘s CEO, whistleblowers and FAA now admit they failed to properly test, fully connect, or even disclose MCAS, much less its deadly defects and overpowering features — not to the FAA higher ups, not to airline pilots or not even to its own test pilots.”
“Air travel has gotten much safer due to both safety regulation and technical advancements,” Hudson said. “But profit seeking over safety at all costs is destroying both safety and profits.”
“Some Boeing safety inspectors have summed up the current culture as ‘safety is king but schedule is God,” Hudson said. “I asked Boeing in December after the Lion Air crash to ground the Max. Boeing refused.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2R019HQ Tyler Durden
Hours after President Trump announced that a deal had been struck with Mexico to avert a round of tariffs that had been planned to take effect on Monday, the New York Times published a story claiming that the ‘agreement’ that the White House had touted had actually been laid out during discussions over the past several months, implying that Trump’s latest border spat with Mexico was little more than a publicity stunt.
The deal to avert tariffs that President Trump announced with great fanfare on Friday night consists largely of actions that Mexico had already promised to take in prior discussions with the United States over the past several months, according to officials from both countries who are familiar with the negotiations.
Friday’s joint declaration says Mexico agreed to the “deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border.” But the Mexican government had already pledged to do that in March during secret talks in Miami between Kirstjen Nielsen, then the secretary of homeland security, and Olga Sanchez, the Mexican secretary of the interior, the officials said.
The centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s deal was an expansion of a program to allow asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their legal cases proceed. But that arrangement was reached in December in a pair of painstakingly negotiated diplomatic notes that the two countries exchanged. Ms. Nielsen announced the Migrant Protection Protocols during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee five days before Christmas.
Slamming the story as “another false report” from the NYT, Trump insisted that the latest agreement with Mexico over the border involved concessions that the US has been trying to secure for months. Without Trump’s tariff threats, these concessions likely never would have been achieved. And going forward, there will now likely be “great cooperation” between both sides – and if not, Trump can always bring back his tariff threats.
Another false report in the Failing @nytimes. We have been trying to get some of these Border Actions for a long time, as have other administrations, but were not able to get them, or get them in full, until our signed agreement with Mexico. Additionally, and for many years,….
…..Mexico was not being cooperative on the Border in things we had, or didn’t have, and now I have full confidence, especially after speaking to their President yesterday, that they will be very cooperative and want to get the job properly done. Importantly, some things…..
…..not mentioned in yesterday press release, one in particular, were agreed upon. That will be announced at the appropriate time. There is now going to be great cooperation between Mexico & the USA, something that didn’t exist for decades. However, if for some unknown reason…
…..there is not, we can always go back to our previous, very profitable, position of Tariffs – But I don’t believe that will be necessary. The Failing @nytimes, & ratings challenged @CNN, will do anything possible to see our Country fail! They are truly The Enemy of the People!
Twitter should let the banned Conservative Voices back onto their platform, without restriction. It’s called Freedom of Speech, remember. You are making a Giant Mistake!
If President Obama made the deals that I have made, both at the Border and for the Economy, the Corrupt Media would be hailing them as Incredible, & a National Holiday would be immediately declared. With me, despite our record setting Economy and all that I have done, no credit!
Administration officials cited by the NYT said the language in Friday’s joint declaration about deploying the national guard throughout Mexico giving priority to the southern border had already been pledged back in March.
In a separate report that Trump will likely also find frustrating, Bloomberg reported that Trump had doubled down on boasts of “large” agricultural sales to Mexico as a key win for the White House that had helped avert the tariffs. However, no such pledges were included as part of the deal according to a handful of Mexican officials.
If we are able to make the deal with Mexico, & there is a good chance that we will, they will begin purchasing Farm & Agricultural products at very high levels, starting immediately. If we are unable to make the deal, Mexico will begin paying Tariffs at the 5% level on Monday!
Amusingly enough, AMLO also celebrated the “important deal” with the US – meaning that the American press are the only people contesting the facts of how the deal went down.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XzJuth Tyler Durden
The European Central Bank continues to disproportionately inflate the debt bubble of the Eurozone, while the economic slowdown of the main European economies worsens. What was designed as a tool for governments to buy time in order to carry out structural reforms and reduce imbalances, has become a dangerous incentive to perpetuate the excessive spending and increase debt under two very harmful and wrong excuses: That there is no problem as long as debt is cheap and that there’s no inflation.
Cheap borrowing is not an excuse to increase debt. Japan has a very low cost of debt and the cost of servicing Japan’s public debt is almost half of the state’s tax revenues. Japan’s debt is 15 times higher than the tax revenue collected by the government in 2018.
The Eurozone official inflation since 2000 shows an increase of 40% in CPI while productivity growth has been negligible and salaries and employment remain depressed.
Monetary policy has gone from being a tool to support reforms to an excuse for not implementing them.
We must remember that the euro is not a global reserve currency. The euro is only used in 31% of global transactions, while the US dollar is used in 88%, according to the Bank Of International Settlements (the total sum of transactions, as the BIS explains in its report, is 200% because each transaction involves two currencies).
Bond yields in the Eurozone are artificially depressed and give a false sense of security that is completely clouded by extremely low interest rates and excess liquidity.
The balance sheet of the European Central Bank has been inflated to be 40% of the GDP of the Eurozone, while at the peak of quantitative easing the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet did not reach 26% of the US GDP.
The Federal Reserve Treasury purchases never exceeded net issuances. The ECB continues to buy back bonds once they mature despite having multiplied the repurchases and having reached seven times the figure of net issuances .
Sixteen 10-year sovereign bonds in the Eurozone show negative real yields. Greece and Italy, the other two, are amazing examples, as their yields (adjusted for currency and inflation) show a negligible differential over the US ten-year bond.
Excess liquidity in the Eurozone exceeds 18 trillion euros.
Everything is justified because “there is no inflation” and yet there is, and a lot. Not only in financial assets (huge bubble in the aforementioned sovereign bonds), prices in the Eurozone have increased by 40% since 2000 while productivity has barely increased.
Cheap debt must never be an excuse to increase it, but an opportunity to reduce it.
All this generates excessive complacency and accumulation of long-term risk.
The ECB ignores tail risk and accumulation of imbalances and expects liquidity to generate the levels of growth and inflation that have not been achieved after two trillion euro of expansion. Meanwhile, the risks of debt saturation rise.
Governments all over the eurozone identify low yields as some kind of market validation of their policies, when markets are artificially inflated by the central banks’ policies. This placebo effect has led many countries in Europe to abandon the reform impulse, and many believe that the solution to low growth is to return to the wrong policies of 2008.
Low yields are not a sign of credibility and low risk, but of financial repression and fear of a weaker macroeconomic environment in other assets.
The problem of the Eurozone is that it has relied entirely on the placebo effect of monetary policy to strengthen the recovery, focusing on a single objective, to make public spending cheap to finance, whatever the cost. This perpetuates structural imbalances, the perception of risk is clouded and the economy becomes less dynamic while long-term risks rise.
The ECB finds itself in a monetary trap. if it normalizes policy, the mirage of low yields will disappear and governments will react against it. However, if it keeps the policy, there is an increasing risk of repeating a Eurozone crisis without any tools to address it. That is why it must raise rates now and stop repurchasing maturities while markets remain optimistic.
Unfortunately, instead of proposing supply-side measures and curbing the excessive taxation and stagnating effect of government spending, many analysts will recommend more spending and more liquidity as solutions that will make the economy even weaker. The main problem with the accumulation of debt at low rates is that it has the same effect as a real estate bubble. It disguises real liquidity and solvency risk, because borrowing costs are too good to be true. And they are not true.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2K8BQTl Tyler Durden
If you’re planning on taking a vacation in Europe, make sure you check the stamp prices before you send a postcard!
Statista’s Niell McCarthy points out that the cost of writing a standard letter varies hugely across the continent and it’s extortionate in some places that might surprise you. It probably comes as no real shock that Northern Europe generally has the highest prices with a standard letter costing €3.89 in Denmark, according to a list compiled by Deutsche Post/DHL.
Surprisingly though, Italy comes second with a standard letter costing a hefty €2.80. Eastern Europe and the EU’s two island nations are at the opposite end of the scale. Malta has the cheapest cost for a standard letter at just €0.26.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2ItksWq Tyler Durden
At first blush the results in Germany for the EU elections looked like nothing of significance had happened. The media trumpeted the regression of the right. Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) 11% after polling as high as 18% in 2018 made it look like Angela Merkel had weathered the storm against her chancellorship from the right.
But, in doing so, she opened herself up to attack from the Left. The combined results for the ruling coalition in Germany was only 45% with the Social Democrats (SPD) under-performing even their recent bad polling data, garnering just 15.8% of the vote.
It was the loss for the SPD in Bremen which voted for both the EU parliament but its own, however, that was most disturbing as the SPD lost to the Merkel’s CDU by a point. This was the first loss in any state-wide election for the SPD in Bremen in 73 years.
That prompted two big moves in the wake of the results. Merkel supposedly ‘un-retired’ as head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and, more importantly, Andrea Nehles stepped down as the leader of the Social Democrats.
This has now thrown the future of the current Grand Coalition into doubt.
And the question now is whether it can survive until the next election in 2021. The recent spate of speculation on this after Nehles’ resignation lead me to believe there may be something pushing for this behind the scenes.
The Greens have surged to more than 20% and what looked early on as a protest vote over another four years of the SPD rubber-stamping Merkel’s EU-first policies has taken on greater significance. These EU election results imply that the SPD may be, like the Tories in the U.K., in terminal decline.
Greens in Germany are of the most hawkish variety. They are the most militant about bringing about societal change through Progressive politics and the SPD have played footsie, in their eyes, with Merkel for too long. These results will only make them more strident.
And it will have knock-on effects in the EU as well.
So, like I said in my last article, the center isn’t holding in Europe. And the days of centrist politicians like Merkel are numbered. Grand coalitions that stand for nothing except care-taking the advancement of the European project were the big losers last month from both sides of the political aisle.
The political radicals will now have a far greater say and influence over the course of Europe. And it starts with the rise of the Greens in Germany. They have held above the 16% level now for months and just came through a major election above that critical level.
This is now a social movement in Germany, not a protest vote. And that could easily bring down the Merkel government.
The problem, however, is that there is now no workable coalition possible unless the Greens surge to 35% percent, wiping out the SPD entirely.
The Greens were the main reason Merkel had such a difficult time putting a coalition together after 2017’s election. Either she will have to jump harder-left, alienating her already tenuous relationship with Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) or consider a coalition with AfD, which is anathema to everyone.
Merkel spent so much political capital over the past eighteen months pushing back against the rise of AfD over her disastrous immigration policy that it has now put her in a real bind if the coalition falls apart.
I’m sure this is why she has ‘un-retired’ as head of the CDU, to help keep the SPD on side for now. But there are three big state elections in eastern Germany later this year — Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia.
All of these are AfD strongholds now. AfD won Brandenburg and Saxony and nearly won in Thuringia. This is setting up a strong East/West divide in Germany which Merkel is doing nothing to improve.
Looking ahead, Brandenburg and Saxony go to the polls on September 1st. Strong showings by AfD there should give them coattails six weeks later when Thuringia goes to the polls. Brandenburg, in particular is key for them given that the Greens are now the dominant party in Berlin.
The path for Merkel to hold onto power in Germany just got more twisted. Her policies have radicalized the right against her while dissatisfying the hard left. That trend will only continue as time goes on.
The big problem for both of these younger parties is learning how to govern. It’s easy to be a force for change when you are a vessel for people’s anger and frustration. You can influence the major parties into adopting your positions, which is part of what has stabilized the CDU’s numbers, having Merkel embrace stronger immigration controls.
It is quite another, especially in Germany’s murky parliamentary system, when you have to make deals to provide stable leadership.
That’s where AfD’s leadership to this point has fallen down. They didn’t move off of their signature platform point quick enough to outflank Merkel and she blunted their growth nationwide. Now they have to build on their regional influence through good governance, if they can leverage their leads into governing coalitions, and being respectable members of the Bundestag.
For both the Greens and AfD the good news is that Merkel is vulnerable on the economy. The rapidly slowing German economy coupled with Merkel’s strained relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump will work against her holding her coalition together.
This is where AfD can bridge the gap with voters and shore up their majorities in the eastern states, emphasizing that the current mess is Merkel’s fault and have a plan as to how to fix things. They can start with demanding sanctions be lifted against Russia over Crimea. Merkel is vulnerable here.
She’s trying to do this while saving face and not angering Trump. That’s not possible, so she continues to not lead and leave the status quo in place while the German economy suffers from lack of business opportunities for key industries.
Trade with Russia has rebounded to pre-sanctions levels but it is still way down in the important state of Bavaria, where even the Greens are making strides.
But, for now, it seems to me that it will be difficult to take down the current government because current polling precludes any viable coalition forming that could command a stable majority. The instability of Germany’s political situation will continue to build just below the headlines until Merkel finally meets her end.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WO5wvh Tyler Durden
A date can burn a hole in your pocket and in some cities, the cost of a romantic evening is absolutely extortionate. If you meet someone from Switzerland on holidays and subsequently visit them with the intention of paying for dinner and drinks, Statista’s Niall McCarthy warns, you better start saving.
A “cheap date” in Zurich costs around $200. That’s according to Deutsche Bank’s 8th annual survey of global prices and living standards.
In the analysis, a cheap date is defined as cab rides, dinner/lunch for two at a pub or diner, soft drinks, two movie tickets and a couple of beers. Some may disagree with Deutche Bank’s definition that such a date is actually “cheap”.
Nevertheless, Oslo, which is well known for its high prices, comes in second with costs adding up to $164. Copenhagen comes third with a date costing around $158 on average.
Things are cheaper in Cairo and Bangalore where a romantic evening would only cost around $42.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2K60aW4 Tyler Durden
No one told rookie troops to shoot cows in Chernobyl and the miners there never worked naked, Major General Nikolai Tarakanov, who headed the real ‘liquidators’ in 1986, has told RT’s documentary channel.
Tarakanov praised other aspects of the show, adding that the actor who played him in the HBO hit did a “great job.”
Major General Tarakanov was one of the key participants of the events in Chernobyl in 1986, receiving a high dose of radiation while in charge of the troops working to decontaminate the ill-fated power plant.
Major General Tarakanov instructing his troops during the Chernobyl liquidation effort.
Now 85 years old, he has watched the entire new hit miniseries, in which he was portrayed by Scottish actor Ralph Ineson, and commented on its most iconic moments to documentary channel RTD.
WATCH Tarakanov’s full interview on the RTD website.
Aftermath and liquidation
Nikolai Tarakanov: It was a terrifying sight, really. What on Earth could demolish an entire structure of reinforced concrete? A nuclear bomb? Some massive accident? I couldn’t imagine what had happened there. As a result of the explosion, all the rubble and dust was sent into the air. 300,000 cubic meters of soil around the plant were extracted, put in trucks and taken to burial sites. The soil was replaced with 300,000 cubic meters of crushed stone, sealed with concrete and covered with heavy concrete plates. This led to radiation levels falling by hundreds of times around the site, which allowed us to deal with the plant itself and decontaminate the equipment. It’s a long story. But then again, it was the soldiers who did all that. That is why when they ask me about it I always say: yes, there were scientists. Of course there were scientists; I have a doctoral degree myself. But it was the soldiers who were the main heroes of this story. When you think about war history, you always remember the military leaders, great generals, like Zhukov and Voroshilov [top Red Army commanders during WWII]. But who did all the fighting? It was the soldiers.
Soldiers in protective gear working at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
RTD: How high were the levels of radiation the soldiers were exposed-to?
Tarakanov: The soldiers who worked under my command, both on the roof and around the plant, could receive an acceptable dose of radiation of 20 rem – the maximum dose permitted during wartime… There were rare cases when people were exposed to higher levels. And that could only happen because of an oversight on the part of any of the commanding officers, or due to a soldier’s own carelessness.
RTD: So, in other words, all soldiers received wartime doses of radiation at a time of peace.
Tarakanov: Yes, that’s true… But, without them, the whole operation would have been impossible.
RTD: So, in essence, having that incident was like having a war on Soviet soil.
Tarakanov: Yes, an actual war – a nuclear war.
RTD: And the disaster lasted for several months.
Tarakanov: Yes.
RTD: It was months before it came to the work you mentioned, like removing layers of soil and decontaminating the area. But before that, we essentially had a nuclear war on our hands – how long did it last?
Tarakanov: I would say from April to December. Right until we repaired and restarted the third reactor, which is next to the fourth one – the one that got destroyed… I myself and other generals and officers each served one-month-long assignments there. Regular soldiers were called in from the army to serve for five months, which I think was unreasonable. Officially, they were called up for reserve training.
Troops involved in liquidation of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Shooting cows & dogs
Tarakanov: There’s this episode [in the HBO series], it’s is an ugly one. They show this boy, a conscript arriving at the military compound. What comes next is just ridiculous. They give him a uniform and moments later they are teaching him how to shoot animals. I mean, that’s just silly. Nothing even close to that ever happened. This is one serious mistake.
RTD: Are you saying they never executed animals, like they show in the episode?
Tarakanov: No, they did, but never in the residential area. In the residential parts, there were no cows, no dogs – not a single one. The shooting did take place, but it was in the forests, where wild animals still roamed, including deer, as well as cattle that wandered off after the evacuation. But to show this young boy, recently drafted, being given all this equipment straight away [is just absurd].
The way it actually happened was pretty simple. The government issued a decree announcing general mobilization. They were supposed to call in 20,000 reservists, as they were called, from, say, Moscow and elsewhere… Those were all men of conscription age, between 30 and 40, mostly. And, of course, they knew nothing about their pending deployment. Later, when they arrived at the base, they were assigned to different units, a platoon, company or battalion. Only then would they set off for Chernobyl. So, all the procedures followed the law. Yet, the time they had to serve there was way too long.
Naked miners
RTD: The miners, summoned from all over Russia, including Tula and Donetsk, dug a tunnel underneath the reactor without any machinery, manually removing hundreds of cubic meters of earth that was then taken to burial sites. There is a very dramatic moment in the series when the miners start working naked. Did that actually happen?
Tarakanov: Well, no, I mean – I did not see them naked. I’d say the showrunners took it a bit too far. In fact, this entire operation – it was Academician Velikhov’s idea – was unnecessary, but still. They thought that the bottom of the reactor was still extremely hot, because the graphite continued burning, and it burns at 800 degrees… That’s why they had to dig a tunnel underneath and place a concrete slab under the reactor. The idea was to use liquid nitrogen to create a cooling effect, like in a fridge. The concept itself was good, and of course it helped. But it was already September by then.
Miners digging the tunnel under the damaged Chernobyl nuclear power plant reactor.
Keeping locals in the dark
Tarakanov: The commission arrived the day after the explosion, led by [vice-chairman of the USSR’s Council of Ministers] Boris Shcherbina. I knew him very well in person. Valery Legasov [prominent chemist and the chief of the commission investigating the Chernobyl disaster] was there, too, and a whole team of doctors and generals. And yet, instead of taking care of all this, you know, given all the impact, they didn’t even think about the people living here. It took them 36 hours to issue an announcement to the public, and all this time people just went about their daily routines: children went to schools, their parents to work. There was no announcement.
And even those who knew, they asked their teachers in class – ‘Miss, we were told that we should wear protective gear in such cases and stay home, isn’t that right?’ But no one bothered. There were even some weddings that no one knew better to cancel. Fishermen went on fishing. And I believe that Boris Shcherbina is personally responsible for all that – and I say it responsibly as I knew him well, may he rest in peace, he passed away ten years ago. He exposed himself to large doses of radiation, being the head of the government commission.
Gorbachev lacked firm grip
RTD:This series portrays then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as a confused man, who is doubting the reality and hesitating to take control. Is that true? Is that how it was and did he really fail to assume responsibility for the incident?
Tarakanov: What I can tell you is that if we speak about the man’s character, since I knew him quite well… he did lack that firm grip on things that, for example, Boris Yeltsin had, the kind that majors and generals have, who can take the lead; issue orders and know what to do, that kind of stuff.
So, when he got the news he didn’t even go there himself, he sent [Nikolai] Ryzhkov [chairman of the Council of Ministers] and Shcherbina to take care of things. And not knowing what’s happening on the ground; not having the slightest idea of what it’s like, he was trying to low-ball the whole thing about the danger to the population and the impact. He was hoping that the commission would report any day that it was all over and fine.
So the official narrative carefully avoided calling the incident a disaster – which it really was. It was us, the military, who insisted that it should be acknowledged as a disaster. It was one of the century’s biggest man-made disasters.
Legasov’s suicide
Tarakanov: They show Legasov taking part in this meeting [in September 1986]. That couldn’t be further from the truth, as he was at the time in a governmental facility where he [later] made his suicide attempt.
RTD: Why? He felt that he was responsible or he was overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster?
Tarakanov: They ostracized him, I can tell you this straight. Minister Slavsky, whom I knew very well, too, took his name off the list of candidates for the Hero of the USSR award… Then, another thing happened. He went to [Vienna] with a report, and on his return he says we need to create a nuclear safety and security institute… and so they established this institute [but] Velikhov and others did all in their power to leave him without staff. No one wanted to join his team.
RTD: Why so?
Tarakanov: Who knows? That was the tide at the time, with all the spinning and power games. It came to the point that he couldn’t even get enough votes to be on the scientific council. An outstanding scientist, a star, and they voted him out. And then there was a third factor. His son killed a man in a car accident.
So, [at the end of August 1987] he tried to take his life. My wife worked at the governmental hospital at the time. They saved his life, brought him back. But [mere months later] he [took his own life] anyway, you see.
‘Biorobots’
RTD: The series shows you acknowledging that even the military taking part in the operation were kept in the dark about the real radiation levels and the true scale of the disaster, is that true?
Tarakanov: No, that’s complete nonsense, because I can tell you everything. At that session, where [Yury] Samoylenko [deputy Chief Engineer at the Chernobyl nuclear station] was reporting to Shcherbina and the commission that the robots malfunctioned and that there were still huge radiation levels on the roofs of the first, second and third nuclear power units and around the power plant, and Shcherbina was so depressed and frustrated, and he said, so what do we do now without the robots? And then someone, I cannot now recall, who it was exactly, he said, our only option is biorobots. But I knew immediately he meant soldiers, I knew it…
RTD: In the series, this comes from Legasov.
Tarakanov: Who wasn’t even there!
RTD:So, at that point it became clear that it was impossible to avoid human involvement.
Tarakanov: Yes.
RTD: And that was the second major operation of this kind.
Tarakanov: [The actor who played me in the series] did such a great job, so well done. I completely loved the actor and his portrayal. Even I believed he was a general for real. Of course, the ending in the series is a bit different from what it was in reality. I was presenting the soldiers and officers with awards. So I was there, addressing my battalion, they are standing in line, and that’s OK in the series. But then one thing is not there – my address to the soldiers:
‘Dear brothers-in-arms, our people are grieving every day as they have to continue hearing the reports of Chernobyl still remaining the source of deadly radiation that threatens the entire planet. It is up to us now to put an end to this and contain the threat. It is true, and I can confirm it to you, that you have been assigned this task by the Ministry of Defense. Nonetheless, you have to volunteer. Anyone of you is free to step out of this line and be reassigned elsewhere. I give you one minute and I guarantee there will be no repercussions, because it is your life, and I’m responsible for your lives.’
Removing radioactive material
Tarakanov: Of course, it was much more complicated in reality. After the group of five were instructed, an officer would take the soldiers to the site. An accompanying officer. He would take them to the gaping hole in the roof of the nuclear power unit… Their task was to climb the stairs and grab a sledge hammer. A routing officer would stand at the bottom of the stairs, operating two buttons – one to run a stopwatch, and the other to launch a siren.
So, as soon as the soldiers reached the top of the stairs, sledge hammers in hand, ready to accomplish the task that I or my assistant had given them, the officer would start the stopwatch. Five minutes later he would hit the siren button. The siren was so loud that everyone in Chernobyl heard it. But the soldiers didn’t even wince, after hours of preliminary training… So they would come down the stairs and hand their individual radiation dosimeters over.
Dimitrov, a professor from the Obninsk nuclear power plant, would take readings with his device to measure their exposure levels. Say, 18 rem…15… He kept a record of the numbers. And then he would say: ok, 18, free to go.
RTD: It had to be below 20 rem, right?
Tarakanov: Yes, of course. There were some cases when people got exposed to higher levels, but they were very few.
RTD: How many rooftop missions per soldier are we talking about?
Tarakanov: Only one was mandatory. But some volunteered to go twice or even three times. I recall sergeant Cheban. The first time he got 8 rem, the second time 15. He earned five thousand rubles for each. But he did not do it for the money. He wanted to prove he could do it.
There was another guy, Stepanov, if my memory serves me right. He is in elevator maintenance now. He made three trips to the roof. A very strong man. He is still very strong. It all depends on your health.
In each case, before they could go again, they had to undergo all medical checks at the field hospital. There was a very thorough control system in place, and all regiment and battalion commanders were personally responsible for each soldier’s life. And I, Major General Tarakanov, was responsible for the radiation exposure of each and every soldier, too.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wGbQ9i Tyler Durden
