Watch Live: May Unveils Brexit “Plan B” As Rebel MPs Plot A Mutiny

After days of increasingly fraught – and ultimately fruitless – ‘cross party’ talks, Prime Minister Theresa May will offer a motion to move ahead with her “Plan B” Brexit deal, which is widely expected to mostly resemble “Plan A”, with a few minor tweaks. On Tuesday, the Commons voted down May’s deal by a historic 230 vote margin, the most crushing defeat endured by a British government since the 1920s. But May’s hope that the defeat would help bring the EU27 to the table has been dashed. The bloc’s leaders have affirmed that, while they might be willing to make adjustments to the political statement setting out a framework for the trade deal that is expected to be negotiated during the post-Brexit Day transition period.

According to Reuters, the proposals that May is expected to bring before Parliament on Tuesday will focus on winning more concessions from the EU. May will make a statement in parliament at 1530 GMT (10:30 am ET), where she is expected to put forward a motion on her proposed next steps on Brexit.

“It is clear already that a significant number of colleagues have expressed concerns around the backstop and that is one of the areas that we are going to be looking at,” May’s spokesman told reporters.

However, a ‘cross party’ group of rebel MPs who are reportedly plotting to seize power from May’s government with an amendment that, if passed, would defy centuries of precedent could throw a wrench in the works.

May’s remarks before Parliament will be broadcast live below:

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MAGA Hat Teen Speaks Out Amid Death Threats; Denounces “Outright Lies” About Tribal Elder Staredown

The Kentucky teenager at the center of a media circus has spoken out after receiving death threats over a widely misreported incident with an Obama tribal elder on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. 

“I am the student in the video who was confronted by the Native American protester,” reads a statement by Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School junior who was initially accused of taunting the drum-beating activist, prominent activist Nathan Phillips, only to be vindicated after the full video revealed that the Native American troupe approached the teens amid a tense standoff with a group known as the Black Hebrew Israelites, while the teens peacefully held their ground. 

Sandmann has become the face of the apparent confrontation, smiling silently only a foot or two from the face of Nathan Phillips, a Vietnam War veteran and prominent activist for indigenous people’s causes.

Critics have characterized the young man as smirking and trying to stare down Phillips. But other, longer videos have complicated the narrative, suggesting that there was jeering by a separate group of people before the incident recorded on the most widely circulated video. –NBC News

Sandmann says that when his group arrived at the Lincoln Memorial, he heard “four African American protesters” who were hurling “derogatory insults at our school group,” including “racists,” “bigots,” “white crackers,” “faggots,” and “incest kids.” 

“They also taunted an African American student from my school by telling him that we would ‘harvest his organs,” Sandmann wrote, adding “I have no idea what that insult means, but it was startling to hear.”

The teen added that he obtained a teacher’s permission to lead the group of students in school spirit chants “to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group,” after which the Native American protesters approached. 

“I never interacted with this protestor. I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves. To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me. We had already been yelled at by another group of protestors, and when the second group approached I was worried that a situation was getting out of control where adults were attempting to provoke teenagers,” says Sandmann. 

“I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation,” he said. “I realized everyone had cameras and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict. I said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand.”

Sandmann says he has received death threats over the incident. 

“I have received physical and death threats via social media, as well as hateful insults. One person threatened to harm me at school, and one person claims to live in my neighborhood. My parents are receiving death and professional threats because of the social media mob that has formed over this issue.”

Sandmann and his family deactivated their social media accounts Saturday as the incident went viral – with many prominent liberals calling for his doxxing or worse. 

Some media personalities such as CNN‘s Ana Navarro have yet to delete wildly inaccurate tweets with the initial mischaracterization of the incident. “Must Watch: Native-American elder taunted by racist MAGA-hat wearing teens,” tweeted Navarro.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has yet to delete her similar tweet claiming Phillips “endured hateful taunts.”

Alyssa Milano continues to virtue signal in this still-active tweet: 

The National Review – in a now-deleted article from deputy managing editor Nicholas Frankovich titled “The Covington Students Might as Well Have Just Spit on the Cross,” wrote that the teenagers mocked a “frail-looking older man” and “gloat in their momentary role as Roman soldiers to his Christ.” 

Except that’s not what happened at all. 

“I am mortified that so many people have come to believe something that did not happen — that students from my school were chanting or acting in a racist fashion toward African Americans or Native Americans,” said Sandmann. 

“I did not do that, do not have hateful feelings in my heart, and did not witness any of my classmates doing that,” he said, adding: “I have read that Mr. Phillips is a veteran of the United States Marines. I thank him for his service and am grateful to anyone who puts on the uniform to defend our nation. If anyone has earned the right to speak freely, it is a U.S. Marine veteran.”

Covington Catholic High School and the Catholic Diocese of Covington, Near Cincinnati, said in a joint statement “The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion.” 

The diocese and the school said the students were in Washington to attend the March for Life, a major anti-abortion rally, and they lamented that the incident had “tainted the entire witness of the March for Life.”

They said they extended “our most sincere apologies to all those who attended the March and all those who support the pro-life movement.” –NBC News

On Sunday Philips told MSNBC‘s Joy Reid that he was trying to diffuse the situation between the teens and the Black Hebrew Israelites, described by NBC as “a loose association mostly of people of black African ancestry who say they are descendants of the biblical Israelites.”

Philips says the boys in the MAGA hats began chanting “build the wall,” which cannot be heard on the video. 

Meanwhile, some have called into question the Native American activist’s claim to be a Vietnam Veteran.

In the wake of the MSM’s kneejerk reaction, several prominent Twitter conservatives have come together to offer legal help to the Covington High teens. 

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A Call To Reinvestigate American Assassinations

Via ConsortiumNews.com,

On the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a group of over 60 prominent American citizens is calling upon Congress to reopen the investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Signers of the joint statement include Isaac Newton Farris Jr., nephew of Reverend King and past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Reverend James M. Lawson Jr., a close collaborator of Reverend King; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, children of the late senator. The declaration is also signed by numerous historians, journalists, lawyers and other experts on the four major assassinations. 

Other signatories include G. Robert Blakey, the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which determined in 1979 that President Kennedy was the victim of a probable conspiracy; Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the surgeons at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas who tried to save President Kennedy’s life and saw clear evidence he had been struck by bullets from the front and the rear; Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower who served as a national security advisor to the Kennedy White House; Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a leading global authority on human rights; Hollywood artists Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner and Oliver Stone; political satirist Mort Sahl; and musician David Crosby.

JFK: November 22, 1963.

The joint statement calls for Congress to establish firm oversight on the release of all government documents related to the Kennedy presidency and assassination, as mandated by the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992. This public transparency law has been routinely defied by the CIA and other federal agencies. The Trump White House has allowed the CIA to continue its defiance of the law, even though the JFK Records Act called for the full release of relevant documents in 2017.

The group statement also calls for a public inquest into “the four major  assassinations of the 1960s that together had a disastrous impact on the course of American history.” This tribunal – which would hear testimony from living witnesses, legal experts, investigative journalists, historians and family members of the victims – would be modeled on the Truth and Reconciliation hearings held in South Africa after the fall of apartheid. This American Truth and Reconciliation process is intended to encourage Congress or the Justice Department to reopen investigations into all four organized acts of political violence.

Signers of the joint statement, who call themselves the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, are also seeking to reopen the Robert F. Kennedy assassination case, stating that Sirhan Sirhan’s conviction was based on “a mockery of a trial.” The forensic evidence alone, observes the statement, demonstrates that Sirhan did not fire the fatal shot that killed Senator Kennedy – a conclusion reached by, among others, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the Los Angeles County Coroner who performed the official autopsy on RFK.

The joint statement — which was co-written by Adam Walinsky, a speechwriter and top aide of Senator Kennedy — declares that these

“Four major political murders traumatized American life in the 1960s and cast a shadow over the country for decades thereafter. John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were each in his own unique way attempting to turn the United States away from war toward disarmament and peace, away from domestic violence and division toward civil amity and justice. Their killings were together a savage, concerted assault on American democracy and the tragic consequences of these assassinations still haunt our nation.”

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee views its joint statement as the opening of a long campaign aimed at shining a light on dark national secrets. As the public transparency campaign proceeds, citizens across the country will be encouraged to add their names to the petition. The national effort seeks to confront the forces behind America’s democratic decline, a reign of secretive power that long precedes the recent rise of authoritarianism. “The organized killing of JFK, Malcolm, Martin, and RFK was a mortal attack on our democracy,” said historian James W. Douglass, author of JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (2010).

“We’ve been walking in the valley of the dead ever since. Our campaign is all about recovering the truth embodied in the movement they led. Yes, the transforming, reconciling power of truth will indeed set us free.”

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s Calls for Action:

MLK Jr.: April 4, 1968 (Wikimedia Commons)

*  We call upon Congress to establish continuing oversight on the release of government documents related to the presidency and assassination of President John F. Kennedy, to ensure public transparency as mandated by the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform should hold hearings on the Trump administration’s failure to enforce the JFK Records Act.

*  We call for a major public inquest on the four major assassinations of the 1960s that together had a disastrous impact on the course of American history: the murders of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. This public tribunal, shining a light on this dark chapter of our history, will be modeled on the Truth and Reconciliation process in post-apartheid South Africa. The inquest — which will hear testimony from living witnesses, legal experts, investigative journalists, historians and family members of the victims — is intended to show the need for Congress or the Justice Department to reopen investigations into all four assassinations.

* On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we call for a full investigation of Reverend King’s assassination. The conviction of James Earl Ray for the crime has steadily lost credibility over the years, with a 1999 civil trial brought by Reverend King’s family placing blame on government agencies and organized crime elements. Following the verdict, Coretta Scott King, the slain leader’s widow, stated: “There is abundant evidence of a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband.” The jury in the Memphis trial determined that various federal, state and local agencies “were deeply involved in the assassination … Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.” Reverend King’s assassination was the culmination of years of mounting surveillance and harassment directed at the human rights leader by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and other agencies.

*  We call for a full investigation of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination case, the prosecution of which was a mockery of a trial that has been demolished by numerous eyewitnesses, investigators and experts — including former Los Angeles County Coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, who performed the official autopsy on Senator Kennedy. The forensic evidence alone establishes that the shots fired by Sirhan Sirhan from in front of Senator Kennedy did not kill him; the fatal shot that struck RFK in the head was fired at point–blank range from the rear. Consequently, the case should be reopened for a new comprehensive investigation while there are still living witnesses — as there are in all four assassination cases.

A Joint Statement on the Kennedy, King and Malcolm X Assassinations and Ongoing Cover-ups:

1. As the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979, President John F. Kennedy was probably killed as the result of a conspiracy.

2. In the four decades since this Congressional finding, a massive amount of evidence compiled by journalists, historians and independent researchers confirms this conclusion. This growing body of evidence strongly indicates that the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy was organized at high levels of the U.S. power structure, and was implemented by top elements of the U.S. national security apparatus using, among others, figures in the criminal underworld to help carry out the crime and cover-up.

RFK: June 5, 1968.

3. This stunning conclusion was also reached by the president’s own brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who himself was assassinated in 1968 while running for president – after telling close aides that he intended to reopen the investigation into his brother’s murder if he won the election.

4. President Kennedy’s administration was badly fractured over his efforts to end the Cold War, including his back-channel peace feelers to the Soviet Union and Cuba and his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam after the 1964 presidential election.

5. President Kennedy has long been portrayed as a Cold War hawk, but this grossly inaccurate view has been strongly challenged over the years by revisionist historians and researchers, who have demonstrated that Kennedy was frequently at odds with his own generals and espionage officials. This revisionist interpretation of the Kennedy presidency is now widely embraced, even by mainstream Kennedy biographers.

6. The official investigation into the JFK assassination immediately fell under the control of U.S. security agencies, ensuring a cover-up. The Warren Commission was dominated by former CIA director Allen Dulles and other officials with strong ties to the CIA and FBI.

7. The corporate media, with its own myriad connections to the national security establishment, aided the cover-up with its rush to embrace the Warren Report and to scorn any journalists or researchers who raised questions about the official story.

8. Despite the massive cover-up of the JFK assassination, polls have consistently shown that a majority of the American people believes Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy — leading to the deep erosion of confidence in the U.S. government and media.

Malcolm X: February 21, 1965.

9. The CIA continues to obstruct evidence about the JFK assassination, routinely blocking legitimate Freedom of Information requests and defying the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992, preventing the release of thousands of government documents as required by the law.

10. The JFK assassination was just one of four major political murders that traumatized American life in the 1960s and have cast a shadow over the country for decades thereafter. John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were each in his own unique way attempting to turn the United States away from war toward disarmament and peace, away from domestic violence and division toward civil amity and justice. Their killings were together a savage, concerted assault on American democracy and the tragic consequences of these assassinations still haunt our nation.

Published by Spartacus Educational.

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Washington Forced Segregation on the Nation: New at Reason

In 1940, the federal government required a Detroit builder to construct a six-foot-high, half-mile-long, north-south concrete wall. The express purpose was to separate an all-white housing development he was constructing from an African-American neighborhood to its east. The builder would be approved for a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan guarantee he needed only if he complied with the government’s demand.

Today, most African Americans in every metropolitan area remain residentially concentrated or entirely separate. That fact underlies or exacerbates many of the nation’s most serious social and economic problems, from relatively low intergenerational mobility to the disproportionate prevalence of hostile encounters between police and disadvantaged black youths in neighborhoods without access to good jobs. The Detroit wall offers a striking illustration of an underappreciated truth about this shameful situation: Racial segregation in America was, to a large degree, engineered by policy makers in Washington, writes Richard Rothstein.

View this article.

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“Probably Nothing…”

Please be advised, the following two charts may not be good for your wealth…

The almost unprecedented surge in stocks off the Mnuchin Massacre lows that bracketed Xmas Day has reinvigorated investors, commission-takers, and asset-gatherers worldwide in some Pavlovian belief that all is well in the world once again and it’s just a matter of time before wealth is back at record highs and retirement walks along sandy beaches are being advertised on TV.

Sadly, as the following two charts show… there’s no ‘there’, there.

While investors wish that three weeks of gains for the Stoxx Europe 600 meant that the market was getting ready for a stellar earnings season? Here’s the reality: neither investors nor analysts are expecting much good news from European companies…

In fact, European profit downgrades exceeded upgrades by the most since 2011.

We can see what happens when stocks attempt to “know better” than the earnings estimates.

“Market sentiment on earnings is cautious and fourth-quarter results are widely expected to disappoint,” said Emmanuel Cau, head of European equity strategy at Barclays Plc in London.

“Fourth-quarter estimates have been lowered and the sharp p/e de-rating of 2018 lowers the bar for positive surprises, but we believe that full-year 2019 estimates are still too high and will see further downgrades.“

And US markets are no cleaner a dirty shirt to pin your hopes on as forward earnings expectations have plummeted (and continue to plummet) despite the v-shaped recovery in stock prices…

So, hey, BTFD, why not? Everyone else is doing it… after all, the slump in earnings expectations is “probably nothing.”

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Blain: “China Is Juggling Half A Dozen Flaming Hand Grenades While Walking On A High Wire”

Blain’s Morning Porridge, submitted by Bill Blain

I got up early to see the Super Blood Wolf Moon this morning. It hung in the western sky, a baleful dark pink ball in the sky – caused by the earth eclipsing the moon. Reading the headlines about Chinese growth this morning – annual growth at 6.6% is the slowest since 1990 – I can’t help but wonder if the Blood Moon was trying to tell us something? (Its going to be a quietish day – US closed for Martin Luther King holiday. Actually US is closed anyway.)

Wow: 6.6% Chinese growth? Any occidental economy would rejoice to even achieve half that number. What’s to worry about?
Well… quite a lot.

Taken at face value, there is nothing particular in China to cause undue concern. The slowdown can be explained in terms of weaker than expected numbers reflecting businesses scaling back to counter any negative trade war events, related knocks to consumer and business confidence, slowing orders for consumer tech (like falling iPhone orders), and are all a natural reflection of the cycle. (I was about to write business cycle – but I’m not sure that’s what it is.) For years the likelihood of China economic collapse of has been one of the most overstated market threats.

But the world is changing and evolving. It’s worth considering the whole picture and outlook for China in light of just how different the world functions today.

China is a state juggling half a dozen flaming hand grenades while walking on a high wire suspended above a pit of hungry tigers – just like any other government, attempting to deliver peace and prosperity. But, China’s basis is very different to other economies, and it’s now approaching a critical period in its history – the next few years could see China evolve into something very much darker and different.

The reality behind 6.6% China growth is an economy now showing signs of deep internalised trouble. The party has to balance a host of factors from last week’s liquidity injection to stall a credit/debt crisis, the consequences of long-term out of control local government spending, environmental degradation, while managing the implicit pact with the population to provide rising living standards, jobs, accommodation and wealth in return for citizens turning a blind eye to repressive government. If that pact between state and citizens fractures, then tanks on Tiananmen square will be the least of China’s worries.

China is learning that controlling an economy is a very difficult thing. It sorts of works in the West because political competition ensures the rule of law as a check and balance – if politicians or businesses cheat, they tend to get caught and punished. A lack of political completion breeds corruption – and that remains the key reason why Socialist/Communist economies have failed to deliver socialist paradises and become kleptocracies instead. It’s basic human nature.

(If you want a quick primer on the reality of state institutionalised corruption in China – read some banned books. I’d recommend “China Dream” by dissident Ma Jian. It’s a fascinating (and entertaining) insight into the failures of the cadre economy.)

The current “slowdown” in China reflects the difficulties in managing a state controlled economy. Give them credit. China’s state economy has lasted longer and been stronger than other Soviet economies because it successfully mixed an element of private enterprise into the system. Interestingly, the fledgling USSR tried to do something similar in the early post-Civil War 1920s when Lenin’s New Economic Policy was launched to stimulate private enterprise, especially in agriculture. But it was swiftly reversed by Stalin who mounted pogroms against the rich “Kulack” peasants, and purges across the party to strengthen his own position at the cost of plunging the state into famine and a stagnation some economists believe still influences Russian business today.  

Chinese premier Xi knows how difficult keeping China in balance will be. He’s very aware that it might be a very small move in expectations and delivery that pushes the State/Citizen balance over the tipping point – which is why his short term goal will be to avoid a damaging trade war with the US that could trigger domestic strife. Xi’s primary objective will be accommodation with the US to avoid further economic sentiment shifts – expect China to settle with Trump. They don’t want to “lose face” – but they will basically accept all the US demands in manner that looks like a fairly negotiated settlement. Place your bet’s accordingly.  

However, its more complex than just trade agreements. In the medium Term Xi is fighting a desperate battle to secure and enhance his position and reign back the communist party’s excesses – to fight corruption in the only way he believes China will understand: by being a strong dictator. He is not as secure as many in the West believe. Hence the recent moves towards a “cult of Xi” reviving memories of the Maoist era. It looks to the West that he is in control of the state, but experienced China hands tell me his control of the state is far less secure that any previous Chinese leader – there is a serious likelihood that any breakdown in the implicit state-citizen pact will be met with extreme violence, and Xi will be the fall-guy.

But, this get’s even more complex: Long-Term, China may be in a far stronger position – and that’s because of Tech. While the West agonises about how social media and big data might be abused and misused, the Chinese have no such civil-liberty foibles. Their tech-environment is now providing the data and direct oversight of individuals to enable a far more effective and functional secret police run state. The kind of data oversight available to the Chinese state will enable it to keep the lid of the populace, and even – if they so choose – state corruption. That could be a complete game changer for China – and for any tin-pot dictators in Asia, Africa, Lat Am, and Extended Europe who the Chinese sell the system to. (And, of course, anyone using such tech will effectively be selling their citizens’ data straight to Beijing.)

If this sounds far-fetched and too dystopian. then feel free to ignore my ramblings. But, what if I’m right? Huawei might be the tip of the real iceberg: China’s Tech vision versus the West.

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After Living Abroad, Kids Struggle With American Overparenting: New at Reason

When Jean Phillipson’s family returned to Fairfax, Virginia, after living in Bolivia, the main thing her 10-year-old son complained about was the bus ride home from school. “He wasn’t allowed to have a pencil out,” says the mom of three, “because it was considered unsafe.”

Welcome back, kid, to the land of the outlandishly cautious, writes Lenore Skenazy.

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IMF Slashes Global GDP Forecast To 3 Year Low

Just as it warned it would several days ago, as part of its latest quarterly economic outlook report the IMF just slashed its forecast for 2019 global GDP to just 3.5% from 3.7% as of October, its lowest forecast in three years, while warning that trade tensions pose further downside risks to global growth.

In its second growth downgrade in three months, the IMF blamed softening demand across Europe and recent stock market volatility, and while its US GDP forecast remained somewhat surprisingly unchange, still seeing a solid 2.5% in 2019 GDP growth, the IMF took a machete to its German GDP forecast, which the IMF now sees growth only 1.3% this year, down 30%, or 0.6% from its forecast last October. The Monetary Fund blamed soft consumer demand and weak factory production after the introduction of stricter emission standards for cars was behind the shift. To be sure, recent German economic data has been disastrous, and confirmed the sharp slowdown in the economy, and it will be up to Q1 data to confirm or deny whether a German recession has arrived.

Despite seeing sharp slowdowns to other key European economies, including Italy, where it cited weak demand and higher sovereign borrowing costs, and France, where the so-called Yellow-Vest protests have hurt the economy…

… the overall outlook was somewhat more upbeat than some had feared especially as many investors openly fear a U.S-led slowdown taking hold, the fund left its projections for the U.S. and China unchanged and even anticipates a pickup in worldwide expansion to 3.6 percent next year.

Nonetheless, risks “tilt to the downside” said the IMF just hours after China revealed the slowest expansion since 2009 last quarter. It will set the tone for this week’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

“The global growth forecast for 2019 and 2020 had already been revised downward in the last WEO, partly because of the negative effects of tariff increases enacted in the United States and China earlier that year” the report said.

“The further downward revision since October in part reflects carry over from softer momentum in the second half of 2018—including in Germany following the introduction of new automobile fuel emission standards and in Italy where concerns about sovereign and financial risks have weighed on domestic demand—but also weakening financial market sentiment as well as a contraction in Turkey now projected to be deeper than anticipated.”

“It is important to take stock of the many rising risks,” said Gita Gopinath, the fund’s new chief economist.

The IMF also said that “a range of triggers beyond escalating trade tensions could spark a further deterioration in risk sentiment with adverse growth implications, especially given the high levels of public and private debt. These potential triggers include a “no-deal” withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union and a greater-than-envisaged slowdown in China.”

Among the threats cited in the report were more trade tariffs, a renewed tightening of financial conditions, a “no deal” Brexit and a deeper-than-anticipated slowdown in China. And while some of the key issues the IMF flagged in Europe may be temporary, the IMF said that they came amid a backdrop of global trade policy uncertainty and concerns about China’s outlook.

“The possibility of tensions resurfacing in the Spring casts a shadow over global economic prospects,” the IMF said, which also predicted that global trade will grow by 4.0% in 2019 and remain unchanged in 2020, a 0.1% cut from its prior forecast. As recently as 2017, the IMF predicted global trade would grow 5.3%.

In addition to slashing Europe’s GDP prospects, the IMF also cut Mexico’s GDP by up to half a percentage point, while admitting that the slump in Venezuela may be deeper than previously anticipated.

While the IMF’s U.S. forecast was unchanged at 2.5% in 2019, it said growth in the world’s biggest economy will cool to 1.8% in 2020 as stimulus from tax cuts fades and the economy responds to higher Federal Reserve interest rates.

Finally, as for China, the IMF still expects GDP to grow 6.2% in 2019 after 6.6% in 2018 – the lowest since 1990 – and to continue slowing due to the trade war and the government’s failing attempts to reduce systemic leverage.

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The ‘Gilets Jaunes’ Are Unstoppable: “Now, The Elites Are Afraid”

Authored by Christophe Guilluy via Spiked-Online.com,

The gilets jaunes (yellow vest) movement has rattled the French establishment. For several months, crowds ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands have been taking to the streets every weekend across the whole of France. They have had enormous success, extracting major concessions from the government. They continue to march.

Back in 2014, geographer Christopher Guilluy’s study of la France périphérique (peripheral France) caused a media sensation. It drew attention to the economic, cultural and political exclusion of the working classes, most of whom now live outside the major cities. It highlighted the conditions that would later give rise to the yellow-vest phenomenon. Guilluy has developed on these themes in his recent books, No Society and The Twilight of the Elite: Prosperity, the Periphery and the Future of France. spiked caught up with Guilluy to get his view on the causes and consequences of the yellow-vest movement.

spiked: What exactly do you mean by ‘peripheral France’?

Christophe Guilluy: ‘Peripheral France’ is about the geographic distribution of the working classes across France. Fifteen years ago, I noticed that the majority of working-class people actually live very far away from the major globalised cities – far from Paris, Lyon and Toulouse, and also very far from London and New York.

Technically, our globalised economic model performs well. It produces a lot of wealth. But it doesn’t need the majority of the population to function. It has no real need for the manual workers, labourers and even small-business owners outside of the big cities. Paris creates enough wealth for the whole of France, and London does the same in Britain. But you cannot build a society around this. The gilets jaunes is a revolt of the working classes who live in these places.

They tend to be people in work, but who don’t earn very much, between 1000€ and 2000€ per month. Some of them are very poor if they are unemployed. Others were once middle-class. What they all have in common is that they live in areas where there is hardly any work left. They know that even if they have a job today, they could lose it tomorrow and they won’t find anything else.

spiked: What is the role of culture in the yellow-vest movement?

Guilluy: Not only does peripheral France fare badly in the modern economy, it is also culturally misunderstood by the elite. The yellow-vest movement is a truly 21st-century movement in that it is cultural as well as political. Cultural validation is extremely important in our era.

One illustration of this cultural divide is that most modern, progressive social movements and protests are quickly endorsed by celebrities, actors, the media and the intellectuals. But none of them approve of the gilets jaunes. Their emergence has caused a kind of psychological shock to the cultural establishment. It is exactly the same shock that the British elites experienced with the Brexit vote and that they are still experiencing now, three years later.

The Brexit vote had a lot to do with culture, too, I think. It was more than just the question of leaving the EU. Many voters wanted to remind the political class that they exist. That’s what French people are using the gilets jaunes for – to say we exist. We are seeing the same phenomenon in populist revolts across the world.

spiked: How have the working-classes come to be excluded?

Guilluy: All the growth and dynamism is in the major cities, but people cannot just move there. The cities are inaccessible, particularly thanks to mounting housing costs. The big cities today are like medieval citadels. It is like we are going back to the city-states of the Middle Ages. Funnily enough, Paris is going to start charging people for entry, just like the excise duties you used to have to pay to enter a town in the Middle Ages.

The cities themselves have become very unequal, too. The Parisian economy needs executives and qualified professionals. It also needs workers, predominantly immigrants, for the construction industry and catering et cetera. Business relies on this very specific demographic mix. The problem is that ‘the people’ outside of this still exist. In fact, ‘Peripheral France’ actually encompasses the majority of French people.

spiked: What role has the liberal metropolitan elite played in this?

Guilluy: We have a new bourgeoisie, but because they are very cool and progressive, it creates the impression that there is no class conflict anymore. It is really difficult to oppose the hipsters when they say they care about the poor and about minorities.

But actually, they are very much complicit in relegating the working classes to the sidelines. Not only do they benefit enormously from the globalised economy, but they have also produced a dominant cultural discourse which ostracises working-class people. Think of the ‘deplorables’ evoked by Hillary Clinton. There is a similar view of the working class in France and Britain. They are looked upon as if they are some kind of Amazonian tribe. The problem for the elites is that it is a very big tribe.

The middle-class reaction to the yellow vests has been telling. Immediately, the protesters were denounced as xenophobes, anti-Semites and homophobes. The elites present themselves as anti-fascist and anti-racist but this is merely a way of defending their class interests. It is the only argument they can muster to defend their status, but it is not working anymore.

Now the elites are afraid. For the first time, there is a movement which cannot be controlled through the normal political mechanisms. The gilets jaunes didn’t emerge from the trade unions or the political parties. It cannot be stopped. There is no ‘off’ button. Either the intelligentsia will be forced to properly acknowledge the existence of these people, or they will have to opt for a kind of soft totalitarianism.

A lot has been made of the fact that the yellow vests’ demands vary a great deal. But above all, it’s a demand for democracy. Fundamentally, they are democrats – they want to be taken seriously and they want to be integrated into the economic order.

spiked: How can we begin to address these demands?

Guilluy: First of all, the bourgeoisie needs a cultural revolution, particularly in universities and in the media. They need to stop insulting the working class, to stop thinking of all the gilets jaunes as imbeciles.

Cultural respect is fundamental: there will be no economic or political integration until there is cultural integration. Then, of course, we need to think differently about the economy. That means dispensing with neoliberal dogma. We need to think beyond Paris, London and New York.

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