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Authored by J.G.Martinez D. via The Organic Prepper blog,

There have been a lot of things going on lately. The massive demonstrations in support to our Constitutional president Juan Guaido have unchained a LOT of repression and retaliation by those trying to avoid the dismemberment of the last stronghold of the Maduro and Castro gangs.

This is inevitable though. The suffering has been unbelievable and the cost in human lives, too high for those responsible to achieve some kind of agreement.

The media is trying to hide the truth about what’s really going on.

Lots of rumors have been plaguing the social networks. The media are not broadcasting anything that could compromise them. There is a TOTAL media blackout. The institution created by Hugo Chavez as a means to censure and control the media, CONATEL, has issued a prohibition of the name of the president under severe penalties.

The control of the people by force is achieving levels only seen in other countries, like the civil war in Guatemala or Nicaragua. There have been random (and some of them very calculated) kidnappings, children 13 and 14 years old being imprisoned, including girls, it has been quite messy.

There are lots of rumors in the social networks and the information has to be carefully picked up.

All of this confirms that our institutions, ALL OF THEM have been infiltrated, and they are under the control of people obeying foreign interests. Our officers of all ranks are being held hostage, and getting under prison without warning, based only on suspicious behavior. Generals and colonels included. Troops have NO ACCESS TO AMMO and this is an act of war.

In time, the role of Cuba will come to light on all this. There is enough evidence and testimony about how they controlled and provided advice so the gang could band together and implement a spying system to get all of the military under their iron fist. Nothing new here, indeed. KGB did this successfully for 50 years in the former URSS. Their Caribbean version, though, is going to be crushed in this next few days.

The situation has become a lot more dangerous and people are being warned to stay home.

There are some strong warnings to the citizens: avoid to leave home unless necessary, and keep a low profile on the streets. This situation can be easily turned into messy bloodshed if some thug too high on coke happens to squeeze the trigger and shoots a foreign trooper.

I have been told that in some places (especially Caracas) there are VStroms (all-terrain bike patrols) all over the place, with one soldier armed in the backseat. I mean hordes of them. I have seen videos with 30 or 35 bikes roaming, as a minimum. And as usual, the gangs called Colectivos are intended to pacify the streets, shooting to the demonstrations and creating chaos. However…the last demonstrations have been MASSIVE. I am pretty sure that some record has been broken this time in the area of human concentration.

All of this has roots back in time. Cuba has tried to influence throughout many years in our country. They needed desperately access to our resources. Especially after the Special Period, the so-called famine episode that they experienced after the fall of the Soviet world. They hated Venezuela because of our wealthy land, our excess of resources, and mostly, our happiness.

I had personal friendly relationships (at first) with some people that were in charge of the transportation of medical personnel, back in its time. They told that many of them were not specialists at all and that their criticism to our way of life was especially poisonous. Even our taste for good food, whiskey, and imported perfumes was something these guys saw with bad eyes.

WTF? I mean, you´re in a foreign country, supposedly assisting poor people in their health…and talk crap about how we like to live?… Come on. This was just an indication about what was about to come.

There are people who want to trick us into enslavement.

There is already a precedent of this animosity against my noble country. They tried to invade via the Bahia of Machurucuto, in the coastal line, back in the 60s. The population of a small town called the National Army and they were absolutely defeated. Their number seems now a joke, but the mere attempt says a lot about that.

Some people of that town remembers their words: ”we come to give you freedom”…but they lied. They came to enslave us.

This was a general trend, and it was the golden age of the guerrilla forces. They had agents recruiting in our state universities, taking advantage of the system, and using them as conspirative centers. One of the most acknowledged military leaders of the country, Carlos Peñaloza, knows the history. His videos are on the web. Activate the translation and you will see what he has to say. He also has a book written in Spanish.

If you need any help with this, I could write an entire article just translating that video. It has lots of important information to describe how deep and how long ago was this infiltration of our system and institutions. There was a lot of permissivity here.

I remember having read that some time before El Caracazo, one of the worst internal conflicts in Caracas and the country…we had the “visit” of the infamous Fidel, and rumors are that some of the members of his gang were left behind to assist the left in the preparation of that attack.

I strongly believe now in this, because I remember some university buddies mentioning the high level of organization that some barrios that opposed to the army presented, and the training in shooting war weaponry. They were there and saw everything, and I trust in their word.

This was the mistake that allowed it all to happen.

This was one of the worst mistakes in all this chain of events that led to the arrival of Hugo to the chair. Yes, he had formidable support, as a person of supposed integrity and coming from humble origins. But he used the trust of the people, turning against ourselves, and making a mess of a miserable military barracks what was once a decent country to live in, albeit harmed by corruption, that had been permeating all layers of our society.

The lack of seriousness, despite being one of our best character traits, played all these years against us. If there is something we are guilty of, is that and I acknowledge to it. Another trait could be a chronic lack of planning for the future. I don’t conceive a prepper in Venezuela (but, again, I am not your typical Venezuelan anymore), and talking to some people about crisis and how to prepare, I just received collective bullying and jokes. I am the one now with my family well-fed and with a roof over their heads without having to make too much more than regular activities just like anybody else, and much more comfortable.

People are afraid to leave their homes and stores are not open at night.

This said, in my old neighborhood, there is a local shutdown. Shops around my subdivision are closed, and opening a few hours before night arrives. People are hunkering down in their homes, only visiting each other inside their same enclosed subdivision. I guess more than one who was disobedient of the disarm law is preparing a good arsenal, provided that some thugs come to knock on their doors.

A person whom I contacted just today in Caracas told me that there is a very strange environment. People in the streets, mostly in the demonstrations, yes, lots of people. But there are some places almost empty, and the feeling is someone she never had felt. In the parks, there were not even birds in the trees. Told her that Mother Nature is wise, and perhaps they knew something was about to come.

There was a nasty rumor about children being kidnapped by the NGs, and it has not been confirmed so far. Foreign intelligence seems to be working extra hours. They should look for improving their escape plans, because the number of people who are going to be after them once some armed support is provided, will make Libyan unrest look like a picnic. There are enough people harmed by the brutality of those holding the guns. If they have resisted this far, is because what will happen once their show weakness.

Even the military is being controlled and is not being given ammo.

Another report I have that perhaps help to those skeptics to understand why the Army has not responded, and it is because the control of the ammo is total. The regular troopers are not receiving ammunition. Sometimes they use the AKs to control people, but their mags are empty.

Shotgun shells and tear gas are distributed only to some specific personnel. That reinforces the theory that says many of them are convicts, taken out from the jails to do the dirty job that officers don’t want to do (but I am sure that more than one LEO is guilty of shooting). With a minister of prisons like that woman (won’t type her name, but you could google it) anything is possible.

Going back on topic, this lack of ammo is what has slowed down (but not stopped) the military personnel to offer resistance. I am more than sure that if “someone” makes available a lot of AK ammo to a good portion of middle-rank officers, they would use it wisely.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Gqyqsv Tyler Durden

Despite reportedly “walking a mile a day” and making her first appearance on Monday since undergoing lung cancer surgery in December, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will skip President Trump’s State of the Union Address Tuesday night. 

According to the Supreme Court’s Public Information Office, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Kagen, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will be in attendance. 

That said, it’s not uncommon for Supreme Court Justices to miss the State of the Union. Both Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas haven’t attended in years, while the late Antonin Scalia was a frequent no-show. 

Ginsburg attended each of Obama’s addresses – dozing off at times (and admitting later she was not “100 percent sober,” however she also skipped Trump’s 2018 address last year, and refused to attend all of President Bush’s from 2001 – 2008. 

Out and about?

According to the Washington Post, Ginsburg, 85, attended a production of “Notorious RBG in Song” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington. 

While pictures of Ginsburg’s attendance have yet to emerge, the Post writes that she sat in the back, “did not speak, and many in the crowd did not know she was there.” 

Ginsburg’s daughter-in-law, soprano Patrice Michaels, did not announce her presence. 

While Ginsburg can point to last year’s decision no to attend, many are now openly calling for “proof of life,” as the oldest justice on the Supreme Court has failed to attend oral arguments since the beginning of January – and skipped an appearance scheduled for January 29. 

It seems odd that she would pull out of the event despite her son telling Monday night’s audience she’s allegedly walking a mile per day and meeting with a personal trainer twice a week. Until she makes some sort of an appearance and can – at minimum, prove she is of sound mind, questions will remain over the health of the “Notorious RBG.” 

This is what I’ve said. Anything short of a visual and vocal interactive at this point proves nothing. https://t.co/1INWBvqoTd

— Keith Barrett (@KeithBarrett) February 5, 2019

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HUpIFq Tyler Durden

Authored and submitted by Al-Masdar News

The U.S. military commander overseeing American troops in the Middle East told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that he was not consulted ahead of President Donald Trump’s surprise decision in December to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.

“I was not consulted,” said U.S. General Joseph Votel, head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, while acknowledging Trump had publicly expressed a desire to leave Syria at some point.

The disclosure came as Votel warned about an enduring threat from the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq that he says will persist following a U.S. withdrawal.

However, Trump’s withdrawal decision has been under scrutiny since his announcement in December, with several politicians, including many Republicans, criticizing the move.

Meanwhile, the United States has shored up its presence in Syria ahead of the planned draw down, transferring about 150 trucks and armoured vehicles and mobile generators to northeast Syria from neighboring Iraq, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency has reported, citing local sources.

According to Anadolu’s sources, the vehicles made their way into Kurdish-controlled areas of northeast Syria on Monday night, crossing the Simelka checkpoint along the Syrian-Iraqi border, and arriving at a US Armed Forces logistics center in Syria’s Kharab Ishq and Sirrin on Tuesday.

Unconfirmed video footage of the transfer of the vehicles has been published on social media. According to Turkish sources: “The US is continuing to assist the separatist terrorist PKK organization in northern Syria. Video of the latest convoy sent. No camouflage. They’re out in the open now.”

Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, bölücü terör örgütü PKK’ya Suriye’nin kuzeyinde yardım etmeye devam ediyor. Gönderilen son konvoyun videosu.

Herhangi bir kamufle yok. Açık açık yapıyorlar artık. pic.twitter.com/eZGNjUOUQi

— Ragnar (@Lothbrok29) February 5, 2019

The video shows generators and construction equipment, Humvees, and Toyota pickup trucks carried by transport trucks.

President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw the contingent of 2,000 US troops from Syria in December, citing the imminent defeat of ISIS and his campaign promise to bring the US home from “endless wars” in the Middle East.

Earlier Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that no satisfactory arrangement had been made with Washington on the creation of a safe zone in northern Syria, and warned that Turkish patience was running out.

Erdogan stressed that if Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara considers terrorists, were not removed from Syria’s Manbij in a two weeks’ time, Turkey would “take steps to eliminate the threats to national security.”

Last month, commenting on US-Turkish negotiations surrounding a proposed 30-kilometer’ buffer zone’ in Syria between Turkish and Kurdish forces, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that any agreement involving Syrian territory must include an agreement from Damascus.

Damascus has rejected the safe zone idea, accusing Ankara of turning “a blind eye to the international resolutions which have always affirmed respect for Syrian territorial integrity.”

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2UJfbOR Tyler Durden

We recently discussed the dismal sales start for the US automobile industry in 2019. Now, a follow up by the WSJ paints an even more pessimistic picture for the start of February.

According to the report, dealers are starting 2019 with a growing surplus of inventory of unsold vehicles, which will likely pressure them to cut output: there were 3.95 million vehicles in lots at the end of January, a 4% increase from December and up nearly 3% from last January.

And even though seasonality exists in the industry and the winter is traditionally slower for automotive sales, the inventory build up could be problematic because dealers are starting the year with more unsold inventory than they had when auto sales peaked three years ago. Back then, 17.55 million cars were sold and now, while the latest estimates expect less than 17 million vehicles to be sold in 2019.

In response to the production glut, we already documented over the weekend that General Motors is slashing thousands of jobs across its North American factories. Meanwhile, Ford has worked to phase out slow selling sedans and shift its production to SUVs. This follows a strong year which saw 17.3 million sales in 2018, better than estimated. Alas, starting 2019 the trend has reversed, and auto sales were down 1% and passenger sales, including sedans, were down 4% last month. This continues amid a shift from sedans to SUVs.

As noted previously, auto companies were also relying on fleet sales to keep results looking good. Fleet sales and rental car sales are some of the last channels that auto companies have to try and juice results. Mark Wakefield, a co-head for the automotive practice at distressed consulting firm AlixPartners called this move a “short term band-aid”. 

And yet, despite the clear industry headwinds, the plan still is to build about 17 million cars in North America this year, with most of those destined for the United States. And manufacturers continue to try to avoid heavy discounting to sell vehicles: the industry spent about $3720 per vehicle in January to incentivize sales, which was down $140 from the prior year’s record incentives.

In order to avoid offering discounts, automakers are going to have to trim production. But that, again, flies in the face of how many new model launches are planned for this year. There are 48 new model launches planned for the US this year, which is up from 46 last year and 36 five years ago. Dealers believe that manufacturers are simply being too optimistic about the upcoming year.

David Rosenberg, chief executive for New England dealership chain Prime Automotive Group said: “There is an oversupply of new products, but not everyone is going to achieve their sales targets.”

Separately, Ryan Gremore, president of the O’Brien Auto Team, which is a dealership chain in Illinois, Florida and Kentucky, echoed these sentiments and assigned the blame on, who else, the Fed and its near-decade low interest rate which have conditioned consumers to only expect the lowest possible rates: “We’ve carried too much inventory because we’ve been conditioned at artificial rates.”

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2GbHvq2 Tyler Durden

Authored by Adrian Zmudzinski via CoinTelegraph.com,

Four banks in the Islamic Republic of Iran have developed a gold-backed cryptocurrency called PayMon, financial news website Financial Tribune reported on Jan. 30.

image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

According to the article, the crypto asset has been developed in cooperation with the Parsian Bank, the Bank Pasargad, Bank Melli Iran and Bank Mellat. Iran Fara Bourse, an over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency exchange, will reportedly list the new cryptocurrency.

The director of Kuknos, the blockchain company taking care of the technical aspects, said that the new crypto asset is a way to tokenize assets and excess properties of the banks.

A billion PayMon tokens will be initially released, according to the article.

As Cointelegraph recently reported, Iran is allegedly negotiating with Switzerland, South Africa, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria, Germany and Bosnia to carry out financial transactions in cryptocurrency.

Recently, rumors spread that Iran could unveil its state-backed cryptocurrency at the Electronic Banking and Payment Systems conference that took place last week in Tehran, but the announcement has not been made as of press time. In July 2018, it was reported that the country confirmed that it will create its own state-issued cryptocurrency to circumvent United Statessanctions.

At the end of this January, Iranian lawmakers noted that they would seek to introduce legislation to block the use of crypto for payments inside the country and keep citizens from having significant holdings.

In December last year, Cointelegraph reported that Alireza Daliri, deputy for management development and resources at the vice presidency for science and technology, said that blockchaincan help improve the country’s national economy.

image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

In a similar move, Venezuela launched its oil-backed cryptocurrency, Petro, in October of last year. However, it is unclear which exchanges the coin is currently trading on, and critics have pointed outthat the oil-fields that purportedly back Petro show little signs of activity.

Finally, CoinDesk notes that last month saw US lawmakers introduce bills against Iran’s efforts to create a sovereign cryptocurrency.

Portions of the Blocking Iran Illicit Finance Act, introduced by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.), called for an investigation into Iran’s crypto efforts. A corresponding bill was submitted in the Senate by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). The proposals call for sanctions against those who knowingly provide Iran with funding, services or “technological support, used in connection with the development of Iranian digital currency.”

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2DWlTvw Tyler Durden

For those who missed it, Joe Rogan had Bari Weiss on “The Joe Rogan Experience” two weeks ago – where he took the New York Times’ journalist to task in real time as she fumbled over facts, figures, and using a word without knowing what it means.

Weiss, a vocal critic of Donald Trump was attempting to smear Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who is quite possibly the largest threat to establishment Democrats in 2020 for her staunch “anti-interventionist” foreign policy agenda and populist views on the economy. 

Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, took heat over a January 2017 trip to Syria, where she met with President Bashar al-Assad in what she said was an unplanned trip approved by the House Ethics Committee. For this, Gabbard has been mercilessly smeared by the establishment media – which has published blatant propaganda painting her as a Kremlin stooge. 

When Weiss tried to promote similar disinformation about Gabbard – claiming she is an “Assad Toady,” Rogan didn’t let her toe the line – asking her “what does that mean?” in reference to the word “Toady.” 

Weiss, perhaps used to milquetoast NPR hosts, wasn’t prepared for the pushback – fumbling around for an explanation of what a “Toady” is – even spelling it wrong in the process. 

“No, I think it’s like, uh… T-O-A-D-I-E. I think it means what I think it means…” stammered the New York Times journalist. 

Neocon NY Times columnist Bari Weiss smeared Tulsi Gabbard (who bravely opposed regime change and US support for Salafi-jihadist contras) as an “Assad toady,” then couldn’t spell/define toady or offer any evidence to prove her smear. Embarrassingly funnypic.twitter.com/m0MLaHFPiX

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 22, 2019

Rogan informs Weiss that a Toady is a “sycophant,” and then asks her what qualifies Gabbard as a “sycophant”? To which Weiss replies: “I don’t remember the details.” 

What’s pitiful is this is the best the US corporate media can offer. Bari Weiss, in all of her bold inanity and hilarious ignorance, was the NYT’s eleventh-hour attempt to salvage neoconservatism for a new generation, before this rotting empire exhales its last gasp and implodes.

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 22, 2019

Enter Jimmy Dore

While Rogan’s pushback of Weiss was indeed devastating – progressive populist comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore absolutely dismantled Weiss on Monday’s edition of The Jimmy Dore Show. Yes, this is all a bit meta – but it’s worth watching Dore and his guests perform a brutal dissection of Weiss’s appearance that’s worth 18 minutes of your time. 

Dore – who criticised NBC News over an anti-Gabbard report which relied on a Democrat-run firm that created fake Russian twitter bots to smear Republican Roy Moore in the 2017 Alabama special election, has come under fire himself for criticizing the obvious propaganda. 

After Dore called out Russiagater Caroline Orr for her criticism of Gabbard, Orr tweeted “I wouldn’t doubt it if Jimmy Dore was a Russian asset.”

I wouldn’t doubt it if Jimmy Dore was a Russian asset. Why else would he drag my name in the mud and misquote me when I said that Russian trolls are fueling the fire and radicalizing people online, which has been in @washingtonpost. It’s all so insidious. Be careful, friends.

— Jena Friedman (@JenaFriedman) February 3, 2019

Apparently anyone who doesn’t conform to pro-war establishment narratives is a Russian stooge.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2TCDhuI Tyler Durden

Authored by Mark Glennon via WirePoints.com,

Are they wrong now or were they wrong then? Today, they say the opposite of what they told the public and the courts five years ago…

Governor J.B. Pritzker has made his position clear on pensions: No benefit reductions. No reforms. Not necessary. Just pay them. Nobody in his Democratic party has voiced any dissent and they hold super-majorities in both the House and the Senate.

But consider what the state argued in court and the General Assembly said in legislative findings five years ago to defend SB-1, a pension reform bill: Benefit reductions, not tax increases, were essential. That was in 2014 when Democrats also held the governorship and supermajorities in the legislature.

Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan, daughter of the House speaker, made the case. The pension problem and the fiscal crisis it caused were so severe that the rarely used “police power” doctrine justified cutting pensions, as SB-1 would have done, overriding the state’s constitutional pension protection clause. Her court pleadings were based on extensive analyses completed by three economists she offered as expert witnesses.

Her case was based on the same points that financial realists and pension critics had been saying all along – that increasing taxes or cutting services instead of cutting some benefits would worsen the flight of employers from the state and devastate the poor. Our article on her arguments from that time is linked here. Today, that article reads as if Madigan was prescient.

She and her economists got specific:

• Raising taxes instead of making the pension cuts under SB-1 wasn’t a workable alternative, they told the courts. Doing so would reduce economic activity in Illinois by 1.1% and cost the state 64,000 jobs, “economically disadvantaging Illinois and worsening its competitive position.”

• If the state tried to pay for pensions through spending cuts instead of higher taxes, cuts would hurt those most economically disadvantaged, they argued, hitting education, healthcare and social programs.

• Respecting the flight of employers from Illinois, they said it was not the big corporate headquarters with well paid executives that were most subject to flight. Instead, manufacturers and transportation companies providing living wage jobs were most at risk.

Madigan also cited one of the express findings by the General Assembly, contained in SB-1:

Having considered other changes that would not involve changes to the retirement system, the General Assembly has determined that the fiscal problems facing the state and its retirement systems cannot be solved without making some changes to the structure of the retirement systems. [Emphasis added.]

Today, those and any other structural changes are off the table entirely.

In the five years since Madigan and the General Assembly said the pension problem was insoluble without benefit reductions, unfunded pension liabilities have grown another 30%. The unfunded healthcare liability for state pensioners has grown 37%. State government’s Net Position — basically, its net worth – plummeted $70 billion further into the red. Population shrinkage began five years ago and accelerated each year since.

Attorney General Madigan could have made her case much stronger. She and her economists ignored that unfunded retiree healthcare liability, which is also constitutionally protected. It’s $73 billion today. They also ignored the state’s 660 local pensions and the fiscal mess at their level. That’s a  colossal omission because the state’s crisis is a consolidated one of overlapping taxpayer liabilities.

Arguing her case more capably, however, probably would not have made a difference because the Illinois Supreme Court ultimately chose to disregard the police power argument entirely (though the doctrine remains alive and well in Federal courts) and invalidated SB-1 in 2015.

But today, Pritzker and his party are unequivocally opposed a constitutional amendment to allow for benefit changes like SB-1 or anything else, or municipal bankruptcy that would give local government the option to make changes. (One exception is Chicago Mayoral candidate Bill Daley, who says it should be considered for city pensions.) Not even sham reform proposals like the “consideration model,” which might be constitutional, are being discussed.

So, were they wrong five years ago or wrong now? It’s actually not a serious question. Good luck solving what “cannot be solved” without benefit reforms.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Dela7h Tyler Durden

WTI turned lower today as traders weighed output cuts from OPEC and its partners against expectations for rising U.S. crude inventories and a slowing US services economy.

“My guess would be that some of the refiners may cut back on some of their runs so crude supply ought to build a bit” said Stewart Glickman, an energy equity analyst at CFRA Research. “They’re probably limited in their ability to substitute away from Venezuelan heavy crude”

API

• Crude +2.514mm (+1.5mm exp)

• Cushing +889k (+400k exp)

• Gasoline +1.731mm (+1.5mm exp)

• Distillates +1.141mm (-2mm exp)

A small crude build last week (and product draws) surprised traders and tonight’s API saw builds across all cohorts (with crude inventories rising more than expected)

 

WTI traded lower all afternoon, holding around $53.70 ahead of the API print and barely reacted to the builds…

“People are slowly getting nervous about the economy,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. “Everyone is worried that prices will be weaker than last year.”

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WJqrN3 Tyler Durden

Submitted by Michael Every of Rabobank

The State of the Union is the ostensible focus today. The State of the Disunion should be of equal importance. Let’s start with the US, where President Trump is going to wheel out that hoary old cliché “bipartisanship” when he speaks tonight. Achieving that in the current US political climate is a challenge, perhaps an even greater challenge than Nancy Pelosi will have in keeping a neutral face while she sits right behind him. Let’s listen for clues on a possible emergency being declared to “build the wall”, as well as what is going on re: meeting Xi and Kim in Da Nang, Vietnam, and on infrastructure: it still seems amazing that two years into a real-estate developer’s presidency the only thing being talked about being built is that wall.

Want another snap-shot of disunion? The good ship Brexit continues to trundle towards the 29 March iceberg with PM May’s “plan” being: (1) repeat the word “Brexit” every few hours; and (2) hope that at the last minute the EU blinks on the Irish border issue. That’s after experts stress that this won’t happen because bad as a Hard Brexit is–and it’s very bad–the idea of allowing a crack in the single market is infinitely worse for the EU. Meanwhile, having warned my mother to stock up on food just in case, she tells me her comfortably middle-class friends are stoically prepared to grow parsnips in their garden if needed. So Keep Calm and Carry On. Next week might see some movement in Parliament with the 14 February next ‘meaningful vote’, but lots of the population are moving towards the garden sheds to get a long-unused shovel. Need I add that the United Kingdom itself will look a lot less so in that scenario?

Of course, the European Union still isn’t looking too united itself. Perhaps it is in facing the UK. However, in terms of the liberal consensus there are clear emerging differences East vs. West. Moreover, even in the West there are deep divisions. President Macron of France has just held one of his new round of “town-hall ”meetings to try to get back in touch with citizens, and has admitted that there has been a “clear breakdown in equality” between the banlieues and wealthy suburbs, and the state must now “guarantee social justice”. That sounds expensive – but he followed that up by talking about cuts to public spending (Le face-palm). Macron also added that he had the “convictions” but not “all the solutions” – which is probably why his opinion poll ratings remain stuck around 25-35%, i.e., far lower than Donald Trump’s, while the far-right National Rally is now neck-and-neck with his La République En Marche in opinion polls for the EU elections in May.

Meanwhile, the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment published by the US Director of National Intelligence has re-categorised US–China relations as a global ideological struggle, stating China is seeking to propagate “authoritarian capitalism” to counter Western liberal democracy. Of course, the US National Defence Strategy already states that Great Power competition has returned, and that China is a “strategic rival”. Yet we now have the US admitting that there will be a “coming ideological battle” to boot. That is far more than a set of differences over tariffs or subsidies that can be settle transactionally. If the US authorities now see China is pushing for an authoritarian model globally that is inimical to US interests, how does it help the US to do a trade deal that allows said ideological system to survive and thrive? There’s no logic in it. In short, the business community and financial media can talk all they like about the opportunities for US business and investors in China, but US spies and its military are singing a very different song: there’s not much union in that approach. Would you care to take a bet on who wins? Because that’s what markets are going to have to do – and soon.

Indeed, I don’t think I am joining dots here as much as showing you the dots joining themselves when the Wall Street Journal carries a front-page expose “How China Pressured MSCI to Add Its Market to Major Benchmark”. That story underlines something I have been saying for some time: the MSCI decision to include China in its benchmark equity indices, despite the appalling behaviour during the 2015 crash (ban selling, freeze the market, censor news, arrest people saying negative things, etc.) and the absence of major reforms since, struck almost everyone who knows China has “dodgy” – and I can think of far worse adjectives to use. The WSJ now reports China effectively threatened MSCI with “business blackmail” to get what it wanted. Indeed, there remains no real argument that the inclusion decision was unjustified by fundamentals, which sounds eerily like allegations made against China vis-à-vis the WTO on trade policy (i.e., Made in China mercantilism) and the IMF in terms of the conditions for being a FX reserve currency (i.e., capital controls, which are never going away either, despite endless promises).

The key point: pressure is building on China in multiple dimensions. While the MSCI weighting so far has been very low, consider that this year it is expected to increase to as much as 15%, giving a green-light for a vast flow of FX into China’s USD7 trillion equity market….which is flat on its back, still as opaque as ever, seeing profit-warnings across the board, and facing an economic slump. Oh, and China itself is so desperate for foreign capital that it is already de facto printing money via perpetual bonds to recapitalise its banks. In short, China NEEDS that MSCI “insert money here” sign very, very badly. So badly it is alleged to have blackmailed them to get it.

Hypothetically, do you think that US intelligence and defence agencies saying China is a physical and ideological opponent, alongside the exposure of the questionable basis on which this MSCI approval for bailing out China was granted, might just mean there is a backlash from fund managers or an MSCI rethink ahead? Or that MSCI might have to come up with a global and a global ex-China benchmark, allowing people to decide how they want to allocate their capital more tactically/politically? (Which Bloomberg already seems to be doing with its new global aggregate bond indices that will be phased in from April.) Put together all this disunity and fleshing out sensible market trade patterns is not immediately evident given the complexity involved. But higher volatility is one theme; and lower CNY and so Asian FX, and higher USD, is another.

This morning also saw the release of the Australia Royal Banking Commission. Cynics argue its conclusions are: terrible things happened; nobody should be punished; and nothing needs to change. Others stress that the government can smell the way the political winds are blowing, and re-regulation is coming anyway. Most crucially, will it mean Aussie banks can start lending 10 times income multiples again for mortgages? Or pretend borrowers only spend only a tiny percentage of their income on anything other than mortgages? The fate of the Aussie housing market, and economy, depends on it. On which note, this morning’s trade and retail sales data saw the former a blockbuster at AUD3,681m vs. AUD2,225m expected, and the latter a shocker at -0.4% vs. flat expected, and for Q4 ex. inflation the print was 0.1% vs. 0.5% consensus, after 0.2% in Q3. In short, trade is doing well, for now, and the domestic economy is really not

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2GebvRS Tyler Durden