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Just days after North Korea said it would start dismantling its (potentially collapsed) nuclear test site, satellite images from The Wall Street Journal and 38 North show that, for now, Kim is living up to his word, removing buildings and “sanitizing” the site.

A satellite image captured Monday, indicating where buildings have been removed or are being removed at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear-test site.

While this makes for positive headlines, it is worth remembering that, as we noted previously, six months after a group of Chinese scientists warned that the North Korean Punggye-ri nuclear test site was on the verge of collapse, and following reports from Japan’s Asahi TV that more than 200 North Koreans had died when a tunnel collapsed at the test site, the South China Morning Post reported that North Korea’s mountain nuclear test site has completely collapsed, putting China and other nearby nations at unprecedented risk of radioactive exposure, two separate groups of Chinese scientists studying the issue have confirmed.

The collapse also likely explains the sudden willingness of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to declare last Friday that he would freeze the state’s nuclear and missile tests and shut down the site, a researcher cited by the SCMP said.

And now, as WSJ reports, North Korea has begun to remove buildings from around its nuclear-test site in a step toward dismantling the facility, new satellite imagery shows, as the regime seeks to build trust with the U.S. after declaring its nuclear arsenal complete.

Pyongyang appears to be “sanitizing” the site, at the foot of Mount Mantap in the country’s northeast, to protect secrets before journalists arrive, said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif.

Steps beyond dismantling Punggye-ri will be needed to demonstrate a bona fide commitment to denuclearize, said David Albright, founder of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

“Closing the Punggye-ri underground test site, while welcome, is not sufficient,” Mr. Albright said.

However, while several key operational support buildings, located just outside the North, West and South Portals, have been razed since our last analysis – with some of the rails for the mining carts, which had led from the tunnels to their respective spoil piles, have apparently been removed…

Significant changes took place at the North and South Portals between April 20 and May 7 consistent with site closing.

Before…

Source: 38North

After…

Source: 38North

But, 38North reports  that other more substantial buildings around the facility remain intact, including the two largest buildings at the Command Center, and the Main Administrative Support Area.

Support buildings at the Main Administrative Area have been taken down.

Before…

Source: 38North

After…

Source: 38North

Moreover, no tunnel entrances appear to have yet been permanently closed.

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Via CryptoFundResearch.com,

What are the top US cities for blockchain and cryptocurrency jobs? This question has been asked before, but never adequately answered. Previous attempts have focused solely on an analysis of internet job postings. But is a simple tally of job board postings truly the best and most complete way to evaluate the true climate for blockchain jobs? We didn’t think so. So we set off on a months-long mission to put together the most exhaustive and comprehensive ranking of the best US cities for blockchain jobs.

We utilized a data-driven approach consisting of an analysis of five key indicators of the overall health of blockchain job markets in more than 300 cities across the US.

We started by examining over 3 millions job listings across four sites and isolated blockchain-specific jobs. But this was the easy part and this factor makes up only 30% of our overall ranking.

Next, we evaluated cities by the number of top blockchain startups, the number of new blockchain companies in the last 120 days, the number of crypto funds, and the status of the overall employment market.  This results in a far more thorough and holistic examination of the current climate for blockchain jobs in each city, and also serves as an indicator for potential growth of the job market.

View Full Study Methodology

Blockchain Jobs Criteria

Job boards give an incomplete picture of a city’s true job market. Many companies don’t advertise on public boards and instead rely on headhunters, recruiters, and referrals. Job boards are also, at best, a static snapshot in time. A few companies engaging in a brief hiring spree may distort the findings.

Instead of relying purely on job board postings, we employed a multi-factor approach and examined five key indicators of the health of each city’s blockchain jobs market. Those factors are:

• # Blockchain Job Postings – 30%

• Top 300 Blockchain Companies (weighted) – 30%

• # of New Blockchain Startups in Last 120 Days – 10%

• Crypto Hedge Funds and Venture Capital – 20%

• Overall Health of Job Market – 10%

We feel this data-heavy, multi-factor approach gives a much more complete picture of the true vibrancy of a given blockchain job market than relying on job postings alone. The number of blockchain companies headquartered in each city is less prone to day-to-day gyrations than job postings and gives a macro view of the blockchain landscape. We supplement this with data on new blockchain startups from the last 120 days.

The number of crypto and blockchain funds, particularly venture capital, is a good indicator of investors’ outlook for the technology and blockchain sectors. Investors figuratively put their money where their mouth is. And if their money is in a given city, you can bet they see a strong future for growth. As an example of this phenomenon, Robinhood, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Palo Alto completed a $363 million Series A financing round in May 2018.  Four of the six investors were Bay Area venture firms.

Lastly, we look at employment numbers for each metropolitan area as a broader indicator of the health of each city’s employment market.

View Full Study Methodology Save & Exit

Top 20 US Cities for Blockchain Jobs

Enough about methodology, let’s get to the list of the top US cities for blockchain jobs:

Few will probably be surprised that New York and San Francisco lead the list of top cities for blockchain and cryptocurrency jobs. Both have thriving technology sectors, an abundance of talent from the top universities in close proximity, well developed financial and capital markets, and are generally viewed as desirable places to live.

That Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston round out the top five is also likely not a surprise for many of the same reasons. However, some may find Austin, TX coming in at number seven a bit unexpected. Yet Austin is quite deserving of this rank, placing among the top 10 in four of the five criteria.  Other cities making the top 20 that may not have been obvious contenders are Atlanta, Denver, Portland, and Nashville.

Eight of the top 20 cities for blockchain jobs are in the Bay Area. All have become hubs for technology companies over the last decade and it’s no shock that blockchain companies are opening up in an area with what’s arguably considered the most concentrated and developed technology ecosystem in the world.

Read City-by-City analysis here…

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Despite all the hype of a global synchronous recovery, Japan’s Q1 Real GDP tumbled 0.6% QoQ (on an annualized basis) – the worst drop since Q4 2015 – and well below expectations.

Under the hood it’s just as ugly…

• Nominal GDP dropped 0.4% QoQ (vs expectations of a 0.1% gain)
• Business Spending dropped 0.1% QoQ (vs expectations of a 0.4% rise)
• Private Consumption was unchanged QoQ

And after 8 straight quarters of improvement – no matter how modest – Japan’s economy shrank again in Q1…(and the previous quarter got revised sharply lower)

 

Of course, the great news is that this gives Kuroda and Abe ever more excuses to repress ever more financial instruments and monetize ever more debt for just a little bit longer.

If you look carefully you will see USDJPY reacting to this dismal number…

As Bloomberg’s Mark Cranfield remarked: “The jokes about the BOJ never being able to exit QE might not be as funny to Japanese policy makers after this. “

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Four of the country’s largest cellular providers have been selling your real-time location information, allowing a Texas-based prison technology company, Securus, to track any phone “within seconds,” without a warrant.  The system uses data sold by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and other carriers – who provide it through an intermediary called LocationSmart. 

The service can find the whereabouts of almost any cellphone in the country within seconds. It does this by going through a system typically used by marketers and other companies to get location data from major cellphone carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, documents show. –New York Times

Last week Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter to the FCC demanding an investigation into Securus, after the New York Times revealed that former Mississippi County sheriff Cory Hutcheson used the service almost a dozen time to track the phones of other officers, and even targeted a judge. 

Between 2014 and 2017, the sheriff, Cory Hutcheson, used the service at least 11 times, prosecutors said. His alleged targets included a judge and members of the State Highway Patrol. Mr. Hutcheson, who was dismissed last year in an unrelated matter, has pleaded not guilty in the surveillance cases. –NYT

Hutcheson has pleaded not guilty to charges of unlawful surveillance. 

How did this happen?

How is it that LocationSmart obtained real time location data on millions of Americans? Moreover, who else has access to that information?

Kevin Blankston, director of New America’s Open Technology Institute told ZDNet in a phone call that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act only restricts telecom companies from disclosing data to the government. It does not restrict carriers from disclosing information to other companies – a loophole Blankston calls “one of the biggest gaps in US privacy law.” 

“The issue doesn’t appear to have been directly litigated before, but because of the way that the law only restricts disclosures by these types of companies to government, my fear is that they would argue that they can do a pass-through arrangement like this,” he said.

LocationSmart, a California-based technology company, is one of a handful of so-called data aggregators. It claimed to have “direct connections” to cell carrier networks to obtain real-time cell phone location data from nearby cell towers. It’s less accurate than using GPS, but cell tower data won’t drain a phone battery and doesn’t require a user to install an app. Verizon, one of many cell carriers that sells access to its vast amounts of customer location data, counts LocationSmart as a close partner. –ZD Net

LocationSmart boasts coverage of 85 percent of the country due to its relationships with major US carriers – including Virgin, Boost, MetroPCS and US Cellular, along with Canadian providers Rogers, Telus and Bell.

We utilize the same technology used to enable emergency assistance and this includes cell tower and cell sector location, assisted GPS and cell tower trilateration,” said a case study on the company’s website.

“With these location sources, we are able to locate virtually any US based mobile devices,” the company claimed. The precise location of a target can be returned in as little as 15 seconds, according to a different study.

LocationSmart sells its data to companies for all sorts of reasons. In some instances it’s used to help local businesses send marketing text messages to customers visiting rival stores. In others, location data can be used by companies to track deliveries or shipments – or allow banks to track fraud if a person is making suspicious transactions within close proximity of each other. 

LocationSmart also said it allows some customers to obtain “implied” consent, used on a case-by-case basis, when “the nature of the service implies that location will be used.” The company said one example could be when a stranded motorist calls roadside assistance, and the event implies the person is “calling to be found.”

The company says it has access to location data “because privacy is built into its cloud-based platform.” That said, Securus was able to return real-time location data on users without a warrant, or even without a user opting-in. 

ZDNet reached out to carriers for comments. What follows is their responses:

Sprint spokesperson Lisa Belot said the company shares personally identifiable location data “only with customer consent or in response to a lawful request such as a validated court order from law enforcement.”

The company’s privacy policy, which governs customer consent, said third-parties may collect customers’ personal data, “including location information.”

Sprint said the company’s relationship with Securus “does not include data sharing,” and is limited “to supporting efforts to curb unlawful use of contraband cell phones in correctional facilities.”

When asked the same questions, Verizon spokesperson Rich Young provided a boilerplate response regarding Securus and would not comment further.

“We’re still trying to verify their activities, but if this company is, in fact, doing this with our customers’ data, we will take steps to stop it,” he said.

AT&T spokesperson Jim Greer said in a statement: “We have a best practices approach to handling our customers’ data. We are aware of the letter and will provide a response.” Our questions were also not answered.

A spokesperson for T-Mobile did not respond by our deadline.

“It’s important for us to close off that potential loophole and that can easily be done with one line of legislative language,” said Bankston, “which would also have the benefit of making every other company careful about always getting consent before disclosing your data to anyone.”

Senator Wyden has called on each carrier to stop sharing data with third parties – arguing that it “skirts wireless carriers’ legal obligation to be the sole conduit by which the government may conduct surveillance of Americans’ phone records.” 

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Via Intellihub.com,

Does the USGS, NASA, and other government agencies know more than they are leading people to believe when it comes to the Yellowstone supervolcano?

The largest active geyser in the world has erupted for the fifth time this year, prompting the general public to wonder if an eruption of the supervolcano is imminent.

Scientists from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have been trying to quell peoples fears that the magma chamber may explode by producing a series of information and awareness videos explaining how everything should be okay for the time being.

@USGSVolcanos issed the following tweet on Sunday: “#Steamboat #Geyser in @YellowstoneNPS erupts for 5th time in 2018, just before 4 AM on May 13. Steamboat also had frequent eruptions in the 1960s and early 1980s. No implications for volcanic activity, but good implications for viewing some spectacular geysering this summer!” (typo corrected)

#Steamboat #Geyser in @YellowstoneNPS erupts for 5th time in 2018, just before 4 AM on May 13. Steamboat also had frequent eruptions in the 1960s and early 1980s. No implications for volcanic activity, but good implications for viewing some spectauclar geysering this summer! pic.twitter.com/3c4YDcdHyO

— USGS Volcanoes🌋 (@USGSVolcanoes) May 13, 2018

Plus, University of Utah Seismograph Station sensor readings indicate an uptick in activity which may be acting as a red flag indicator to people in-the-know.

But, at the same time NASA has been working on a plan to drill into the molten magma chamber and pump water into it in an effort to stop such an eruption from occurring, one that could send the world into a nuclear winter scenario.

Withal, some scientists fear the current activity may go hand-in-hand with the recent activation of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano and volcanoes located in the Pacific Northwest.

Additionally, it’s important to point out that the U.S. government has secured contractswith other countries to house displaced American citizens in the event Yellowstone were to erupt and the contracts are only open for another five-years or less, suggesting government officials may know more about the situation then they are leading people to believe.

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office is trying to block an investigation into how anonymously sourced accounts of their investigation leaked to the media, claiming the leaks don’t amount to evidence of illegal grand jury leaks – which could just as easily come from defense attorneys in the Paul Manafort case or others outside the investigation, reports Politico.

Mueller’s team has asked a federal judge in Virginia to turn down a request for a hearing on the leaks, requested by attorneys representing former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

“Manafort’s speculative claim of improper conduct falls far short of the showing necessary to warrant a hearing on potential violations of [a grand jury secrecy rule] or of his constitutional rights,” prosecutors wrote. “A pretrial hearing on alleged government leaks, which would itself generate publicity on the very matters that Manafort finds prejudicial, is unwarranted.”

Manafort, who is facing separate criminal cases brought by Mueller in federal court in Washington and Alexandria, Virginia, filed a motion late last month complaining that he was unfairly attacked in a flurry of news reports that appeared to be based on illegal leaks of grand jury secrets and classified information.

In the motion, filed with U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, Manafort’s defense said the release of sensitive details about the investigation threatened his ability to get a fair trial. –Politico

“By their actions, it is self-evident that the objective of these government sources was to create unfair prejudice against Mr. Manafort and thereby deprive him of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights,” attorneys Kevin Downing and Thomas Zehnle wrote. “The government’s investigation, and the criminal charges that ultimately resulted from it, are the epitome of a party seeking to decide a case in the press and not the courtroom.”

Politico posits that whether or not Manafort’s claim has legal merit, his claim that the leaks have hurt his case “could bolster his chances of winning a pardon from President Donald Trump, who has railed against leaks he alleges have emerged from the Mueller investigation.” 

Mueller’s team, on the other hand, says that there’s no reason to believe the news accounts identified by Manafort’s defense team came from prosecutors or investigators leaking information that came from a grand jury.

“He cites ten articles, none of which purports to disclose grand jury information,” prosecutors wrote in the filing. “Many of the matters reported, if accurate, would have been known to the defense, to witnesses who were interviewed or subpoenaed for documents, or to other investigators examining overlapping issues.”

Mueller’s team suggests that the leaks could have come from members of Congress or their aides. 

“Multiple accounts note that Manafort was also the subject of ongoing congressional investigations,” Mueller’s team noted. “References to ‘officials’ or ‘American officials’ in the reports … could thus be to people who are not subject to [grand jury secrecy] restrictions.”

In other words – “Don’t look into this, it could have been anyone” – including someone on Manafort’s team. 

Prosecutors suggested that if a hearing was held on the leaks, it would be fair game to look into whether any of them originated with Manafort’s attorneys or his spokesman Jason Maloni. Maloni wasn’t named in the filing, but was identified as “the spokesman who has regularly accompanied Manafort to court and has often been quoted, including in some of Manafort’s cited articles.”

Mueller’s team also submitted a secret filing to Ellis “concerning one article.” Prosecutors did not say which article it was about or why the information needed to be placed under seal and withheld from Manafort’s defense. –Politico

Manafort faces trial on July 10 in Virginia on charges of tax evasion, bank fraud and failing to file reports on foreign bank accounts, among other things. The separate case in Washington D.C. is scheduled for trial on September 17, and focuses on charges of money laundering and failure to register as a foreign agent in connection with Manafort’s work for Ukraine.

Meanwhile, even anti-Trump Bloomberg editorialists are starting to get tired with the “witch hunt”…

Mueller took a year to obtain 19 indictments, 13 of them against Russians who will never face a court, one against Manafort based on an earlier FBI investigation, one against a guy who opened bank accounts for Russian trolls and four more for lying to the FBI. Wow! Great job!

— Leonid Bershidsky (@Bershidsky) May 15, 2018

Not one of the indictments is for the DNC hack or the Podesta hack.

— Leonid Bershidsky (@Bershidsky) May 15, 2018

Not one is for anything related to collusion.

— Leonid Bershidsky (@Bershidsky) May 15, 2018

Am I missing something or does he have the best job in the world, especially since firing him is supposed to be equivalent to obstruction of judtice?

— Leonid Bershidsky (@Bershidsky) May 15, 2018

 

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Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

1. I hate writing about Israel. The accusations of anti-semitism which necessarily go along with literally any criticism of that nation are gross enough, but even worse are the assholes who take my criticisms of the Israeli government as an invitation to actually be anti-semitic. They really do hate Jews, they really do think that every problem in the world is because of Jews and they post Jewish caricature memes and calls for genocide in the comments section on social media and it’s incredibly gross and I hate it. It feels exactly as intrusive, jarring and violating as receiving an unsolicited dick pic. But the Israeli government keeps committing war provocations and massacring Palestinians, so it’s something I’ve got to talk about.

2. Anti-semitism (or whatever word you prefer to use for the pernicious mind virus which makes people think it’s okay to promote hatred against Jewish people) is a very real thing that does exist, and I denounce it to the furthest possible extent. Anti-semitism is also a label that is used to bully the world into accepting war crimes, apartheid, oppression, and mass murder. Both of those things are true.

3. There were dozens of Palestinians killed and well above a thousand injured in the Gaza protests over the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem yesterday. I haven’t found any report of so much as a single Israeli injury. The only way to spin this as the fault of the Palestinians is to dehumanize them, to attribute behaviors and motives to them that we all know are contrary to human nature. To paint them as subhuman orc-like creatures who are so crazy and evil that they will keep throwing themselves at a hail of bullets risking life and limb just to have some extremely remote chance of harming a Jewish person for no reason. This is clearly absurd. A little clear thinking and empathy goes a long way.

4. Trump could have prevented all this violence by doing what previous administrations had done and keeping the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Experts warned that this would happen. Trump ignored them. He is ultimately responsible for the mounting pile of corpses resulting from this provocation.

5. The Trump campaign was given $25 million by billionaire oligarch Sheldon Adelson (the largest campaign donation made by anyone to any candidate), who provided a further $5 million for Trump’s inauguration. Adelson is a sociopathic pro-Israel hawk who once called on the US to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. He was present at the opening of the Jerusalem embassy, getting what he paid for.

6. Any position on Israel that is determined by words made up by dead men thousands of years ago is intrinsically invalid. Saying the Jewish people are more entitled to Israel than those who were living there seven decades ago because of some superstitious voodoo written in obsolete religious texts is not an argument. Religious freedom is important, and it’s important to be able to believe whatever you like, but your beliefs do not legitimize your actions upon other people. If you murder someone in the name of Allah, you have murdered someone. If you kill 58 people because you feel some ancient scripture entitles you to a particular section of dirt, you have killed 58 people. Your internal beliefs do not give you a free pass for your egregious actions upon others.

7. Israel is very dangerous and completely unsustainable, but its interests are aggressively promoted by powerful plutocrats and lobby groups. It’s like if fracking was a place.

8. A nation that can’t exist without nonstop war and violence is like a house that can’t stand without nonstop construction work. If your house needs a large construction team working around the clock seven days a week to keep it from collapsing, you should probably either move or consider a new architectural design.

9. A nation that can’t exist without nonstop war and violence is not a nation at all, it’s a decades-long military operation with a few suburbs sprinkled on top. And that is exactly how Israel has functioned since its creation: as a nonstop disruption campaign that the post-World War Two western victors dropped on top of the Middle East just as humanity hit new heights of oil dependence. By 1967 Israel came within inches of a possible third world war with America’s only rival superpower, the Soviet Union, and today we have Israel leading the charge in the western empire’s regime change agendas against Iran and Syria. It’s been a consistent pattern.

10. There’s good conspiracy theory and there’s bad conspiracy theory. People who say America controls Israel or Israel controls America are engaged in bad conspiracy theory. We don’t live in a world where the lines between nations mean anything to those with real power; in reality “Israel” and “America” are both purely conceptual constructs which only exist to the extent that people believe in them. There is no actual “Israel” which can exert control over an actual “America”, and vice versa. It isn’t nations and governments pulling the strings of real power in the world, it’s a class of plutocrats who aren’t ultimately answerable to any government. This class of plutocrats uses governments like Israel, the US, the UK, and the KSA to advance its agendas to exploit, loot and plunder the rest of humanity.

11. The western empire is a cluster of tightly allied nations held together by contracts and manipulation which often function more or less as a single unit on foreign policy, war, intelligence, trade, etc. What we call Israel is functionally just the Middle Eastern disruption wing of this empire. The people in control of this alliance place no special value on Israel beyond its usefulness in advancing plutocratic agendas in the Middle East.

12. People make a big deal about Zionism in conspiracy circles, but Zionism is just one more tool of manipulation used by the elite class which only ever cares about power. The people who are actually calling the shots in this world don’t care about Judaism or the Jewish people; Zionism is just a set of ideas they use to move people around. They use Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism, white supremacy and secular liberalism in the same way. It’s always about acquiring more power for the western oligarchs, and their insatiable drive in this pursuit is how they wound up at the top of the western power structure. They’ll use any set of beliefs to manipulate the masses toward this end.

13. Since Israel plays such a crucial role in the agendas of the western power establishment for such a key strategic region, it should be no surprise that the people who lived on that land before Israel was dropped upon them get trampled underfoot. As far as the powerful are concerned, the Palestinians are no different from the animals whose habitats are destroyed by a new military base, or the whales that get killed by navy sonar experiments. They’re a nuisance to be swatted away.

14. The reason for the extreme brutality that is being used against the Palestinian demonstrators appears to be the same as that used by the Chinese government in the Tiananmen Square massacre or the lynchings of the segregated American south: to send a message. That message is “Here is how we will deal with you whenever you hold these demonstrations.” They’re quashing the protests so violently and so aggressively not out of self defense, but to dissuade such protests in the future. All they have to do is be brutal enough to convince the Palestinians that such protests aren’t worth the cost of life, and whole generations could be dissuaded from future protests.

15. This brutality is exposing the true face of the western empire, a trend that we are seeing all over the globe in myriad ways. Despite the best efforts of the mass media machine, people are waking up to what’s really going on.

*  *  *

Internet censorship is getting pretty bad, so best way to keep seeing my daily articles is to get on the mailing list for my website, so you’ll get an email notification for everything I publish. My articles and podcasts are entirely reader and listener-funded, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my new bookWoke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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The South Side’s rebellion against its one-time savior – former President Barack Obama – continued Tuesday when a nonprofit group claiming to represent residents from the area filed a lawsuit to try and block the project.

As the Chicago Tribune reports, an organization called Protect Our Parks filed the suit in US District Court on Monday, alleging that Chicago Park District and the City of Chicago don’t have the authority to grant government-owned parkland to a separate organization – in this case, the Obama Foundation.

Three Chicago residents were listed as plaintiffs in the case, which alleges that the building is a “short con shell game, a corrupt scheme to deceive and seemingly legitimize an illegal land grab.”

“The City and Park District clearly realize and fully understand that this established law precludes the Park District from arbitrarily transferring possession, use and control of this dedicated ‘open, clear and free’ public parkland in Jackson Park to a private nongovernmental…entity’s self-determined use,” the complaint said. 

The nonprofit also accused the Obama Foundation of pulling an “institutional bait and switch” because the building isn’t consistent with what the group would consider a “true presidential library.”

The community center would house archives from Obama’s presidency under the supervision of the National Archives and Records Administration. But the center will also include a large gym, a “community forum” and an outdoor plaza.

The city and the Obama family have insisted that the project won’t harm the neighborhood because it will create jobs for local residents. But opponents of the project have argued that the city should grant residents who own homes in the neighborhood a tax freeze because the center’s mere existence would likely drive a wave of gentrification and the attendant rise in property values.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel immediately leapt to his former boss’s defense. In a statement released by the city, Chicago hailed the center as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest hundreds of millions of dollars that will create good jobs on the South Side.”

“The Obama Presidential Center is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest hundreds of millions of dollars that will create good jobs on the South Side, bring our communities together and honor the legacy of Chicago’s favorite son and daughter. While some choose to stand in the way of progress for the South Side, we are focused on making progress in every community in Chicago,” the statement reads.

The Obama Foundation submitted construction plans earlier this year, and is planning on breaking ground before the beginning of 2019. The suit was filed ahead of a Thursday Chicago Plan Commission meeting, where issues pertaining to the construction of the center are expected to be discussed.

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As Warren Buffett was busy buying every share of Apple he could find in Q1, another hedge fund legend was selling: according to the latest Appaloosa 13F, one of the few positions that David Tepper liquidated in the first quarter was Apple, selling his entire stake of 4.588 million shares, worth roughly $776MM, during the first 3 months of the year (along with EEM, CMCSA, MHK, VST, CSX and LUV).

While there were few changes among Tepper’s top holdings, it is notable that Appaloosa aggressively added to its Micron stake, adding nearly 8 million shares to its existing 27.5 million, for a grand total of 35.4 million shares as of March 31, equivalent to $1.85BN, making Micron Tepper’s top position in the quarter. This was followed by Facebook at just under $1BN, Alibaba, at $743MM, Allergan at $622MM, Altaba at $594MM and Google at $419MM: yes, one more “hedge” fund that is really just a high beta “growth” and tech fund.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the biggest new addition was Lam Research, at 1.3 million shares, followed by new positions in Wells Fargo (2.9MM shares), UBS (7MM shares), Applied Materials (1.57MM), SMH, AMLP, KNX, BYD, PAH and UAL.

In addition to nearly doubling his stake in MU, Tepper also added to his stakes in MGM, AGN, CNC, GOOG, LNG, DG, OC and PCG; at the same time Appaloosa cut exposure to QQQ, XLF, BAC, URI, NRG, WPZ, ETP, ALL and HCA.

Finally, in addition to dumping his entire AAPL stake, Tepper also liquidated holdings in EEM, CMCSA, MHK, VST, CSX and LUV.

A table summarizing all of Tepper’s key moves in Q1 is shown below.

 

 

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Authored by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist blog,

I know I have told this story before, but it bears repeating. Way back in 2011 I was watching the S&P like a hawk. Trading each squiggle, I tried to understand what was driving the markets at every point. I focused on technical levels, monitored the news and spent way too long staring at the screens.

But on some days, the stock market would get mysteriously strong. It would usually occur mid-morning. Often stocks would sag near the open, look like they wanted to break lower, when all of a sudden – out of the blue – stocks would go bid. I couldn’t understand it. There was no “reason” why they should be rising. Yet they did.

It took me a while, but eventually, I figured it out.

Although it flies directly in the face of Dr. Malkiel’s Random Walk Down Wall Street, the days when the Fed expanded their balance sheet through bond purchases resulted in outsized stock market gains. These bond buys were conducted through Permanent-Open-Market-Operations (POMO) and the great thing about a transparent Federal Reserve is that they listed the schedule in advance, so it was easy to measure the relationship between POMO operations and stock market performance.

I know it seems crazy, but the Federal Reserve’s bond buying had a direct and immediate effect on the stock market. I don’t know why the relationship would be so unequivocal, but I learned the hard way not to fight the Fed on days when they pulled out the blue tickets in the bond market. I even tracked the amount of bond buying versus the stock market outperformance to make sure it wasn’t all in my head. Sure enough, the larger the bond buys, the bigger the outperformance.

Now eventually the market figured it out and the relationship became less reliable, but that process took years.

Fast forward to today. Although the Federal Reserve has a broad schedule for winding down their balance sheet, they are not systematically selling off their portfolio. No, instead they are allowing their portfolio to mature, and at times not reinvesting the proceeds.

This means that the process is somewhat lumpy. Whereas quantitative easing purchases would be limited to $5 billion or so on any one day, with the quantitative tightening balance sheet wind-down, the maturing days can be many magnitudes larger.

Take today for example. The Federal Reserve owns the following bonds:

• $3,888,900,000 of the 9.125% of 05/15/2018

• $542,818,700 of the 1% of 05/15/2018

• $21,795,923,000 of the 3.875% of 05/15/2018

That’s over $26 billion of bonds maturing today.

I am not some lonely lunatic who singularly believes the Federal Reserve’s POMO operations directly affect the stock market.

If you don’t already follow the terrific Martingale_Macro, then give him a click. I’ll leave the math jokes aside, but will highlight that he has already observed the reverse of my quantitative easing stock market outperformance with the following table of stock market declines on quantitative tightening days:

Brilliant! I should have been on this way earlier.

The days when the Federal Reserve has a large bond maturity have seen abnormally large declines in the S&P 500. I am writing this before the close, but it’s no surprise that today’s stock market performance is weak.

I can almost hear the cries of disdain – “sure, lots of good that does bringing this to our attention after the decline.” Ahh, but here’s my value add – the Federal Reserve publishes their portfolio for everyone to see:

The next big maturity day is May 31st. On that day we get almost $29 billion maturing on month-end. Watch out below.

For those that want to play along at home, here is the link for the Federal Reserve’s portfolio. I will leave it to all the efficient market theorists to buy on those days. I’ll be pulling out the pink tickets…

via RSS https://ift.tt/2L0X1UK Tyler Durden