Tag: finance

For years Israel denied allegations that it had a role in funding and weaponizing the anti-Assad insurgency in Syria, and in recent years military officials responded “no comment” even when confronted with overwhelming evidence of Israeli weapons documented in al-Qaeda linked insurgents’ hands, but this all changed in a new British Sunday Times interview with outgoing Israeli army commander Gadi Eisenkot, who has finally confirmed the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) supplied weapons to rebels across the border “for self-defense,” and further perhaps more stunningly, has admitted to long waging an “invisible war in Syria” that involved “thousands of attacks”.

The interview constitutes the first time that any current top Israeli military or government official has fully acknowledged sending anything beyond “humanitarian supplies,” such as medical aid to Syrian militants seeking to topple the Assad government; and yet it still appears the country’s military chief is slow playing the confirmation, only acknowledging the IDF provided “light weapons” — even after years of reporting has definitively uncovered an expansive Israeli program to arm dozens of insurgent groups and pay their salaries, including known affiliates of al-Qaeda in Syria.

This comes after the Syrian government has for years accused Israel of partnering with the west and gulf countries, such as the US, UK, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey of funding and weaponizing an al-Qaeda/ISIS insurgency as part of covert regime change operations aimed at Damascus and its allies Iran and Hezbollah. Since then, countries like Qatar have come forward to reveal just how vast their covert role in fueling the Syrian war really was, which we covered in our viral story, In Shocking, Viral Interview, Qatar Confesses Secrets Behind Syrian War.

The Sunday Times relates a key confession that comes out of Lt.-Gen Gadi Eisenkot’s explosive interview as follows: 

Eisenkot acknowledged for the first time, however, that Israel had supplied rebel groups in the border area with light weapons “for self-defence”.

Israel was a hidden player on a crowded Syrian battlefield. 

Eisenkot positively boasted in the interview that “We operated in an area controlled by the Russians, sometimes attacking targets a kilometre or two from Russian positions,” in order to strike at Iranian assets in Syria. 

The rare “confession” of sorts comes at a moment the White House says it’s moving forward on President Trump’s previously announced US troop pullout from Syria, something which has rattled Israel’s leadership, which has argued that Iran will become entrenched near Israel’s border as a result. Eisenkot’s words appear a warning to Iran that Tel Aviv aims to maintain operational capability inside Syria. 

On this point the IDF chief admitted to “thousands” of attacks inside Syria: 

“We carried out thousands of attacks [in recent years] without taking responsibility and without asking for credit,” he told the Sunday Times.

Given that prior military officials have typically put this number at “hundreds”, often from 200 to 400, this is an astounding admission that confirms Israel and Syria have been in a de facto state of open war since the first acknowledged Israeli airstrikes began in 2013. 

Commenting on a prior report, The Times of Israel, summarized the timeline of Israel’s support to the anti-Assad insurgency as follows:

Foreign Policy said that Israel’s support for the rebel groups began in 2013, funding groups in places such as Quneitra and Daraa. It ended this summer as the regime’s forces advanced and made increasing gains in southern Syria against rebels. Syrian President Bashar Assad’s troops regained control of the border area in July.

The Syrian army said in 2013 that it had seized Israeli weapons in rebel hands.

The report said Israel sent the rebel groups weapons that included assault rifles, machine guns, mortar launchers, and vehicles. It initially sent the rebels US-made M16 rifles that would not identify Jerusalem as the source, and later began supplying guns and ammo from an Iranian shipment to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group that Israel captured in 2009, according to Foreign Policy.

But a number of analysts have suggested Israeli support to the opposition began even closer to the start of the conflict.

A prior Wall Street Journal investigation found that this relationship involved weapons transfers, salary payments to anti-Assad fighters, and treatment of wounded jihadists in Israeli hospitals, the latter which was widely promoted in photo ops picturing Netanyahu himself greeting militants. As even former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morell once directly told the Israeli public, Israel’s “dangerous game” in Syria consists in getting in bed with al-Qaeda in order to fight Shia Iran. 

In recent years, multiple current and former Israeli defense officials have gone so far as to say that ISIS is ultimately preferable to Iran and Assad. For example, former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren in 2014 surprised the audience at Colorado’s Aspen Ideas Festival when he said in comments related to ISIS that, “the lesser evil is the Sunnis over the Shias.” Oren, while articulating Israeli defense policy, fully acknowledged he thought ISIS was “the lesser evil.” 

Likewise, for Netanyahu and other Israeli officials the chief concern was never the black clad death cult which filmed itself beheading Americans and burning people alive, but the possibility of, in the words of Henry Kissinger, “a Shia and pro-Iran territorial belt reaching from Tehran to Beirut” and establishment of “an Iranian radical empire.”

What is clear, and now finally settled for the historical record, is that for years Israeli concealed its “hidden hand” in the proxy war while feigning merely “humanitarian aid” — something now fully admitted by Israel’s top military commander. In other words the humanitarian smokescreen was cover for a full-on covert war on Damascus, as we and many other independent outlets have reported many times, and for years. Yet another past “conspiracy theory” becomes  today’s incontrovertible fact.

via RSS http://bit.ly/2AFMWcn Tyler Durden

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Could it be possible that a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano is not too far away?

All over the world seismic activity has been increasing in recent years, and this process seems to have accelerated during the early days of 2019.  In particular, quite a few once dormant volcanoes are springing to life again, and this has many concerned about what could potentially happen at Yellowstone.  Of course Yellowstone has never been “dormant”, but there have been new signs of life over the past six months.  Entirely new geysers have sprung out of the ground, Steamboat Geyser has been the most active that it has been in decades, and some geysers have even been shooting “debris and rocks” into the sky.  And now we are being told that “a 465-mile-long piece of molten rock” is “rising” directly under Yellowstone…

SCIENTISTS are closely monitoring a 465-mile-long piece of molten rock rising below the Yellowstone caldera, a bombshell documentary has revealed.

The supervolcano, located in Yellowstone National Park, has erupted three times in history – 2.1 million years ago, 1.2 million years ago and 640,000 years ago. Volcanoes typically blow when molten rock, known as magma, rises to the surface following the Earth’s mantle melting due to tectonic plates shifting. However, geologists have revealed how Yellowstone’s magma chamber, which sits on top of the magma plume, is slowly rising each year.

Hopefully nothing major will happen at Yellowstone for a very long time.

But experts assure us that another full-blown eruption will take place one day, and when it does, it could potentially create a global “volcanic winter” which would make growing crops almost impossible and ultimately cause horrific global famines.  The following quote comes from Dr. Christopher Kilburn…

“As a result of which, the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth drops and, as a consequence of that, it will trigger what is called a volcanic winter in that the temperatures never get a chance to recover.

“So you go through winter, the ash veil prevents the sun from warming up the earth seasonally so you just get continued winters which might trigger, ultimately, extensive ice coverage.”

If Yellowstone were to erupt today, none of our lives would ever be the same again from that moment on.

We are talking about a disaster that is on a scale that most of us couldn’t even imagine, and it would instantly render most of the country completely uninhabitable.  The following is an extended excerpt from one of my previous articles about Yellowstone…

I would like to try to describe for you what a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano would mean for this country.

Hundreds of cubic miles of ash, rock and lava would be blasted into the atmosphere, and this would likely plunge much of the northern hemisphere into several days of complete darkness. Virtually everything within 100 miles of Yellowstone would be immediately killed, but a much more cruel fate would befall those that live in major cities outside of the immediate blast zone such as Salt Lake City and Denver.

Hot volcanic ash, rock and dust would rain down on those cities literally for weeks. In the end, it would be extremely difficult for anyone living in those communities to survive. In fact, it has been estimated that 90 percent of all people living within 600 miles of Yellowstone would be killed.

Experts project that such an eruption would dump a layer of volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away, and approximately two-thirds of the United States would suddenly become uninhabitable. The volcanic ash would severely contaminate most of our water supplies, and growing food in the middle of the country would become next to impossible.

In other words, it would be the end of our country as we know it today.

The rest of the planet, and this would especially be true for the northern hemisphere, would experience what is known as a “nuclear winter”. An extreme period of “global cooling” would take place, and temperatures around the world would fall by up to 20 degrees. Crops would fail all over the planet, and severe famine would sweep the globe.

In the end, billions could die.

Scientists are constantly monitoring Yellowstone for potential signs of an eruption, but the truth is that a major disaster of this magnitude would probably come with little or no warning.

It is undeniable that in recent months there have been signs of increased activity at Yellowstone.  That doesn’t mean that an eruption is imminent, but without a doubt it should be a cause for concern.

And this is especially true considering all of the shaking that we are seeing elsewhere around the globe.  Just within the past few days we have seen a magnitude 4.1 earthquake hit California and a magnitude 5.1 earthquake near Anchorage, Alaska.  The latter one definitely shook a lot of people up…

Residents took to earthquake monitoring site EMSC to share their experiences. One said: “Long and big. Significant anxiety spike!

Another added: “That was scary. Hard quake.”

We are not even to the middle of January, and there have already been more than 100 significant earthquakes in Alaska so far this year.

That is not normal.

Our planet appears to be going through some major changes, and many believe that all of this seismic activity is an indication that things are about to become quite apocalyptic.  I am personally of the opinion that we are going to continue to see a rise in the number of earthquakes and that we are going to continue to see a rise in the number of volcanic eruptions.

As I have said before, the shell of our planet is cracked, and we are just floating on the pieces.  Now those pieces appear to be getting increasingly unstable, and that is going to affect us in ways that most people cannot even imagine right now.

via RSS http://bit.ly/2RJB2rL Tyler Durden

Last week the New York Times reported that after President Trump fired FBI director James Comey, the FBI decided to launch an investigation into whether President Trump’s “own actions constituted a possible threat to national security,” and “whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.” 

Unsurprisingly, buried in paragraph nine is an admission that “no evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.” 

As Glenn Greenwald notes in his latest piece in The Intercept, the FBI dangerously overstepped its authority by treating the President as a national security threat – and it’s not the first time they’ve punished thought crimes that run counter to the establishment’s worldview. What’s worse, people are supporting the actions of an agency gone rogue – judging the actions of a duly elected US president. 

The lack of any evidence of guilt has never dampened the excitement over Trump/Russia innuendo, and it certainly did not do so here. Beyond being construed as some sort of vindication for the most deranged version of Manchurian Candidate fantasies – because, after all, the FBI would never investigate anyone unless they were guilty – the FBI’s investigation of the President as a national security threat was also treated as some sort of unprecedented event in U.S. history. “This is, without exception, the worst scandal in the history of the United States,” pronounced NBC News’ resident ex-CIA operative, who – along with a large staple of former security state agents employed by that network – is now paid to “analyze” and shape the news.

The FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Trump is far from the first time that the FBI has monitored, surveilled and investigated U.S. elected officials who the agency had decided haroberd suspect loyalties and were harming national security. The FBI specialized in such conduct for decades under J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the agency for 48 years and whose name the agency’s Washington headquarters continues to feature in its name. –The Intercept

Greenwald points to the notable case of J. Edgar Hoover’s lengthy counterintelligence investigation of progressive Henry Wallace during his time in Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, and then as FDR’s Vice President. Wallace’s talk of peace with Russia following WWII caused the FBI to suspect that he was undermining “US interests” for the benefit of Moscow – and as a result, he was placed under extensive surveillance and investigation that remained unknown until 1983. 

“the bureau opened Wallace’s mail, tapped his supporters’ telephones and used informers and agents to trail him in search of ”possible Communist or pro-Soviet ties,“” reads a 1983 New York Times article. 

The fact that Wallace was critical of Russian leader Josef Stalin was of no interest to his detractors at the FBI. His dovish dissent from prevailing US foreign policy orthodoxy in regards to Russia “made him a suspect in the eyes of the FBI as a possible “national security threat,” a witting or unwitting Kremlin stooge or even as a traitor,” Greenwald writes. 

On that note – the New York Times‘ piece on Friday notes that the FBI “also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.” 

Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein said on Sunday expanded on this peek into the changing narrative regarding the Trump-Russia investigation. Perhaps because no evidence of collusion exists – Bernstein suggested to CNN‘s “Reliable Sources” that Trump “has done what appears to be Putin’s goals,” adding “He has helped Putin destabilize the United States and interfere in the election, no matter whether it was purposeful or not.“

In other words – Trump may be a Putin puppet without even knowing it, is the new narrative. 

Back to Greenwald – who notes that the 1940s investigation of Henry Wallace has already been compared to Donald Trump by people who accuse him of being a Kremlin stooge, “often for the same reasons.” 

In October, 2016, Vox published an accusatory article about Henry Wallace by Will Moreland of the Brookings Institution designed to compare him to Trump when it came to potentially treasonous servitude toward Russia.

Moreland claimed that Wallace “shares Trump’s fate of being too blinded by his self-messianic vision to realize he too had become a Kremlin pawn.” To justify this accusation, Moreland – citing Wallace’s 1946 pro-peace speech – explicitly compared Trump’s desire for better relations with Moscow to Wallace’s similar desire and used it to claim that both Wallace and Trump were Kremlin stooges and assets, whether “witting” or otherwise. –The Intercept

Greenwald points out that the FBI “still refuses to release all of its investigative files on Wallace.” 

No, the FBI investigation of the President for being under Russian sway isn’t exactly unprecedented.

Henry Wallace, former VP. FBI listed him as a Communist under the sway of USSR, and is still fighting to not release the files. #FOIA

— Emma Best (U//FOUO) 🏳️‍🌈 (@NatSecGeek) January 13, 2019

The FBI also chased after long-time liberal Senator and 1972 Democratic presidential hopeful George McGovern due to suspected Kremlin sympathies – and his criticism of the FBI. 

Why this is dangerous to democracy

An FBI that investigates domestic political figures whose loyalties are “suspicious” – and whose politics they consider a “national security threat” is both ominous and tyrannical, according to Greenwald. 

It’s the FBI’s job to investigate possible crimes under the law or infiltration by foreign powers, not ideological sins. If a politician adopts policy views that are “threatening” to U.S. national security or which is unduly accommodating to America’s adversaries or “enemies,” that’s not a crime and the FBI thus has no business using its vast investigative powers against a politician who does that.

That’s why it’s so easy to see that Hoover’s investigative scrutiny of Henry Wallace, and George McGovern, and an endless array of domestic dissenters, was so anti-democratic and dangerous. If a politician adopts “threatening” policy views or is too subservient toward or accommodating of a foreign adversary, it’s the job of the American voting public or Congress in its political oversight and lawmaking role to take action, not the FBI’s job to criminalize policy differences through investigations. –The Intercept

The FBI’s investigation of Trump is similarly “anti-democratic and dangerous” – and it should be plain to anyone “even if you’re someone who hates Trump’s overtures toward Russia or even believes that they are the by-product of excessive subservience to the Kremlin,” Greenwald writes. 

With the following caveat: “Obviously, if there is reason to suspect that actual crimes have been committed – such as, say, Trump officials collaborating with Russia to hack into email inboxes or otherwise engaging in illegal deals with foreign powers – then it’s not just permissible but vital that the FBI investigate such allegations.”

And Greenwald is careful to point out that he has been a “vigorous defender from the start of having a full-scale investigation into those allegations with the evidence publicly disclosed: so that we can know what happened rather than relying on self-serving, evidence-free, anonymous leak snippets laundered through MSNBC and the Washington Post.“

Read the rest of Greenwald’s article here. 

via RSS http://bit.ly/2srr5Rj Tyler Durden

Dear men, razor brand Gillette wants you to know that you need to shed your inherent toxic masculinity – that all men have (trust them) and have been making excuses for, and haven’t done anything about until now. 

The add, dubbed “We Believe” begins with a montage of bullying and sexism – as a pack of wild, toxically masculine white boys tear around, leaving behind a wake of misery and abuse. 

A narrator then goes on to suggest that “boys will be boys” is simply not going to fly anymore. 

“Is this the best a man can get? Is it? We can’t hide from it. It has been going on far too long. We can’t laugh it off, making the same old excuses.” 

“We believe in the best in men. To say the right thing, to act the right way. Some already are. But some is not enough. Because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow.” 

The message is clear; If you’re a man, you’re inherently evil – and you need to do better. 

Suffice to say, the new ad campaign has not gotten off to a great start. 

Reached for comment by the Wall Street Journal, Gillette brand director for North America Pankaj Bhalla said “This is an important conversation happening, and as a company that encourages men to be their best, we feel compelled to both address it and take action of our own,” adding “We are taking a realistic look at what’s happening today, and aiming to inspire change by acknowledging that the old saying ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ is not an excuse. We want to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and hope all the men we serve will come along on that journey to find our ‘best’ together.“

Yeah, no. 

Seriously, Gillette would have been better off to hire that agency to make a $400 “Don’t Be Weird / Shave That Beard/ wikka wikka woo” commercial

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) January 15, 2019

I’ve used @Gillette razors my entire adult life but this absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity.
Let boys be damn boys.
Let men be damn men. https://t.co/Hm66OD5lA4

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 14, 2019

So nice to see @Gillette jumping on the “men are horrible” campaign permeating mainstream media and Hollywood entertainment. I for one will never use your product again. https://t.co/uZf7v4sFKm

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 14, 2019

Dear Gillette,

– I am not toxic
– The amazing men in my life are not toxic
– Masculinity is not toxic

The staggering number of ‘dislikes’ to this video suggest most people agree with me. Now kindly fuck off into insolvency.@Gillette @ProcterGamble https://t.co/oRlY168Ak1

— Peter Lloyd (@Suffragentleman) January 14, 2019

Massive FAIL. Get in the bin, you virtue signalling dolts. pic.twitter.com/r0EoBOghpN

— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) January 14, 2019

via RSS http://bit.ly/2M8hPdQ Tyler Durden

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

For almost a year now, I’ve been advising you that gold production is plunging…

By itself, declining gold production isn’t a huge deal.

It takes hundreds of millions of years for minerals to form deep in the earth’s crust… but humans only need a few decades to extract it.

That’s why mining companies need to constantly explore for new deposits.

And that’s where the problem comes in… mining companies haven’t been exploring.

Large mining companies have been cutting their exploration budgets for years. By the end of 2016, exploration budgets hit an 11-year low.

Part of the reason for the decline in exploration has been the stagnant gold price and general, investor disinterest toward the gold mining sector.

If you look at a chart of the Gold Miners ETF (GDX), the price hasn’t gone anywhere for five years.

And gold prices have likewise languished; today’s price of $1,290 per ounce is down 30% from the 2011.

To fight the tough times, miners slashed their exploration budgets.

That means, when the demand for gold picks up again (which I think we’re starting to see now), there won’t be enough gold supply.

You don’t have to just take my word for it…

Pierre Lassonde, the billionaire founder of gold royalty giant Franco-Nevada and former head of Newmont Mining –

If you look back to the 70s, 80s and 90s, in every one of those decades, the industry found at least one 50+ million-ounce gold deposit, at least ten 30+ million ounce deposits, and countless 5 to 10 million ounce deposits.

But if you look at the last 15 years, we found no 50-million-ounce deposit, no 30 million ounce deposit and only very few 15 million ounce deposits.

So where are those great big deposits we found in the past? How are they going to be replaced? We don’t know.

Lassonde isn’t the only big gold player warning about the falling gold production. You can read some other warnings in this piece I wrote in July of last year.

One of the legends we quoted was Ian Telfer, chairman of Goldcorp, who told the Financial Post:

“If I could give one sentence about the gold mining business… it’s that in my life, gold produced from mines has gone up pretty steadily for 40 years. Well, either this year it starts to go down, or next year it starts to go down, or it’s already going down… We’re right at peak gold here.”

If gold production is peaking, and the mining companies aren’t spending money to find new deposits, that means one thing… when demand picks up, we’ll see a wave of consolidation in the industry.

Mining companies will be forced to acquire one another in order increase their production and meet a rising gold demand.

These consolidations are already happening. Literally just today, Telfer’s $8.5 billion Goldcorp was acquired by Newmont Mining for $10 billion.

This isn’t the first deal like this: back in September, Barrick Gold bought Randgold Resources in a $6 billion deal.

This is exactly what you’d expect to see in an era where gold miners are acquiring each other and consolidating their production.

And all of this should be quite favorable for gold prices over the long-term.

Now, at least for me, gold has never really been an investment. I don’t trade paper currency for gold, hoping to trade gold back for more paper currency down the road.

Instead, gold for me has always been always a hedge against all the risks in the world that just don’t make sense.

And there are plenty of those:

The US debt is now nearly $22 trillion and growing at more than $1 trillion a year.

Interest rates across the world’s other largest economies– Europe and Japan– are still negative. China is rapidly slowing.

Governments around the world, it seems, are in a coordinated effort to destroy paper money and inflate their massive debts away.

Meanwhile, interest rates are slowly rising from the bottom, putting the huge stock and bond rally of the past decade at risk.

All of these are very prudent reasons to own gold.

And with today’s news, we’ve now seen several of the largest gold miners in the world spending a combined $16 billion to increase their gold reserves. They’re admitting there’s a big shortage of the metal. And this trend is just getting started.

via RSS http://bit.ly/2ANtNFh Tyler Durden

By now everyone has seen some iteration of this chart showing that the annual change in central bank liquidity is now negative.

Another way to visualize just the Fed’s balance sheet contraction is courtesy of this chart from Morgan Stanley which shows specifically which assets – Treasurys and MBS – are declining on a monthly basis.

When it comes to markets – where the events of December were a vivid reminder that just as QE blew the world’s biggest asset bubble, so QT will deflate it  – there is a simple explanation of this negative effect of QT on Markets – in terms of both flow and stock – and it is laid out as follows from Morgan Stanley:

• THE STOCK EFFECT (SE) – GROUP 1
  • The SE relates to the long-term impact on Group 1 asset prices from the overall change to the central bank’s balance sheet and its impact on the stock of available Group 1 assets.
• THE FLOW EFFECT (FE) – GROUP 1
  • The FE relates to the short-term impact on Group 1 asset prices from each flow that changes the size of the central bank’s balance sheet.
• THE PORTFOLIO BALANCE CHANNEL EFFECT (PBCE) – GROUP 1 AND 2
  • The PBCE impacts both Group 1 and Group 2 assets and incorporates the pricing elements of both the stock effect and the flow effect.

But while the immediate effect of the expansion and shrinkage of the Fed’s balance sheet on various asset classes is rather intuitive – if not to Fed presidents of, course – a more pressing question is how will the upcoming liquidity shrinkage affect the global economy.

Unfortunately, the answer appears to be ominous.

As the following BofA chart shows, global money supply has declined rapidly over the last year and a half. In fact, global money supply growth (using M1) is now flirting with the lows seen in mid-2008. And while some economies, such as China, are now pivoting back to supportive measures, BofA’s Barnaby Martin warns that high global debt will constrain economies’ enthusiasm for engaging in further rounds of stimulus. Meanwhile, as the chart below suggests, lower money supply growth has often pointed to weaker global economic momentum going forward. In fact, if one uses Global Industrial Production growth as a proxy for the global economic expansion, or contraction, the World is now almost certainly in a recession; the only question is when will economists acknowledge it.

The message from the chart above has also been heard loud and clear in high frequency economic indicators (at least in those countries where the government is not shut down and where data is still being reported), with the number of consecutive days of negative global data surprises now approaching the longest since the financial crisis.

And just to confirm that the collapse in Global M1 growth is a major problem – perhaps the biggest for the global economy – Morgan Stanley shows the following chart which confirms that every time M1 has dipped negative – as central bank liquidity injection either slowed or went into reverse – there has been a financial crisis: whether the 2015 EM and Manufacturing Commodity Recession, the Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2011, the Global Financial Crisis and US Housing bubble burst of 2007/2008, the Tech Bubble burst of 2000 and so on.

Needless to say, the above charts confirm that the key variable for the global economy is not whether the Fed stops hiking or starting cutting rates (although any further rate hikes will surely have an adverse impact on global liquidity), but whether the Fed – and other central banks – pause their balance sheet shrinkage, and once again start actively injecting liquidity into the global system, or soon enough we will be looking for the best description of “[insert here] crisis of 2019.“

via RSS http://bit.ly/2SUaeSV Tyler Durden

In what may be the largest worker strike in history, last week India came to a halt for two days when at least 200 million workers – about 16% of India’s 1.25 billion population – in the country’s public, services, communications and agriculture sectors staged a strike across the country organized by ten labor unions against what they called the anti-national and anti-worker policies of the BJP-led government, and against a new labor law that would undermine the rights of workers and unions.

The strike is a protest against new legislation that passed on 2 January, and is a de facto verdict on Prime Minister Narendra Modi providing an opportunity for millions of workers to protest against high prices and high levels of unemployment, something we touched upon in “The Indian Railway System Announced 63,000 Job Openings… 19 Million People Applied.“

John Dayal, general secretary of the All India Christian Council, told AsiaNews that the event was exceptional, “one of the largest ever organised in the country, planned in advance in every detail.” In his view, the most important thing is that it “is taking place on the eve of general elections that will mark the fate of the prime minister”.

While the massive strike took place in an overall context of calm, there were numerous incidents confirming that social anger in the world’s second most populous nation is also approaching a breaking point: protesters blocked several cities, clashes broke out and damage were reported; a 57-year-old woman died in in Mundagod, a city in northern Karnataka, during a local protest. In Maharashtra more than 5,000 workers blocked the Mumbai-Baroda-Jaipur-Delhi highway. In Puducherry (Pondicherry), on the east coast, protesters hurled stones at a Tamil Nadu state bus.  Transport services closed and rail services were disrupted in Kerala. In Odisha (Orissa), shops, schools, offices and markets shut down for 48 hours. In West Bengal, protesters burnt effigies of Prime Minister Modi.

The national strike was an initiative of the Central Trade Unions (CTU), which is an India-wide labor federation. Unions are opposed to the Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill of 2018 which modified the Trade Union Act of 1926.

Under the law, trade union recognition is mandatory at both at national and state level. However, workers believe that the new law grants the government discretionary power in recognizing labor organizations, effectively eliminating the current bargaining process involving employees, employers and the government.

Unions demanded the enactment of the Social Security Act to protect workers and a minimum wage of 24,000 rupees (more than US$ 340) for the unorganised transport sector.

Workers in banking, insurance, healthcare, education, transport, electricity and coal mining also joined the strike. Student groups also protested as did farmers’ associations that have threatened to call a gramin hartal, a rural strike. Farmers have been protesting for months over the harsh conditions in the countryside, burdened by debt and an wave of suicides.

Tapan Sen, secretary general of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), one of the striking labor organisations, criticized Prime Minister Modi’s government for killing the work culture in the country’s public sectors by favoring private players in major manufacturing contracts.

Unions also alleged the government had failed to create jobs and grossly ignored unions’ 12-point charter of demands besides aggressively pushing for fixed-term employment and amendment to the Trade Union Act, all of which is against the interest of the workers, according to the Economic Times.

Addressing the media after the 2-day strike, Amarjeet Kaur of AITUC said around eight states witnessed a complete shutdown, largely in the northeast, Kerala, Bihar and Goa. There were over 20 crore workers who had joined the strike.

The massive strike comes at an critical inflection point for India, which is one of the world’s fastest growing economies, yet isn’t generating enough jobs for its educated young populace.

A recent Washington Post article estimated that the number of people in India between age of 15 and 34 is expected to hit 480 million by the year 2021. They have higher literacy levels and are staying in school longer than any other previous generation. The surge of youths could be an immense opportunity for the country, if it can find a way to put them to work. But the employment trends in the country remain gloomy.

An analysis performed by Azim Premji University shows that unemployment between 2011 and 2016 in nearly all Indian states was rising. The jobless rates for younger people and those with higher education also increased sharply. For instance, for college graduates, it grew from 4.1% to 8.4%.

Ajit Ghose, an economist at the Institute for Human Development in Delhi, said that the country needs to generate jobs not just for the 6 million to 8 million new workforce entrants annually, but also for people like women who are working less than they would be if they could get jobs at a decent wage. The same economist notes that India has about 104 million “surplus” workers.

Expanding the labor market that much is a tall task for any government, not just India. Modi’s track record of job creation also remains somewhat of a mystery, as the country hasn’t offered nationwide employment data since 2016. The ministries of labor and statistics have conducted surveys of Indian households, but the results have not been made public.

Amit Basole, an economist at Azim Premji University, said: “It’s anybody’s guess whether we’ll see any employment statistics come out before the 2019 elections.” 

What happens after this unprecedented show of force by India’s workers? Probably more of the same: unions threatened to follow last week’s strike with an indefinite strike if government does not heed to their demands. The general secretary for one of the labor unions, HMS, said the unions collectively decided to go on indefinite strike if the government does not respond to the “historic” strike this time.

If that happens, India’s record as one of the world’s fastest growing economies will soon be tarnished. As for the bigger picture, one where general popular – and populist – discontent around the globe is rapidly spreading and affecting not only developed nations (Trump, Brexit, most of Europe), but also the developing world.

Whether the unions will get what they want is unclear, but one thing is certain: India’s even more populous neighbor, China, is very closely following these restive worker developments and doing everything in its power to stop its own population from getting similar thoughts.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – freshman congresswoman who has held office for less than two weeks – is dominating the Democratic conversation on Twitter, generating more interactions – retweets plus likes – than the five most prolific news organizations combined over the last 30 days.

 Data: CrowdTangle; Chart: Chris Canipe/Axios

AOC remains far behind President Trump in the influence of her Twitter account, but he’s the president – she’s a 29-year-old new member of Congress who shot out of a cannon following the midterm elections. 

As Axios reports, among 2020 Democratic hopefuls, Sen. Kamala Harris (combining her Senate and personal accounts) had the highest Twitter engagement at 4.6 million interactions over the last 30 days – but that’s still way behind Ocasio-Cortez – and even former President Barack Obama was lagging the socialist democrat, at 4.4 million interactions (but she’s a lot more active on Twitter).

Ben Thompson, founder of Stratechery, points out that:

“In short, she is the first – but certainly not the last  of an entirely new archetype: a politician that is not only fueled by the Internet, but born of it.”

But we thought that Trump using the internet and social media was unbecoming of a President?

However, not everyone is talking glowingly about AOC, as Doug Casey made clear yesterday, socialism is basically about the forceful control of other people’s lives and property.

I’m afraid Alexandria is evil on a basic level. I know that sounds silly. How can that be true of a cute young girl who says she wants just sunshine and unicorns for everybody? It’s too bad the word “evil” has been so compromised, so discredited, by the people who use it all the time – bible-thumpers, hysterics, and religious fanatics. Evil shouldn’t be associated with horned demons and eternal perdition. It just means something destructive, or recklessly injurious.

The world would be better off if she went back to waitressing and bartending…

 

When the economy collapses – likely in 2019 – everybody will blame capitalism, because Trump is somehow, incorrectly, associated with capitalism. The country – especially the young, the poor, and the non-white – will look to the government to do something. They see the government as a cornucopia, and socialism as a kind and gentle answer. Everyone will be able to drink lattes all day at Starbucks while they play with their iPhones.

The people that will control the government definitely won’t want to be seen as “do nothings.” Especially while the ship of state is sinking in The Greater Depression. They’ll want to be seen as forward thinkers and problem solvers.

So we’re going to see much higher taxes, among other things. There’s no other way to pay for these programs, except sell more debt to the Fed – which they’ll also do, by necessity.

The government is bankrupt. But like all living things from an amoeba to a person to a corporation, its prime directive is to survive. The only way a bankrupt government can survive is by higher tax revenue and money printing. Of course, don’t discount a war; these fools actually believe that would stimulate the economy – the way only turning lots of cities into smoking ruins can.

I don’t see any way out of this.

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Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Just when you think California cannot possibly come up with more things to tax, the new governor, Gavin Newsom, decides to tax drinking water. In Newsom’s first budget proposal on Friday, the communist included a tax on drinking water.

The new budget, titled “California for All,” declares drinking water a “fundamental right,” yet proposes to tax that “right.”

“The Budget includes short-term measures to bring immediate relief to communities without safe drinking water and also proposes an ongoing sustainable funding source to address this problem into the future.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the details of the proposed tax are unknown, however, a similar proposal was abandoned by then-Governor Jerry Brown last year after failing to garner enough support in the legislature. According to Breitbart, critics have already slammed the plan. Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Travis Allen is urging fellow Republicans to “take back” the state on social media, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association and the Association of California Water Agencies are saying that the state should tap into its budget surplus to pay for the needed clear water supplies.

In one of his first official acts @GavinNewsom wants to TAX YOUR WATER. There is no limit to what @TheDemocrats will tax or excuses they’ll make to TAKE YOUR MONEY. It’s time Republicans start fighting and TAKE BACK CALIFORNIA!! https://t.co/mCQOYPIH3t

— Travis Allen (@JoinTravisAllen) January 11, 2019

Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund—Establish a new special fund, with a dedicated funding source from new water, fertilizer, and dairy fees, to enable the State Water Resources Control Board to assist communities, particularly disadvantaged communities, in paying for the short-term and long-term costs of obtaining access to safe and affordable drinking water. This proposal is consistent with the policy framework of SB 623, introduced in the 2017-18 legislative session. The Budget also includes $4.9 million General Fund on a one-time basis for the State Water Resources Control Board and the Department of Food and Agriculture to take initial steps toward implementation of this new Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Program, including (1) implementation of fee collection systems, (2) adoption of an annual implementation plan, and (3) development of a map of high-risk aquifers used as drinking water sources.

Newsom is using the typical democrat line of “helping the poor” clean up their water as an excuse to tax what he calls a “right.” And according to the Sacramento Bee, not everyone thinks taxing drinking water is a bad idea. 

 “We’re excited,” said Anja Raudabaugh, the CEO of Western United Dairymen.

“We appreciate Governor Newsom’s commitment to providing long-term solutions to drinking water in our communities, and we’re looking forward to providing a solution that includes certainty for our dairy producers.”

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The last few weeks have been almost unprecedented, both to the downside (worst month since the Great Depression), and the upside (greatest short-squeeze since the March 2009 lows) with multiple violent intraday swings almost every day as algos took control on every headline.

For many, we know this was an extremely stressful period, but while most choose to internalize or ignore what just happened to them, one trader – @OddStats (a retired finance professional living in the Bay Area) – took to Twitter in a very personal statement that we hope will help many readers…

Via @OddStats,

An Unsolicited Warning From Someone Who Just Blew It

My apologies.

This is long.
This is boring.
I know these aren’t fun.

I don’t need/want your pity; I just honestly hope I can save one person from this stupid nightmare.

TL;DR – I finally destroyed my gambling account.

I’d like to believe that I’m a relatively smart fellow. After all, I graduated from the local state university with a 2.03 GPA after failing out once and dropping out another time. I spent the majority of my professional life in compliance, but before that, I was an investment adviser who only dealt in passive, diversified asset-class based mutual fund investing.

It was slow and boring, but it worked. Really well. I not only did really well for our clients, but also my own money. It was simple, BUY WHEN YOU HAD MONEY and SELL WHEN YOU NEEDED MONEY. Don’t sweat the small details, we’re properly diversified to minimize risk (which worked) and we’ll catch the ups, of which there are always many.

I used that system for decades, including the first 3 years of our retirement. But it wasn’t enough; oh no, I had to get cute. I learned how to trade derivatives; at first it was just simple calls and puts, then exotic spreads. I learned how to trade just simple calls and puts, then exotic spreads. I learned how to trade futures (not exactly difficult) and started placing bigger and bigger bets because, eh, we had plenty of money and I could afford to lose some, no problem.

As the last 6 years went by, I became more and more confident in my ever-changing trading system(s) with options and futures, despite the fact that there was only 1 year where I turned a profit (+$450k selling call spreads in 2015). Every other year, there was always some excuse.

“Oh well, if I hadn’t lost that $350k on toothless cattle futures,we’d have made money.” Or, “if we had just not taken the $600k loss we’d have made money.” Or, “if we had just not taken the $600k loss after the election, we had a pretty good year!”

Dumb stuff like that.

Friends and family all warned me, I better get out of trading before I blow it all. “I won’t,” I assured them, “I’m not that stupid.”

I was sure of it. And I was wrong.

I had quit day-trading back in November but was still using a swing trading system that damn near never lost (really), until I got completely run over last week. Literally every move I made was wrong, and I managed to completely wipe out my entire gambling account. I want to be clear, we’re not broke or anything near it (still get to claim millionaire status), but holy crap did I decimate my account something stupid.

So, I’m here to tell you that the scary stories you hear from elders who quit trading? They’re true. Trading is a losing game. It’s just gambling.

Most people who claim to be winners just ignore their losses and pretend everything is ok. To be sure, some people really can make a living at it, and good for them. But the odds are massively against you. The system is designed to take your money while you’re stressed, guessing, nervous, angry, depressed, or most of all – desperate.

Your money is your money. Your life is your life. I ain’t your pappy. You don’t owe me anything and I don’t owe you anything. But I’m the lucky one. My wife isn’t leaving me (she certainly could) and I paid for my house with cash, so I can’t lose it as long as I keep paying the taxes.

But do this favor to yourself – ask yourself why you’re really doing this. Actually ask yourself what you’ll do IF you wake up one day to yet another surprise six-digit loss that you went to sleep thinking was a winner. If you can’t deal with the fall-out, get out now while you can. Start a business. Go back to school. Get a job you enjoy. Don’t end up like me, or worse, people who didn’t still have a small pile of assets after the Big One strikes your account. I’ll be alright (I hope).

My gambling days are over (because that account is empty now). My wife swears she’s not leaving and that she still loves me. We can always sell this house and move somewhere cheaper if it really comes to that, or, more likely, I’ll just start anotherbusiness if necessary. But the stress I’ve gone through the past week business if necessary. But the stress I’ve gone through the past week since the disaster struck has been unlike any stress I’ve had since I was still in business and had to worry about sales drying up (which any good business owner is paranoid about constantly, even if things are great). OddStats will still be around, but now I’m angry.

I’m embarrassed. I’m humiliated. I’ve hurt myself and others around me and that’s painful. Think about it before this is you. Be good to each other and remember that greed fucking kills.

*  *  *

We wish him luck in the future.

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