Tag: finance

In recent months, there have been massive earthquakes in Venezuela, Fiji, Italy and elsewhere. Here in North America, significant quakes have rattled Oregon, Alaska and the west coast of Mexico.

While the West Coast is notorious for its earthquakes, other portions of the US are also earthquake-prone.

Two earthquakes reported Wednesday morning in Eastern Tennessee have shocked Middle Tennesseans and were felt in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

The 4.4 and 3.3 magnitude quakes had an epicenter near Decatur, Tennessee in Meigs County did no significant damage, but the fear is when will the next massive quake strike.

“A 4.4 magnitude earthquake is a reminder for people to be prepared,” said John Bobel, a public information officer for the division of emergency management in Kentucky’s Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.

Middle Tennessee sits between two different seismic zones, the New Madrid Seismic Zone and the East Tennessee Seismic Zone. The New Madrid Seismic Zone extends from Northeastern Arkansas into West Tennessee, Southeastern Missouri, Western Kentucky, and Southern Illinois. The East Tennessee Seismic Zone extends from Northeastern Alabama into Southwestern Virginia.

Scientists have said that the New Madrid Seismic Zone and the East Tennessee Seismic Zone have unleashed major earthquakes for thousands of years: 

“On Dec. 16, 1811, the first of three major earthquakes and numerous aftershocks struck what is now known as the New Madrid Seismic Zone, a series of faults that stretch 150 miles from Cairo, Illinois, to Marked Tree, Arkansas.

Today the zone threatens Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee. That’s a different set of faults than Wednesday’s quake in the East Tennessee Seismic Zone.

Back in 1811, New Madrid, Missouri, itself had only 400 people, St. Louis to the north had about 1,500 residents and Memphis to the south wasn’t even a twinkle in its founders’ eyes, according to the Central United States Earthquake Consortium. Damage was reported as far away as Charleston, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia; and the quakes, estimated at 7.5 to 7.7 magnitude, were felt more than 1,000 miles away in Connecticut.”

According to TransRe, an international reinsurance organization, there are more than 11 million people living in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.

“The big thing we prepare for is with New Madrid,” Bobel said.

“Depending on the significance of an earthquake, Memphis, Tennessee, would be gone; St. Louis would be wrecked.”

The Louisville Courier-Journal said the New Madrid quakes of 1811 and 1812 were almost 2,000 times more powerful than Wednesday’s 4.4 shockwaves and released almost 90,000 times more energy, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s earthquake calculator.

It is not a matter of if, but when the big quake strikes. The damage in the fault zone area could be devastating: “Anything west of I-65, infrastructure would be severely damaged,” Bobel said of the interstate that bisects Kentucky and Tennessee. “The ground could even liquify and turn to mud,” which happened in 1811 and 1812.

The America Earthquake Center at the University of Illinois estimated that in 2008, a 7.7 magnitude quake along the New Madrid Fault could trigger widespread damage:

“250,000 buildings moderately or severely damaged, more than 260,000 people displaced, significantly more than 60,000 injuries and fatalities, total direct economic losses surpassing $56 billion, $64 billion today when adjusted for inflation. Kentucky would have the next most significant damage, totaling $45 billion, $52 billion today.” 

Depending on where the exact epicenter of the quake is, “areas within the NMSZ would experience widespread and catastrophic physical damage, negative social impacts, and economic losses,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency said in 2008.

Seismologists warned that the New Madrid Seismic Zone has a 25% to 40% chance of producing the next big quake within the next five decades, according to Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government. 

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The Mueller investigation – originally launched to determine whether Donald Trump or members of his campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 US election, has resulted in dozens of indictments and least eight guilty pleas or convictions – yet notably missing are any indictments related to Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. 

With the Russian horse long dead yet still subject to regular beatings, Mueller will now turn his attention to Middle Eastern countries’ attempts to influence American elections, according to the Daily Beast, citing three sources familiar with this aspect of the probe who have said that related court filings are set to drop in early 2019. 

While one part of the Mueller team has indicted Russian spies and troll-masters, another cadre has been spending its time focusing on how Middle Eastern countries pushed cash to Washington politicos in an attempt to sway policy under President Trump’s administration. Various witnesses affiliated with the Trump campaign have been questioned about their conversations with deeply connected individuals from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, according to people familiar with the probe. Topics in those meetings ranged from the use of social-media manipulation to help install Trump in the White House to the overthrow of the regime in Iran. –Daily Beast

Cooperating witnesses have reportedly told the special counsel’s office information about foreigners’ plans to help Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, while Mueller’s team has been mulling whether to issue new charges on this side of the investigation according to two sources with knowledge of the probe. 

“If this is going to be unveiled, this would be like the surfacing of the submarine but on the other plank which we haven’t seen,” said former US attorney Harry Litman. “I guess what Mueller has to date has turned out to be pretty rich and detailed and more than we anticipated. This could turn out to be a rich part of the overall story.”

The Beast suggests that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn – who sat for 19 interviews with Mueller’s team – has provided the special counsel information that may help with the new phase of the investigation. 

In often-heavily redacted court documents made public over the last two weeks, the Special Counsel’s Office hinted at ways in which Flynn helped with its investigation into links between Trumpworld figures and the Russian government.

But Flynn was also involved in conversations with representatives and influential individuals from other foreign governments, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel—encounters The Daily Beast has reported over the last several months. Flynn’s cooperation with Mueller could bring new details about the scope of the special counsel’s probe into how individuals from those countries offered not only to help Trump win the presidential election, but also how they sought to influence foreign policy in the early days of the administration. –Daily Beast

The Beast notes that it’s unclear exactly how this aspect of Mueller’s investigation overlaps with his mandate from the Justice Department to investigate Russian collusion – however that hasn’t stopped him from pursuing Paul Manafort over his work in Ukraine, or Michael Cohen’s tax fraud, for example. It’s clear Mueller is able to investigate whatever he pleases. 

Mueller also has the jurisdiction to “investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the special counsel’s investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses,” according to the code. –Daily Beast

“For something like this to happen, Mueller would have needed to get approval from [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein for this,” said Litman. “It’s not really in the original grant of jurisdiction and it appears then that he made his case to Rosenstein some time ago and that Rosenstein agreed.”

Mueller has also reportedly been investigating several meetings involving Lebanese-American businessman and UAE emissary George Nader – who helped arrange a meeting between Blackwater founder and Trump ally Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev – head of one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds. Nader also acted as a go-between of sorts between various Gulf State government representatives, one “well-connected Israeli,” and Trump’s team. Nader has been working with Mueller’s office since March, however it is unknown what information, if any, he has provided. 

In one August 2016 meeting, first reported by The New York Times and later confirmed by The Daily Beast, Nader told the room that the crown princes of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE were eager to help Trump win the election. Also ready to lend his services was Joel Zamel, a self-styled Mark Zuckerberg of the national-security world with deep ties to Israeli intelligence. Zamel had already been in close contact with the Trump team because one of his companies, Psy Group, had drawn up a plan to use social-media manipulation to help Trump clinch the Republican nomination. The company sent former senior campaign aide Rick Gates that proposal. –Daily Beast

Zamel and Psy Group had more extensive links to the Trump campaign than previously reported, according to the Beast’s November reporting. Former employees claim that at least two other individuals from Trump’s team reached out to the firm during the campaign. 

Notably, Zamel “remained close to the Trump team throughout the election and into the transition,” after having been introduced to the campaign through Nader – who Zamel in turn met through former Dick Cheney aide John Hannah – another target of Mueller’s probe. 

Zamel assisted the Trump team right after the election – even crafting a regime change roadmap for Iran. Nader, meanwhile, was promoting a plan to economically sabotage Tehran – ostensibly a scheme by the Saudi and Emiratis to convince the incoming Trump administration to act against Qatar and Iran – their top regional competitors. 

“The New York Times reported this year that Nader worked with Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy to urge the White House to take an aggressive stance against the two countries.,” according to the Beast. 

Mueller has also probed Nader’s role in the January 2017 Seychelles meeting between Prince and Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. In his House testimony, Prince said the meeting was a chance encounter and the two met to talk about trade and mineral wealth. But prosecutors this year received evidence that showed the meeting was premeditated. Communications reviewed by The Daily Beast reflect that narrative.

A memo shows the two spoke about a range of topics, including peace between Ukraine and Russia, military operations in Syria, investment in the Midwest, and nuclear weapons. Although RDIF is under U.S. sanctions, it was and is still legal for U.S. individuals to meet with Dmitriev, and, in some circumstances, do business with the fund. –Daily Beast

Whatever direction Mueller takes next, we’re sure it will conveniently cast a perpetual shadow of doubt over Donald Trump right into the 2020 election and beyond. 

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Via InternationalMan.com,

“If your gold is outside the US, it gives you another degree of insulation should the United States decide that you shouldn’t own it – it’s not a reportable asset.”

– Doug Casey, May 2017

I’ve been a holder of gold since the 1970’s. At that time, I was purchasing gold and silver for business reasons and found that, as the price was steadily increasing, I’d be wise to buy more than I needed immediately, as I’d most certainly profit from it in the near future.

At that time, I was buying most of my precious metals in Hatton Garden, the centre for physical metals usage in London and, in talking with my more experienced associates there, I learned that gold doesn’t just make pretty jewellery, it has, for over 5000 years, served as man’s best economic insurance policy.

Since the creation of the first fiat currency in China, ca. 600 AD, governments have had the annoying habit of creating fiat currencies. It has taken many forms, including tobacco, shells, cattle, even tulips in 17th Century Holland.

Over the centuries there have been countless fiat currencies. Most of them have been paper currencies and, with the exception of the present-day fiat currencies, all have eventually become worth exactly zero.

Not a very good track record and, in my estimation, those fiat currencies that still exist will also come to an end, possibly soon. But whenever a fiat currency has come to an end, gold has retained its lustre and saved the day, providing a solid means to store wealth. Although governments and bankers have done all they can to discredit gold and discourage its use, gold invariably outlives them all. Whenever history has seen periods of dramatic overreach by banks and/or governments, gold once again re-establishes the very definition of money.

Today, we’re passing through one of these eras of overreach and, not surprisingly, those who are farsighted, are quietly building up their store of gold, to protect them when the latest form of fiat currency joins the rest that have collapsed over the centuries.

But, having realized the need to own gold and then beginning to build up a portfolio, the holder asks himself, “Where should I keep it?” The obvious answer is at home, or somewhere very close, so that he may get to it easily, if need be. During good economic times, this may well mean in a safe deposit box in a bank, but in times like the present, when governments (the EU, US and Canada, amongst others) have recently passed laws allowing banks to confiscate deposits and raid safe deposit boxes, the last choice for safe storage would be a bank.

This leads us to the “at home” option. This is actually a good one. If you have a yard where neither dogs nor gardeners tend to dig holes, “midnight gardening” can indeed be a good solution for small amounts of gold storage. Or, for a neater and more easily accessible solution, a home safe might work well. (You would, of course, want it to be well-concealed and you’d need to install it yourself, or the installers might get ideas.)

But, when turbulent times come, as they have recently, this only works well if you own a small amount of gold, say ten ounces or less. If you hold more at home, you run into the problem of governments. In 1933, US President Franklin Roosevelt demanded that all gold be turned in to the government. He subsequently revalued it and, in doing so, robbed its rightful owners of a 69% increase in their wealth.

Unfortunately, since we know that the EU, US and Canada have all passed confiscation laws, those jurisdictions are no longer safe places to store wealth. Ten ounces of gold may be regarded as an emergency stash but, beyond that, another jurisdiction is needed – one that’s not threatened by confiscation laws.

What I’ve recommended to investors for decades is to first choose the best jurisdiction that’s relatively near to you, then pick the safest storage facility within that jurisdiction.

Recently, I’ve been asked more and more often to get specific and open up about my personal preferred facilities. I’d rather describe the benefits and pitfalls and leave the investor to do his own homework, but as a result of increasing requests, these are my personal preferences:

If you’re in Europe, Austria is a good choice and Das Safe is an excellent depository. In Asia, Singapore is an excellent jurisdiction and The Safe House is an exceptional choice.

However, the Western Hemisphere is a different story. There are quite a few excellent depositories in the US and Canada, but, as stated above, I no longer regard these jurisdictions as safe. In my travels elsewhere in the hemisphere, I’ve been disappointed to find that, whilst there are jurisdictions that are safer than North America, the depositories there leave a great deal to be desired. (On one occasion, in Uruguay, I took one look at the outside of the depository’s building and never even bothered to go in. Although it was considered the premier facility there, it didn’t come close to my expectations.) Others, such as those in Panama, have been similarly disappointing.

What the depositor should be after is a facility that’s heavily reinforced on all six sides (meaning that the ceiling and foundation must be just as impenetrable as the walls). In addition, it would need a Class III bullion vault – the equal of the best bank vaults. In addition, it should have multiple security doors and man-traps leading to the vault, assuring that no one who enters can make a dash for the exit. This virtually eliminates the temptation for theft.

Unfortunately, to my present knowledge, there’s only one depository in the Western Hemisphere that ticks all the boxes. Or perhaps I should put that another way: Fortunately, there is one depository in the Western Hemisphere that ticks all the boxes.

That depository is Strategic Wealth Preservation (SWP) in the Cayman Islands. Most importantly, it’s located in an exceptional jurisdiction as regards wealth safety. And, by this I mean:

• No direct taxation of any kind. No taxes or duties that apply to the purchase, ownership, storage or sales of precious metals. No capital gains tax; no inheritance tax. No sales tax. No VAT.

• World-class financial system to provide auxiliary services.

• Stable government with consistent history for economic stability that caters to international investors.

• Minimal wealth legislation and regulation, to assure a minimum of red tape in processing purchases, sales, transfers and shipment of metals.

Secondly, SWP ticks all the boxes as to being a top bullion storage facility. Further, the SWP contracts were designed to take the best from each of the world’s other depositories, having been vetted by one of the world’s most respected gold analysts (who, possibly not coincidentally, became the first depositor). Also, it’s only an hour by air from the US.

It’s also essential that your deposit is fully insured and that the storage be fully documented, allocated and segregated, as in the photo below of an incoming deposit:

For Americans, an offshore gold IRA is becoming an essential and SWP has an excellent gold IRA.

Over the past decades that I’ve been advising people on geographical economic diversification, I’ve often said that the coming events themselves are relatively easy to predict, but the timing is not. To me, the one clearest indicator of timeframe is that, the closer a crash gets, the more events will increase in both frequency and magnitude. Based upon that premise, we’re drawing quite close to the first of the crashes, as we’re now seeing significant events almost daily.

This tells us that our time is limited and that our long-term plans for wealth preservation need to be in place now. Whatever choice the reader makes to safeguard his wealth, he will need to do it very soon. Time is very clearly running out.

*  *  *

Clearly, there are many strange things afoot in the world. Distortions of markets, distortions of culture. It’s wise to wonder what’s going to happen, and to take advantage of growth while also being prepared for crisis. How will you protect yourself in the next crisis? See our PDF guide that will show you exactly how. Click here to download it now.

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Once upon a time, the most popular “widowmaker” trade was being short Japanese bonds as a result of prevailing conventional wisdom that there is no way Japan’s demographically doomed society and stagnant economy can sustain interest rates near zero. 

Not anymore. In fact, according to the latest data from Japan’s Ministry of Finance compiled by Bloomberg, the “widowmaker” trade has been flipped on its head, as global investors just can’t get enough of Japanese bonds and in the week ended Dec. 7, foreign investors bought a net 1.72 trillion yen (or $15.2BN) in Japanese bonds, the most on record (the data starts in January 2005) and a third straight week of purchases.

How is this possible: why would any investor choose to buy Japanese bonds which yield just around 0.05%, when one can easily purchase US 10Y Treasurys at a yield of roughly 2.90%? Simple: currency hedging, because as the chart below shows, when eliminating currency risk (i.e. FX hedging) for the 10Y US in either euros or yen, the yield on 10Y paper drops well into negative territory as a result of the sharp yield different on the short end.

Then there is the general risk-aversion sentiment prevailing on trade desks, and which makes for a very strong argument why global funds are buying JGBs, said Stephen Innes, head of Asia-Pacific trading at Oanda. “When markets are risk averse, haven assets like the Japanese yen do well, and that risk off has added some flavor for their bonds too.”

Ironically, this sudden burst in JGB appetite is also mucking up the Bank of Japan’s own plans to modestly steepen its own yield curve (but not too much): recall that earlier this year, the BOJ tweaked its yield-curve control policy to embrace a wider range for 10-year yields (from 0-0.1% to 0-0.2%). And yet after yields initially popped higher, they’ve since sunk back toward zero amid the global debt rally that has pushed tens of billions of government debt once again back into negative yielding territory.

And yet, the BOJ remains trapped, because as much as it would like to provide a kicker to Japan’s long-suffering banks which have had a flat Net Interest Margin curve for years, any move to taper purchases further could revive questions about policy makers seeking to exit from mega-stimulus mode, and not only result in turmoil for the bond market but spur an unwelcome appreciation in the yen.

Still, in the global tightening context, Kuroda’s central bank is the one central bank that isn’t currently looking at official quantitative tightening, even if the BOJ is clearly, if unofficially, tapering its bond purchases, and according to Bloomberg the world’s second-largest debt market has seen the central bank slow down the year-on-year increase in its bond holdings by an average 3.2% per month in 2018; at this pace, the stockpile would rise just 26 trillion yen ($230 billion) over 2019, the smallest increase since it began quantitative easing in April 2013.

None of the above is formal policy however: “the BOJ has also drawn a line in the sand in terms of allowing yields to leak higher — given they’ve doubled down on their bond buying, there’s relative stability in the market,” said Tano Pelosi, a portfolio manager at Antares Capital in Sydney. “In a world with a lot of uncertainty, that can be attractive to some global investors.”

And since on an FX-hedged basis one may as well buy JGBs over US Treasuries, foreigners have no qualms about buying Japanese paper, especially since the BOJ will keep its 10-year yields in a range around zero percent for the foreseeable future and beyond.

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With yuan unable to sustain its PBOC-inspired squeeze higher and currency volatility at three-year highs, hopes remained high that some stability can be reasserted in China’s macro-economic data tonight. Those hopes have been dashed.

However, policymakers face two challenges…

Internally, policymakers’ efforts to constrain the growth of shadow banking and reduce financial risks worked almost too well. Financial regulations introduced in 2017 and early 2018 led to a meaningful contraction in shadow banking, which slowed overall credit growth and tightened credit conditions, particularly for private companies.

And externally, the escalation in US tariffs raised questions about China’s export growth and damaged confidence in the economic outlook. As a result, our China Current Activity Indicator (CAI) has fallen nearly two percentage points from its 1H2018 average of over 7%.”

And as Goldman’s Andrew Tilton (Chief Asia Economist) warns

“There are reasons to be concerned [that easing is becoming less effective]. Local government officials who typically implement infrastructure spending and other forms of stimulus are facing conflicting pressures. The emphasis in recent years on reducing off-balance-sheet borrowing, selecting only higher-value projects, and eliminating corruption has made local officials more cautious. But at the same time, the authorities are now encouraging local officials to do more to support growth, like accelerate infrastructure projects. President Xi himself recently acknowledged the incentive problems and administrative burdens facing local officials.”

So where did tonight’s economic data deluge print?

• China Retail Sales YoY Big Miss +8.1% (vs +8.8% exp)

• China Industrial Production YoY Big Miss +5.4% (vs +5.9% exp)

• China Fixed Assets Investment YoY Beat +5.9% (vs +5.8% exp)

• China Property Investment YoY +9.7%

• China Surveyed Jobless Rate Fell to 4.8%

Retail sales growth is at its slowest since the peak of the crisis in Nov 2008 and industrial production is at its slowest since 2003…

 

And don’t forget China’s unsold car inventory is at a record high as car sales plunged for a sixth consecutive month, plummeting 18 percent in November, which would be the first annual decline since 1990 based on CAAM estimate.

It seems the crackdown on the shadow-banking system is hard to overcome it seems with even the most finely tuned hammer of monetary policy…

Albeit a stronger-than-estimate aggregate financing and new yuan loans released earlier this week, the slowdown of M1 money supply growth underscores worries over economy, which may prompt authorities to start doing more to support growth.

But, as a reminder, it is not like Chinese authorities have been sitting on their hands as the economy, currency, and stock markets slump. As we noted previously, they have aggressively loosened monetary and fiscal policies…

But as the Current Activity Indicator above shows, it’s not working.

Economic data aside, Bloomberg’s Ailing Tan points out one notable change from previous month’s political environment is the ease of trade tensions, which more progress are now seen on China’s end right after the talk with U.S. in Argentina:

• Resume large purchase of U.S. soybeans after a drastic reduction this year

• Delay ambitious program in tech industry, known as ‘Made in China 2025’

• Reduction of import duties on vehicles from U.S.

• Stepping up punishments for IP thefts

As Bloomberg’s Enda Curran notes, while the numbers reinforce what we already know, that the economy is under pressure, the soft numbers indicate that there’s a way to go yet before growth turns a corner. It may be one reason why China is appearing to play ball in the trade talks…

And finally, before American investors crow that Trump’s trade war is working and China’s economy is suffering – the fact is that the US economic data is as dismal and disappointing as China’s has been…

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Authored by Walter Williams, op-ed via Townhall.com,

How appropriate would it be for a major publicly held American company to hire a person with a history of having publicly made the following statements and many others like them? (In the interest of brevity, I shall list only four.)

“The world could get by just fine with zero black people.”

“It’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old black men.”

“Dumbass f—ing black people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.”

“Are black people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically only being fit to live underground like groveling bilious goblins?”

I think most Americans would find such blatant racism despicable and would condemn any company that knowingly hired such a person. Leftists of every stripe would be in an uproar, demanding the dismissal of such an employee. College students and their professors would picket any company that hired such a person. I could be wrong about this, so I’d truly like any employer who’d hire such a person to come forward.

Most Americans would see such statements as racist, but consider this: Suppose we slightly changed the wording of each statement, replacing the word “black” with “white.”

For example, “The world could get by just fine with zero white people.”

Would you consider that statement to be just as racist? I would hope you’d answer in the affirmative. They’re all racist statements!

The full scoop on those statements can be found in an excellent essay by William Voegeli, “Racism, Revised,” in the fall edition of the Claremont Review of Books. The racist statements about white people were made by Sarah Jeong, one of the newest members of The New York Times’ editorial board. Jeong attended the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School. She decided to become a journalist specializing in technology and the internet. She has an active Twitter account with over 97,000 followers.

One person excused Jeong’s tweets by saying they “were not racist” but merely “jokes about white people.”

Leftists have been taught utter nonsense by their college professors. The most insidious lesson taught is who can and who cannot be a racist. Jeong was born in South Korea in 1988 and became a U.S. citizen in 2017, so she is a minority. According to the thinking of academia’s intellectual elite, a minority person cannot be a racist. The reason is that minorities don’t have the political, economic and institutional power to adversely affect the lives of whites.

Such reasoning is beyond stupid.

Here’s a test. Is the following statement racist?

“Jews are money-hungry hustlers.”

Before you answer, must you first find out the race of the person making the statement? Would you suggest that it’s not a racist statement if the speaker is black but it is if he’s white?

Voegeli says that calling someone “racist” is one of the most severe accusations that can be made against a person but at the same time is among the vaguest. Years ago, one had to don a hood and robe to be a certified racist. Today, it’s much easier. Tucker Carlson of Fox News questioned whether diversity is all that it’s cracked up to be. He asked:

“How, precisely, is diversity our strength? Can you think, for example, of other institutions, such as … marriage or military units, in which the less people have in common the more cohesive they are?”

The Washington Post’s media critic declared that it was racist for Carlson to cast doubt on the proposition that diversity is good.

Voegeli’s article is rich with many other examples of how lots of Americans are losing their minds in matters of race. Muhammad Ali had it right when he said: “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”

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Suffering from waning popularity and a bevy of sex abuse scandals that have drained the organization’s coffers, the Boy Scouts of America – an iconic organization founded by former President Teddy Roosevelt – is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Boy Scouts have gone so far as to hire a law firm, Sidley Austin LLP, to assist them with a possible chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

The reason? The Boy Scouts are facing lawsuits a flurry of lawsuits related to sexual abuse scandals dating back to the 1960s. Fearing that it won’t be able to afford the costs of these lawsuits, the organization has apparently decided that bankruptcy – which could stop the litigation and give it a chance to negotiate – might be the best option.

The Boy Scouts have been at the center of sexual-abuse scandals in the past, and the organization is facing a number of lawsuits that allege inappropriate conduct by employees or volunteers in incidents dating back as far as the 1960s. Filing for bankruptcy would stop the litigation and would give the nonprofit a chance to negotiate with those who have sued.

Recently, this strategy has been embraced by organizations ranging from a handful of Catholic archdiocese to USA Gymnastics (which is facing extinction in the face of the legal backlash to the predations of former team doctor Larry Nassar).

Other organizations facing similar legal pressure have also turned to bankruptcy protection in recent years. More than 20 Catholic dioceses and religious orders have filed for chapter 11 protection to negotiate payouts to thousands of victims. And last week USA Gymnastics, the governing body for the sport, filed for bankruptcy as it faces lawsuits from decadeslong sexual abuse by the national team’s former doctor Larry Nassar.

A warning to employees sent out last week said the organization is considering all available options, suggesting that bankruptcy is very much on the table. At a time when membership in the organization is falling and revenue is drying up as groups like the Mormon Church pull funding, these lawsuits couldn’t come at a worse time.

The Boy Scouts released a letter to its employees Wednesday that said it plans to “explore all options available to ensure that the local and national programming of the Boy Scouts of America continues uninterrupted.”

Participation in the organization’s programs has fallen in recent years, though the group opened some of its programs to girls and transgender boys. The Boy Scouts currently have more than 2.3 million youth members. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, formerly one of the group’s largest sponsors, has said it will withdraw from Boy Scout programs. The church said it would develop its own program for young men.

And as if the sex abuse lawsuits weren’t enough, the Boy Scouts are facing a lawsuit from the Girl Scouts of America over the former’s decision to placate angry SJWs by allowing girls to join.

In November, the Girl Scouts filed a trademark lawsuit against the organization, saying its push for girls to join caused confusion and led to instances in which parents mistakenly signed their children up for Boy Scouts programs.

A Boy Scouts spokeswoman said the group is reviewing the lawsuit and that the expansion came “after years of requests from families who wanted” to participate in its programs.

During 2017 alone, the Boy Scouts paid $7.6 million to labor and employment law firm Ogletree Deakins, plus another $3.5 million to  Ogletree in 2016 and $859,347 to that firm in 2015. In recent years, the organization has sued its insurers for refusing to cover the costs related to sex abuse lawsuits.

But in a time when boys are more focused on smartphones and video games than learning how to survive in the wild, these lawsuits might only be hastening the organization’s inevitable decline.

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Futures are tumbling on a report that Donald Trump was present at an August 2015 meeting to discuss hush money payments to shield him from potentially damaging allegations by two women. 

According to court filings, Trump was present at the meeting with his former longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen, and David Pecker – chairman of The Enquirer parent company, American Media Inc. (AMI). 

The plan involved Pecker flagging potentially negative stories about Trump’s relationships with women, then purchasing the rights to the allegations with no intention to publish them in a practice known as “catch-and-kill,” according to a non-prosecution agreement between AMI and Manhattan federal prosecutors made public Wednesday. 

AMI paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000, who claimed to have had a 10-month-long extramarital affair with Trump beginning in 2006 – a payment which Federal prosecutors have amounted to an effort to influence the 2016 US election, and a campaign finance violation.

This week’s court filing said that Cohen, Pecker and “one or more members of the campaign” met in August 2015, during which “Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate’s relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased, and their publication avoided.”

AMI has now admitted to “keep Cohen appraised” of negative reporting about Trump following the meeting. 

The media company also helped facilitate a payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the months leading up to the 2016 election. 

While Pecker and AMI haven’t been charged with any crimes – and are now cloaked in an immunity deal, Cohen pleaded guilty to the campaign finance violations and seven unrelated crimes. Cohen claimed in court that the hush money payments were made at Trump’s direction. 

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Authored by Mike Adams via NaturalNews.com,

A New Jersey law that makes it a felony to possess a gun magazine capable of holding over 10 rounds of ammunition is now active.

This wildly unconstitutional law instantly criminalizes hundreds of thousands of New Jersey citizens who legally acquired normal capacity firearms magazines – which include 17-round pistol magazines and 30-round rifle magazines – as tools of self-defense against the very same violent criminals that are protected by the Democrats who passed the gun magazine ban.

Now, the New Jersey State Police have told Breitbart News they won’t rule out “house-to-house enforcement” of the new magazine ban, meaning they plan to conduct house-to-house arrests and gun magazine confiscations. These Nazi-style anti-gun operations will, of course, be carried out at gunpoint, further underscoring the entire purpose of the Second Amendment and the need for citizens to arm themselves with 30-round magazines to defend against government tyranny.

Breitbart News contacted New Jersey State Police on Monday to ask how they planned to enforce the newly enacted ban, reports Breitbart.com.

“The NJ State Police refused to rule out house-to-house checks. Rather, they responded: ‘We do not discuss enforcement strategies.’”

The very reason citizens need 30-round magazines is because the government wants to use coercion and the threat of violence to take away their legally-acquired firearms and magazines. If citizens surrender 30-round magazines, the next step will be New Jersey banning all magazines, followed by the banning of all semi-automatic firearms. Almost overnight, citizens of New Jersey will find themselves living under an authoritarian regime of pure tyranny and lawlessness… with no means to defend themselves against the state, which will then have a monopoly on effective firearms.

This is a repeat of Nazi Germany, which disarmed the Jews before mass murdering six million of them. It’s so much easier to murder people, after all, when the government disarms them first. And anyone going along with the disarmament is signing their own death warrant.

The purpose of the magazine ban is to make sure citizens can’t shoot back when the authoritarian government comes to take ALL their guns

The entire purpose of the gun magazine ban, of course, is to make sure that innocent citizens are unable to shoot back when the government sends gun confiscation teamson door-to-door raids, gunning down citizens and taking their firearms by force. Anyone who knows history will immediately realize that New Jersey is walking down the path of Stalinist Russia or Hitler’s Germany, weaponizing the power of corrupt government to disarm the very people that government will later target for mass arrests and mass murder.

Have no illusions: The aim of all Leftists in government is the establish an authoritarian government regime that holds a monopoly over all firepower, ruling over disarmed citizens who are taxed to death, silenced by the tech giants and criminalized for seeking to defend their own nation against tyranny. This will be combined with open borders policies that flood the nation with violent criminal illegal aliens who will all be granted absolute legal immunity from their crimes, even while American citizens are arrested and imprisoned for merely exercising their Second Amendment rights.

As the Founding Fathers repeatedly noted, all citizens of America have a constitutional duty to resist unconstitutional, illegal “laws” that deprive them of their constitutional rights. Just because New Jersey passes a magazine ban doesn’t mean the New Jersey government has the rightful authority to assert such a restriction. The right to keep and bear arms implies the right to keep and bear the ammunition and magazines required for those arms to function. In passing the gun magazine ban, New Jersey lawmakers prove that they are lawless tyrants who have zero regard for the Bill of Rights, the right of self-defense or the safety of citizens in their own homes. It also underscores why such tyrants must be removed from power by the voters and prevented from destroying the civil rights of the people.

How much blood are New Jersey State Police willing to shed to establish their dictatorial regime of absolute power?

All this raises an important question: How much blood are New Jersey State Police officers willing to shed in order to establish absolute power over the (disarmed) citizens? And who, exactly, is suicidal enough to run these door-to-door confiscation raids, demanding citizens turn over the very hardware they need to defend themselves against New Jersey government tyrants?

It now appears that New Jersey State Police are gearing up to wage mass shootings of gun owners who resist the magazine ban. This will all be carried out, of course, in the name of “public safety.” Thus, the government will engage in mass shootings while claiming to be stopping mass shootings. Such is the new tyranny of the deranged, lawless Left which believes no citizen should have the right to defend themselves against the wave of violent illegal alien criminals those very same Leftists want to see flood across the open border and invade U.S. cities.

This is the new reality is living under the tyrannical rule of Democrats who despise America and are doing everything in their power to destroy the nation and criminalize its patriots. If you dare attempt to defend yourself with a 30-round magazine against a group of illegal alien human traffickers who all have their own 30-round magazines, suddenly you are the criminal while the illegal aliens receive “sanctuary” status. Yes, it’s beyond insane, but this is precisely what left-wing lunacy has delivered in America. Now in New Jersey, no citizen is allowed to defend herself against violence, even as the state becomes a tool of violence against the citizens. Don’t forget, either, that under Barack Obama, the entire deep state apparatus, including the FBI and DOJ, was weaponized to spy on the Trump campaign, frame campaign officials for “crimes” and violate the civil rights of Trump associates via FISA warrants which were achieved using astonishing levels of deception and abuse of government power.

The government is a weapon against the people of America, and right now it’s only President Trump holding back the full force of tyranny that seeks to eviscerate any last shred of both the First and Second Amendments.

We must all now realize that the New Jersey government is waging war against its own citizens while protecting illegal aliens from prosecution. Thus, the government of New Jersey has, without question, become the enemy of the People. It won’t be long, I’d imagine, before we see New Jersey resistance groups designating New Jersey lawmakers as “enemy combatants” who have declared war on the people of New Jersey.

No good can come of this

A state government that believes it can assert the power to criminally arrest its own citizens for possessing legally-acquired “normal capacity” magazines must also believe it has the power to confiscate all guns, too. Thus, it’s only a matter of time before New Jersey lawmakers decide that no citizen should be allowed to own any gun at all. When that day comes — and it isn’t far off — will the law-abiding citizens of New Jersey do what they’re told and turn in all their guns, too?

Every government will take more and more power until it is forced to stop. There is no such thing as a government that has “enough” power. Its bureaucrats are forever hungry for more power, and they will continue to strip power from the citizens for as long as they can get away with it. The rise of tyranny is an inescapable human vector — a concentration of power that only snowballs into increasingly dangerous levels of tyranny and authoritarianism. Only when citizens stand up and say “Enough!” will bureaucrats ever back down and be humbled.

New Jersey is marching down the path of Stalinist authoritarianism. Have no illusions that New Jersey State Police will carry 30-round magazines, not 10-round magazines. The entire point of this magazine confiscation program is to incrementally disarm the citizenry and make sure that when the NJ government launches its all-out war on pro-2A citizens, those citizens are at a severe disadvantage in terms of magazine capacity. It’s so much easier to win a war, after all, if you force your enemy to carry 10-round magazines. And from the point of view of New Jersey lawmakers, the people are their enemy. YOU are already an “enemy combatant” in the eyes of NJ Democrats.

Giving up your 30-round magazines, in other words, is tantamount to surrendering to tyranny. No lawful government would ever attempt to take away your rifle mags. The very fact that New Jersey is going down this path proves that NJ bureaucrats plan to do much more in the near future. Ultimately, they don’t want the citizens to have any means to defend themselves whatsoever.

First they came for the magazines, and we turned those in to comply with the law.

Then they came for the guns, and we turned those in, too, to comply with the law.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me (and no means to defend myself against lawless tyranny).

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A 49-year-old Chinese factory worker has survived after he was skewered with ten metal spikes in a Hunan province porcelain factory last Tuesday. 

The man, named as Mr Zhou in local reports, was working the night shift when a robotic arm fell and struck him – impaling him with foot-long half-inch thick metal rods, according to the People’s Daily. 

After an initial examination, Zhou was rushed to Xiangya Hospital of Central South University in extreme distress and was unable to move his right hand. Six of the spikes were embedded in his right shoulder and chest, and four penetrated his right forearm and wrist. 

Zhou was operated on by a multidisciplinary team, including hand microsurgeons and cardiothoracic specialists under the guidance of Professor Tang Juyu. 

Each spike was carefully removed – one of which missed Zhou’s subclavian artery and nearby vein, which would have most certainly killed him had they been severed. 

“The metal pieces were relatively big so there was no means of fitting the patient into the X-ray machine while the nails themselves could have caused interference with X-rays,” said associate professor of hand microsurgery, Wu Panfeng. 

Zhou has regained some sensation and movement in his right hand and is currently in recovery. 

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