Tag: finance

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

A transcript of exchanges between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been leaked to National News Conglomerate by an anonymous source within the Kremlin. We here at NNC have confirmed the authenticity of this document using the same rigorous verification process we’ve been using to authenticate the evidence for all our other reporting on Russia’s involvement in the 2016 US elections over the last two years. These verification methods include hunches, gut intuitions, and an introspective assessment of the way our feelings feel. The following exchanges revealed in this transcript provide the clearest evidence yet that the President of the United States has been in collusion with the Russian government for years.

This introduction has been authored by the editorial board of the National News Conglomerate. Obey.

11/9/2016

Trump: I have done as you commanded, my dominant and all-powerful lord. I have conspired with your hackers to steal the election, and now I’m going to be president! I want to thank you for not releasing that video footage of those Russian prostitutes I hired to urinate on a bed the Obamas once slept in. If that had come out it would have offended and alienated a lot of people, which is something I never normally do.

Putin: Yes that is an old KGB tactic called kompromat, a word which only extremely intelligent people know about. Keep this line of communication open. As long as you do as I command, your pee pee tape will remain secret.

Trump: One thing I’m curious about though my lord, if you don’t mind my asking. If you already had an army of hackers targeting Democratic Party emails, why did you need my help? Couldn’t you just have hacked the emails and published them on your own? Why did you need me to interact with them at all?

Putin: Moral support, mainly. We don’t need to get into specifics.

Trump: Oh okay.

~

1/20/2017

Trump: I’m in! Whew! I was really worried that leaked dossier would be the end of me! What are my instructions, my lord?

Putin: Begin introducing racism and division to the United States. America has never experienced these things before, and it will shock and disorient them. With the US divided against itself, your nation will be far too weak to stand against my plans of total world domination.

Trump: That’s a really tall order! America has always been a harmonious place where everyone gets along up until today. I’ll try my best though. Anything else?

Putin: Yes, make them distrust your nation’s large media outlets and convince them that the US intelligence community is often dishonest.

Trump: That will be really hard because those institutions have always been trusted for their unparalleled integrity. But your wish is my command, oh lord.

~

4/7/2017

Putin: Bomb a Syrian airbase.

Trump: What? Really? Aren’t they, like, your allies?

Putin: Exactly. This will throw inquisitive minds off the scent. We can’t have them finding out about that pee tape.

Trump: Are you sure? Some people are saying that chemical attack looks like it could have been perpetrated by the many terrorist factions in Syria and not the government.

Putin: Who cares? Have you seen how relentless they’ve been in exposing us?? Have you never watched Rachel Maddow? That woman is a psychic bloodhound, masterfully sniffing out the truth at every turn! We can’t afford to take chances. Do as I say.

Trump: Yes sir.

Putin: And see if you can arrest that WikiLeaks guy.

~

5/14/17

Trump: Hey do you want me to do anything about Montenegro’s addition to NATO?

Putin: No. NATO expansion is good.

Trump: Uhhh okay.

~

6/28/17

Trump: Who do you want tapped for Ukraine envoy?

Putin: Kurt Volker.

Trump: Volker? He hates you! He’s like the biggest Russia hawk ever.

Putin: We still need to throw the Russiagaters off the scent. We’re playing 3-D chess here. This is high-level disinformation, or dezinformatsiya as very smart people call it. I want as many Russia hawks in your administration as possible.

Trump: 3-D chess? Alright. I guess you know what you’re doing.

~

8/30/17

Putin: Shut down the Russian consulate in San Francisco and throw out a bunch of diplomats. That will confuse the hell out of them.

~

11/21/17

Putin: Now approve the sale of arms to Ukraine. Not even Obama would do that. This will throw them off the trail for sure.

~

1/1/18

Putin: Happy new year. Force RT and Sputnik to register as foreign agents.

~

1/29/18

Putin: Make sure your Nuclear Posture Review greatly escalates its aggressive posture toward Russia.

~

2/14/18

Putin: Happy Valentine’s Day. Don’t worry about those Russians your guys killed in Syria.

~

2/19/18

Putin: Send a fleet of war ships to the Black Sea.

~

3/25/18

Putin: Better expel a few dozen diplomats over the Skripal thing.

~

4/5/18

Putin: Sanction a bunch of Russian oligarchs.

~

4/10/18

Putin: Bomb Syria.

Trump: What?? Again?

Putin: Yes.

Trump: What the hell, man? Why’d you even recruit me if you’re just going to have me do everything all the Russia hawks want?

Putin: Well, you know how I told you we were playing 3-D chess against the Russiagate investigation?

Trump: Yeah?

Putin: Well that wasn’t enough. Now we’re playing 4-D chess.

Trump: Fine, whatever, I don’t care. Just don’t release my pee tape.

~

7/17/18

Trump: Oh man. They’re really making a major fuss about that summit. What should I do?

Putin: Play it cool. Don’t let them know about our secret diabolical plot.

Trump: Right. Remind me what that was again?

Putin: Make Jim Acosta feel really, really sad.

~

9/2/18

Putin: Have you arrested Julian Assange yet?

Trump: Working on it.

~

10/20/18

Putin: I like John Bolton’s idea. Pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

~

11/25/18

Putin: Make sure your administration loudly and aggressively backs Ukraine in our Kerch Strait spat.

Trump: OMFG this is getting too weird. Are you just trolling me? What the hell is this?

Trump: Hello?

Trump: Are you there?

Trump: Answer me!

Putin: 5-D chess.

*  *  *

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By announcing plans to cut 15,000 jobs in two swing states – Ohio and Michigan – General Motors thumbed its nose at President Trump (and his generous tax-cut plan) for insisting on imposing his protectionist agenda over the objections of automakers and virtually every other sector of corporate America. But while a furious Trump has ordered federal agencies to find a way to punish GM, Ford announced that it’s planning a “restructuring” of its own that – but the carmaker was careful to point out, won’t involve any job cuts.

The automaker announced on Wednesday that it would move 500 workers to its Kentucky truck plant, from its Louisville Assembly Plant to the same truck plant to help it increase Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator production by 20%. But the restructuring won’t include any layoffs.

Ford is also planning some shift reductions at its Flat Rock, Michigan plant as part of the restructuring. However, the automaker has already struck a deal with the UAW to ensure that displaced workers will have opportunities elsewhere.

That news follows a Bloomberg from earlier detailing Ford’s plans to accelerate production of its Lincoln brand in China to try and avoid painful tariffs on US-made cars. Meanwhile, the company also plans to increase domestic production of vehicles destined for the US market to avoid US tariffs – which sounds like validation of Trump’s argument that tariffs should benefit domestic producers. The company is hoping to fast-track its expansion in China in a gamble to help improve sales of its Lincoln brand, which have slowed thanks to the tariffs after soaring 66% in 2017.

The automaker has rolled out an electric model called the Ford Aviator that has lower door handles, stringent emissions controls and the capacity to use a smartphone as a key – all features designed to entice Chinese buyers.

Ford’s decision to go all-in on Lincoln in China is effectively a gamble on the Chinese luxury market – a gamble that recent economic data suggest is looking increasingly risky.

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Having seen donations to their ‘foundation’ collapse by 90% since they failed in their bid to regain The White House, The Clintons decided a 13-city paid speaking tour was in order to scrape together some coin.

Unfortunately, as the image above shows, the supposed-power-couple’s draw is starting to fade as the  Daily Mail reports that just 3,300 tickets were sold in the Scotiabank Arena, which holds 19,800.

As President Trump tours the nation in front of 10s of thousands of fans, The Clintons faced 83% empty seats in the Canadian hockey arena as it seems fewer and fewer North Americans want to hear their whining scapegoatery.

As The Daily Mail reports, Bill Clinton said the U.S. had ‘compromised’ its moral leadership in the world under Trump, and defended his NAFTA free trade agreement. He said of the recent elections:

“We got a chance to become a democracy again and reclaim a debate,” adding that there were Republicans of good will “who don’t want to make America a single homogenous authoritarian country. We got a chance to have a debate again now.”

The former president apologized for Trump’s angry clash with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau during his last trip here, setting off a trade clash, though the U.S., Canada, and Mexico ultimately reached a deal.

“All the rhetoric was just for consumption, it was just rhetoric. And we did some real damage I’m afraid to our relationship and if we did I ask for your forbearance because we do love you, most of us, in America,” said Clinton, who inked the NAFTA agreement during his tenure.

But the Trump-bashing had to wait for a few minutes as Hillary suffered the return of the coughing fit that so enlivened her 2016 campaign…

“You need another?” her husband asked, offering her a bottled water. She also took what looked like a cough drop after about an hour on stage.  Her husband filibustered while her voice recovered, and Clinton participated during the event’s final 30 minutes.

As the American Thinker points out, “While 3300 tickets sold at prices ranging from $53 to over $200 still yields a healthy payday, even after expenses, the optics are terrible,” which is something even loyal Democrats and CNN is pointing out:

“I just think the optics of going to an event where people are paying to see them, and they are financially gaining from this, I am not sure that is the right way to re-ingratiate them back into the public sphere,” said a former Clinton aide.

“They haven’t gone away, and I don’t want them to go away, but I am not sure this is the right venue from an optics standpoint.”

Tickets were going a lot cheaper as the event neared…

As American Thinker p[oints out,m Even though curtains were erected cutting the arena in half, the vacant seats far outnumbered the occupied ones.

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The impoverished state of Central African Republic – one of the poorest countries in the world – landed a paper windfall on Tuesday, when Russian state bank VTB reported it had lent the country $12 billion, or more than six times the country’s entire GDP — but the bank then said it was a clerical error “fat finger” and there was no such loan.

According to Reuters, the loan was mentioned in a quarterly VTB financial report published by the Russian central bank, which included a table listing the outstanding financial claims that VTB group had on dozens of countries as of Oct. 1 this year. There, in the table next to Central African Republic was the sum of 801,933,814,000 roubles, or $12 billion — more than six times the country’s annual economic output of $1.95 billion.

There was no indication in the data published by the Russian central bank of who was the recipient of the loan, the purpose of the loan, or when it was issued and on what terms.

When asked about the data by Reuters, the bank said the loan to the former French colony did not, in reality, exist.

“VTB bank has no exposure of this size to any foreign country. Most likely, this is a case of an operational mistake in the system when the countries were being coded,” the lender said in a statement sent to Reuters.

That, or with the Danske Bank money laundering pathway now closed, Russian oligarchs have found a new and even more creative route to launder domestic funds offshore.

Of course, VTB did not say who was responsible for the mistake or how such a large figure could have been published without being spotted.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for the African nation’s government Ange Maxime Kazagui, when asked about the Russian data, said: “I don’t have that information. But it doesn’t sound credible because $11 billion is beyond the debt capacity of CAR.”

“We are members of the IMF (International Monetary Fund). When a member of the IMF wants to take on debt … it has to discuss that with the IMF.”

CAR is a nation of 5 million people emerging from sectarian conflict, with a gross domestic product of $1.95 billion, according to the World Bank.

And while we joke that Russia is now laundering money through deep equatorial Africa, it is not entirely outside the realm of possibilities: Russia has built up security and business ties with CAR in the past few years; all it takes is one or a handful of entrepreneurs to figure out how to use this new “partner” far from regulatory supervision of any developed nation, to funnel, or launder, billions without anyone noticing.

Muscling aside former colonial power France, Moscow has provided arms and contractors to the Central African Republic military, and a Russian national is security advisor to President Faustin-Archange Touadera. Naturally, corruption is rife: it remains one of the poorest countries in the world and is still marked by the humanitarian and security crisis of 2013.

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Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

After Califonia’s run-in with major wildfires and the deadliest one to date recently ravaging Paradise, many in the hardest hit areas are hiring private firms to protect their homes.  But it’s upsetting the state-funded firefighters.

With California experiencing two years of unprecedented wildfires that have left more than 20,000 homes destroyed and scores dead, the private firefighting business is booming. These brigades work independently from county firefighters; their job is to protect specific homes under contract with insurance companies, according to The Los Angeles Times. 

Private fire crews’ work can vary from pushing back flames as they approach properties to getting to the site before the blaze arrives and spraying the homes covered under their policy with fire retardant. But the firefighters who rely on state funds are not too happy that the free market is making a huge difference and saving homes from the blazes.

Kim Kardashian went on Instagram to thank firefighters for saving her Hidden Hills estate and told Ellen DeGeneres in an interview that she hired a private crew to protect her property.

“Our house is right on the end of a big park, so the whole park had caught fire and so if our house went, then every other house would go,” she said. “I don’t take that for granted, and that was such a blessing that we were able to do that.” –The Los Angeles Times

The taxpayer-funded state firefighters are not happy that the private market is doing a good job. “From the standpoint of first responders, they are not viewed as assets to be deployed. They’re viewed as a responsibility,” complained Carroll Wills, communications director for California Professional Firefighters, a labor union representing “rank-and-file” firefighters in the state.

Private firefighting crews often work on behalf of insurance companies, such as Chubband USAA, so they have a vested interest in saving people’s homes. They also have proven that they can provide an additional layer of protection for homeowners who opt into the service as part of their insurance policies. The insurance policies range in cost from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars annually, depending on the homes’ insured value and other factors, such as location. Private companies are also effective. During a wildfire, the private crews might not visit every home insured under the program but will base their location decisions on where the flames are advancing and which homes have a high likelihood of being destroyed without their assistance, reported the Los Angeles Times.

What began more than a decade ago as a white-glove service for homeowners in well-to-do neighborhoods has expanded in recent years as the wildfire danger has increased, said Michael Barry, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, a not-for-profit organization that educates the public about the insurance industry.

But not all state firefighters think the free market is a bad thing. “It’s clear, unfortunately, that just when I don’t think it can get any worse in terms of structures destroyed, it seems to get a lot worse,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection assistant chief Chris Anthony told the Los Angeles Times. “If these insurance companies are trying to mitigate risk and liability, the trends are pretty clear the numbers are going to rise as fires get worse. From an economic standpoint, it makes total sense what they’re trying to accomplish.”

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Unlike John McAfee, Mike Novogratz never vowed to eat his own dick if the price of a single bitcoin hasn’t eclipsed $1 million by the end of 2020. But the trading loss that his “first-of-its-kind” crypto-focused “merchant bank” has absorbed over the past nine months is probably almost as excruciating.

Net realized and unrealized losses on digital assets at Galaxy Digital Holdings, the firm founded last year by the former Goldman partner, totaled about $41 million in the third quarter – bringing losses for the first nine months of the year through September to $136 million.

And that doesn’t even include the latest leg lower in crypto, when the price of a single bitcoin briefly broke below $4,000 to trade at levels not seen since July 2017. According to Bloomberg, the losses in Q3 were attributed to losing positions in XRP, bitcoin and litecoin. While Novogratz’s firm is still a startup, it must report financials because it’s part owned by Toronto-listed Galaxy Digital.

“While we continue to improve and strengthen our trading business, lack of overall trading volume in cryptocurrencies has been a headwind,” the firm said in a press release. According to the filing, the fair value of the firm’s assets, net of short positions, was $90.6 million at the end of September, compared with a cost $172.7 million.

Galaxy’s head of investor relations and corporate communications didn’t return Bloomberg’s request for comment. Shares of Galaxy Digital traded at record lows after sinking 55% in November. 

But despite the bleak returns, Novogratz is standing by his sunny outlook for crypto (after all, what are his alternatives?).

During an interview with the Financial Times, Novogratz acknowledged that while “it sucks to build a business in a bear market”, he expects crypto prices to “flip” in 2019.

“2017 was just fun, it was almost stupid,” said Mr Novogratz. “[But] this year has been challenging. It sucks to build a business in a bear market.”

[…]

But the project is not for the faint-hearted. “[Staff] anxiety levels go up when crypto goes down,” Mr Novogratz said, before adding: “In most traditional business, [such as] Goldman Sachs, you don’t worry. There’s not an existential threat out there.”

“You’ll see that flip next year,” he said. “That’s when prices start moving again.”

And he’s not the only crypto bull on Wall Street who is clinging to the long view. Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, who was one of the first to call for bitcoin above $50,000, insisted in a recent interview with Coin Telegraph that the price of a single coin would eclipse $1 million within ten years.

“[We] have a price correction taking place, which has caused the price to fall even below its 200-day [a popular technical indicator used by investors to analyze price trends], but if you’ve got time, it will arise. It will not happen within three months, or one year, but in two to three years, and this is the golden time to be in crypto. As soon as Bitcoin crosses its 200-day, we know there will be a flood of money coming.”

Lee blamed the drop in bitcoin and other crypto assets on three factors: Bitcoin Cash’s contentious hard fork, the SEC’s demands that ICOs return money to investors and “terrible” conditions in global markets.

But Lee, like Novogratz, is in a difficult spot. They’ve yoked their reputations (and, in Novogratz’s case, a chunk of his fortune) to crypto. Going bearish – or even ceasing with the bullish comments – could only hurt them.

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Authored by Marissa Gentry via Campus Reform,

University of California, Berkeley professor suggested scrapping end-of-semester student evaluations for hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions after claiming that the grades and evaluations are biased against female instructors and people of color.

“Over the next few weeks, students will get the chance to evaluate their professors and TAs. They’re going to get it wrong,” UC Berkeley history professor Brian DeLaytweeted on Sunday.

“They’ll be harder on women and people of color than on white men. Tenured white male faculty, in particular, should help their students understand this.”

He goes on to reference a study conducted by UC Berkeley statistics professor Philip B. Stark. 

The study, first published in January of 2016, addressed the effectiveness of student evaluations of teaching (SETs). DeLay asserted in his tweet that the study revealed a bias toward gender and grade expectations, such as how quickly an assignment is graded and returned with feedback, rather than a review of the professor’s educational effectiveness.

“Instructor race is also associated with SET…” DeLay said in a follow-up tweet, referencing the study’s finding that minority professors tend to receive, on average, “significantly lower” scores than their white, male counterparts. He goes on to mention the study’s claim that “age, charisma, and physical attractiveness” also factor into evaluations. 

DeLay suggests that student evaluations should not be used as a standard for promotion or tenure decisions, or for hiring practices. 

“[G]iven the well-documented shortcomings of SETs, we shouldn’t be using them for hiring, tenure, or promotion decisions,” DeLay tweeted. “In the meantime, tenured faculty – especially tenured white men – should explain this stuff to our students before each evaluation season.”

“Help them understand why evals matter to peoples’ careers, & how implicit bias affects the results. They’ll listen,” he added.

DeLay, Stark, and Stark’s study co-authors did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

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If only to vent his frustrations about GM, the stock market chaos, and the prospect of turning over power to the Democrats (who have gleefully bragged about the many investigations they’re planning to launch in January), President Trump has given a series of freewheeling interviews over the past two days where he has threatened a government shutdown, expressed his regret over choosing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and even opined that Janet Yellen was “too short” to be chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.

And in his latest informal chat with the New York Post from behind the Resolute Desk, the president threatened once again to retaliate against Democrats if they try to “play tough” by investigating him – this time by declassifying a wide swath of “devastating” documents related to the Mueller probe, which he had initially planned to do in September before changing his mind.

“If they want to play tough, I will do it,” Trump told the Post in an interview Wednesday. “They will see how devastating those pages are.”

According to the Post, Trump would hold on to the documents and release them when it’s time for a “counterpunch”.

“It’s much more powerful if I do it then,” Trump said, “because if we had done it already, it would already be yesterday’s news.”

Democrats have threatened to investigate his business dealing, relationship with Russia and his tax returns, among other alleged transgressions – something Trump characterized as “presidential harassment.”

“If they want to go and harass the president and the administration, I think that would (be) the best thing that could happen to me because I’m a counter puncher and I will hit them so hard, they’ve never been hit like that,” Trump said. “You know what? I think that will help my campaign. That will be the beginning of my campaign as president.”

Trump said he hesitated to release the documents because his lawyer, Emmet Flood, had advised him not to – instead recommending that he wait for a more politically advantageous opportunity.

“He didn’t want me to do it yet, because I can save it,” Trump said.

The president also pushed back on the notion that all the Justice Department documents should eventually be released for the sake of transparency.

“Some things maybe the public shouldn’t see because they are so bad,” Trump said, making clear it wasn’t damaging to him, but to others. “Maybe it’s better that the public not see what’s been going on with this country.”

Speaking during what ended up being a contentious press conference on the day after the midterms, President Trump threatened to assume a “war posture” should Democrats try to investigate him, warning “two can play at that game,” before claiming that the American public was already suffering from “investigation fatigue.”

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Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

This systemic vulnerability is largely invisible, and so the inevitable contagion will surprise most observers and participants.

The conventional definition of a Bear is someone who expects stocks to decline. For those of us who are bearish on fake fixes, that definition doesn’t apply: we aren’t making guesses about future market gyrations (rip-your-face-off rallies, dizziness-inducing drops, boring melt-ups, etc.), we’re focused on the impossibility of reforming or fixing a broken economic system.

Many observers confuse creative destruction with profoundly structural problems. The technocrat perspective views the creative disruption of existing business models by the digital-driven 4th Industrial Revolution as the core cause of rising income inequality, under-employment, the decline of low-skilled jobs, etc.–many of the problems that plague the current economy.

I get it: those disruptive consequences are real. But they aren’t structural: the state-cartel system is structural, because cartels can buy political protection from competition and disruptive technologies. Just look at all the cartels that have eliminated competition: higher education, defense contractors, Big Pharma–the list is long.

The fake-fixes to the structural dominance of cartels and entrenched elites come in two flavors: political reforms that add complexity (oversight, compliance, etc.) but never threaten the insiders’ skims and scams, and monetary policies such as low interest rates and unlimited liquidity that enrich the already-wealthy by funneling whatever gains are being reaped to rentiers rather than to labor.

I explain how this neofeudal economy is the inevitable result of our system in my new book Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic.

Our political system, dependent on campaign contributions and lobbying, is easily influenced to protect and enhance the private gains of corporations and financiers. Combine this with the gains reaped by those with access to cheap credit and you have a financial nobility ruling a class of debt-serfs.

Cartels and quasi-monopolies eliminate competition by buying start-ups and political protection, raising barriers to entry around their rentier skim. This kills innovation and productivity, which are corralled to serve existing cartels.

American Corporations Are Winning Their War On Capitalism

The wealthy own productive assets, the poor own debt. Debt accrues interest which flows to those who own the debt–student loans, auto loans, mortgages, etc.

Wages have stagnated for the bottom 80% for decades for a variety of reasons, but quantitative easing and zero real interest rates haven’t fixed this structural problem–rather, they’ve exacerbated wealth and income inequality:

Meanwhile, the highly profitable credit machine is no longer boosting growth:rising interest saps the economy of savings and perverse incentives to borrow vast sums to buy back stocks and other unproductive uses benefit the few at the expense of the economy as a whole.

Beneath the bullish narrative of eternal growth and ever-rising profits, the financial system’s buffers have been thinned. As I explain in my book, the global financial system is now hyper-coherent, meaning that instability in one corner of the system quickly spreads to the entire system.

This systemic vulnerability is largely invisible, and so the inevitable contagion will surprise most observers and participants.

A funny thing happens in a fast-spreading financial contagion: markets go bidless, meaning there’s no buyers at any price. The entire global financial system rests on this one assumption: markets will always be liquid, but liquidity vanishes in contagions.

The fake-fix of the past decade is for central banks to buy impaired assets to create an artificial market. That works if you throw trillions of dollars, yuan, yen and euros into the artificial market, but that process destroys organic markets.

Fake fixes don’t fix what’s actually broken. They’re duct tape holding together a broken system.

*  *  *

My new book on these topics is available at a 28% discount for the ebook and 23% discount for the print edition through November 30 ($4.95 ebook, $9.95 print). Read the first section for free in PDF format. My new mystery The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake is a ridiculously affordable $1.29 (Kindle) or $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF). My book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format. My new book Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic is 23% off ($4.95 ebook, $9.95 print): Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

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