Tag: finance

Seven of the ten underlying components of the Goldman Sachs’ Global Leading Indicator (GLI) weakened in February slightly to 3.46% in February, down from our January estimate of 3.56%.

GLI momentum (MoM growth) decreased to 0.234% from 0.249% last month, the lowest level for GLI momentum since March 2016.

The Global Leading Indicator (GLI) is a Goldman Sachs proprietary indicator that is meant to provide an early signal of the global industrial cycle on a monthly basis.

The only component that showed a meaningful improvement was US initial claims, which fell to a 49-year low today.

The largest declines came in the Japan IP inventory/sales ratio and the aggregate of the Australian and Canadian Dollar trade-weighted indices, both of which softened by roughly one standard deviation.

The global new orders less inventories component and Korean exports also worsened, with relatively minor moves in rest of the components.

Goldman’s GLI disappointment also confirms the recent collapse in G10 economic data relative to expectations…

Bottom Line – it’s tough to keep arguing for a global synchronous recovery when the world’s biggest economies are all rolling over together.

And don’t forget what’s driving the rollover…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FUnUYa Tyler Durden

In the latest example of the European Union’s disturbing new tendency toward outright suppression of any speech that bureaucrats in Berlin, Brussels, and elsewhere find unacceptable for any number of reasons, former French National Front leader Marine Le Pen has been formally charged with circulating “violent messages that incite terrorism” for a series of tweets she sent after the massacre at Paris concert hall the Bataclan back in 2015.

The move comes after French President Emmanuel Macron announced early this year that, in an effort to “defend liberal democracy”, he would push through legislation this year to fight the spread of “fake news” in France. Macron went on to criticize Russian media in particular and accusing RT, a Moscow funded TV channel, of deliberately sowing disinformation and discord (sound familiar?).

While Macron’s announcement was cheered by many on the left, conservatives and those with anti-establishment or right-wing views are (so far justifiably) worried that they might become targets (because there’s no better way to defend an open society than to crack down on free speech and enforcing not only official censorship, but, by extension, the self-censorship that these policies encourage.)

And now they have even more reason to be concerned as French prosecutors move to punish – and possibly imprison – a political rival despised by the ruling party.

The charges stem from a series of tweets Le Pen sent in the weeks after the Bataclan massacre, where she shared disturbing photos including images from the beheading of American journalist James Foley. Le Pen later took the photos of Foley down after being contacted by his family. 

Other pictures showed a man in an orange jumpsuit being run over by a rank – another showed a man being burned alive in a cage.

“Daesh is this!” Le Pen wrote in a caption. The tweets were a response to a TV journalist drawing a comparison between ISIS and the French far-right.

Le Pen was quick to point out the irony in her being charged…

“I am being charged for having condemned the horrors of Daesh,” Le Pen told AFP.

“In other countries this would have earned me a medal.”

What’s worse: Le Pen’s crime is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros ($91,000).

Le Pen has denounced the move as a “lowly, purely political decision” which violated her freedom of expression. Furthermore, it’s notable that the French justice system is bringing the hammer down on Le Pen less than a year after she lost to Macron in France’s second-round presidential runoff.

It’s not just France… Over in the UK, a newly created national security unit set up to combat fake news has elicited outrage from conservatives, who note that the agency is seemingly set up to punish and suppress speech that it suspects of being deliberate disinformation – even if said speech is an example of political satire, which the agency says is “often confused” with real news…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2D0e8AK Tyler Durden

Submitted by Socrates F. Bach,

Angela Merkel is considered to be the world’s most powerful woman and perhaps Europe’s most powerful person. She’s about to be re-elected as Germany’s Chancellor for the fourth consecutive time. Her policies have provoked a lot of debate, from Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear energy over the Eurozone bailouts onto her refugee policies.

What has received much less attention is how she entered politics. A number of biographies have been written about her, with the most critical one perhaps being “the first life of Angela M”, written in 2013 by a journalist for Die Welt who later joined the rightwing populist AfD party. This centered on how she was a member of the FDJ, the communist youth organization, when she was at school, and how she later served as cultural secretary for the FDJ while working as a physicist at the Academy of Sciences, leading to Merkel denying this role included propaganda.

To be fair to her: in any case, she wasn’t a politically active avid Communist trying to make a career in the German Democratic Republic. That however changed with the “Wende”, the period during which the Berlin wall fell and Eastern Germany was absorbed into the West.

During that period, Merkel made a blitz career in politics, morphing from a stuffy Eastern German researcher in November 1989 to entering the German Bundestag in 1990, in order to be appointed shortly after as Minister for Women and Youth in the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in January 1991.

What’s really intriguing here is how she achieved this.

Merkel’s first job in politics

Her first job in politics wasn’t a great success. In February 1990, she had become the spokeswoman of the “Democratic Awakening”, an East German political movement and political party which was founded in October 1989. The party didn’t do well in the first democratic Eastern German elections in 1990, only collecting 0.9% of votes. This was because its chairman, Wolfgang Schnur, had to confess to having been an informer for the feared and ruthless Ministry for State Security (Stasi) for more than two decades. A few days before the election, he had to resign, as this wasn’t exactly a great sales pitch for an Eastern German pro-democracy movement. The man was later criminally convicted as well.

How did Merkel end up there? According to her predecessor as party spokeswoman for Democratic Awakening”, Christiane Ziller, who stepped down along with some other more left leaning people over the decision of the party convention to adopt a more conservative program, “there wasn’t any democratic legitimacy [as to how Merkel was appointed], as far as I know. Her appointment was one of these discretionary decisions by Schnur”, the later disgraced party chairman. Ziller, who otherwise speaks positively about Merkel in an interview with die Welt and later joined the German greens, mentions how Merkel “remained a stranger within the opposition network in the German Democratic Republic”.

Merkel had joined the opposition movement Democratic Awakening only after the Berlin wall fell, on 9 November 1989. She has never claimed to have been an active dissident before the wall fell.

The Democratic Awakening was based on existing politically active church groups and that’s where Merkel’s father, Horst Kasner, comes in. He was a pastor, who had moved from Hamburg to East Berlin in 1954, when already a lot of people had fled the Communist regime. Eastern German official documents describe him as “an opponent” of the regime, but later his nickname seems to have evolved into “red Kasner”, as he was then campaigning for the Eastern German Church to be split off from the Western Germany Evangelical Church in a bid to reconcile Christianity and “socialism”, as the Communists called their ideology. This was very much something the Eastern German regime desired, as cutting Church ties with the West would strengthen their grip on the Church, which was a vehicle to oppose the regime.

Some sources describe Merkel’s father as someone who toed the regime line within the Eastern Germany Church community, although it must be said that other sources contradict this. Gerd Langguth, a former European Commission representative in Germany, takes the former line and when writing the obituary of Merkel’s father in Die Welt, he points out that, unlike the children in other pastors’ families, the higher education of Kasner’s children, including Angela Merkel, was not impeded, a sign that he may have been quite friendly towards the regime. He writes that Kasner may well have taken this conciliatory stance for the good of his children. One biography of Merkel even claims that she enjoyed special treatment at school thanks to her father’s connections. It’s hard to know of course, and can we really blame a father to do everything for his children?

Instead of speculating, let’s stay to the facts. One of these facts is that Wolfgang Schnur, the leader of the first Eastern German opposition party who was later unvealed as a Stasi, has been pretty clear that he employed Angela Merkel because her father was a lifelong friend.

Schnur was active in the Synod of the Federation of the Protestant Churches in the GDR and as an attorney he defended many Eastern German political dissidents in the 1980s. This may have helped this Stasi man to infiltrate so deeply into the Eastern German opposition movement that he emerged as one of its leaders when the wall came down. For what it’s worth: he has claimed to be acting against Stasi advice in joining the opposition movement.

In any case, perhaps unknowingly, Merkel has her first job in politics to thank due to the regime connections of her father.

Merkel’s second job in politics

After that, also for Merkel’s second jobs in politics she ends up working for a politician who didn’t only have to step down over suspected Stasi links but who also comes out of the world of Eastern-German Church politics. That is Lothar de Maiziere, the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Eastern Germany.

When Merkel had to find a new way in politics after the Democratic Awakening had been crushed in March 1990 due to the Stasi – connections of its leader, she was appointed as deputy spokesman for Lothar de Maiziere, in April 1990, who was the leader of the Eastern German Christian Democration Union, a so-called “bloc party”, whose function it was to serve as a pretense of real democracy. He had just won the first democratic elections in Eastern Germany and was about to become Prime Minister. In a later interview, Lothar de Maiziere recalls how German Chancellor Kohl was easy to be convinced to merge the Eastern German CDU into the Western German one, despite some protest in his party, because, according to de Maiziere, “in all areas of the GDR we had an office (…) and we were able to conduct a comprehensive electoral campaign. The Chancellor was always open to such considerations”. Also the liberal party decided so, given the high number of members and despite some resistance.

Lothar’s cousin and Germany’s current Interior Minister Thomas de Mazière was also appointed to his cabinet in April 1990, closely working together there with Merkel. Thomas comes from the West-German wing of the family that had been estranged from the Eastern-German wing. Merkel and him both go back a long way, especially as Merkel appointed Thomas de Mazière to serve as her chief of staff when she became Chancellor in 2005.  

According to Thomas, in 1990, he would have recommended his uncle to hire Merkel. Thomas had been impressed by her qualities at the press conference where Schnur’s resignation as the leader of “Democratic Awakening” was declared. That party was in an electoral association called “Alliance for Germany with Lothar de Mazière’s CDU. In a joint interview with his cousin, Lothar de Mazière makes clear that even before his cousin’s recommendation, Merkel had already impressed him, as she “was very good at moderating” between the “squabbling” different parties of the association.

Oddly, in this particular interview, Lothar de Mazière doesn’t mention that his father, Clemens de Mazière, and Merkel’s father knew each other. It’s also very likely that Lother himself knew Merkel’s father personally, as both had been prominent in Eastern German Church politics for years.

Lothar de Maizière’s father Clemens was the Eastern German Church’s lawyer, where he worked closely together with Merkel’s father to split the Eastern German Church off from its Western German counterpart. As said, this was a policy desired by the Eastern German regime. Clemens de Maizière was a shrewd Stasi-operator who apparently even betrayed his own family. After the war, Clemens had swiftly converted from Nazism to Communism as he had once belonged to Adolf Hitler’s “Sturmabteilung”, with membership number 3952867. Just to give a bit of background on politics in Communist Eastern Germany.   

As mentioned, Merkel’s father may well only have cooperated with the regime to prevent worse and for the good of his family. He may not even have been aware that Clemens de Maizière was a Stasi man. If that would be the case, how tragic it must have been when his daughter’s boss and Clemens’ son, Lothar de Maizière, was accused of having been a Stasi operator in December 1990, resulting in his resignation as Eastern German Prime Minister. Lothar de Maizière would have worked for the Stasi since 1981, the year after his father Clemens, a long-time Stasi asset, had passed away, as he also took over his father’s role of the Eastern German Church’s lawyer. Before he went into active politics, Lothar de Maizière, was the vice president of the synod of the Association of Protestant Churches in the GDR. How likely is it that he would not have known Merkel’s father?

In a nutshell: Merkel may well have gotten her second job because the Democratic Awakening had been in a pre-election alliance with the Eastern German CDU and because she did such an impressive job dealing with journalists when the Democratic Awakening was in crisis. But apart from that, there is something very intriguing about the direct and indirect connections between her father and her first two political bosses.

Did Merkel use her father’s Church policy connections to get her first two jobs in politics, twice working for people who had to resign over Stasi allegations? Did her father know or suspect they were? Did Merkel herself know or suspect? Questions abound. According to one critical biography of Merkel, right after the wall had fallen, she actually started to emancipate herself from her father who was “deeply enmeshed into the system of German Democratic Republic”. One example is how she did not join the social democrats, like her mother, but the Democratic Awakening, which had an alliance with Helmut Kohl’s conservatives.

Shouldn’t this have been investigated more deeply? Lothar de Mazière is still alive. Despite all the indications, he maintains he wasn’t secret Stasi agent “Czernie”. Then, it was De Maiziere’s government which ordered the destruction of Stasi computer tapes. The West-German government hadbeen warned even before the elections in March 1990 about possible Stasi connections of the CDU lead candidate in Eastern Germany but because of his membership of the CDU, this may not have been thoroughly researched, according to Stasi-expert and Die Welt-journalist Uwe Müller.

Both Schnur and Lothar de Mazière emerged as leaders of the Eastern German opposition movement before having to step down because of Stasi accusations. Both brought Angela Merkel to the fore. There are the Stasi archives, the many people who were involved in the Democratic Awakening and Eastern Germany’s CDU, people within Eastern Germany’s Church community. Doesn’t this deserve more investigation?

Maybe the only thing that can be concluded here will be that Merkel was lucky enough to be able to use her father’s dodgy political connections to launch her career. To be fair, without wanting to claim that no proper evidence can be presented to counter that claim: everything points in that direction. Isn’t that something interesting?

This is almost 30 years later. But has there been a proper debate in Germany over the role of the Stasi and its network during and after the unification of Germany? Even if the regime’s network would have only played a very minimal, almost accidental role in kickstarting Angela Merkel’s career: shouldn’t this be out in the open?

It’s commonly accepted that in the “East Block” countries that abandoned Communism, there was a lot of continuity also after 1990. Not only are there Putin and his KGB buddies who are ruling Russia. The frustration that many who were high up in Communist Poland haven’t seen their careers squashed is at the heart of Poland’s rule of law reforms – or at least the Polish government uses this public concern as the excuse to crack down on a justice system. One in four Eastern Germans was a member of the Stasi, which has been described as “worse than the Gestapo” by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, The Christian democratic, liberal and social democratic “bloc parties” of Eastern Germany– which must have been infested with Stasi influences – were absorbed into Western Germany’s political system. Is it really surprising that the old elites managed to help each other in the politically turbulent period when Germany was unified?  

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FevlbE Tyler Durden

A British religious teacher was found guilty on Friday of trying to recruit Muslim children into an “army” of jihadists who would then be used to carry out a wave of terror attacks across London.

Umar Haque, 25, showed 110 children as young as 11 violent videos of beheadings and other militant propaganda, forced them to re-enact deadly attacks, and plotted terrorist acts on Big Ben, the Queen’s Guard, Westfield shopping center and other targets around the capital. 

Haque, who said he was under orders from the Islamic State, instructed the children on terrorism scenarios involving guns and bombs – and is said to have had a goal of recruiting 300 jihadis out of the Lantern of Knowledge Islamic school, as well as at a madrassa connected to the Ripple Road Mosque in east London.

[insert: lanterno.JPG ]

During court testimony in January, the court was shown a videotaped police interview with one of the children, who told them “He is teaching us terrorism, like how to fight.” 

He has been training us, kind of. Apparently fighting is good. If you fight for the sake of Allah, on Judgment Day when you get judged for your good deeds and bad deeds, fighting is good.

Umar has been teaching us how to fight, do push-ups, given strength and within six years he was planning to do a big attack on London.

He wants a group of 300 men. He’s training us now so by the time I’m in Year 10 (aged 14-15) we will be physically strong enough to fight.

We done this scenario how to fight, pretending that three boys had guns in their hand.

In one scenario, Haque said the boys would split into groups of “police” and “normal people.” After a car bomb would go off, killing “normal people,” the children would run in and attack the police along with their backup. 

“His plan was to create an army of children to assist with multiple terrorist attacks throughout London,” said Dean Haydon, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counterterrorism Command. “He tried and he did, we believe, radicalize vulnerable children from the ages of 11 to 14.”

Haque – who told the children that the public deserves to be annihilated, is believed to have been self-radicalized online after having been inspired by a terrorist attack last March in which Khalid Masood drove a rental car into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge – killing four, before stabbing a police officer to death on parliament grounds.

The students at the mosque were taught to carry out a similar attack using guns and a car packed with explosives, as well as reenact the Westminster ramming attack. 

“He tried to prepare the children for martyrdom by making them role-play terrorist attacks. Part of that role-playing was re-enacting attacking police officers,” Haydon said.

35 of the children Haque taught are now undergoing long-term counseling with social services and other authorities, while six of them gave evidence at Haque’s trial. 

Two other men, Abuthaher Mamun, 19, and Muhammad Abid, 27, were also involved in fundraising and planning attacks. 

[insert: guy1.jpg, guy2.jpg]

They will be sentenced at a later date. 

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2Fh0Sts Tyler Durden

Authored by Wayne Madsen via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

In a shocking display of relative independence from the post-Operation Mockingbird control of the media by the Central Intelligence Agency, a recent article in The New York Times broke with current conventional pack journalism and covered the long history of CIA meddling in foreign elections.

A February 17, 2018, article, titled, “Russia Isn’t the Only One Meddling in Elections. We Do It, Too,” authored by Scott Shane – who covered the perestroika and glasnost for The Baltimore Sun in Moscow from 1988 to 1991 during the final few years of the Soviet Union – reported the US has interfered in foreign elections for decades. However, a couple of old US intelligence hands were quoted in the article as saying the US meddling was for altruistic purposes. The CIA veterans charged that Russia interferes in foreign elections for purely malevolent purposes. The belief that American interference in global elections was to promote liberal democracy could not be further from the truth.

The CIA never meddled in foreign elections for purposes of extending democratic traditions to other nations. The chief purpose was to disenfranchise leftist and progressive voters and political parties, ensure the veneer of “democracy” in totalitarian countries, and protect the interests of the US military bases and US multinational corporations.

In double-talk that is reminiscent of the Cold War years, the CIA considers its election interference to fall under the category of “influence operations,” while the same agency accuses Russia of “election meddling.” In truth, there is no difference between the two categories. Election interference represents intelligence service “tradecraft” and it has been practiced by many intelligence agencies, including those of Israel, France, Britain, China, India, and others.

On the rare occasions when the CIA’s efforts to rig an election failed – as they did in Guatemala in 1950 and Chile in 1970 – the agency simply organized bloody military coups to replace with military juntas the democratically-elected presidents who defeated CIA-supported candidates at the polls.

In 1954, the CIA’s Operation PBSUCCESS overthrew the Guatemalan government of President Jacobo Arbenz, who was elected in 1950 on a platform of agrarian reform that would improve the lives of Guatemala’s peasants, many of whom suffered under the indentured servitude of the US-owned United Fruit Company. United Fruit maintained industrial-level plantations across the country. Working with the CIA, United Fruit did its best to ensure defeat for Arbenz in the 1950 election. When that tactic failed, United Fruit, the CIA, and US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles devised a plan to overthrow Arbenz in a military coup. Guatemala became a stereotypical American-influenced “banana republic.”

The Chilean junta that replaced Socialist President Salvador Allende, who was elected in 1970 despite massive CIA interference, transformed Chile into a testbed for the vulture capitalism devised by the “Chicago Boys” – a group of Chilean economists who studied under the neo-conservative economist Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago. Friedman called the massive free market laissez-faire policies instituted by the regime of General Augusto Pinochet the “Miracle of Chile.” The economic policies, which a US Senate Intelligence Committee investigation concluded were crafted with the help of the CIA, saw the elimination of trade tariffs, the mass sell-off of state-owned enterprises, cutting of taxes, privatization of the state-run pension system, and de-regulation of industry.

In 1990, CIA election meddling in Nicaragua ensured a win for the opposition over the ruling Sandinista-led government. This type of meddling was repeated in the 2000 Serbian election, which saw President Slobodan Milosevic ejected from power. The ouster of Milosevic saw the first demonstrated cooperation in election meddling between the CIA and international hedfe fund tycoon George Soros’s Open Society Institute cadres. In 2009, the CIA attempted to defeat Afghan President Hamid Karzai for re-election. Although Karzai was re-elected, he bitterly complained about the CIA’s interference in the election.

MS-NBC constantly features as a contributing expert on Russia the former US ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul. However, McFaul never mentions how he funneled CIA cash – some $6.8 million in total – via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its two branches, the International Republican Institute of the Republican Party and the National Democratic Institute of the Democratic Party, to Russian opposition leaders like Aleksei Navalny. Nor does the US media mention that the CIA and State Department funneled some $5 billion into Ukraine in order to bring about a pro-US government in that country.

McFaul hosted Russian opposition party meetings at the US embassy and ignored warnings that Navalny’s coalition included several neo-Nazi nationalists, who oppose immigrants hailing from south of the Russian border. Although he has been called by some Western journalists the “Russian Erin Brokovich” (an American environmental activist), Navalny is more like the “Russian David Duke.” Duke is the former leader of the American racist group, the Ku Klux Klan.

Declassified CIA files are replete with examples of agency interference in foreign elections, including state elections in India and West Germany and provincial elections in Australia, Canada, and Japan…

In the 1950s, the CIA provided massive support to the West German Christian Democrats, which were led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. The CIA also did its best to suppress supprt for the West German Social Democrats and the far-right nationalist German Party in Berlin, Hesse, and Bavaria.

In 1967, Indian Foreign Minister M. C. Chagla charged that the CIA “meddled” in India’s election, mainly through financial donations to parties in opposition to the ruling Indian Congress party. The CIA particularly targeted Communist parties in West Bengal and Kerala states.

Former Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker of the Conservative Party charged in 1967 that CIA funds were used to bolster the Liberal Party, which contributed to Diefenbaker’s electoral losses in two general elections held between May 1962 and June 1963. Diefenbaker’s successor, Prime Minister Lester Pearson of the Liberal Party, discovered that the CIA funneled cash to the pro-Liberal Canadian Union of Students in 1965 and 1966.

The CIA did everything possible to defeat for re-election the New Zealand Labor Party government of Prime Minister David Lange. The CIA provided propaganda support to the opposition National Party, which was opposed to Lange’s policy of denying entry to New Zealand waters of US nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered warships. The CIA ensured that pro-American media in New Zealand harped on about New Zealand record-high 6 percent unemployment, the nation’s foreign debt being half of its gross domestic product, and $1 billion budget deficit. The CIA also attempted to suppress traditional Maori support for Labor in the August 15, 1987 election, a cynical use of race-based politics to alter an election outcome.

Between 1965 and 1967, the CIA station in Brazil, working in conjunction with the AFL/CIO union in the United States and its international arm, the American Institute of Free Labor Development (AIFLD), were discovered to be interfering in union elections in Brazil. The Sao Paulo office of the AIFLD, which was nothing more than a CIA front, made cash payments to Brazilian officials to corrupt union elections in the Brazilian petroleum sector. An itemized list of CIA bribes to Brazilian officials was discovered by a Sao Paulo union official: “Bonus to Jose Abud for collaboration – $156.25; Special payment to Dt. Jorge M. Filho of Labor Ministry – $875.00; Trip for Mr. Glaimbore Guimasaes, our informer at Fegundes St. – $56.25; Photocopies of books and documents of Petroleum Federation – $100.00; Assistance to Guedes and Eufrasio to defeat Luis Furtado of the Suzano Union – $140.64.”

Prior to the September 4, 1964 Chilean presidential election, the leftist Popular Action Front opposition discovered that US chargé d’affaires Joseph Jova was assisting the Christian Democratic Party candidate. Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva, with the CIA’s help, defeated Allende.

A CIA memo dated October 3, 1955, describes CIA support for the pro-Western. Masjumi Party in the Indonesian election, the nation’s first since independence. CIA director Allen Dulles appeared to be hopeful about the chances of a Masjumi victory due to Indonesia’s “large percentage of illiterates.” In the 1984 El Salvador presidential election, the CIA supported Christian Democrat Jose Napoleon Duarte over the more extreme-right winger, Roberto d’Aubisson. Republican US Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina charged that the CIA “meddled” in the election on behalf of Duarte. It was even discovered that the “invisible ink” used on the fingers of those who had voted was supplied from the CIA.

If the United States truly wants to halt foreign interference in elections, it must be the first to advocate and adhere to such a policy. Just as with the nuclear test-ban treaty, the convention to abolish biological and chemical weapons, and the treaty to prohibit weapons in outer space, the United States should call for an international treaty to ban election interference in all of its forms – the use of cyber-attacks, propaganda, social media manipulation, and funding of foreign political parties. Without such a commitment, US protestations about election meddling will continue to be a case of “do as I say, not as I do.”

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2oMGFVs Tyler Durden

It has been more than two weeks since Punjab National Bank – one of India’s largest state-owned financial institutions – informed the public about a nearly $2 billion lending fraud allegedly masterminded by Nirav Modi, a famous celebrity jeweler and one of India’s richest men.  And still, investigators are just beginning to piece together the exact mechanics that allowed a celebrity jeweler, working with a handful of rogue bank employees at PNB’s Mumbai branch (the bank is based in New Delhi) to pull off the largest financial fraud in modern Indian history.

In their latest update, federal investigators told Reuters and a host of other media organizations that Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi – who played an integral role in the fraud – successfully bribed bank employee with gold coins and diamonds to help coax them to look the other way when signing off on fraudulent letters vouching for the shell companies receiving the loans.

Authorities have apprehended a retired PNB manager named Gokulnath Shetty, pictured below, who was essentially Modi and Choksi’s inside man at the bank.

Last week, we pointed out a disturbing trend whereby large multinational financial institutions were backing away from Indian banks, setting the stage for a painful credit crunch that could potentially destabilize the Indian economy.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which has arrested 14 people in the case, on Saturday for the first time said bribes were paid to at least one Punjab National Bank (PNB)official by Modi.

The agency told the court that Yashwant Joshi, who worked as a manager in the forex department of the Mumbai branch that is at the center of the fraud, admitted to having received two gold coins weighing 60 grams and a pair of gold and diamond earrings from Modi.

The articles have been recovered from Joshi’s house in the presence of independent witnesses, the CBI said.

Police have also arrested two low level employees from the Brady House branch of PNB for helping ferry the fraudulent guarantee letters past the bank’s internal controls. The two men allegedly helped produce some of the letters of understanding, then recorded them in the bank’s internal system, effectively leaving its stewards in the dark. As any expert on India’s state-run banks would tell you, the fact that most Indian banks haven’t integrated their internal controls with the Society for Woldwide Interbank Telecommunication (SWIFT) leaves them incredibly vulnerable to fraud, particularly when bank employees who have nearly unfettered access decide to take advantage of their position.

In its latest story, Reuters provided a detailed graphic explaining exactly how Modi and his crew managed to secure the fraudulent loans. The fake letters of undertaking that were so vital to the scheme allowed shell companies controlled by the fraudsters to receive loans mostly from foreign branches of Indian banks.

Over the weekend, an Indian federal judge issued a warrant for Choksi’s arrest. Both Choksi and his nephew Modi have fled the country, and are believed to be in Hong Kong. Prosecutors are also zeroing in on Modi, who is believed to be the ringleader of the whole scheme.

“Modi appears to be the prima donna in the whole saga of the fraud perpetrated on the PNB,” the directorate said in a filing to the court seen by Reuters.

But perhaps even more embarrassing – and ultimately more problematic – than the authorities’ inability to apprehend the ringleaders of the fraud (though they have arrested a total of 14 people over their suspected involvement in aiding or abetting it) is the fact that nothing is being done to strengthen oversight of Indian banks.

Without that, the damage to the credibility to the state-run banking system may never be repaired – and if that happens, it’s the small business owners of India who will suffer as credit conditions are rapidly tightened.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FSBOtU Tyler Durden

Authored by Laura Sydell via NPR.org,

Artists and criminals are often the first to push the boundaries of technology. Barrett Brown is a criminal who has actually helped inspire art – the TV show Mr. Robot. Its protagonist is a hacktivist – a hacker who breaks into computer systems to promote a cause.

Brown was connected to Anonymous, a group that hacked a private security firm to reveal secrets. He is now out and living in a halfway house in Dallas.

He had spent years in a prison cell thinking about what he might do when he got out. And he says he is ready to change, so next time he gets involved in hacking a corporation he is able to inflict maximum damage.

“Certainly, I haven’t gotten any less militant in the course of having these things done to me,” Brown says.

Barrett Brown served time for being part of Anonymous, a group that hacked a private security firm to reveal secrets.

Courtesy of Barrett Brown

Since most hacktivists operate in the shadows, Brown offers the best look at these cyber-revolutionaries and their motivations.

The 36-year-old Brown was born in Dallas. His father was a wealthy real estate investor, until he was investigated by the FBI for fraud. Brown’s father was never charged, but the family lost all its money and his parents divorced.

“It was something that I’m sure instilled in me the idea that there was a degree of arbitrary power out there that could come down at any time and disrupt your life, as it did to me when I was a child,” Brown says.

He hates arbitrary power and always has. He is an anarchist who believes the U.S. government is fundamentally corrupt. And he says most Americans are too complacent to do anything about it.

“That’s what … in part brings me to contempt for the American citizenry,” he says. “Obviously, I have no respect for the laws, for the government or for the voters.”

Instead, he says, his own code of values drives him.

He became a radical intellectual — more interested in spreading revolutionary ideas than in protesting in the streets. But in 2006, Brown saw a potential outlet for his anarchist dreams — the hacktivist group Anonymous. It was leaderless, crowdsourced and militant.

Anonymous managed to organize a massive attack on Scientology, even taking down its website. Brown started covering Anonymous as a journalist but soon became deeply involved.

“I saw this as the very first ripples in something that would grow to be one of the great dynamics of the 21st century, that we would see more of this emergence [of] online warfare essentially against institutions including nation-states,” he says.

For many years, Brown was a sort of unofficial spokesman for Anonymous, appearing in interviews dressed in a beige corduroy or navy blue jacket and dress shirt, a cigarette dangling from his hand. He looked more like a preppy than a revolutionary.

In 2011, the group began targeting companies that contracted with the U.S. government. One of them was Stratfor — a global intelligence firm. Emails released after an Anonymous hack included sensitive information on top-secret government missions like the killing of Osama bin Laden. The emails also show Dow Chemical hired Stratfor to spy on activists trying to get money for families who suffered during the Bhopal disaster.

Brown viewed this as a private corporate version of COINTELPRO — the FBI’s effort in the 1960s to discredit activists like Martin Luther King Jr.

Brown created Project PM, an online chatroom where participants looked through thousands of hacked emails to find the most incriminating. One email contained thousands of credit card numbers — and stealing credit cards is a crime.

In September 2012, Brown was at home talking online with members of Project PM. “I heard a rustling at my door and I walked over to the door. I was holding a beer in my hand,” he says. “[I] thought it was another friend of mine.”

But when he opened the door there was a SWAT team equipped with shields and helmets. Brown says they were yelling, “Put your hands up buddy.” Brown says they had him on the floor and put a boot on his back. The audio of the arrest was recorded by someone in the Project PM chatroom.

Brown faced up to 100 years in prison. His mother was charged with hiding his laptops.

Brown admits he went a bit off the rails. He posted a video on YouTube attacking an FBI agent.

“I was a former heroin addict,” Brown says. “I was getting off Suboxone at the time, which is a synthetic opiate. And I was sort of suddenly feeling emotions again that have been kind of bottled, kept down a few months. I was very upset about my mother being threatened with indictment.”

Still, Brown was a cause célèbre among certain activists and journalists. Many felt he was being put away for simply looking through hacked emails — something any journalist would do.

Brown eventually pleaded guilty to threatening a federal officer and to two other charges. The government imprisoned other members of Anonymous. The group kind of faded away, but its tactics did not.

During the 2016 election, Russian state-supported hackers used some of the same tools as Anonymous — hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee and posting them on WikiLeaks to embarrass Hillary Clinton.

I wondered, is there really any difference between a foreign agent trying to undermine our democracy and hacktivists like Anonymous? Is Brown a hero or a villain?

I turned to an unlikely expert to help me figure that out — Sam Esmail, the creator of the TV show Mr. Robot. “Their spirit is in activism,” Esmail says. “Their spirit is in exposing these frauds and abuses by people in power. And that’s just something on a human level I respect.”

But Mr. Robot is hardly a glowing portrait of hacktivists. Its hero, Elliot, is a drug addict who can’t access his own emotions. Sound familiar? Elliot leads a group called fsociety that takes down the world’s largest corporation — erasing everyone’s debt. Chaos erupts.

Mr. Robot actor Rami Malek (from left), writer/producer Sam Esmail and actor Christian Slater, at the Critics’ Choice Awards in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2016. “Their spirit’s in exposing these frauds and abuses by people in power,” Esmail says of hacktivists. “And that’s just something on a human level I respect.”

Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Esmail says he is looking at an age-old dilemma. “Do we commit a criminal act for something that we feel is just, even though the consequences could be great?” he says. “That’s such a kind of loaded, huge, but very relevant question today.”

Brown doesn’t seem interested in examining the moral ambiguity of hacktivist crimes. But he says he is learning from past mistakes. Ultimately, Brown feels that Anonymous was disorganized and lacked leadership.

So he is designing a software program called Pursuance, which he says will take hacktivism into the future. It will be fully encrypted, anyone could use it to sort through a trove of hacked documents, and it could even be used to recruit a team of hackers.

Brown says when people tweet and post their opinions on social media it’s just “slactivism.” “The next great act of hacktivism, if it really is going to be great, it has to be an act of reaffirming the idea of civic duty,” he says. He says he wants to provide a mechanism for people who do feel that sense of civic duty to really have impact.

Brown is ready to be a martyr for the cause if he has to be. He would even go back to prison.

“I want to be in a position to defeat my powerful adversaries in public,” he says, “where everyone could admire the pluck in which I did it.”

Brown is casting himself in a starring role in the new world. And in his mind Mr. Robot is no fantasy. It’s what the future really looks like.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2oPSPgs Tyler Durden

Authored by Mark St.Cyr,

When it comes to business there’s one group that believes they, above all else, know how business should be conducted at all levels. The problem is most, if not all, have never run a business in their careers. If they have, it’s quite common that it never rose beyond the equivalent of a lemonade stand.

And yet, it is this very same group that will/have imposed regulations so egregious, that even that simple lemonade stand, that fixture of years past, enabling many a kid their first brush with business – to be nearly regulated out of existence. You know – for the safety of the children and public at large.

Lord knows how many unsuspecting patrons consumed lemonade over the years and fell dead, or were hospitalized needing to undergo tests as to find out what contaminants may have been present, because there were no warning labels, or listed ingredients affixed to the plastic cups. And to top it off: No license!

What other possible offense could these business malcontents be involved in that would demand political intervention? Brace yourselves: They actually dealt in an all-cash business model. Obviously those 6 year-olds were just posing as neighborhood children, raising money for a local cause or charity.

No, what was obvious (via the political eye) was they must be underworld kingpins, extorting unsuspecting passer-byes of their hard-earned money to funnel back into their ill-gotten coffers. Need I say it again? They. Only. Accepted. Cash. (or pocket change) Obviously they must be criminals. So, therefore, they must be stopped! And sadly, for many, they have.

And who gets the credit for all this “brilliance?” Hint: Politicians, of all stripes.

The reason for the above is this: That’s about the level of business understanding that many, if not most, of today’s politicians have that negotiated the multi-national, multi-$Trillions of trade deals we are now, supposedly, bound by.

I know it’s seems over-the-top, however, let me assure you – it is not. For if you think I’m off base? Need I remind you of the most egregious statement made directly to business people which demonstrated today’s political leaders understanding of business; its fundamental relevance to a nation, its economy, as well as its working public. e.g, “You didn’t build that.”

Sorry, that’s not a capitalist infused statement of argument. That’s a defensive communist infused statement. Period. If you take offense to my statement? I’ll assume you are not, nor have ever, built a business. And you should probably stop reading here. Consider that your, “trigger alert.”

Over the last few decades politicians of all stripes (e.g., Left, Right, and everyone in-between) have entered the U.S. and its business sovereignty into trade deals that have done more damage to the U.S. and its middle class than anything before it.

“Free-Trade,” as it is bandied about, is great in theory. However, most “Free-Trade” agreements prior were nothing more than simple documents with general outlines that set a framework that was easily understandable, as well as administered. (i.e., Trade agreements used to be some 20 or 50 pages long. Now, their 2000 to near infinitum. And that’s just for, “Lemonade!”)

If you look at the results of all the trade agreements over the last few years, one thing is glaringly obvious: The U.S. rarely breaks even.

In most cases (Hint: See China for one) the counter-party to all U.S. trade agreements usually not only gets the oversized proportions of the deal, but are seemingly inoculated from any violations they commit. i.e., Dumping products into U.S. markets? Complain all you want. Just don’t “rock the boat.” Or should I say, “shipping container ship?”

Again, one (as in the U.S.) can complain all they want. Does anything ever come of it?

No. All you’ll hear is some form of “Well, we brought this up to the ___________(insert political body of you choice) and the needed recommendations are a process and will take time, and blah, blah, blah. But we’ll keep up the good fight to get those jobs back, just remember to donate to __________” (fill in part affiliation here.)

Remember – To a politician: “Talking business, is doing business.” To a business person: “Talking is one thing – bona fide sales, are quite another.”

Regardless how one feels politically about the current stance being initiated by the administration, what is abundantly clear is the following:

This is what business looks like when you’re trying to turn around, or right past mistakes, in the midst of a “turn around operation.”

For those unfamiliar with the term, “turn around operation.” This is what is used to describe the process that a failing business adopts when there’s only two options: (1) Go out-of-business, now. (2) Try to save it.

Being a former successful “turnaround specialist.” This is precisely (i.e., what everyone is currently mislabeled a “trade-war”) what you do (and need to do) when you’re engaged in the latter. (I’ve expressed a similar point before in an article titled “The media is perplexed because this is what business looks like and they don’t get it.”)

All prior negotiations are simply either curtailed, rewritten, or thrown into the scrap-heap. Nothing is sacred. Repeat: Nothing.

Again, we are currently engaged in the latter. And the ones that have benefited in prior agreements, at the expense of the U.S. and its industrial backbone, are naturally going to wail like spoiled children.

“Free Trade” agreements were meant to be reciprocal, honest, sharing of markets. Otherwise, there is no “Free” anything.

What’s been taking place for decades is nothing more than a business bloodletting, being forced via a legion of leeches that have done nothing more than negotiate away a nations most fundamental asset. i.e., Its business and industrial might. It’s been a deplorable, disgusting display of nothing more than the equivalent of a bastion of rentier’s greed. This has not been about capitalism, business principles, or ideals at all.

It’s been nothing more than pure “Wall Street” incentivized greed. The greatest bastion for capital formation is now, nothing more, than a shell game. Literally.

Most, if not all, of the past agreements have been nothing more than structures of one form or another to fuel the insatiable thirst of what “Wall Street” has now become. i.e., It’s no longer the greatest capital formation vehicle the world has ever known. No, now it’s nothing more than a front running, parasitical infested, algorithmic, headline reading, High-Frequency-Trading, casino. My apologies to casinos everywhere.

Do not get me wrong, I’m not making any argument in favor of any administration, or politician. That is not what I’m discussing here.

What I am making clear is this: There’s a difference between opening up a “Trade War” and – just ending prior egregious trade agreements.

That’s not “War.” That’s called defending oneself. And just as in life at the schoolyard level – The bully doesn’t like when they suddenly find their “bullying” not only unheeded, but rather, they now find the once “bullied” has decided to fight back.

Again, all we are now engaging is – defending ourselves. That’s a distinction with a mighty big difference. And most of the mainstream business/financial media hasn’t the slightest clue of the differences.

Wall Street objectives (i.e., wringing every last cent, regardless of the human toll or national cost to its business sovereignty) have done nothing more than incentivize businesses to move operations offshore using the “wage gap,” “regulation gap,” and “environmental gap,” as an incentive to jettison any and all morals of capitalistic fundamentals, and replaced it with some form of grotesque hodgepodge of business maxims which are entirely specious when used improperly.

All hyperbole? Fair point. So, let’s use another example for comparisons, shall we?

This time let’s use the media’s go-to patriarch of U.S. business: “Ole Uncle Warren.” Far too many hold this man up as “The Face of what U.S. Business should look like.” Here’s a hint: Here’s what you get with that “face” and a trade deal such as NAFTA.

I made this point originally back in May of 2014 in the article, “Moving The US Economy Forward By Reversing Its Tax Policies”  when it originally took place. To wit:

“We hear many on the taxation issue regurgitate so-called “wisdom” or arguments for higher levels of taxes using opinions from academia such as the Krugman-ites, or axioms by none other than Uncle Warren (aka Warren Buffett) as to buttress their claims or stance why they’re unquestionably correct.

Remember when we were told ad nauseam Mr. Buffett believed in higher taxes? We heard: “Oh his secretary pays more in taxes than he does, blah, blah, blah.” And if Uncle Warren says it, well it must be so. After all, he throws great shareholder parties and plays the ukulele. He’s for the little guy. Yeah, right. Until you actually try to touch his money. For no matter what they say, one needs to watch what they do.

A little event took place last month that for all intents and purposes resembled a tree falling in the forest for today’s financial media. Fruit Of The Loom™ is closing its plant which employs some 600 U.S. workers in Kentucky and moving the operation to (wait for it….) Honduras. I guess those 600 U.S. workers were doing jobs that people paying lower wages, taxes, and more won’t do. Oh wait, they will. And now Honduras can claim family ties to Uncle Warren. I wonder if Mr. Buffett broke out into a rendition of Cinco de Mayo when he played his annual ukulele solo surrounded by the Fruit Of The Loom quartet?”

Sure, Mr. Buffet bought FOTL in the early 2000’s when it was in bankruptcy. Nothing wrong there. What’s wrong is his implied song and dance across the media in a willing to pay up, or call for higher taxes in some “good steward of business ” tone. i.e., “I don’t pay enough in taxes, blah, blah, blah.” or some other such drivel.

The fact of the matter is: If there’s a tax break or incentive that he or his businesses can take advantage of? They’re going to take it, regardless of the economical costs to the people he employed, or the community that was built around it.

Welcome to, “Uncle Wall Street” priorities, first, via the cover provided by prior trade deals negotiated by “lemonade stand” politicians. Great for them – not so good for the U.S.

Here’s a question: Do you think those 600 jobs would be gone today (and the devastation to the community that was built around it for years) had the prior “trade agreements” to incentivize such were not implemented? Imagine if “Ole Uncle Warren” didn’t have NAFTA as a useful argument to jettison all those U.S. jobs. Truly contemplate it, for this is just one example that demonstrates what has been taking place across the entire U.S.

Also contemplate: This was prior (e.g. 2014) to all the tax reversals, incentives, and more coming out today. Think KY would still lose to Honduras in 2018 vs 2014 tax policies, or recent NAFTA calls for renegotiating? Maybe, but then again, they’re already gone so why bother, right?

Is trying to make those once “Free Trade” incentives or conditions less favorable now entering some part of a “Trade War?” And if it is, why so? Is a country dumping products (Steel is just one) on a market subsidized by its government, flooding its trading “partner” and businesses with unsustainable pricing parameters, with no toleration (actually more like laughing in the face) for trying to protect oneself from such practices “Free Trade?”

As far as the Ivory-towered academia cabal is concerned that answer is: Yes, yes it is.

But if you’re an American citizen or business owner? I would garner to assume your view is a little bit different, is it not? (not to mention if you are one of those 600 that were jettisoned.)

So now – it’s China’s turn, along with a growing list of others. (E.U. springs to mind)

Will there be fallout? Economic upheavals? Financial chaos? Wall Street bedlam?

The answer is more than likely, Yes, too all, and then some.

But what’s the alternative? Here’s one:

Further bloodletting of U.S. industrial and business might – and a further – if not complete – obliteration of its workforce. All at the expense of remaining in prior “trade agreements” made by politicians that don’t possess even a “lemonade stand” understanding of business. Agreements that did nothing more than gut the U.S. of its once ingrained competitive advantages, enabling a cabal of international pols and business leaders to become rich beyond compare.

That’s not capitalism – that’s oligarchy. Pure and simple.

But there is an alternative, which is this:

Simply rip up all prior agreements – and start anew the best we can. Even if it means, yes, I’ll dare say it: Tariffs. Then, suffer through the healing process best we can as we rebuild.

That’s the two decisions at the core of any turn around plan. Hint:

Only the latter has a chance of working. It’s not easy, and at times feels utterly frightening, but that’s the cost. You either pay it now, or slowly bleed away into oblivion. And if that means we’re going to enter a trade war as most Ph.D’s argue? Then I say…

“Let’s Roll!”

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FgezJe Tyler Durden

It is hard to believe the Jetsons, an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in 1962, portrayed the life of a space-age family living in 2062 in a futuristic wonderland of elaborate robotic contraptions and whimsical inventions.

It is now 2018, and the year 2062 is less than 44-years away, but already a handful of the Jetsons’ contraptions exist including smartwatches, smart shoes, drones, 3-D printed items, holograms, robotic help, jetpacks, and even flying automobiles.

In particular, the fantasy of flying automobiles zipping around the skies of America could be taking flight within the next ten years.

That is according to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenberg, who said, “it will happen faster than any of us understand,” in a Bloomberg interview.

“Real prototype vehicles are being built right now. So the technology is very doable,” he added.

Muilenberg said Boeing has been preparing for the new era of flying urban vehicles, and his company has been designing what would be the “rules of the road for three-dimensional highways” that carry autonomous flying taxis.

Bloomberg claims autonomous air taxis and parcel-hauling drones have the potential to disrupt the transportation industry as we know it, with Boeing and Airbus SE already situating themselves for an era of flying automobiles. Muilenburg claims the window to reshape the transportation industry is now. “Fleets of self-piloted craft could be hovering above city streets and dodging skyscrapers within a decade,” he exclaimed.

According to the latest research by Deloitte, more than a dozen drone and flying automobile manufacturers have already passed conceptualization/design phase, and a majority of the manufacturers are currently exiting the prototype stage into the testing phase, with most manufactures targeting launch/delivery by 2020.

“If safety and regulatory hurdles are cleared, passenger drones are expected to get wings by 2018–2020, and traditional flying cars by 2020–2022, while revolutionary vehicles could be a reality only by 2025,” Deloitte reported.

In the second half of 2017, NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) started examining the feasibility of what the government space agency calls “Urban Air Mobility.”

Here is how NASA defines Urban Air Mobility:

Our definition for UAM is a safe and efficient system for air passenger and cargo transportation within an urban area, inclusive of small package delivery and other urban Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) services, which supports a mix of onboard/ground-piloted and increasingly autonomous operations.

“NASA has the knowledge and the expertise to help make urban air mobility happen,” said Jaiwon Shin, NASA’s associate administrator for aeronautics. “We plan to conduct the research and development, and test the concepts and technologies that establish feasibility and help set the requirements. Those requirements then serve to make using autonomous vehicles, electric propulsion, and high density airspace operations in the urban environment safe, efficient and economically viable.”

Boeing signaled that it was serious about flying taxis last year by acquiring Aurora Flight Sciences, whose projects include a new flying taxi it is developing with Uber Technologies Inc, said Bloomberg. Other partners on the project include Textron Inc.’s Bell Helicopter and Embraer SA, a Brazilian aerospace company.

Bloomberg details the major players who are becoming more visible on the playing field of developing urban flying taxis:

Aurora has been inventing autonomous vehicles since the late 1980s, and its portfolio of novel flying machines includes a two-seat robotic copter known as an eVTOL (an abbreviation for electric vertical take-off and landing). For its rideshare of the not-too-distant future, Aurora plans to whisk passengers between rooftop “vertiports.” Test flights could begin as soon as 2020 in Dallas and Dubai, according to the company.

Others are also rushing rotorcraft concepts to market. Vahana, the self-piloting air taxi developed by A3, Airbus’s tech-centric Silicon Valley outpost, completed its first test flight on Jan. 31. Intel Corp. and EHang Inc. are also testing their flying vehicles.

But the next generation of Uber and Lyft Inc. vehicles can’t arrive by air until manufacturers and regulators figure out how to keep them from bumping into buildings, commercial planes, personal drones and each other. That requires leaps in artificial intelligence and sensor technology from today’s personal drones, which mostly fly within sight of operators.

“Right now, what we’re transitioning from is a hobbyist industry to a commercial industry,” said Darryl Jenkins, an aerospace consultant specializing in autonomous vehicles.

Deloitte explains there are numerous potential applications for these new forms of urban mobility vehicles:

Bloomberg mentions U.S. and foreign drone manufactures must demonstrate that catastrophic failures are so remote that they will not happen in a billion flights. Unless if Congress or the FAA eases regulations on standards for autonomous flying vehicles. Boeing and other manufacturers would have to show regulators that their high-tech flying taxis are incredibly reliable.

“It’s extremely costly to certify new aircraft, even when you’re certifying it for a well-established use and with well-established rules,” said Steve Wallace, a former FAA official who oversaw accident investigations and also worked in the agency’s certification branch. “Here we’re trying to open up a whole new use where there aren’t any rules. That’s an enormous task.”

Muilenburg said Boeing is heavily investing in sense-and-avoid systems and other technologies to prevent airborne disaster. “We are making investments there,” he said. “The autonomous car ecosystem is making investments there.”

Since Muilenburg took control of Boeing in 2015, he has expanded investment dollars into futuristic aircraft and created a venture capital arm called HorizonX to further the development of hybrid-electric propulsion.

As Boeing and other major corporations usher in a Jetsonian era of flying automobiles starting in 2020 and beyond. Nearly every automaker and major technology companies are pouring billions into the development of flying automobiles. Will this trend be another bubble, as we have seen many in this Central-Bank-free-money-anything-goes-induced environment, or is there something legitimate here?

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2tinU1G Tyler Durden

Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog,

Reality doesn’t give a damn how you feel.

A long time ago, I was talking with a woman and the discussion turned to abortion. I don’t remember our exact words, but she said something to the effect that she was viscerally opposed to anything that curtailed women’s right to abortions. I do remember her use of the words “visceral” and “viscerally” because she used them repeatedly, emphasizing her stance.

I asked if the right to control one’s body implied a right to control one’s mind, and the right to control the products of one’s body and mind. Should freedom be general, or does it apply only to the specific case of freedom to abort a fetus? I didn’t get a response, other than one last exclamation that she was viscerally opposed to anything that curtailed women’s right to abortions.

The dictionary defines “visceral” as: “Relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect.” I was trying to get the woman to define the principle supporting her assertion and perhaps extend it to other issues. She had a deep inward feeling, that’s all, no principle, a product of the intellect.

It was some years before I realized that “visceral” was a key to understanding the world. Its definition is not just a definition, it’s a description of how most people perceive and interpret reality most of the time—with their emotions rather than their intellects.

That isn’t an original insight, it’s been around for centuries (most of my “original” insights have been around for centuries). Aristotle defined rhetoric’s three persuasive appeals as logos, pathos, and ethos: the mind, the emotions, and the conscience.

The leaders throughout history who incited their followers to storm ramparts, mount invasions, or march on crusades appealed to pathos—emotions—hatred of the enemy and love of family, clan, country, or God. The led only encountered the often-grim realities after they’d signed up.

Emotional appeals kicked into high gear with the development of mass markets and advertising. The first tenet of marketing copywriting is you sell to emotions, not reason. Reasons come later, after you’ve emotionally hooked the mark prospect and he is rationalizing his decision.

List a car’s many fine features and make bullet-proof logical arguments that they’re better than anybody else’s and you might sell a few. Show the car in front of a high-class hotel, the owner holding the door for a smoking hot babe, her breathtaking legs emerging seductively from the car as he takes her hand, and you’ll sell a lot more.

Naturally this primacy of emotion became part of politics, which has become a playpen of intellectual infants demanding the world take note of their visceral emotions and respond to them…now! The playpen hosts much of the media, especially social media. In education, children can progress from preschool to graduate programs without ever leaving the playpen, and without ever leaving childhood.

Only by completely isolating one’s self can one escape the “demands” of those who perceive reality through the lens of their oh-so-precious feelings. Their paramount demand: the world acknowledge and kowtow to those unique and special feelings. Primacy of emotion is their privilege, and anyone who questions it (questions being the weapon of the rational) is subject to scathing attack. They are viscerally visceral.

There’s one obvious problem. If everyone’s feelings are uniquely special and the object of justifiable self-absorption, who’s left to acknowledge and kowtow to everyone else’s unique and special feelings? The answer is straight from Animal Farm: some feelings are more special than others.

The feelings on display during CNN’s Parkland shooting town hall were extra special. The feelings (and thoughts) of those who oppose gun control were shouted down. The “gun control debate” is a phrase much in the media recently. As the town hall demonstrated, there’s no “debate.” It’s passion for the “right” side uber alles, and the other side had best just shut up and kowtow.

It’s not clear what the implicit “or else” is, maybe a collective holding of breaths until everyone’s blue, but there’s no mistaking the snarling anger. The more cowardly captains of corporate America caved.

However, there’s a much bigger problem with self-centered primacy of emotion: while other people may respond to your emotions, reality doesn’t give a damn. A strong desire for food, even if fervently expressed, won’t make a garden grow. Hoping for a windfall doesn’t prevent poverty. Cursing blizzards or droughts doesn’t change the weather. Wishing doesn’t make it so.

It would be instructive to check the majors of students drawn to today’s fashionable campus demonstrations. Engineering, chemistry, biology, physics and the other hard sciences are undoubtedly underrepresented. Students in those fields must apply rigorous and unremitting logic to unlock reality’s mysteries—hard and demanding work—or they drift to other disciplines. Those who succeed learn to check their feelings at the door. If they think at all about their epistemological opposites raising a ruckus across campus, it’s probably with a mixture of wonder and contempt.

Abandon reason and one emotion dominates: fear. Scared people are not rational, they’ll buy virtually anything that promises to alleviate their fear. Every totalitarian, every proponent of curtailing freedom, knows this. It’s the equivalent of the smoking hot babe: fear sells government.

How will gun control or confiscation stop criminals, who by definition don’t observe laws, from shooting up schools, churches, movie theaters, and other places where people peaceably assemble? Those places are generally gun-free zones, wouldn’t it be better if the shooters weren’t assured that nobody would fire back, so that maybe they’d think twice? The gun controllers ignore such questions. Something must be done now, they screech. Pass more laws so we’ll all “feel” safer. (Anytime someone sells a law touting its benefits for “all,” it’s a rock-solid bet the only beneficiary will be the government.)

Fear is not confined to one part of the political spectrum. It sold the Patriot Act and the like, gargantuan defense budgets, global military intervention, the surveillance state, the militarization of local police departments, and all manner of regulatory intrusion and extortion. Tell people you’re protecting them and you can do damn well whatever you want to them. It’s doubtful Americans will figure it out even as they’re herded into protective and preventative detention facilities, aka concentration camps. You can’t be too safe.

Reason is the toughest sell out there. As the advertisers know, what passes for reason is usually emotion-based rationalization. Yet, reason always wins. It has an unbeatable ally, reality, the anchor for those who live their lives guided by their intellects rather than their emotions.

Remember the tears, screaming, and general hysteria after Trump won the election? Imagine when our system, built as it is on wishful thinking, finally collapses. Imagine confronting these hysterical creatures. You, your family, and friends saw what was coming and are riding out the storm. They are screaming, demanding that you take care of them. However, you have the firearms they eschewed, so demand is all they can do. “Imagine how we feel!” they scream. You stare at them with complete indifference.

“Nobody gives a shit how you feel.”

Collapse will have its compensations.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FgA6Bs Tyler Durden