Tag: finance

Spanish Crisis Returns: Separatists Win Catalan Election In Huge Blow To Rajoy

Despite growing expectations that Catalan separatist fervor had abated in the aftermath of the post-independence fiasco, consensus was once again set for disappointment and on Thursday night, Spain was thrown back into chaos after the three Catalan separatist parties, Junts per Catalunya, Republican Catalan Left and the CUP, held on to a small but critical majority in the Catalan regional parliamentary election, dealing a stunning rebuke to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his attempt to bury the Catalan independence movement.

With virtually all of the vote counted, the separatists held on to 70 seats, down from 72 in the 2015 election and 1 less than the initial exit polls predicted, just weeks after PM Mariano Rajoy fired the former first minister, Carles Puigdement and his entire government after the held what Madrid dubbed an “illegal referendum” and declared independence on October 27. Yet while the separatists won as a group, the biggest individual winner was the Ciudadanos party, which gained 300,000 more votes and 12 more seats compared to its 2015 position. It was also the single biggest party to emerge from today’s election with a total of 37 seats. Meanwhile for Rajoy’s People’s Party, the result was a disaster as it finished in last place among the mainstream parties with just three seats.

Source: The Spain Report

But even more importantly, it was a personal victory for Carles Puigdemont, the ousted Catalan president who campaigned in self-imposed exile from Brussels. His Junts per Catalunya emerged as the most-popular separatist party, handing him a mandate to lead the secession campaign, after Junts per Catalunya beat Oriol Junqueras and Republican Catalan Left to lead the separatist block. As The Spain Report noted, Junts per Catalunya obtained slightly more than 900,000 votes and 34 seats. Esquerra won slightly fewer than 900,000 votes but only 32 seats. The radical-left, pro-independence CUP lost six of its ten seats and about half of its votes.

The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC, Miquel Iceta) gained 50,000 votes and one seat.

The Popular Party in Catalonia, led by Xavier García Albiol, lost eight of its eleven seats, dropping to just three, and, like the CUP, approximately half of its votes. As

Catalunya en Comú Podem, the Podemos brand for these regional elections, lost three seats compared to its previous brand result in 2015, falling to eight seats.

Both blocks obtained more votes than in 2015 due to a turnout that rose six points to 82% compared to 2015.

And while the Ciudadanos ascent was remarkable, the take home of the night is that in this implicit referendum, the Catalan separatist sentiment once again prevailed as Carles Puigdement observed.

Speaking in a press conference in Brussels, the deposed Catalan president said that “the people of Catalonia have given a lesson to the world: the Catalan republic has beaten the monarchy of the 155.” He was referring to the Constitutional Article 155 which the Spanish government used to take control of Catalan government. “The Spanish state has been defeated” Puigdement said and added that “Election results mean reparation, rectification and restitution are needed.”

The deposed leader also said that “the legitimate government must return immediately power in Catalonia”, envisioning of course, himself.

He concluded by claiming that “things are even better for secessionists today than they were two years ago, as the group has gained parliamentary power” and threatened that “if PM Rajoy continues to apply the same recipes he will continue to get the same results.”

Meanwhile, baffling many traders, the EURUSD has yet to respond to today’s election, having traded in a tight 10 pip range since the unexpected exit polls first came out.  Indeed, as Citi reminds us, “Remember,  Spanish PM Rajoy called this election hoping for this faction to loose momentum.”  Considering the separatists preserve their majority, that hardly what happened.

Also observing the inert Euro, Bloomberg cautions that other Spanish assets may well move tomorrow, perhaps violently.

Polls had been pointing to a divided parliament and a confusing mess of options, and some bulls had even been buying Spanish assets as a bet on a good night for the constitutionalists. So the solid win for the separatists should mean Spanish stocks and bonds decline tomorrow.

 

It’s pretty clear that there will be more disruption than markets were pricing in. I would expect Ibex futures to fall on the open. After the referendum in October, the index fell 5.4% in three days before recovering. This selloff should be considerably less dramatic and equally short-lived.

 

Interestingly, Spain’s dollar bonds have been selling off for the last couple of days, while the euro debt has outperformed, suggesting there were different perceptions of the poll among different investor bases.

In summarizing today’s event, Bloomberg asked rhetorically “has there been a shift in Catalan politics” and answered:

After all the drama, the balance of power looks almost the same as two years ago, when the secessionists bloc won 72 seats compared to 70 now. The left-wing radicals of the CUP party saw their support shrivel but Puigdemont will again need their four seats for a majority

So what happens now? Well, the secessionists will seek to overcome their differences to form a government. Rajoy has made his own position clear. He will not tolerate an illegal challenge to the rule of Spanish law and reserves the right to invoke constitutional powers again to ensure it is respected. The bottom line: “nothing was really solved in Catalan politics tonight and the secession crisis continues.“

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Congress Demands DOJ Turn Over Evidence Related To Obama-Hezbollah Drug Trafficking

Congress has demanded that the Department of Justice turn over all documents related to a disturbing report from POLITICO that the Obama administration quashed a massive DEA investigation into a $200 million per month drug trafficking and money laundering scheme on U.S. soil which was directly funding Hezbollah’s various terror campaigns around the world. 


“Add this to the long list of concessions the Obama administration made in pursuit of the nuclear agreement with Iran,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter. “The difference here is that this wasn’t just bad policy—it was potentially criminal. Congress absolutely has a responsibility to get to the bottom of this.“

The letter follows a commitment made by congressional leaders to open an investigation into the explosive claims of what is being described as a “potentially criminal” enterprise described to the Free Beacon by a congressional source as an offshoot of Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran which saw $1.7 billion dollars of euros, Swiss francs and other currencies shipped directly to Tehran on wooden pallets.

In early 2016, French police smashed a Hezbollah cell accused of trafficking cocaine for one of the world’s most ruthless drug cartels in order to fund the militant group’s operations in Syria. The Telegraph reported at the time: 

The agents, arrested in France, allegedly masterminded a massive global drug ring which raised millions of dollars to arm Hizbollah gunmen fighting for Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, in Syria. Two years ago, one of the outfit’s sicarios, or hitmen, was arrested in Spain on suspicion of having ordered up to 400 murders worldwide. The Hizbollah agents detained by French police include alleged leaders of the group’s European cell, including 45-year-old businessman Mohamad Noureddine. The DEA, which has classified him as a “specially-designated global terrorist”, accuses him of being a Lebanese money launderer for Hizbollah’s financial arm.

 

A DEA statement said: “These proceeds are used to purchase weapons for Hizbollah for its activities in Syria. This ongoing investigation…once again highlights the dangerous global nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism.”

Despite the active and ongoing DEA investigations into Hezbollah’s global operations, the Obama administration “threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way” according to Politico. 

In a Thursday letter from Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, Congress demanded all communications and documents related to the DEA’s “Project Cassandra” campaign which targeted “a global Hizbollah network responsible for the movement of large quantities of cocaine in the United States and Europe,” along with information on operations “Titan” and “Perseus,” as well as the Lebanese Canadian Bank, The Iran-Hezbollah Super Facilitator Initiative, and several named individuals. 

Also sought are “all documents and communications referring or relating to the potential designation of Hezbollah as a Transnational Criminal Organization,” along with “all documents referring or relating to efforts to prosecute targets related to Hezbolah” via the RICO act. 

“We have a responsibility to evaluate whether these allegations are true, and if so, did the administration undermine U.S. law enforcement and compromise U.S. national security,” the lawmakers wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions Sessions. 

As the Free Beacon reported yesterday:

U.S. drug enforcement agents who spoke to Politico about the matter accused the Obama administration of intentionally derailing an investigation into Hezbollah’s drug trafficking and money laundering efforts that began in 2008 under the Bush administration.

 

The investigation centered on Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militants who allegedly participated in the illicit drug network, which was subject to U.S. wiretaps and undercover operations.

 

Hezbollah is believed to have been laundering at least $200 million a month just in the United States, according to the report.

 

When U.S. authorities were ready to make the case against Hezbollah’s most senior leadership, Obama administration officials allegedly “threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way,” according inside sources who spoke to Politico about the situation

 

The Obama-led effort to block the investigation was “a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” one source said. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

As we reported yesterday, Representative Peter Roskam (R-IL), a chief national security voice in the House who fought against the nuclear accord, mimicked the views of DeSantis saying that Congress must investigate the Obama administration’s actions and work to increase pressure on Hezbollah.

“The report alleging the Obama Administration turned a blind eye and allowed Hezbollah to pump drugs into the United States to fund its terror campaigns in the Middle East is not surprising,” Roskam said. “Hampering the DEA’s investigation of Hezbollah would be emblematic of the previous administration’s fixation to strike a nuclear accord with Iran at any costs.“

 

“This blind eye imperiled our efforts to combat Iran and its proxies’ malign behavior and left us with a cash-flush Iran on the warpath across the Middle East with a nuclear program legitimized by the JCPOA,” Roskam said, using the acronym for the nuclear deal’s official name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “Congress needs to investigate this report and do what the Obama Administration refused to do, severely increase pressure on Hezbollah and hold the terrorist group, and its benefactor Iran, accountable for their crimes.”

Congress is especially interested to learn whether key Obama Administration officials, such as National Security Council staffer Ben Rhodes, were involved in quashing the DEA investigation in an effort to preserve diplomatic relations with Iran surrounding the nuclear deal. U.S. DEA agents who spoke to POLITICO accused the Obama administration into derailing an investigation launched during the Bush administration into drug trafficking and money laundering by Hezbollah. The derailed DEA investigation centered on Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militants, which used wiretaps and undercover operations to gather evidence.

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Rosie O’Donnell Gets Called Out By Ben Shapiro Over $2 Million Bribe, Tells Him To “Suck My D*ck”

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro filled in for Glenn Beck on Thursday, where he discussed an interesting Twitter exchange he had with long-time Trump enemy Rosie O’Donnell, whose face pretty much always looks like this.

On Tuesday night, O’Donnell attempted to illegally bribe various members of Congress with $2 million if they’d vote against the GOP tax reform bill – tweeting “so about about this i promise to give 2 million dollars to senator susan collins and 2 million to senator jeff flake if they vote NO,” adding in mentally ill caps “NO I WILL NOT KILL AMERICANS FOR THE SUOER [sic] RICH… …DM me susan DM me jeff no sh*t 2 million cash each.”

O’Donnell followd up with “I swear. I will write them a check.”

Noting how totally illegal this is – even crazy Louise “hard drugs messed with my mind” Mensch chimed in:

Rosie disagreed – doubling down: 

Enter conservative pundit Ben Shapiro: 

To which well adjusted Rosie replied: Suck my d*ck Ben

 

Something you want to tell us Rosie?

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If Bitcoin Is A Bubble…

Authored by Erik Norland via CMEGroup.com,

Our earlier articles on bitcoin discuss the crypto asset as a currency and a commodity. Both papers focused on the consequences of bitcoin’s defining feature: the asymptotic supply limit of 21 million coins. This gives it an unusual juxtaposition of demand uncertainty and supply certainty (as well as inelasticity). As a currency, it gives rise to a tension between its use as a store of value and as medium of exchange. Like commodities, it has a mining cost of production that both influences and is influenced by price. Finally, we explored bitcoin’s demand dynamics and the problems posed by rising transaction costs and their potential to trigger price crashes. This paper explores bitcoin as an equity, and more specifically as the first equity ever launched by a non-hierarchical “teal” organization, a self-driving entity with an independent force and purpose, its role in promoting blockchain and the potential consequences of bitcoin and blockchain for the economy.

While bitcoin is most commonly described as a currency, one can argue that it also has equity-like characteristics. These arguments can be both narrow and legal in nature as well as deeper and more philosophical. From a legal perspective, many governments are moving to regulate initial coin offerings (ICOs) of cryptocurrencies as they do initial public offerings (IPOs) of equity and other securities. Bitcoin’s ICO occurred in 2009 and at the time was largely overlooked by regulators. No longer. With over 1,000 additional cryptocurrencies being launched during the past two years, regulators worldwide are playing catch up, considering their response to this occurrence. 

On an economic and financial level, bitcoin also exhibits equity-like characteristics. The rewards that miners and those validating transactions on the bitcoin blockchain receive are analogous to stock grants made to employees by corporations. The stock of a company can be seen as an internal currency used to compensate and motivate employees, aligning their interests with those of the organization. To that end, the number of bitcoins in existence is comparable to the “float” of a corporation – the number of shares issued to the public. 

When bitcoin forks into a new currency, such as bitcoin cash, the move is comparable to a corporate action such as a spin out.  In a spin out, a corporation can give each of its shareholders new shares in a division of the firm that is being released to the public as separate and independent entity. In September 1996, for example, shareholders of the communications giant AT&T found themselves owning two stocks: that of AT&T services business, and that of Lucent Technologies, a phone equipment maker, of which AT&T (wisely) divested itself. Likewise, when bitcoin most recently forked, the owner of each bitcoin received one bitcoin cash, a new and separate cryptocurrency. 

While bitcoin is not by any means a traditional corporate entity with earning statements and a board of directors, it could be seen as an equity in its own ecosystem whose value derives from the size and health of that community. What is clear is that if bitcoin is equity, it represents a radically different corporate form than has ever created before.

It appears to be one of the first examples of what sociologist and organizational development specialist Frederic Laloux describes as a “teal organization”: an organization with fluid hierarchy that is adaptive and rules-based where authority is decentralized and distributed among members. That such an organizational form would arise around a distributed ledger is perhaps not surprising but it does, nevertheless, represent a radical new experiment in human organization. In his book, Reinventing Organizations, Laloux describes five organizational types: red, amber, orange, green and teal (Figure 1).  Red organizations are primitive tribal groups led by a single person. Street gangs and the mafia are modern examples. By their nature they are unstable: when the leader dies or becomes impaired, there is a fight for control and the organization can disappear or split if a new leader does not emerge. See Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” series for details. 

Figure 1: Organizational Theorist Frederic Laloux’s Five Kinds of Human Organizations

Amber organizations, the world’s first and oldest bureaucratic form, represent a radical innovation: an immutable organizational command-and-control hierarchy that survives and outlasts any member.  Organized religion, government bureaucracies and militaries are examples of amber organizations.

Most corporations are either orange or green organizations. Compared to amber organizations, orange ones feature additional agility. While they maintain strict hierarchies, they form more ad hoc project groups, have greater differentiation in expertise, and change the size, scope and form of their hierarchies in conjunction with needs. They can also merge and split apart peaceably. Green organizations take this approach further, often decentralizing decision-making to frontline employees. They tend to be somewhat flatter and management is meant to enable the success of frontline employees in a partial reversal of (or at least a more two-way version of) the usual top-down reporting lines.

Until the creation of bitcoin, teal organizations were mostly theoretical, although Wikipedia could be considered an example. What Wikipedia and bitcoin have in common is that both are essentially non-hierarchical organizations in which users make voluntary contributions to the development of the entity.  For Wikipedia, this comes in the form of writing and editing articles on millions of subjects in dozens of languages in accordance with the rules of the organization.  For bitcoin, the voluntary contributions come in the form of mining bitcoin and validating transactions. What differentiates bitcoin from Wikipedia is that the latter is a not-for-profit organization that requires periodic, voluntary monetary contributions from supporters. Bitcoin, by contrast, rewards contributors economically in a manner somewhat analogous to orange or green corporations but with much stricter, and less political, rules for who gets paid what and why. Little wonder that bitcoin and its crypto peers are described as “the internet of money.”

Bitcoin’s limit on supply to 21 million coins is also open to a useful equity analogy. This limit on the number of coins is one of the reasons why we think that bitcoin is useless as a medium of exchange and is being treated, rightly or wrongly, as a highly volatile store of value, sort of like gold on steroids. Bitcoin could become a more useful medium of exchange if it increased the cap on the total number of coins. So, why doesn’t it? Corporations have the option of issuing more shares. For example, in the early days of the Great Recession, many banks issued more shares to recapitalize themselves. The problem with issuing more shares is that it dilutes the value of the existing equity holders and usually lowers the price of a stock. As such, aside from compensating themselves and some of the employees with share options and share grants, corporate managements avoid issuing more shares like the plague. And normally, equity holders want such share grants to be limited so as not to be excessively dilutive. 

We don’t know if the bitcoin user community will one day allow for the creation of more than 21 million bitcoins.  If they do, it would improve the value of bitcoin as a medium of exchange but it would likely come at the expense of bitcoin holders’ value. As such, we are not sure why existing bitcoin holders would agree to such a change. Nor is it clear why the miners and transaction validators would agree to such a change, which would likely lower their profit margins.

Bitcoin’s Equity Bubble and The Macroeconomy

As of this writing, bitcoin has a market cap of around $280 billion.  While that’s substantial, it’s relatively small compared to the biggest corporations, which are valued north of $500 billion each. It also pales in comparison to the $75-trillion global economy. If bitcoin’s price collapsed to zero tomorrow, economic impact would be negligible.  But what would happen if bitcoin rises another 1,000%, as it has thus far in 2017? If it achieves a $3 trillion market cap and then suffers a price collapse of, say, 80-90%, as it has twice thus far in its short history, what impact will it have on the economy then? Still probably fairly minimal. U.S. equities alone are valued at $25 trillion. If U.S. equities fall 10% and wipe out $3 trillion in value, that alone would not likely cause a recession.

Let’s pursue a truly extreme and hypothetical case to illustrate our point. What if the currency rises to $1,000,000 per bitcoin? It may sound farfetched but it wouldn’t be too surprising given what has already happened to bitcoin prices (Figure 2). That would give it a market cap of around $20 trillion, depending upon how many bitcoins exist by then. If it then collapsed, it could have a negative impact upon the finances of more recent buyers, many of whom might not be financially well off and many of whom would have purchased near the top. If one assumes a -5% wealth effect for drops in asset prices – a dubious but common assumption—then if bitcoin one day lost $20 trillion in market cap, it could shave $1 trillion of consumer spending globally. That would be enough to slow the global growth rate by over 1%.  Moreover, a crypto meltdown could also one day hit investment in computer hardware like during the collapse of technology stocks between 2000 and 2002 which led to a sharp decline in business investment and tripped the U.S. economy into a recession in 2001. A combined wealth and investment effect might drive the global economy into a recession and trigger a backlash against cryptocurrencies if they rally enough in the meantime to have such an impact. Obviously, this is an extreme hypothetical. For the moment, however, we’re not the point where this is a serious concern. And, as Aristotle once commented, ‘probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.’

Figure 2: Proof That Anything is Possible.

Investors who are buying bitcoin are presumably hoping to find someone else to sell the currency to at a higher price. That said, there is more to bitcoin economically than just the theory of the greater fool. As more people bid up the price, the difficulty of solving bitcoin’s cryptographic algorithms increases. This in turn is driving up investment in more powerful and faster computing technology of both a traditional integrated circuit and non-traditional variety. Indeed, solving cryptographic problems may be one of the first tests facing quantum computers.

The problem is that investors in bitcoin and its peers are mainly out to make profits and not to finance or subsidize the development of distributed ledgers nor more powerful computers. As such, if the price of crypto assets collapsed, investors may be sorely disappointed just as many were when the first generation of internet stocks collapsed between 2000 and 2002, driving the Nasdaq 100 index down over 80%. 

One possible result of the current run up in cryptocurrencies and their possible collapse is that central banks may one day decide to issue their own distributed ledger currencies. Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan once compared making monetary policy to driving a car guided only by a cracked rearview mirror. Even now, important policy decisions must be based upon imperfectly estimated economic numbers that are weeks or months old by the time they become available. In 2017, economic policy making is still a vestige of the 20th century. 

Blockchain technology has the potential to one day allow policy makers to issue their own cryptocurrencies that will give them real time information on inflation, nominal and real GDP. It won’t allow them to peer through the front windshield into the future but at least they can look into the rearview mirror with much greater clarity and see out the side windows of the monetary policy vehicle. This could allow them to create the amount of money and credit necessary to keep the economy growing at a smooth pace more easily than they do today. Switching off of the gold standard vastly reduced economic volatility and improved per capita economic growth (Figures 3 and 4).  Moving to blockchain-enhanced fiat currencies could further reduce economic volatility and, ironically, enable further leveraging of the already highly indebted global economy as people find ways to use capital more efficiently. More broadly, crypto-inspired investments could bring about new technologies that we cannot yet imagine.

Whether bitcoin “equity” investors are rewarded for bringing about such “improvements” is another matter. A few investors in the early days of the internet during the 1990s came away enormously wealthy. Many others lost money. The current cryptocurrency boom could end in a similar fashion. 

If Bitcoin Is a Bubble

The truth is that most of the assets that trade on exchanges have been in ‘bubbles’ at one time or another for reasons that have nothing to do with the existence of futures contracts. ‘Bubbles’ by the way are only visible in rear-view mirrors.

Silver experienced a bubble in 1980 when the Hunt brothers cornered the physical spot market. The price soared from $4 per ounce to around $50 and then collapsed. The futures market performed just fine during this period and fulfilled its function of allowing silver users to hedge risk from the price volatility. 

The same can be said of subsequent bubbles, including those in the equity market in 1987 and the Nasdaq in 2000. As the housing bubble popped, beginning in 2007, the banking system suffered severe stress but futures markets functioned with neither interruptions nor bailouts. Daily margining helped to prevent the kinds of overleverage that plagued the banking sector.

Many commodity prices also experienced bubbles during the past decade and saw their prices collapse.  Crude oil fell from $147 per barrel in the summer of 2008 to as low as $36 per barrel by early 2009.  Natural gas prices dropped from $13 per MMBtu in 2007 to as low as $2 per MMBtu by early 2015 while exhibiting bitcoin-like volatility. Metals prices also collapsed between 2011 and 2016 after huge run-ups during the previous decade. In every case, futures markets functioned well.

Figure 3: GDP Growth Per Capita Improved Under the Fiat Currency Standard.

 

Figure 4: Economic Volatility Fell with Fiat Currencies.

 

Does Bitcoin Have Inherent Value?

There are those who argue that bitcoin has no inherent value and is merely a speculative vehicle. With respect to inherent value, we largely agree. Bitcoin has no inherent value. Neither do the U.S., Australian, Canadian or New Zealand dollars, the euro, the yen, the pound, the Swiss Franc or any other government-issued currency. Yet large user networks trade in these currencies in great quantity every day and agree that they do have value in the present moment. Moreover, futures contracts have existed on these fiat currencies for four decades. If fiat currencies have no inherent worth then neither do government bonds. Both are forms of debt whose value derives from taxing authorities and whose value can be eroded by inflation. 

Gold also has little inherent worth. It barely figures into industrial processes. Most gold is hidden away in vaults and that which is not is largely worn as jewelry – pretty but not economically functional, unless conspicuous consumption really does create value. A small amount of gold winds up in people’s teeth.  The fact that gold is prized is a function of both its scarcity and a large user network that accepts that it has value. Bitcoin is no different, only more recent. And, while it can’t be worn as bling-bling, it can be exchanged for hard currency, which is accepted in jewelry stores worldwide.

Only industrial metals, agricultural goods and energy products can be said to really have any inherent worth. Yet despite the critical importance of these goods, prices are not sky-high because supplies are, for the moment, abundant. 

Lots of Pots, Lots of Kettles

While there is much truth to saying that bitcoin has no inherent worth, there are lots of glass houses in this financial neighborhood, so one should be careful about throwing stones. Cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, are unique. That said, one can understand them better by drawing analogies to a variety of more familiar asset classes, including fiat currencies, commodities and equities.  However unique, bitcoin carries characteristics of all of these assets to which we are more accustomed. 

Bottom line:

  • In addition to currency and commodity-like characteristics, bitcoin also resembles equity.
  • Bitcoin can create spin offs (hard forks).
  • Bitcoin miners and transaction validators are compensated with bitcoin in a manner analogous to companies granting stock to employees.
  • Like Wikipedia, cryptocurrencies represent non-hierarchical “teal” organizations in which people make voluntary contributions. 
  • Bitcoin is a bit like an equity on an ecosystem that surrounds the crypto asset rather than a traditional hierarchical corporate entity.
  • If there is indeed a crypto bubble, it may be financing and incentivizing the creation of a new generation of powerful computers which could have widespread and unpredictable future applications.
  • Investors in cryptocurrencies may or may not benefit from popularizing the blockchain and distributed ledgers.
  • At the moment, bitcoin is too small to pose any threat to the stability and continued growth of the global economy but this could change if the currency rises to a much higher value and then collapses. 

 

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Apple Admits Secretly Slowing Down Older iPhones

Apple settled long-standing conspiracy theories surrounding claims that the company was purposefully slowing down older iPhones in order to force people into buying newer models – and there’s a “perfectly good” explanation.

Batteries

In early December, Reddit user TeckFire posted a report in the iPhone subreddit, noting that after experiencing a painful slowdown on his iPhone 6S, a brand new battery resulted in significant improvement in benchmark scores – as can be seen in photos posted to the thread:


After testing performed by Geekbench developer John Poole, it was indeed confirmed that iPhones were being throttled to preserve battery life or avoid unexpected shutdowns while the battery degrades. 

The Cupertino, CA company responded to the internet sleuths, admitting in a statement “Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.”

“Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future,” said the company.

As TechCrunch explains:

Basically, iPhones were hitting peaks of processor power that the battery was unable to power and the phones were shutting off. Apple then added power management to all iPhones at the time that would “smooth out” those peaks by either capping the power available from the battery or by spreading power requests over several cycles. This is clearly shown in Poole’s charts in his post:

Many have pointed out how bad it looks for Apple – which has been accused of throttling older phones to make them buy new ones, was caught throttling phones. No matter how legitimate the reason, the fact that they were caught – and forced to admit – is going to fuel conspiracy theories for a while.

To recap: due to battery performance degradation issues, the power demands of the iPhone processor was causing shutoff issues. To solve this, Apple secretly throttled their phones in order to avoid the issue… and were caught by internet sleuths before issuing a statement with their tail between their legs. Was there any impact on the stock price? Of course not: after all 2018 is the year companies make buybacks great again.

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Fickle Fate as Proved by SNL

From the Slope of Hope: One of my favorite coffee table books is an anniversary retrospective of Saturday Night Live over the decades. In the volume is a picture of all the big-shots around the writer’s table. During each week, they all gather for a table read – – Lorne Michaels, the week’s host, the head writers, and the regular cast members. This isn’t the picture shown in the book, but it shows a similar table read during a different week than the one portrayed:

lorne

The specific photo in the book was during the week in which Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger were the co-hosts. It must have been around 1993 or so.

What struck me while looking at the picture was how many lives had been surprisingly altered (or ended) since the photo was taken. The passage of time brings many changes, of course, but imagine yourself transported back a quarter-century to that very room and, after announcing you are from the future, you proceed to walk around the table and utter the following (and, yes, every one of these people was actually at the table in the photo I referenced):

  • “Al Franken, you will become a United States Senator. And, before finishing your term, you will resign in disgrace because of a sex scandal.”
  • “Alec Baldwin, you are going to have a messy, ugly divorce with your wife. Oh, and speaking of which, Kim Basinger, you’re going to go bankrupt………because you bought a town.’
  • “Chris Farley, you don’t have long to live. All the drinking and drugs are going to put you in the grave at the age of 33, just like your idol, John Belushi.”
  • “You’ll live longer, Jan Hooks, but you’ll die of throat cancer at 57.”
  • “Lastly, Mr. Hartman, you know that crazy woman you’re married to? She’s going to put a bullet through your head while you’re asleep in your own bed.”

You think they’d believe you? I don’t think so. But you’d be telling the truth. Every bit of it.

So that’s the real question the revelers on New Year’s Eve should be asking………..not whether they can manage to quit smoking, find a mate, or lose weight. The real question is: what horrors that we’d never expect await us? The happy group around that table didn’t expect any of these misfortunes.

Neither can we.

via http://ift.tt/2Ds2GPI Tim Knight from Slope of Hope

Ron Paul Praises Trump-Putin Rapprochement: “No Need For Sanctions”

On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a called his American counterpart, Donald Trump, to thank him and CIA director Mike Pompeo for providing intelligence that helped thwart a major terrorist attack in St Petersburg.

The Asia Times'  MK Bhadrakumar remarked that in the annals of Russian-American relations, it is difficult to recall a precedent for the Kremlin leader calling his White House counterpart to convey his personal gratitude and appreciation for the profound contribution made by the US’ Central Intelligence Agency and its director to Russian national security.

And now Ron Paul, who has consistently pushed for constructive relations between the United States and Russia, has told RT that he was excited by the news.

“I really like this, I think this is good, and I think this is what we should work on. So both of them should be complimented on this, that they’re willing to [talk], I think it’d be a good idea if they talked every week,” he said.

Unfortunately, the call also highlights a dichotomy in which the US and Russia cooperate on some matters, like counterterrorism, but remain bitter rivals in others.

“At the same time, if we can be civil and talk to each other, why do we, and I speak for our country, have to spend so much money pretending we’re gonna be invaded and we’re threatened by Russian aggression?” the former lawmaker pondered. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

Ron Paul has always been somewhat of a loose cannon in American politics for his opposition to all sorts of warmongering, from the war on drugs to the conflicts in the Middle East. He told RT that the current political establishment in the US is too eager to jump to deploy the military or impose penalties on countries they have disagreements with.

“Unfortunately, it’s a bipartisan thing in this country,” he explained, referring to both the Republicans and the Democrats.

 

“When I was in Congress and I would speak this way, and when I ran for president, I literally could get booed for saying things like ‘we ought to talk to people, you know.’ At that point it was dealing with Cuba and other countries, and of course the Middle East. Why don’t we talk to people before we decide that we have to use sanctions and blockades and bombs.”

This attitude is reflected in the new National Security Strategy, announcing which Trump called China and Russia “revisionist” and “rival powers” that “challenge American influence, values and wealth,” but said that he was planning to work with them while putting American interests first.

“They start with the wrong premise. They start with the idea that we have an empire, that we have a responsibility, they believe it’s a moral responsibility and we are the deciders and we can influence people because we are exceptional. They all start with the wrong thing so it’s just a matter of degree.

 

All countries are imperfect and we should do our best to get along. The best thing you can do is trade with people, and talk with people and travel with people.”

Paul, who supports lifting the sanctions against Russia, said that economic pressure is a poor way of dealing even with such small states as North Korea, since they are unlikely to make an impact on decision making.

“Even as weird and disruptive as North Korea is, there’s no need for sanctions. All they do is hurt the poor people…

 

There’s much better ways to solve problems in the world without using force, power, intimidation, bombs and boycotts.”

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Equity Mania Reaches Fever Pitch As Even Famed “Value Investors” Throw In The Towel On Shorts

Once upon a time, the chart below would have resulted in value investors loading up on short positions, or at the very least moving money to the sidelines, while poking fun at the ‘momo’ crowd for once again convincing themselves that “this time is different” as they chased equities ever higher. 

Alas, as Bloomberg points out this morning, this time around it seems that even the most famed value investors, including Jeremy Grantham, have decided to throw in the towel on their bearish bets.

“Morningstar kicked us out of their category,” said Callahan, who helps oversee $2 billion as president at Icon Advisers Inc. in Greenwood Village, Colorado, and hasn’t bet against a stock in two years. “We’re in a great bull market. This market is going higher. Why short now?”

 

Everyone’s got a bull case nowadays. Legendary short Marc Cohodes tells anyone who’ll listen to buy Overstock.com for its blockchain platform. Credit crisis savant Gary Shilling says deregulation is driving equities. Even Jeremy Grantham, venerated advocate of buying cheap, says it’ll be a long wait.

 

“Jim Grant put me in the title a few months ago under the heading of ‘The Apostasy of Jeremy Grantham,’ that I was forswearing my religion,” the 79-year-old chief investment strategist for GMO LLC in Boston said. “It’s an exaggeration, but it picks up the idea that I’ve temporarily broken ranks with the general tone of the value community.”

In fact, as Institutional Investor noted earlier this summer, Grantham has even gone so far as to suggest that this time is different and that future earnings multiples will oscillate around much higher levels going forward, rendering pre-1996 data all but irrelevant.

In his latest client letter, Jeremy Grantham, famed value investor and co-founder of $77 billion asset manager Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co., makes the case that the average has shifted upward for important metrics including price-to-earnings ratios and profit margins, throwing off the historical balance used to determine market value.

 

“For value managers the world was, for the most part, convenient, and even easy, for decades,” he wrote. “And then it changed.”

 

According to Grantham, 1996 was a tipping point for investing. Since that year, price-to-earnings ratios “still oscillated the same as before,” but around a “much higher mean — 65 percent to 75 percent higher.” Profit margins have also gotten higher, with the mean over the last two decades up 30 percent compared with pre-1997 averages.

 

“We value investors have bored momentum investors for decades by trotting out the axiom that the four most dangerous words are, ‘This time is different,’” Grantham wrote. “For 2017 I would like, however, to add to this warning: Conversely, it can be very dangerous indeed to assume that things are never different.”

Of course, it’s unclear why $1 of earnings today should be worth 65%-75% more than it was a few years ago unless folks like Grantham have simply convinced themselves that equity volatility will remain subdued in perpetuity and that the economic cycle will simply stop cycling…which clearly many people have…

All that said Joseph Tanious, a senior investment strategist at Bessemer Trust in Los Angeles, has a different theory on why there is a palpable lack of warnings from America’s most respected value investors saying it’s not that nobody is short, it’s that they don’t want to talk about it. “I don’t think the bears have left the market. I just think they’re very quiet after a year like this. Bears will always be bears and bulls will always be bulls, but they may go dormant from time to time, or they may be less vocal.”

So what say you…is this time different?

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Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt Steps Down From Executive Chairman Role

After 17 years in senior leadership at the "Do No Evil" shop, Eric Schmidt is stepping down from his executive chairman role at the internet behemoth…

He will become a technical adviser to Google parent Alphabet, while continuing to serve on the board.

Full Alphabet Statement:

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced that, as of its next regular board meeting in January 2018, Eric Schmidt will be transitioning from his position as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, becoming a technical advisor to the company while continuing to serve on its board.

 

“Since 2001, Eric has provided us with business and engineering expertise and a clear vision about the future of technology,” said Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet. “Continuing his 17 years of service to the company, he’ll now be helping us as a technical advisor on science and technology issues. I’m incredibly excited about the progress our companies are making, and about the strong leaders who are driving that innovation.”

 

“Larry, Sergey, Sundar and I all believe that the time is right in Alphabet’s evolution for this transition. The Alphabet structure is working well, and Google and the Other Bets are thriving,” said Eric Schmidt. “In recent years, I’ve been spending a lot of my time on science and technology issues, and philanthropy, and I plan to expand that work.”

 

“Over 17 years, Eric has been tremendously effective and tireless in guiding our Board, particularly as we restructured from Google to Alphabet. He’ll now be able to bring that same focus and energy to his other passions, while continuing to advise Alphabet,” said John Hennessy, a member of Alphabet’s Board since 2004 and the lead independent director since 2007.

The company anticipates that the Board will appoint a non-executive chairman.

The question is – is Schmidt getting ready for 2020?

*  *  *

We wondered aloud previously, what makes Google's Eric Schmidt so afraid (and what should he be afraid of?)

Via Jan Oberg via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

OK, it’s from Russia Today so you should of course not trust it but somehow this video and text and the man in it seems quite factual, not fake and obviously not omitted.

It documents that Eric Emerson Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Alphabet – an American multinational conglomerate that owns a lot and among them Google – is working on “de-ranking” alleged propaganda outlets such as Russia Today, RT – the world’s third largest television network – and Sputnik.

Who is Eric Schmidt?

On the Wikipedia link you can read more about Mr. Schmidt, one of the richest person on earth, an advocate of net neutrality, a corporate manager and owner of a lot, a collector of modern art, etc. And you can read about his heavy involvement with Hillary Clinton’s recent campaign and the Obama administration and about Schmidt’s involvement with Pentagon, too.

Eric Emerson Schmidt’s name is associated with the world’s largest and most systematic data collecting search engine, Google, that millions upon millions use. School children, teachers, parents, media people, politicians and you and I all daily “google” what we need to know.

While we do that, Google tracks everything about us and if you are searching for a thing to buy, say a camera, be sure that camera ads will shortly after turn up on your screen. And they know everything we are interested in through our “googling” including political interests and hobbies.

Playing God

This very powerful corporate leader with a open political orientation has decided – as will be seen 58 seconds into the video – that the Internet and his hugely dominating search engine a) shall cave in to political pressure, b) de-rank at least these two Russian media organizations because c) he knows they are “propaganda outlets” (it isn’t discussed at all or compared with US or other countries’ media) and d) in the name of political correctness it is OK to limit the freedom of opinion-formation.

In fact, he says in a few words that he – well, not he himself but a computer program and mechanism called an algorithm – shall decide what you are I shall be able to find. Google as Good, Google as God.

Conspicuously, his de-ranking – read censorship – policy shall not hit media (as far as we can understand from this clip at least and not from this backgrounder either) that have, for instance, been using fake news and planted stories, omitted facts and perspectives and sources and told us propaganda and worse about, say, US wars around the world.

It’s Russia’s media. And naturally you ask: Whose next? And where does that end? (“Wherever they burn books, in the end will also burn human beings.” – Heinrich Heine).

Obvious human rights violation

This type of political paternalism is not only totally unethical and foolish, it’s a violation of human rights. It cannot be defended with the argument that other countries and media outlets also use propaganda. The Western world – the U.S. in particular – calls itself ‘the free world” and gladly, without the slightest doubts, fights and kills to spread that freedom around the world and has done so for decades.

We humans have right to information without interference – at least if international law counts. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

You abuse power, Mr. Schmidt

Mr Schmidt, you are blatantly and clearly interfering in the rights of millions, if not billions, to know. To seek information. To shape their opinions.

With your few words you abuse your almost unlimited digital, political, economic and ‘defence’ power – much much worse than if you had sexually abused just one woman for which older men today are fired or choose to resign.

This has to be stated irrespective of whether we like or dislike Russia and its media. That is not the issue here. This has to be fought against because it is slippery slope, Mr Schmidt.

You ought to stand up and use your powers with principles and vision: To protect the Internet against every and each reduction of freedom. Freedom for all, also the fake news-makers however we define them. Yes, there is another solution for that problem and it is not your paternalism.

It just cannot be for you to decide what is good for others and collect data about us all which is only good for you.

Has the West really become so insecure about itself?

Censorship – de-ranking – and information warfare is not the solution to anything. A strong society or culture that believes in its own moral value and vitality does not censor. Dictatorships – “regimes” – do.

Mr. Schmidt has much more power than many state leaders but he is not up to it and how would he be able to re-rank themes and media again in the future.

Has the West, the US and Western culture become so weak, so trembling at the sight of the global future and so morally deranged that it cannot live with – does not believe it can compete factually and intelligently with – other views? With fake? With propaganda by others? If so, that is where the Soviet Union was in the early 1980s. And if so, watch the writing of the Western walls!

Education and trust

There are much better solutions – if you think. Mr. Schmidt may also google them…

It’s education – education of young and old to learn to identify what is trustworthy and what is not. Learning to learn on the Internet. It is dialogue and it is dignity – instead of succumbing to the lowest of levels that he accuses others of being at.

And there is more solutions.

Making democracy, freedom and human rights stronger – by believing in human beings, their intelligence and solidarity. When Google de-ranks, it de-humanises. It offends the intelligence of the world’s users of the Google search engine.

It sinks to the low level where fakers and liars are – devoid of morals but passionate about selling a particular message even if totally unfounded.

What are you so afraid of, Mr. Schmidt?

If I were Eric Schmidt, I think I would be afraid of being perceived as a “useful idiot” or an an evil operator on behalf of US militarism – since he is targeting Russia in a the new Cold War atmosphere.

After all is/was a member also of various US government security and Pentagon related boards. And after all, he spoke at the Halifax Security Forum filled with military defence people and hardliners who see only Russia, North Korea and Iran as problems, never the US itself. One of the panels deals with the “Post-Putin Prep”!

Regime change in Russia too in the future and with truthful news from Google?

Mr. Schmidt and his corporate fellows should also be afraid that millions will become more sympathetic to Russia Today, Sputnik and even Russia itself precisely because of his words.

There are no wars on the ground without information war. If Schmidt’s Google fights political wars with de-ranking, many of us will be de-parting to more peaceful, rights-respecting and ethical search engines than his. So until further:

#BoycottGoogleSearch

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Wall Street Gunfighter: A Serial Novel. #1

 

Wall Street Gunfighter

A Serial Novel

 

Chapter One

The Rocky Mountain Ride is an annual opportunity for about a hundred of the wealthier men in America to spend more than a week on horseback enjoying the cool mountain air and campfire conversation.   Stetson, O’Farrell, and Resistol hats sit on the heads of Wall Street tycoons, oilmen, industrialists,  land developers, heirs to great fortunes, and the men whose feedlots, farms and ranches feed the nation.  On riding days, a pack string loaded with hard panniers containing cold beer leads the group.  The long line of horse and rider snakes up and down the high passes, through the scrub oak and aspen trees, to end each day in a different mountain meadow arranged with white canvas wall tents. 

 

While the men are enjoying the epic scenery from the saddle, the camp is taken down by workers, moved by truck, re-erected, and footlockers replaced in each tent with military precision long before the riders arrive at the end of the day’s journey.  The old men tie up their own horses on the picket line, untack, feed, groom, and eventually water their horse before directing themselves to their tents to try to remove their custom Paul Bond, Lucchese, Justin, or Tony Lama boots which are invariably covered with horse sweat and trail dust.  After switching blue jeans for bath robe, the men then hobble over to a semi-trailer containing the steaming hot showers, then possibly a massage, and usually a stiff drink or two.

 

Beyond the trucks and kitchen generators, the young camp hands sit in the grass, or lean against a tree, drinking Coors beer and eating cold sandwiches.  Some of them, like Clyde Barrows, III, are sons or grandsons of riders, but most are not.  

 

“Bull shit,” says Clyde.  “First, you probably don’t even have a hundred bucks to bet, and second, he doesn’t even have a gun here to shoot.”

 

“You know I’ll have a hundred after we get paid, and he can use any old gun Johnny can get off the truck, which, if anything, should give you better odds than this,” says Bubba.  

 

“From 27 yards, not 16?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“100 clays in a row…four rounds…no misses.” 

 

“Yep.”  

 

“3 to 1 odds?” confirms Clyde. 

 

“Your three hundred bucks to my one hundred.  It’s a bet?” asks Bubba.

 

Clyde nods his head slowly, “OK, I’ll take your money, ’cause not even John Yates can do that, and he is the best to ever shoot on this ride.”

 

They shake hands and Bubba trots off to find and inform Grey Collins of what he has done.

 

“You’re an idiot,” says Grey.

 

“Maybe.  OK.  Sure.  I should have asked you first, but Clyde was just…I don’t know…just such a smug jerkoff.  He said to me, “Everyone misses,” and I said, “Not Grey!  I don’t think I have ever seen Grey miss, especially with a shotgun.”

 

“That isn’t true, and you know it.”  

 

Grey bends in the sides on the bill of his dirty baseball cap and stares at Bubba. 

 

“And why the hell 27 yards? They only ever shoot 16 up here on the ride.”

 

Bubba looks up and bites his lip, then he says, “Well I got you good odds, so we should make a killing.”

 

“I was going to make a killing, already, by busting my ass for these rich-prick-wannabe cowboys, but now we might end up as broke as when we started, thanks to you,” says Grey.  “Fuck me…and fuck you.”

 

Bubba asks, “So you will do it, right?  I mean…you can do it…right?”

 

The next day is a Friday, and after the riders head out on the trail, the boys move the camp to another big meadow in a wide glacial valley and set up for the big weekend of gymkhana and trap shooting competitions.  There is still small patches of snow up in the shadows of the surrounding mountains.  

 

“Let me see one,” says Johnny, one of the ride’s longtime wranglers, and now in charge of the camp hands.

 

Clyde presses the button on the remote control and an orange clay pigeon instantly flies out of the trap and drifts off into some willows in the distance.  

 

“Looks pretty damn low and definitely some wobble,” says Johnny.

 

“Looks fine to me,” says Clyde with a smile. “We can dial it in better, tomorrow, before the riders shoot.”

 

“Here they come,” says Johnny. 

 

Grey, Bubba, every other camp hand, cook, and even the masseurs make their way over to the makeshift shooting range.  The head cook is busy writing bets down in a notebook and handing over cash to be held by the big-black bartender.  Bubba, sixteen years old, short, skinny relative to the other boys and especially to the grown men, is at the head of the pack, yelling and cussing at the top of his lungs, as they all walk just behind Grey.  Upon arrival at the trap, the group quiets itself.

 

“You don’t look so good to me, today,” says Clyde to Grey.  

 

“We’ll see.  Let me have the gun,” says Grey.

 

Johnny had hunted through all of the gun cases in one of the big Ryder trucks looking for Mr. Clum’s, because he knows that Clum is always too drunk to shoot, and so old that he probably will not notice it has been fired, especially if someone cleans it before putting it back.  He sets the black gun case on a Coleman camp table, then flips the two latches to open the case, and says, “Voila!”

 

The crowd is silenced by the word Perazzi that appears in gold inside the blue padded lid of the case. 

 

“Now, ladies, that there is what I call a shotgun,” says Bubba.

 

Grey steps up and removes the single barrel, leaving the double in the case, checks to see that the full choke is installed, tight, and then assembles the gun.  It has a large lattice-work rib running along the top of the barrel, and a very thin-shiny coat of oil on the blued steel and polished walnut.  Grey mounts the padded butt of the Italian 12 gauge into his shoulder, while everyone stares at him, and he lifts the muzzle up to gracefully mate his right cheek to the raised comb of the stock.

 

“Whoa, there, Hoss!” yells Clyde.  “What do you think you’re doing, Johnny, letting this little bastard shoot that fine piece?  Can’t you find something more…ummm…I don’t know…his size?” 

 

“Shut up!” yells Bubba, as he gives Johnny a smile and a wink.

 

“This beautiful bambina will do just fine,” says Grey.  “Thanks, Johnny.  Someone find me a fresh case of shells.”

 

The crowd parts and he walks through the soft dirt over to a place far, very far, behind the mechanical trap that throws the targets.  

 

“Why is he way back there?” asks the bartender.

 

“Because either Bubba is an idiot, or this kid can really shoot,” says the head cook.

 

“Maybe both are true?” replies the bartender.

 

“Let me see one, Clyde,” says Grey.

 

Clyde pushes the button and the small saucer-shaped target flies out straight ahead and so low that Grey barely catches a glimpse of it before it drifts down behind the trap from which it came.

 

Grey closes his eyes, exhales, shakes his head, and mutters under his breath, “Asshole.”  

 

“Wanna booster chair little boy?” asks Clyde with a big shit-eating grin.

 

Grey pushes up the bridge of his gas station sunglasses with his left middle finger, then takes a green shot shell from the carboard box in his sweathshirt’s front pocket and drops it in the breach.  He stares out just beyond the trap, lets his eyes focus on the distance and adjust to the background, closes the Pirazzi’s smooth and heavy action, mounts the gun in his shoulder, swings the shotgun quickly, once to the left and again to the right, then places his right index finger on the trigger.  

 

“Pull!”

 

I hope you log in to ZH next week to see what happens next.  Yes. it’s all fiction, or a coincidence.  

 

Merry Christmas!

h_h

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