Tag: finance

Palestinian Santas Clash With Israeli Forces On Christmas In Bethlehem

On Christmas Eve, Palestinians, many of them dressed as Santa Claus, staged a rally in the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank protesting against to the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Israeli forces used tear gas and stun grenades against the protesters near an Israeli military tower in Bethlehem – the ancient city widely acknowledged as the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ.

Throughout Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the West Bank pilgrimage and tourism was noticeably down over the Christmas holiday season as protests and clashes over President Trump's December 6th announcement continued, which also included plans to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem in order to reflect the change in status.

In Photos: Israeli Forces Clash With Palestinian Santa Clauses On Christmas Eve

via Reuters

The AFP reported that even many locals have stayed away from centrally located Christmas celebrations at traditional gathering places this year due to the clashes:

On Bethlehem's Manger Square, hundreds of Palestinians and tourists gathered in the cold near a huge nativity scene and Christmas tree to watch the annual scout parade. They took pictures as a marching band made its way through the square towards the Church of the Nativity, built over the spot where tradition says Mary gave birth to Jesus.

 

The square usually throngs with tourists on Christmas Eve, but clashes between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli army in the past weeks have kept people away this year.

Since Trump's announcement a total of 12 Palestinians have been killed as a result of both confrontations with Israeli security and Israeli airstrikes on Hamas positions in Gaza. 

Last week Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to meet Israeli leaders in Jerusalem, which also initially included plans to tour religious sites in places like Bethlehem; however, the entire trip was canceled after essentially falling apart as multiple Arab leaders and Middle East Christian representatives slammed the US decision. Notably, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas canceled what was to be a December 19 meeting with Pence, but the vice president's office framed the trip cancellation in terms of needing to stay in Washington in case his vote was needed to pass Trump's reform bill last week. 

Though eyewitness reports suggest tourism is significantly down over the fresh protests and clashes, Israel's Ministry of Tourism is trying to keep up an image of a busy as usual holiday season. According to the AFP: 

But Israel's tourism ministry has said Christmas preparations have not been affected, and it expects a 20 percent increase in the number of Christian pilgrims this year compared with 2016. An Israeli police spokesman said that extra units would be deployed in Jerusalem and at the crossings to Bethlehem to ease the travel and access for the "thousands of tourists and visitors".

 

And the Israeli army officer in charge of the Bethlehem area said that while tensions had been high in the area following the Jerusalem announcement, he did not expect trouble on Christmas.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Christians had promised to make their opposition to both the White House decision and Israeli policies visible during the holiday season through things like joining mass protests with their fellow Arab Palestinians and intentionally removing traditional public displays of Christmas. The Christian population within the West Bank and Gaza is at about 50,000 while within Israel there are about 135,000 Arab Christians – most belonging to the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches, though many more have emigrated abroad. 

A sizable segment of the population of Bethlehem is still Christian (15-20%), and many locals have long engaged in protests dressed as Santa in order to attract international media attention in connection with the holidays.

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Un-Merry Christmas: The Perverse Incentives To Over-Consume And Over-Spend

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Isn't it obvious that if we set out to design the most perverse, toxic and doomed system possible, we'd end up with the Keynesian Cargo Cult's insane permanent growth/Landfill Economy?

Few topics are off-limits nowadays: the personal and private are now splashed everywhere for all to see.

One topic is still taboo: the holiday's perverse incentives to over-consume and over-spend, lest our economy implode. This topic is taboo because it strikes at the very heart of our socio-economic system, which is fundamentally based on permanent growth, the faster the better, as if unlimited expansion on a finite planet is not just possible, but desirable.

In the current Mode of Production, the solution to every social and economic ill is to "grow our way out of it."

The solution to unemployment: jump-start growth by expanding consumption, spending and borrowing.

The solution to stagnant wages: jump-start growth.

The solution to declining profits: jump-start growth.

The solution to government deficit spending: jump-start growth.

And so on.

So what happens when most people have not just the basics of life, but a surplus of stuff? Where is the growth going to come from if people already have everything?

The answer is three-fold:

1. Replace a perfectly good product with a new product and dump the old one in the landfill.

 

2. Buy duplicates and put the surplus products in the closet or storage facility.

 

3. Buy gimmicks (Pet Rocks, etc.) that are tossed in the dump shortly after the holiday gift-giving season ends.

But does this Landfill Economy make sense? The cheap oil is about gone, and so does it make any rational sense to burn the last of the cheap fossil fuels on assembling stuff nobody needs in China, shipping it thousands of miles to retailers or Amazon warehouses, adding it to the immense piles of stuff most households already own, and then shipping the old but still functional products to the landfill, just to keep the economy humming?

This is of course insane. Decisions aren't being made as if scarcity matters; the goals and incentives are set to encourage perverse and destructive overconsumption and overspending: not only are we squandering resources in the sacrifice to the false gods of "growth," we're indebting households to do so, stripping income that could have been saved and invested in productive uses.

In the lunatic asylum of the current economic model, media anchors sport grins of delirious joy when reporting increases in holiday spending, as if a bump higher from $680 billion to $700 billion is a gargantuan win for the flailing economy.

Wasting resources, capital and income on stuff nobody really needs is a monumental disaster on multiple fronts. Rather than establish incentives to conserve and invest wisely, our system glorifies waste and the destruction of income and capital, as if burning time, capital, resources and wealth on stuff nobody needs is strengthening the economy.

Isn't it obvious that this system is a one-way path to collapse? Isn't it obvious that burning resources and capital to haul stuff to the landfill at an ever-increasing rate is madness, folly, recklessness and stupidity combined?

Isn't it obvious that if we set out to design the most perverse, toxic and doomed system possible, we'd end up with the Keynesian Cargo Cult's insane permanent growth/Landfill Economy?

It doesn't have to be this way. I've sketched out a sustainable, human-scale Mode of Production/way of living in my two books, Money and Work Unchained and A Radically Beneficial World.

A new arrangement is inevitable. Our choice boils down to changing our understanding and Mode of Production now, before the whole perverse structure falls apart, or waiting for scarcities and self-serving systems to collapse the current arrangement, leaving the ill-prepared and shell-shocked populace to sift through the wreckage.

Common sense suggests the first option is the wiser choice, but common sense is scarce in a world trapped in a bizarre Keynesian madness.

*  *  *

I'm offering my new book Money and Work Unchained at a 10% discount ($8.95 for the Kindle ebook and $18 for the print edition) through December, after which the price goes up to retail ($9.95 and $20). Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

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US Slashes United Nations’ Budget By $285 Million Following “Stunning” Jerusalem Rebuke

The United States announced a $285 million cut in the United Nations’ “bloated” budget for next year, negotiated by UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. A statement by the United States Mission to the United Nations reads: 

Today, the United Nations agreed on a budget for the 2018-2019 fiscal year. ‎Among a host of other successes, the United States negotiated a reduction of over $285 million off the 2016-2017 final budget. In addition to these significant cost savings, we reduced the UN’s bloated management and support functions, bolstered support for key U.S. priorities throughout the world, and instilled more discipline and accountability throughout the UN system.

Pleased with the cuts, Haley added “you can be sure we’ll continue to look at ways to increase the UN’s efficiency‎ while protecting our interests.” 

The move follows a contentious week at the U.N., after 128 nations voted in a “stunning rebuke” of President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Prior to the vote, Trump threatened to cut foreign financial aid to any countries who opposed the move – first with a tweet by Ambassador Nikki Haley threatening that the US would be “taking names,” followed by comments made by Trump to reporters last Tuesday, according to Reuters. 

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that vote in favor of a draft United Nations resolution against his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

 

“They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. Well, we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Haley also circulated a letter to all UN member states effectively warning them not to vote against Trump’s decision. “As you consider your vote, I want you to know that the President and U.S. take this vote personally,” she wrote. “The President will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those countries who voted against us.”

As we now know, this accomplished absolutely nothing: 

As we wrote last week, The outcome of the vote was hailed as a “victory” by Palestine. “We will continue our efforts in the United Nations and at all international forums to put an end to this occupation and to establish our Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital,” Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rudainah said. Predictably, both Israel and the US were displeased.

The General Assembly vote came days after the U.S. vetoed a similar resolution in the U.N. Security Council. The panel’s other 14 members voted in favor of that measure – a move that Haley called an “insult” to the U.S. Shortly after the Security Council vote, Arab and Muslim leaders at U.N. called for an emergency special session of the General Assembly to discuss the U.S.’s Jerusalem decision.

In a defiant speech ahead of the General Assembly vote on Thursday, Riyad Al Maliki, the Palestinian foreign affairs minister, cast the Trump administration’s Jerusalem decision as an affront on regional peace and security that has isolated the U.S. from the international community. “Does the United States not wonder why it stands isolated in this position?” he asked.

Turkey, which has led the Muslim opposition to the US Jerusalem declaration, was among the first to speak at the meeting. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stressed that only a two-state solution and sticking to the 1967 borders can be a foundation for a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine. The minister said that since Jerusalem is the cradle for the “three monotheistic religions,” all of humanity should come together to preserve the status quo.

“The recent decision of a UN member state to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel violates the international law, including all relevant UN resolutions. This decision is an outrageous assault on all universal values,” Cavusoglu said.

The United States contributes approximately 22 percent of the U.N. budget – or around $3.3 billion, which President Trump asked the State Department to cut by over 50% in March.

U.S. officials in Washington and New York learned during the past week that they will be asked to find ways to cut spending on obligatory and voluntary U.N. programs by 50 to 60 percent from the International Organization Affairs Bureau’s account. State Department officials, for instance, were told that they should try to identify up to $1 billion in cuts in the U.N. peacekeeping budget, according to one source. The United States provides about $2.5 billion per year to fund peacekeepers. –Foreign Policy

U.S. diplomats warned key U.N. members during a March 9 meeting in New York to “expect a big financial restraint” on American spending – which is not surprising following President Trump’s comments from last December: 

Ambassador Haley was clear in her comments after the budget cut, telling the press “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked,” adding “This historic reduction in spending – in addition to many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable UN – is a big step in the right direction.

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#BitcoinBreakdown: Five Easy Pieces

First Appearing on HedgeAccordingly

Fourth Part of a series. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

By @sellputs

Isn’t Christmastime just wonderful, so much time with family, really, just… so… much time. With family.

If you caught the irony in that statement, you, too, need a distraction, an excuse to detach from the conversation and take a little “me” time. So take a few minutes to read this, our fourth column on bitcoin and all that it has unleashed. Your relatives will appreciate that you did.

*   *   *  

Gold, the precious metal found in dental work, beautiful jewelry and Fort Knox, has been a “store of value” for five thousand years.  Invented by nature or God (take your pick), it is able to survive global economic meltdowns and even nuclear meltdowns.  It has been said that if you accumulated, in one place, all the gold mined since humankind started doing it, you’d have enough to fill only three or four Olympic-sized swimming pools. 

An ounce of gold currently trades at $1,280 or so.

Now compare that to bitcoin: extant less than a decade, invented by unknown creators in 2009, said to be in a finite supply of only 21 million coins, and weightless, invisible, untraceable.  It started the year 2017 priced near $1,000 and just bumped up against the $20,000 mark before settling down near $15,000, with millions of people trying to get in on the Bitcoin Bubble.

So, what holds up the price of bitcoin?  Not GDP growth or earnings at any particular company; not the price of gold. The main thing keeping bitcoin prices aloft is little more than speculative frenzy and the virally spreading desire to own a piece of this newfangled invention.  This is emotional, and it is important to force the emotional to bow to the rational.

Here are five easy pieces of advice for investing in bitcoin and its lesser brethren:

  1. Bet only money you are willing to lose. When you buy a stock, usually the chances are almost zero… that the price will fall to zero.  Buying crypto-coins is more like trading in puts and calls on the CBOE, options that have a definite expiration date and which often end up worthless.  So invest only what you are willing to lose at this roulette wheel. 
  2. It is utterly insane to borrow money from elsewhere to invest in bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, whether the borrowing is from a new low-interest credit card or from a second mortgage on your home. Be smarter than that.
  3. It may be safer to buy bitcoin and skip the imitators. In the long run, anyway. In this realm, the Shakespearean axiom that a rose-is-a-rose-is-a-rose seems untrue to us—there’s bitcoin, and then there’s everyone else.  We would advise betting more on bitcoin.  Other currencies such as Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP) may rise higher in percentage terms when they do rise, given bitcoin’s extraordinary climb, yet bitcoin’s price may fall less that that of its knockoffs.
  4. Even bitcoin may be only a short-term play. Some “investors” may ponder putting up $20,000 for one bitcoin, locking it away in some Coinbase-like account (“cold storage”) and returning ten years from now to unearth a coin worth $20 million.  One-thousand-fold returns have happened for the earliest bitcoin buyers. Now, however, the Law of Large Numbers makes a thousand-fold rise from these levels much more difficult.  So if you do make a wager, watch it closely and constantly, and be ready to bail.
  5. If you invest, consider the “halfsies” rule. I know, it’s pussy, right?  (As in “pusillanimous,” gutless, timid.)  Yet it is a way to avoid Bitcoin Bubble Bankruptcy!  So if you put up, say, $10,000 in a bitcoin account, and the price doubles from where you started, sell half your stake to recover your original bet, and let the other half ride.  This way your principal will be preserved, yet you retain a stake in the next round of upside.

Remember, my friends, the way to get rich is focused more on preserving and protecting what you have earned than on finding the next windfall.  Good luck.

Next: The new face of bitcoin investors. Gardener, a Burner and a Big Guy.

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As Good As It Gets?

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

So they got their tax cut done. In the middle of the night again no less, despite the vast majority of the American people not wanting it. The reason may simply be that the American public is not believing the false narratives that are being sold to them. And who can blame them? It starts at the top after all. When Donald Trump claims the tax plan would personally hurt him everyone knows that’s simply not true. And still his agents insists on defending the lie by lying some more.

So I had to ask, does truth still matter:

The answer may not reveal itself for months to come.

US cooperations will see benefits to GAAP earnings and they will increase dividends and buybacks. All true. But they will not hire more or pay more. We already know this:

And since none of these things have to do with organic business growth corporations will eventually face a situation where in the following years an unfavorable comparison will emerge as the artificial earnings benefits are priced in and then earnings growth will look to drag in comparison as the organic growth won’t make up for the artificial delta. Ironically then pressure for efficiency improvements will arise and companies will rightsize in the name of efficiency gains to make up the difference, i.e. layoffs. So ironically corporate tax cuts in the long term will do the opposite of what they were advertised to do. One can virtually see it coming. But hey. Party away.

Fact is the tax cuts will not pay for themselves and deficits will be gigantic and the US treasury is already set to sell $1.3 trillion in debt next year alone.

My general premise is that deficits will further explode once the economy slows as the tax base will have shrunk. Paul Ryan is already on the record wanting to cut social security and medicare benefits. And the AARP knows who will get hurt:

Short term gain, long term pain, but the architects of this construct will be long gone enjoying their gains.

It’s been said that bull markets end on good news and in this regard this may be as good as it gets.

2017 will go down in history as a year where markets got everything beyond their wildest imagination:

The most liquidity injections by central banks ever. (Over $2 trillion). The loosest financial conditions in cycle history:

A Fed that promised a reduction in its balance sheet but actually only delivered noise:

In addition markets got to enjoy solid earnings growth coming from weakness in the years before. Never mind that most of the price expansion was multiple expansion related:

Other factors favoring asset prices: Negative interest rates across the globe continued to force money into high risk assets (“pushing people“). Central banks such as the SNB kept buying billions of dollars of US stocks. Record inflows of passive ETF inflows chasing returns they can’t find elsewhere. The elimination of organic sellers as part of a normally functioning market place. Buybacks, while not at a record pace, still continuing with billions upon billions of dollars allocated to reduce the float of shares. None of it related to organic growth.

And hence the disconnect of asset valuations from the underlying economy is now larger than during previous market peaks:

My summation here: Things will never be better for bulls. The supply demand equation will never be tilted so uniformly in one direction as they are now.

The combined effect of what I summarized above has produced massive multiple expansion and the end of any corrective activity in markets accompanied by record volatility compression:

The elimination of any price discovery. And what this chart above shows in the macro we see in the daily price action every day: Gaps, ramps & camps with virtually no price discovery in between:

Every day:

This is hubris. It’s not rooted in an economic growth base to back up the valuation growth presumed going forward. And the technical dislocation is not sustainable and I maintain all these gaps will fill into 2018.

Has it gone farther than we expected? Sure. Once you remove sellers from a market who knows where it ends up.

After all we find ourselves in an environment where companies can reach $10 billion market caps in the blink of an eye based on absolutely nothing.

The very definition of a mania.

So when I asked the other day whether we are sitting on a generational opportunity to sell equities I meant this not as a facetious question. Now granted I can’t say whether we top here, today or next year.

After all we now have a president literally promising higher stock prices on twitter:

Stock prices are now a matter of national security. The Fed views a sudden decline in asset prices as a threat to the economy and the president sees stock market levels, the poster child of widening wealth inequality in the population, as a benchmark of his presidency:

What hasn’t been priced in: Less looser financial conditions, less central bank liquidity, no more tax cut carrot. But perhaps more importantly? How sensitive will the consumer be to higher rates? I asked this question in Riddle me this.

Fact is consumers keep piling into debt while rates are rising:

And with rising rates come higher interest payments:

I trust you see the math problem there. Indeed the majority of Americans may find that the tax cut crumbs coming their way may go toward servicing their debt:

Perhaps that’s ok if unemployment stays low forever:

The unemployment chart however suggests that this is as good as it gets.

via http://ift.tt/2kXkE5p Tyler Durden

New Erdogan Decree Grants Immunity For “Suppressing Terror”, Paves Way For Militia Violence

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest batch of presidential decrees has transformed Turkey into a nation of government-endorsed militias and "anti-terror vigilantes."

According to Ahval, Erdogan published Turkey's latest state of emergency government decree – the country has been under a perpetual state of emergency since the summer of 2016 failed coup – in the Official Gazette on Sunday. And not only does it condone the purging of thousands of civil servants from their jobs, but, in an unprecedented escalation, grants immunity to "those who took to the streets during the coup attempt" or "assisted with suppressing terror." Furthermore: ''Notwithstanding whether individuals hold a formal title or whether they have fulfilled a formal duty, those who have acted in the scope of suppressing the coup attempt and acts of terror on July 15, 2016, and actions that were extensions of these events'' will be exempt from being put on trial for their actions."

Of course, anyone who has been following the situation in Turkey over the past year-and-a-half (and certainly longer) knows that “suppressing terror” is Erdogan's popular euphemism for punishing or imprisoning suspected Gulenist sympathizers, and also anyone who dares to bring attention to Erdogan's brazen corruption.

As a result, the Turkish president has been busy lately, signing a flurry of decrees that have further consolidated political power in the office of the president – a stunning reversal from the early days of Erdogan’s political career, when he was a well-regarded moderate advocating much needed government reforms.

Experts note that decrees no. 695 and no. 696 remove legislative authority from Parliament, effectively completing the erosion of the legislature’s authority that began with April’s constitutional referendum, a vote that EU observers condemned as “neither fair, nor free."

As Ahval added, legal expert Kerem Altparmak tweeted Sunday that "with the changes arriving with the new decree, an absolute legal immunity has been put into effect for any kind of killing and the infliction of injuries that took place on the night of July 15th as well as its aftermath."

Selin Girit, a reporter with the Turkish edition of BBC, said the decree "could pave the way for pro-government militia and risks heightening tensions within an already deeply polarised society."

Sunday's decree also enforces a uniform on those who have been arrested or are serving a sentence in conjunction with crimes that fall under the scope of the post-coup terrorism law: The new uniforms – which will be golden brown jumpsuits and which appear to have been inspired by Germany's treatment of Jews in World War II – are to be provided by penal institutions.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Officials have indicated that newly implemented uniform rule will only encompass those who are suspects of what the government has labelled the Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO) and are accused of having supported the attempted coup. Though some observers expect the definition to be widely expanded. Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Sezgin Tanrikulu took to Twitter in criticism of the new decrees, noting, "The enforcement of a standardised uniform is a violation of human dignity; it is an inhumane practice, it is torture."

While many of Erdogan’s political allies have stood by in silence as Turkish police forces hounded hundreds of thousands of regular citizens suspected of supporting an exiled cleric and political dissident, some are finally speaking out against the supreme leader’s ruthless crackdown following a July 15, 2016 coup attempt. In a dramatic break from tradition, on Monday Abdullah Gul, Erdogan’s predecessor as president of Turkey and a longtime political ally, publicly criticized the decrees, saying it grants too much latitude to civilians to commit acts of violence without any legal repercussions, as Bloomberg pointed out.

“The language used in the writing of emergency order number 696, which I thought was made to protect our heroic citizens who took to the streets without looking back to resist the treacherous coup attempt of July 15, is vague in a way that’s inappropriate for legal language and is worrying from the perspective of rule of law,” he said on Twitter.

The decrees also dismissed 2,766 people from various state institutions over alleged links to "terror" organizations, while another 115 people were reinstated to their jobs by the decrees.

Since the July 2016 coup attempt – perpetrated by a faction within the country’s military that Erdogan claimed was loyal to exiled cleric Fehtullah Gulen, who is presently living in exile in Pennsylvania – Turkey has shuttered news organizations, jailed journalists, civil servants and other citizens who’ve been accused of supporting the Gulenist movement. Erdogan and Gulen were once political allies, until they had a falling out that ended with the cleric going into exile.

In the 18 months that have passed since Erdogan – who was outside of Ankara when the coup took place – took to Facetime to urge Turkish citizens to take to the streets and suppress the coup – tens of thousands of ordinary citizens have fled or simply disappeared.

Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies have spooked international investors, who have scrambled to pull their capital out of Turkey – a country whose economy is heavily dependent on foreign sources of funds – with the recent surge in outflows sending the Turkish lira to an all-time low against the dollar last month.

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Charles Hugh Smith Explains “Why I’m Hopeful”

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

A more human world lies just beyond the edge of the Status Quo.

Readers often ask me to post something hopeful, and I understand why: doom-and-gloom gets tiresome. Human beings need hope just as they need oxygen, and the destruction of the Status Quo via over-reach and internal contradictions doesn't leave much to be happy about.

The most hopeful thing in my mind is that the Status Quo is devolving from its internal contradictions and excesses. It is a perverse, intensely destructive system with horrific incentives for predation, exploitation, fraud and complicity and few disincentives.

A more human world lies just beyond the edge of the Status Quo.

I know many smart, well-informed people expect the worst once the Status Quo (the Savior State and its corporatocracy partners) devolves, and there is abundant evidence of the ugliness of human nature under duress.

But we should temper this Id ugliness with the stronger impulses of community and compassion. If greed and rapaciousness were the dominant forces within human nature, then the species would have either died out at its own hand or been limited to small savage populations kept in check by the predation of neighboring groups, none of which could expand much because inner conflict would limit their ability to grow.

The remarkable success of humanity as a species is not simply the result of a big brain, opposable thumbs, year-round sex, innovation or even language; it is also the result of social and cultural associations that act as a "network" for storing knowledge and good will–what we call technical and social capital.

I have devoted significant portions of my books–

Survival+

An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times

Resistance, Revolution, Liberation

Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform

A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology & Creating Jobs for All

Money and Work Unchained

to an explanation of how community and self-reliance have atrophied under the relentless expansion of the dominant Savior State.

The social capital and "return on investment" earned from investing time and energy in community and other social networks has been replaced by a check from the Savior State–a transfer payment that surely beats the troublesome work of investing in community in terms of risk and return.

The net result of the Savior State dominating society and the economy is the rise of a pathological mindset of entitlement and resentment–the two are simply two sides of the same coin. You cannot separate them.

Once self-reliance has been lost, so too has self-confidence been lost, and the Savior State dependent–individual and corporation alike–soon distrusts their ability to function in an open market.

This is a truly sad, self-destructive state of affairs, and deeply, tragically ironic. The calls for "help" quickly lead to dependence on the Savior State, and that dependence quickly breeds complicity and silence in the face of repression and predation by the State and its corporate partners.

In a very real sense, citizens relinquish their citizenship along with their self-reliance and self-worth once they accept dependence on the State.

I often mention that the U.S. has much to learn from so-called Third World countries that are poorer in resources and credit. In many of these countries, the government is the police, the school and the infrastructure of roadways and energy. Many of these countries are systemically corrupt, and the State is the engine of enforcing that corruption.

Rather than something to be embraced and lobbied, involvement with the State is something to be avoided as a risk. In everyday life, people rarely encounter the government except in law enforcement or schooling.

As a result, people depend on their social capital and community for sustenance, support, work and connections.

This is not altruism, it is mutually beneficial.

Once a community dissolves into atomized individuals who each get a payment from the Central State, then they no longer need each other. Rather, other dependents on the State are viewed as competitors for the State's resources.

These atomized, isolated individuals have a perverse relationship with the State and what remains of the community around them: lacking the self-worth earned from work or engagement/investment in a community, then their only outlet for self-identity is consumption: what they wear, eat, drink, etc. as consumers.

This dependence on the State also serves the State's goal, which is a passive, compliant populace of dependents, and distracted, passive workers who pay their taxes. Thus dependence on the State and a hollow consumerism are ontologically bound: one feeds the other.

The era of debt-based consumption as the engine of "growth" and "prosperity" is coming to an end. Adding debt via credit no longer creates growth; it actually takes away from the economy by expanding debt service (interest payments).

The vast majority of developed-world people have had the basics of life since the late 1960s — transport, food, shelter and utilities. The "growth" since then depended on cheap, abundant oil and a consumerist mentality in which one constantly re-defines and renews one's identity not from social investments in others or the shared community but from consumption.

Not coincidentally, this dominance of consumption as the only metric for "growth" (as opposed to, say, productive activity) has been paralleled by the dominance of the Central State.

The end of credit-based consumption will be a very positive development, as will the devolution of the Savior State. The Savior State is like oil–both are at their peaks and are starting their inevitable slide down the S-curve. The world they created was not as positive for human fulfillment and happiness as we have been told.

Indeed, study after study has found that people with the basics for life, a higher purpose that requires sacrifice and a tight-knit community are far and away happier than isolated, atomized, insecure consumers, regardless of their wealth and consumption.

This potential to re-humanize our economy is why I am hopeful.

 

*  *  *

I'm offering my new book Money and Work Unchained at a 10% discount ($8.95 for the Kindle ebook and $18 for the print edition) through December, after which the price goes up to retail ($9.95 and $20). Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

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Assange’s Twitter Account Mysteriously Deleted, Days After Seth Rich Hint

Julian Assange’s Twitter account was mysteriously deleted on Christmas Eve, leaving perhaps the most important witness in the Trump-Russia investigation cut off from the rest of the world while he sits in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. 

Attempting to access Assange’s Twitter account results in the following message:

This page only appears when an account has been deleted, not suspended – by either Twitter or the account owner. 

It wasn’t clear whether the account was suspended or deleted by Twitter or Assange himself — or why or for how long. Twitter wasn’t commenting

This tweet by the WikiLeaks Task Force – an official WikiLeaks handle, suggested that people shouldn’t jump to conclusions, as “haters and conspiracy theorists rush to post the usual attention seeking rubbish,” before wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.  

The official Wikileaks Twitter account was still live but wasn’t mentioning the Assange account.

According to CBS, an account purporting to be an alternative Assange account was claiming Twitter had deleted his official one ahead of a blockbuster story he’s preparing to break. There was no confirmation that Assange was authoring that alternative account — and that account has now been suspended by Twitter.

Meanwhile, Journalist Charles Johnson – who traveled with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) to London to meet with Assange in August, posted the following on Facebook after Assange’s Twitter account went down: 

Moreover, on December 1, WikiLeaks’ official account tweeted “Merry Christmas from @WikiLeaks” with an embedded video referencing perpetual war, and the hashtags #Yemen #Libya #Iraq #Syria #Pakistan #Afghanistan #Somalia #Ukraine

Some have suggested that the events are part of some Christmas-linked plan, although so far there has been no confirmation. 

The account deletion comes on the heels of a break-in last Monday at the Madrid office of WikiLeaks lawyer Baltasar Garzon’s, in what police described as a “very professional” operation. Garzon told El Periodico and Ser magazine “They had not taken what they have been looking for,” and client security “has not been affected,” however police are analyzing his computer equipment to determine whether any files were taken or copied. 

Hours after the break-in, Julian Assange published a tweet calling a Jimmy Dore video “Brilliant” – prominently featuring Assange’s interview with a Dutch television host in which the WikiLeaks founder strongly implies that slain DNC IT staffer Seth Rich was the source of emails published by WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.  (Assange clip at 21:30)

During the clip, Assange can be seen nodding his head in response to a question about Rich:

In August, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher travelled to London with journalist Charles Johnson for a meeting with Assange, where Rohrabacher said the WikiLeaks founder offered “firsthand” information proving that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia, and which would refute the Russian hacking theory.

Rohrabacher brought that message back to Trump’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, to propose a deal. In exchange for a presidential pardon, Assange would share evidence that would refute the Russian hacking theory by proving they weren’t the source of the emails, according to the WSJ. 

“The possible “deal”—a term used by Mr. Rohrabacher during the Wednesday phone call—would involve a pardon of Mr. Assange or “something like that,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. In exchange, Mr. Assange would probably present a computer drive or other data-storage device that Mr. Rohrabacher said would exonerate Russia in the long-running controversy about who was the source of hacked and stolen material aimed at embarrassing the Democratic Party during the 2016 election.”

 

‘He would get nothing, obviously, if what he gave us was not proof,’ Mr. Rohrabacher said.

When Trump was asked in late September about the Assange proposal, he responded that he’d “never heard” of it, causing Rohrabacher to unleash on John Kelly, who he blamed for blocking the proposal from reaching the President, Rohrabacher told the Daily Caller: 

“I think the president’s answer indicates that there is a wall around him that is being created by people who do not want to expose this fraud that there was collusion between our intelligence community and the leaders of the Democratic Party,” Rohrabacher told The Daily Caller Tuesday in a phone interview.

 

“This would have to be a cooperative effort between his own staff and the leadership in the intelligence communities to try to prevent the president from making the decision as to whether or not he wants to take the steps necessary to expose this horrendous lie that was shoved down the American people’s throats so incredibly earlier this year,” Rohrabacher said.

Contributing to the notion of deep-state interference, CIA director Mike Pompeo referred to WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service” in April, calling Julian Assange “a fraud, a coward hiding behind a screen” for exposing information about democratic governments rather than authoritarian regimes. This quite the ironic statement, considering Pompeo used leaked emails from WikiLeaks as proof “the fix was in” against President Trump. 

 Let’s also not forget Donald Trump proclaiming “I Love Wikileaks!” less than a month before the 2016 election.

So Julian Assange – ostensibly the most important witness in the Russia hacking investigation, offered to prove that Russia was not the source of the leaked emails in exchange for a pardon. This proposition was conveyed through Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who Rohrabacher says never allowed the deal to reach Trump for consideration.  Months later, WikiLeaks attorney Baltasar Garzon’s office was raided in a “very professional” operation which is being labeled an attempted robbery. Hours after the break-in, Julian Assange tweets a Jimmy Dore video containing his own strong implication that Seth Rich was the source of the leaked emails, and six days later his Twitter account is gone. 

That said, tweets directly from the WikiLeaks urge not to jump to conclusions.

Assange’s account deletion also comes on the heels of several new Twitter rules rolled out on December 18, which many feared was the beginning of a “purge” of conservative accounts over user behavior both on and off the platform. The rules are aimed at people who associate with hate groups that “use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes” – however nothing Assange has done comes close to fitting that description.

So did Julian Assange delete his Twitter account – and if so, why? Was this yet another rogue Twitter employee lashing out on their last day, as was the case with President Trump’s temporary account deletion in early November? Or did Twitter delete the account of one of the most important figures in the 2016 election. 

via http://ift.tt/2kTtGjM Tyler Durden