Tag: finance

In a new bombshell report, The Washington Post reveals a massive covert operation which was ‘hidden in plain sight’ that seems straight out of Confessions of an Economic Hitman — it’s yet more ‘conspiracy theory’ of the past now definitively proven conspiracy fact.

For the past decades, the CIA owned and operated a front company based in Switzerland for the purpose of spying on secret government communications across the globe, whether they were allies or adversaries. This according to newly unearthed 280-pages of an internal CIA history of the operation obtained by the Post along with Swiss public broadcaster SRF and German broadcaster ZDF.

Crypto AG, a Switzerland-based communications encryption firm, was secretly purchased by the CIA and West German intelligence services in 1971. The company not only made millions by selling encryption equipment to over 120 countries into the 21st century, but used the very same equipment to infiltrate each host country’s communications in a ‘Trojan Horse’ style operation.

Among notable clients, the report lists Iran, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and even the Vatican — all which were duped into purchasing the ‘backdoor’ spy hardware in a scenario which sounds a lot like what Washington is now accusing China’s Huawei of doing. The global CIA surveillance operation was dubbed “Operation Rubicon”.

Ironically, while host governments thought Crypto AG’s devices were securing messages users thought were encrypted, the reality was the opposite, and allowed the CIA to gather the most sensitive internal messages from governments across the world. 

“It was the intelligence coup of the century,” one CIA document obtained by the Post reads. And it continues: 

“Foreign governments were paying good money to the U.S. and West Germany for the privilege of having their most secret communications read by at least two (and possibly as many as five or six) foreign countries.”

For more than half a century, countries all over the world trusted a single company to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret.

The Swiss company, Crypto AG, was secretly owned by the CIA.https://t.co/tStuLX9xgs pic.twitter.com/MBdnKK4rRm

— Greg Miller (@gregpmiller) February 11, 2020

As The Hill summarizes, US intelligence didn’t have a mere indirect relationship with the company, but was directly overseeing the day-to-day at every level: 

Crypto’s operations — hiring decisions, designing technology, subverting algorithms and managing sales targets — were controlled by the CIA and West German intelligence until the early 1990s.

The CIA and NSA took complete control once the Germans pulled out of the program in the 1990’s, reportedly over concerns risk of exposure was too great. 

Only a handful of close US allies knew about the program and were reportedly on occasion given access to its intelligence haul, including the UK, Israel, Sweden, and officially neutral Switzerland.

The Washington Post also called the highly classified program the “most closely guarded secrets of the Cold War” — and it ultimately continued all the way to 2018. Neither the CIA nor the German BND have yet to comment on the revelation. 

Unsurprisingly, there were allegations going decades back that the Swiss-based company was actually a CIA front. It was first reported in 1992 by Germany’s Focus magazine, which had been established as an alternative to the more established Spiegel weekly news magazine.

Predictably, the report which originated at the time in independent media was immediately slammed as “unbelievable conspiracy theory” — as is detailed in the following astounding summary of recent history: 

The reports cite a classified CIA history to underpin the allegations, some of which date back at least to 1992, when one of Crypto’s employees was arrested and held in Iran for nine months as a suspected spy.

At the time, the company called reports that it was a secret asset of Western intelligence agencies “an unbelievable conspiracy theory,” according to a report in German magazine Focus detailing a 1994 book on the subject.

Crypto AG bills itself as “the preferred security partner for civilian and military authorities worldwide.” The company further describes of its products: “The Crypto AG encryption solution is used primarily by the military, governments or organizations that need swift, secure and easily-deployable communications solutions when conventional forms of communications are not accessible.”

But again, those once at the forefront of uncovering the truth and who were quickly dismissed as quacks at the time are now vindicated by the smoking gun internal CIA documents themselves. 

Immediately after the WaPo and Swiss SRF and German ZDF broadcaster reports were published on Tuesday, the Swiss government said it is opening a formal investigation into Crypto AG. 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Ending the limited quarantine and falsely proclaiming China safe for visitors and business travelers will only re-introduce the virus to workplaces and infect foreigners.

China faces an inescapably fatal dilemma: to save its economy from collapse, China’s leadership must end the quarantines soon and declare China “safe for travel and open for business” to the rest of the world.

But since 5+ million people left Wuhan to go home for New Years, dispersing throughout China, the virus has likely spread to small cities, towns and remote villages with few if any coronavirus test kits and few medical facilities to administer the tests multiple times to confirm the diagnosis. (It can take multiple tests to confirm the diagnosis, as the first test can be positive and the second test negative.)

As a result, Chinese authorities cannot possibly know how many people already have the virus in small-town / rural China or how many asymptomatic carriers caught the virus from people who left Wuhan. They also cannot possibly know how many people with symptoms are avoiding the official dragnet by hiding at home.

No data doesn’t mean no virus.

If the virus has already been dispersed throughout China by asymptomatic carriers who left Wuhan without realizing they were infected with the pathogen, then regardless of whatever official assurances may be announced in the coming days/weeks, it won’t be safe for foreigners to travel in China nor will it be safe for Chinese workers to return to factories, markets, etc.

But if China doesn’t “open for business” with unrestricted travel soon, its economy will suffer calamitous declines as fragile mountains of debt and leverage collapse and supply chain disruptions push global corporations to find permanent alternatives elsewhere.

Here’s the fatal dilemma: 

• maintaining the quarantine long enough to truly contain it (which requires extending it to the entire country) will be fatal to China’s economy.

• But ending the limited quarantine and falsely proclaiming China safe for visitors and business travelers will only re-introduce the virus to workplaces and infect foreigners who will return home as asymptomatic carriers, spreading the virus in their home nations.

Falsely declaring China safe will endanger everyone credulous enough to believe Chinese officials, and destroy whatever thin shreds of credibility China may yet have in the global economy and community. That will set off chains of causality that will destroy China’s economy just as surely as a three-month nationwide quarantine.

Who will be foolish enough to believe anything Chinese officials proclaim after foreigners who accepted the false assurances of safety return home with the coronavirus?

Anyone planning to receive goods via air freight from China might want to digest this report: Persistence of coronaviruses on inanimate surfaces and its inactivation with biocidal agents Endemic human coronaviruses (HCoV) can persist on inanimate surfaces like metal, glass or plastic for up to 9 days.

Air freight takes 12 to 24 hours, add another few hours for packaging, handling and last-mile delivery and that leaves 6+ days for the virus to spread to anyone who touches goods handled by an symptomatic carrier. Maybe the odds of catching the virus via surfaces are low, but maybe not. No one knows, including anyone rash enough to claim that the risk is negligible.

Oil clung to a gain today, bouncing back from a one-year low even as Russia kept OPEC+ waiting on a decision about whether to cut production in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Additionally, the Energy Information Administration cut its global petroleum demand growth outlook by 23% to 1.03 million barrel a day, citing partial effects from the coronavirus in its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook.

“OPEC+ needs to balance production with the demand trajectory, which looks down,” Frances Hudson, global thematic strategist at Aberdeen Standard Investments, writes in an email.

“If a decision is not taken until the next scheduled meeting in March, I would expect this to limit the scope for what can be achieved.”

WTI still ended back below $50 however, with all eyes now on inventories…

API

• Crude +6.0mm (+3.0mm exp)

• Cushing +1.3mm (+2.3mm exp)

• Gasoline +1.1mm +500k exp)

• Distillates -2.3mm (-600k exp)

The third weekly crude build in a row won’t help the bull case…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI hovered around $50 the figure ahead of the API print but slid below after the data…

Brent crude for April settlement rose 74 cents to settle as $54.01 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London, putting its premium over WTI at $3.84, the smallest spread between the two contracts since early 2018.

“There’s a new calculus for importers, particularly Mediterranean and Asian buyers who were happy to take U.S. barrels when they were $6 dollars cheaper, now it’s only $3 less,” said Bob Yawger, futures director at Mizuho Securities USA.

As Bloomberg reports, the exact impact of the virus has been difficult to quantify, so analysts have narrowed in on other demand indicators for clues. Morgan Stanley cut its oil demand growth forecast for 2020 by 15% amid plunging passenger transport volumes. Chinese refined product demand is seen down around 1.2 million barrels a day in the first quarter compared with same quarter last year, according to IHS Markit.

After Uber blew out guidance last week when it reported earnings and predicted that it would (somehow) reach profitability one year ahead of schedule, it lifted the bar – so to speak – for its main competitor Lyft too high. So high in fact that even beating expectations across the board, while reporting solid Q1 and full year 2020 revenue guidance was not enough, and investors punished the company by sending it 5% lower after hours after it failed to promise a faster path to profitability.

This is what Lyft reported for its Q4 quarter, in which it beat virtually every estimate:

• 4Q revenue $1.02 billion, beating estimate $985.8 million
• 4Q adjusted Ebitda loss $130.7 million, beating estimated loss $163.2 million
• 4Q adjusted loss $121.4 million, beating estimated loss $161.9 million
• 4Q active riders 22.9 million, beating estimated 22.8 million
• 4Q revenue per active rider $44.40, beating estimate $43.16
• 4Q cash and cash equivalents $358.3 million

Lyft increased its number of active riders 23% to 22.9 million, also beating estimates of 22.8 million, while revenue from each active rider increased 23% to $44.40 during the fourth quarter, again slightly beating analysts’ estimate of $43.16.

Quarterly revenue surpassed $1 billion for the first time ever…

… while operating leverage also improved:

The company’s guidance was also solid, and sees the following results:

• Sees 1Q revenue $1.055 billion to $1.06 billion, estimate $1.05 billion
• Sees 1Q adjusted Ebitda loss $140 million to $145 million, estimate loss $143.1 million
• Sees 2020 revenue $4.58 billion to $4.65 billion, estimate $4.60 billion
• Sees 2020 adjusted EBITDA loss $450 million to $490 million, estimate loss $489.6 million

Yet despite the strong revenue growth, the company still was unable to post a positive EBITDA print in Q4 or 2019, while the net loss soared to $2.6 billion, largely due to the exercise of share options as part of the IPO.

Worse, the reason why the stock is sliding is that unlike Uber which now expects to turn profitable in 2020, Lyft failed to share the same optimistic guidance, and only expects an EBITDA loss of $490MM this year, without even mentioning the possibility of turning a profit any time soon.

“In 2020 we expect strong top line growth as well as important progress on our path to profitability,” Lyft Chief Financial Officer Brian Roberts said in an interview on Tuesday, however Lyft didn’t provide updated guidance on turning a profit. Late last year, the company said it would be profitable on an adjusted basis by the fourth quarter of 2021.

Not this time.

As a result, unlike Uber, which soared after earnings last week, Lyft stock price is dropping fast after reporting earnings, and sliding more than 4% in after hours trading.

As Bloomberg notes, while Lyft is Uber’s chief competitor, the two businesses are different. Lyft doesn’t operate outside of North America, and doesn’t deliver food or experiment with new ventures like helicopter rides or matching job candidates with short-term work.

Lyft has focused solely on mobility, a category that includes ride-hailing, electric bikes, scooters and integration with public transit. The company’s strategy has been to move further into existing markets to capture more active riders and increase how much they spend on Lyft services. In recent months, the company has added public transit options to its app, introduced monthly subscriptions and offered an option to decrease ride costs by scheduling pickup a few blocks away.

Some analysts have flagged a new California law reclassifying many gig economy workers as employees as a risk for Lyft, Uber and others, potentially triggering price hikes estimated to be as high as 30%. Roberts waved off concerns about the law’s impact, saying Lyft was “100% focused” on putting an alternative measure on the November ballot and has already helped collect 325,000 of the 500,000 signatures required by May to qualify.

Having ignored the rapidly escalating global issues surrounding the Covid-19 virus (and the bond, FX, and commodity markets’ less sanguine view), today saw Fed Chair Powell offer nothing uber-dovish to ignite momentum during his annual Humphrey-Hawkins testimony, Boeing’s first Zero orders January since 1962, the worst drop in job openings… ever, and the FTX launching a probe into the mega-tech MAGA stocks. And stocks still never really gave a shit… S&P and Nasdaq at new record high, Dow unch.

Spot the odd market out…

Source: Bloomberg

“This is madness”

China went nowhere overnight…

Source: Bloomberg

European stocks surged…

Source: Bloomberg

In the US MAGA stocks rolled over notably after the FTC headlines (this is the first drop in the last 8 days)…

Source: Bloomberg

With Facebook hardest hit but the drop in MSFT was the biggest since August 23rd…

Source: Bloomberg

Second day in a row of an opening short squeeze… again…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX continues to refuse to play along with stocks…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields rose – somewhat illiquidly – 1-2bps across the curve, lifting rates back top unch on the week…

Source: Bloomberg

The yield curve un-inverted… barely…

Source: Bloomberg

The Dollar drifted lower for the first time in 5 days…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos rallied today led by Ethereum…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin spiked back above $10,000 (the highest since Sept 15th)…

Source: Bloomberg

Copper and Crude managed gains today (but WTI remains lower on the week) as PMs limped lower…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI Crude hardly looked positive despite a green day for a change (ahead of tonight’s API data), falling back below $50…

Finally, the Y2K analog continues to hold for Nasdaq as the end of The Fed’s emergency liquidity supply looms…

Source: Bloomberg

Different this time though for sure!

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

Every once in a while the truth shines through and we got a few doses of it today. Recently critics who suggested that the Fed’s QE policies artificially elevate asset prices were dismissed as QE conspiracists, but the truth is that central bank policies are directly responsible for the asset price levitations since early 2019 and well before then of course as well.

Loose money policies by central banks are goosing up asset prices. I’ve said it for a long time, others have as well despite constant pushback by apologists and deniers: No, no, asset prices are a reflection of a growing economy and earnings or so we were told.

All of this was revealed to be hogwash last year when asset prices soared to new record highs on flat to negative earnings growth and this farce continues to this day as the coronavirus is the new trigger for reductions in growth estimates yet asset prices continue to ascent to record highs following the Fed’s record liquidity injections:

But now the truth is officially out and can no longer be denied.

Here’s new ECB president Largard stating it plainly:

Kudos to @Lagarde for stating the obvious:

“European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said her institution’s loose monetary policy is hitting savers and stoking asset prices”https://t.co/wzc22vYEV1

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) February 11, 2020

But it’s not only Lagarde.

Even President Trump implicitly lays it all out as he’s apparently watching every tick on the $DJIA:

It’s almost as if the Fed is graded on stock market performance. https://t.co/cDRY4QKGwW

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) February 11, 2020

In his eyes: The Fed’s job is to goose the stock market for political purposes which he needs to have done to win re-election. It’s part of the tick box.

And don’t think that this is not exactly how we views the Fed’s role. He already told you before:

QE3, a political favor for Obama, will cause record inflation on food and fuel. This hits low income families the hardest. Big mistake.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2012

Using market prices as a political tool is in my view of course the antithesis of capitalism and free markets. It’s reckless, it distorts everything and of course makes a mockery of price discovery and the recent jam rally to new highs in the face of deteriorating conditions has been such a farce it makes some wonder out aloud if there’s even more to it than just the Fed:

Is The Treasury buying S&P futures? @realmoney

— Douglas Kass (@DougKass) February 11, 2020

We can’t know of course, but someone’s goosing futures price night after night.

Still the sheer admission of “stoked asset prices” as a result of central banks policies is an enormous admission. It again reflects that none of the prices we are seeing now reflect any fundamentals reality, a point Mohammed El-Erian made so poignantly this week:

.@elerianm nails it:
“Markets have been conditioned to trust central banks to fomo buy every dip.
These things are so deeply conditioned in the markets that we have disconnected quite a bit from fundamentals”.

*And hence we have a CB created bubble.https://t.co/0vbZV9YtOb

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) February 10, 2020

And it is exactly the result. A massive asset bubble disconnected from fundamentals.

Central bank intervention exacerbating wealth inequality ever further:

Where this all end? We can’t know, but someone already told you it won’t end well:

The Fed’s reckless monetary policies will cause problems in the years to come. The Fed has to be reined in or we will soon be Greece.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2011

When he’s right he’s right. And now the truth is out and can no longer be denied. So investors beware: You are invested in asset prices artificially disconnected from fundamental reality. A market bubble. Choose wisely.

*  *  *

For the latest public analysis please visit NorthmanTrader. To subscribe to our market products please visit Services.

The prosecutor who recommended that Trump confidant Roger Stone receive up to nine years in prison has resigned, effective immediately – after reports have emerged that his office misled the DOJ over the proposal, which reportedly ‘shocked’ DOJ officials.

Prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky gave no details in a Tuesday letter submitted in Stone’s case, however a footnote reads that it was “effective immediately.”

The notice doesn’t give a reason – it cites to a local court rule that requires the U.S. government to designate a DOJ attorney who will appear on behalf of the government. Zelinsky signed the withdraw notice. pic.twitter.com/gSCTh6Y0zQ

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) February 11, 2020

Gotta read the footnotes. Zelinsky, the former Mueller prosecutor still helping with the Stone case, resigned from DOJ “effective immediately.” pic.twitter.com/kELeKQ11Eo

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) February 11, 2020

Earlier Tuesday, AP reported that the Justice Department would “take the extraordinary step of lowering the recommended prison time for Roger Stone, an ally of President Donald Trump, a federal official said Tuesday.”

This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice! https://t.co/rHPfYX6Vbv

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2020

Hours later, The Federalist‘s Sean Davis reported that federal prosecutors were reportedly blindsided by the recommendation, which a Fox News source said the DOJ felt was “extreme, excessive, and grossly disproportionate” to Stone’s crimes.

“The Department was shocked to see the sentencing recommendation in the filing in the Stone case last night,” the DOJ official reportedly told Fox. “The sentencing recommendation was not what had been briefed to the Department.”

The report from Fox News suggested that DOJ was in the process of rescinding the rogue prosecutors’ recommendation. –The Federalist

What’s more, “Sources told The Federalist that Timothy Shea, who was recently appointed to take over as the top federal prosecutor in D.C. earlier this month, was bullied into agreeing to the sentence recommendation by Adam Jed and Aaron Zelinsky, who were originally tapped by Mueller to investigate whether Donald Trump treasonously colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton.”

To put it in perspective: The FBI/special counsel/Democrats initially suspected that Trump associates actively conspired with Russia & WikiLeaks.

At the end, all they found was that Roger Stone committed process crimes related to his *conversations* about (not with) WikiLeaks.

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) February 11, 2020

News of the reversal has absolutely triggered the left, with former DOJ counterintelligence chief David Laufman calling it a “break-glass-in-case-of-fire moment.”

Former counterintelligence chief at DOJ:

“We are now at a break-glass-in-case-of-fire moment for the Justice Department” https://t.co/yOQWIwStOS

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) February 11, 2020

A Tesla driver who was killed in Delray Beach, Florida in 2019 while driving their Model 3, had engaged the car’s Autopilot feature “seconds” before the crash, an NTSB report released on Tuesday revealed.

The driver had set the car to go 69 miles per hour 12.3 seconds before the crash took place on a highway that had a speed limit of 55 mph, according to Bloomberg. The NTSB also revealed that the driver’s hands were not on the wheel for the final 7.7 seconds before the crash. 

The NTSB had also arrived at similar findings regarding a 2016 Florida crash where another Tesla driver didn’t react to a truck in the roadway. In that instance, the NTSB found that Tesla’s Autopilot design contributed to the cause of the accident. 

A previous NTSB preliminary report that we covered in Spring of 2019 had described the events leading up to the incident:

As the Tesla approached the private driveway, the combination vehicle pulled from the driveway and traveled east across the southbound lanes of US 441. The truck driver was trying to cross the highway’s southbound lanes and turn left into the northbound lanes.

According to surveillance video in the area and forward-facing video from the Tesla, the combination vehicle slowed as it crossed the southbound lanes, blocking the Tesla’s path. The Tesla struck the left side of the semitrailer. The roof of the Tesla was sheared off as the vehicle underrode the semitrailer and continued south. The Tesla came to a rest on the median, about 1,600 feet from where it struck the semitrailer. The 50-year-old male Tesla driver died as a result of the crash.

The preliminary report had estimated Autopilot was engaged about 10 seconds before the collision. It also said that the vehicle “didn’t execute evasive maneuvers”: 

The driver engaged the Autopilot about 10 seconds before the collision. From less than 8 seconds before the crash to the time of impact, the vehicle did not detect the driver’s hands on the steering wheel. Preliminary vehicle data show that the Tesla was traveling about 68 mph when it struck the semitrailer. Neither the preliminary data nor the videos indicate that the driver or the ADAS executed evasive maneuvers.

In March of last year, we also reported that the NHTSA was investigating the company. A spokesperson for the NHTSA said that the agency was in the midst of an “ongoing investigation” involving two crashes in Florida and that the agency would “take additional actions if appropriate”.

As noted, the NTSB drew similar conclusions regarding this May 7, 2016 incident where a Tesla wound up underneath a tractor trailer. 

Recall, we also reported weeks ago that Senator Ed Markey had called Autopilot a “flawed system” and had urged Tesla take “additional steps to ensure drivers pay attention to the road while using the system.” Markey has been critical of Tesla’s driver-assist feature for months. 

“Autopilot is a flawed system, but I believe its dangers can be overcome,” Markey said. He also said he believes that Autopilot “promotes confusion about the limits of the system and the name undermines user manuals and instructions stressing drivers must remain in control of the car.”

Tesla has, of course, said that drivers should keep their hands on the wheel and stay attentive when using Autopilot. But, as we know, not everybody follows those recommendations. 

Authored by Virginia Fidler via GoldTelegraph.com,

As economic growth is slowing and global debt has surpassed $250 trillion, central banks around the world have forgotten a simple economic equation: you can’t spend more money than you take in. Most children grasp the concept, but central bankers seem to have forgotten this rule.

 

Lebanon has been facing  overwhelming national debt for years as it continues to struggle to overhaul its banking system. The country has accumulated $90 billion in debt. That’s 160 percent of its GDP. Merely servicing this debt costs $10 billion.

The country has admitted that it cannot continue to sustain such a huge level of debt. Its central bank owes the country’s banks $120 billion and has no means of repaying this debt. Lebanon is currently asking for global financial support in the amount of $25 billion. As Nasser Saidi, the former deputy governor of Lebanon’s central bank has stated, Lebanon’s banking system requires intervention to prevent depositors from paying for the banks’ lack of proper management. Confidence in the banking system is at a new low and needs to be restored. All this has happened two years after a global support program that provided Lebanon with $11 billion.

Unfortunately, the situation has only gotten worse. Mr. Saidi explains Lebanon is in the midst of a recession and could soon see an economic depression with a decline in GDP of up to 10 percent. He considers the $25 billion influx of funds necessary for a total restructuring of the country’s debt.

Some Lebanese aren’t waiting for the government to act.

With restrictions being put on the amount of some cash withdrawals, they are withdrawing their money as quickly as possible and placing their trust in real estate and luxury items. While Lebanon’s economy is in a state of crisis, purveyors of luxury items such as jewelry, art, and expensive cars, are experiencing a considerable upswing in business.

Not surprisingly, gold is suddenly in vast demand. Lebanese have reason to fear that prospective currency devaluations will wipe out their life savings. Gold is a perennial hedge against inflation and currency devaluation. People are purchasing gold and keeping it hidden to safeguard their future.

“It’s better than keeping my money in the bank,” said one Lebanese local as rushed to buy a gold Rolex watch.

Other depositors with savings in the bank are scrambling to withdraw their savings and are using credit cards or cashier checks to invest in more luxury items.

Abdallah, a doctor in his 50s, bought three cars worth more than $80,000 with a cashier’s check.

His bank only allows him to withdraw $100 a week and he fears the controls could be further tightened.

“I have no trust in the bank,” he said.

Of course, Lebanon’s central bank is announcing that deposits are perfectly safe and that the currency will continue to be pegged against the U.S. dollar. In a somewhat contradictory statement, the Lebanese Banking Association wants to limit cash withdrawals to “keep the wealth of Lebanon” from leaving the country.

When bankers begin to manipulate the value of a currency, the smart money always turns to gold. The value of gold may fluctuate somewhat, but it will never lose its value.

Well this is awkward…

With Democrats just desperately hoping the New Hampshire Primary goes off with less hitches than Iowa’s utter farce, it seems the propaganda arm of the DNC – otherwise known as MSNBC – has been exposed for its blatant narrative-control (and this time by a card-carrying member of the public who is registered as a Democrat – not some racist, deplorable “who would say that, right?”)

After noting that she voted for Bernie to the incredulous MSNBC host, the lady, uncomfortably dropped a truth bomb live on air…

“…the reason I went for Bernie is because of MSNBC… I think it is completely cynical to say that he’s lost 50% of his votes from thelast time (when there were 2 candidates) because now there are multiple wonderful candidates.”

The MSNBC anchor frowned but the New Hampshire voter went on…

“…the kind of ‘Stop Bernie’ cynicism that I heard from a number of people on MSNBC made me angry and so I said ‘ok, Bernie has got my vote’…“

This is one of the greatest Americans ever to live. Savor all of her wisdom…. https://t.co/rXmP3aRk4h

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 11, 2020

As The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald commented so accurately:

“This is one of the greatest Americans ever to live. Savor all of her wisdom…”

In case you are unaware of the propaganda, here is one such disingenuous clip…

Amazingly, this is *exactly* the blatant intellectual dishonestly and sleazy propaganda from MSNBC that the Great American woman in the above clip identified as driving her into Bernie’s arms:https://t.co/6KynFygQBo

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 11, 2020

The DNC establishment can only hope that tonight’s primary will prove her an outlier – or they will have to try considerably harder than they did in Iowa to rig the votes against the socialist’s seemingly unstoppable surge.