Tag: finance

Authored by Andre Vltcheck via Off-Guardian.org,

It is very popular these days to talk and write about the “trade war” between the United States and China. But is there really one raging? Or is it, what we are witnessing, simply a clash of political and ideological systems: one being extremely successful and optimistic, the other depressing, full of dark cynicism and nihilism?

In the past, West used to produce almost everything. While colonizing the entire planet (one should just look at the map of the globe, between the two world wars), Europe and later the United States, Canada and Australia, kept plundering all the continents of natural resources, holding hundreds of millions of human beings in what could be easily described as ‘forced labor’, often bordering on slavery.

Under such conditions, it was very easy to be ‘number one’, to reign without competition, and to toss around huge amounts of cash, for the sole purpose of indoctrinating local and overseas ‘subjects’ on topics such as the ‘glory’ of capitalism, colonialism (open and hidden), and Western-style ‘democracy’.

It is essential to point out that in the recent past, the global Western dictatorship (and that included the ‘economic system) used to have absolutely no competition. Systems that were created to challenge it, were smashed with the most brutal, sadistic methods. One only needs recall invasions from the West to the young Soviet Union, with the consequent genocide and famines. Or other genocides in Indochina, which was fighting its wars for independence, first against France, later against the United States.

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Times changed. But Western tactics haven’t.

There are now many new systems, in numerous corners of the world. These systems, some Communist, others socialist or even populist, are ready to defend their citizens, and to use the natural resources to feed the people, and to educate, house and cure them.

No matter how popular these systems are at home, the West finds ways to demonize them, using its well-established propaganda machinery. First, to smear them and then, if they resist, to directly liquidate them.

As before, during the colonial era, no competition has been permitted. Disobedience is punishable by death.

Naturally, the Western system has not been built on excellence, hard work and creativity, only. It was constructed on fear, oppression and brutal force. For centuries, it has clearly been a monopoly.

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Only the toughest countries, like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or Cuba, have managed to survive, defending they own cultures, and advancing their philosophies.

To the West, China has proved to be an extremely tough adversary.

With its political, economic, and social system, it has managed to construct a forward-looking, optimistic and extraordinarily productive society. Its scientific research is now second to none. Its culture is thriving. Together with its closest ally, Russia, China excels in many essential fields.

That is precisely what irks, even horrifies the West.

For decades and centuries, Europe and the United States have not been ready to tolerate any major country, which would set up its own set of rules and goals.

China refuses to accept the diktat from abroad. It now appears to be self-sufficient, ideologically, politically, economically and intellectually. Where it is not fully self-sufficient, it can rely on its friends and allies. Those allies are, increasingly, located outside the Western sphere.

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Is China really competing with the West? Yes and no. And often not consciously.

It is a giant; still the most populous nation on earth. It is building, determinedly, its socialist motherland (applying “socialism with the Chinese characteristics” model). It is trying to construct a global system which has roots in the thousands of years of its history (BRI – Belt and Road Initiative, often nicknamed the “New Silk Road”).

Its highly talented and hardworking, as well as increasingly educated population, is producing, at a higher pace and often at higher quality than the countries in Europe, or the United States. As it produces, it also, naturally, trades.

This is where the ‘problem’ arises. The West, particularly the United States, is not used to a country that creates things for the sake and benefit of its people. For centuries, Asian, African and Latin American people were ordered what and how to produce, where and for how much to sell the produce. Or else!

Of course, the West has never consulted anyone. It has been producing what it (and its corporations) desired. It was forcing countries all over the world, to buy its products. If they refused, they got invaded, or their fragile governments (often semi-colonies, anyway) overthrown.

The most ‘terrible’ thing that China is doing is: it is producing what is good for China, and for its citizens.

That is, in the eyes of the West, unforgiveable!

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In the process, China ‘competes’. But fairly: it produces a lot, cheaply, and increasingly well. The same can be said about Russia.

These two countries are not competing maliciously. If they were to decide to, they could sink the US economy, or perhaps the economy of the entire West, within a week.

But they don’t even think about it.

However, as said above, to just work hard, invent new and better products, advance scientific research, and use the gains to improve the lives of ordinary people (they will be no extreme poverty in China by the end of 2020) is seen as the arch-crime in London and Washington.

Why? Because the Chinese and Russian systems appear to be much better, or at least, simply better, than those which are reigning in the West and its colonies. And because they are working for the people, not for corporations or for the colonial powers.

And the demagogues in the West – in its mass media outlets and academia – are horrified that perhaps, soon, the world will wake up and see the reality. Which is actually already happening: slowly but surely.

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To portray China as an evil country, is essential for the hegemony of the West. There is nothing so terrifying to London and Washington as the combination of these words: “Socialism/ Communism, Asian, success”. The West invents new and newer ‘opposition movements’, it then supports them and finances them, just in order to then point fingers and bark: “China is fighting back, and it is violating human rights”, when it defends itself and its citizens. This tactic is clear, right now, in both the northwest of the country, and in Honk Kong.

Not everything that China builds is excellent. Europe is still producing better cars, shoes and fragrances, and the United States, better airplanes. But the progress that China has registered during the last two decades, is remarkable. Were it to be football, it is China 2: West 1.

Most likely, unless there is real war, that in ten years, China will catch up in many fields; catch up, and surpass the West. Side by side with Russia.

It could have been excellent news for the entire world. China is sharing its achievements, even with the poorest of the poor countries in Africa, or with Laos in Asia.

The only problem is, that the West feels that it has to rule. It is unrepentant, observing the world from a clearly fundamentalist view. It cannot help it: it is absolutely, religiously convinced that it has to give orders to every man and woman, in every corner of the globe.

It is a tick, fanatical. Lately, anyone who travels to Europe or the United States will testify: what is taking place there is not good, even for the ordinary citizens. Western governments and corporations are now robbing even their own citizens. The standard of living is nose-diving.

China, with just a fraction of the wealth, is building a much more egalitarian society, although you would never guess so, if you exclusively relied on Western statistics.

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So, “trade war” slogans are an attempt to convince the local and global public that “China is unfair”, that it is “taking advantage” of the West. President Trump is “defending” the United States against the Chinese ‘Commies’. But the more he “defends them”, the poorer they get. Strange, isn’t it?

While the Chinese people, Russian people, even Laotian people, are, ‘miraculously’, getting richer and richer. They are getting more and more optimistic.

For decades, the West used to preach ‘free trade’, and competition. That is, when it was in charge, or let’s say, ‘the only kid on the block’.

In the name of competition and free trade, dozens of governments got overthrown, and millions of people killed.

And now?

What is China suppose to do? Frankly, what?

Should it curb its production, or perhaps close scientific labs? Should it consult the US President or perhaps British Prime Minister, before it makes any essential economic decision? Should it control the exchange rate of RMB, in accordance with the wishes of the economic tsars in Washington? That would be thoroughly ridiculous, considering that (socialist/Communist) China will soon become the biggest economy in the world, or maybe it already is.

There is all that abstract talk, but nothing concrete suggested. Or is it like that on purpose?

Could it be that the West does not want to improve relations with Beijing?

On September 7, 2019, AP reported:

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow compared trade talks with China on Friday to the U.S. standoff with Russia during the Cold War…

“The stakes are so high, we have to get it right, and if that takes a decade, so be it,” he said.

Kudlow emphasized that it took the United States decades to get the results it wanted with Russia. He noted that he worked in the Reagan administration: “I remember President Reagan waging a similar fight against the Soviet Union.”

Precisely! The war against the Soviet Union was hardly a war for economic survival of the United States. It was an ideological battle, which the United States, unfortunately won, because it utilized both propaganda and economic terror (the arms race and other means).

Now, China is next on the list, and the White House is not even trying to hide it.

But China is savvy. It is beginning to understand the game. And it is ready, by all means, to defend the system which has pulled almost all its citizens out of misery, and which could, one day soon, do the same for the rest of the world.

Former Vice President Joe Biden unveiled a series of ideas centered around unionization and worker protections in an attempt to woo middle class voters, according to Bloomberg.

The Democratic presidential candidate on Friday released a series of pledges aimed at countering what his campaign calls “the abuse of corporate power over labor,” while also encouraging workers to organize. Some of the measures build on existing legislation or efforts by the Obama administration.

Biden is presenting his labor plan days after he returned to his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for a speech touting his middle-class roots and values, and assailing all the ways he sees Trump failing to deliver for working Americans. –Bloomberg

The plan calls for “abolishing state right-to-work laws, no- poaching pacts among companies and almost all non-compete agreements — does not break much new ground in the Democratic race, and aligns him on many points with his more progressive rivals,” according to the report.

“Unions built the middle class. And the middle class built this country,” Biden said on Tuesday in Scranton.

Meanwhile, Biden has aligned himself with his top Democratic rivals in endorsing a standard set by a recent California law which makes it much harder for companies such as Uber and Lyft to classify their employees as independent contractors instead of employees.

Biden would also hold corporate executives personally liable for interference with efforts to organize, with criminal charges possible for intentional interference.

He said that he supports the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, introduced by Representative Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat, and others earlier this year. That measure would impose financial penalties on companies that interfere with unionization efforts.

Biden said he would “aggressively” pursue employers who violate labor laws, participate in wage theft or intentionally misclassify employees as independent contractors. He added that he intends to push for legislation to make misclassification of workers a “substantive violation” of federal labor, employment and tax laws. He would also fund an increase in the number of investigators in various agencies, whose ranks have been cut by the Trump administration. –Bloomberg

Biden’s plan would also make it easier for employees to collectively bargain whether they are in the public or private sector – and has vowed to create a cabinet-level working group tasked with formulating a plan for to encourage unions and address economic inequality by the end of his first 100 days in office.

Perhaps the working group can figure out how employees won’t collectively bargain themselves out of a job due to outsourcing to countries with less stringent worker rights.

Read more about Biden’s plan here.

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

“Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand,
workin’ in the dark against your fellow man.
But as sure as God made black and white
what’s down in the dark will be brought to the light.”

~ Johnny Cash/traditional, ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down’

The Grayzone has an excellent new article out titled “US troops are staying in Syria to ‘keep the oil’ — and have already killed hundreds over it” detailing the many ways the Trump administration has openly admitted that it is keeping US troops in Syria to control the nation’s oil fields so that the Syrian government can’t use it to fund reconstruction efforts.

“We’ve secured the oil, and therefore a small number of US troops will remain in the area where they have the oil,” Trump said in a recent press conference.

“And we’re going to be protecting it. And we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.”

“We want to keep the oil,” Trump said in a cabinet meeting a few days earlier.

“Maybe we’ll have one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly.”

“A purpose of those [US] forces, working with the SDF, is to deny access to those oil fields by ISIS and others who may benefit from revenues that could be earned,” said Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

As Grayzone’s Ben Norton accurately explains, “and others” necessarily means the Syrian government; preventing Assad from accessing Syrian oil is standing US military policy.

And that of course is the real reason US armed forces constantly remain in Syria despite all the empty babble about ending wars and bringing home the troops: it’s about control over a nation in a key geostrategic location which refuses to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized empire. Controlling its material wealth is an ideal way to do this.

Whenever I write about oil as a primary motive for US imperialism, I always get a bunch of right-wingers objecting that that makes no sense because the US has plenty of oil, and that it’s really about freedom and democracy or communism or Zionism or pedovore cults or Illuminati or whatever. What they miss, in their squirming attempts to avoid cognitive dissonance, is that it’s not about having and consuming oil, it’s about controlling oil. Control what governments can and cannot access crucial resources, and you can control which governments thrive and which ones don’t.

As Trump said, “We’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.” In no other international power dynamic would this be considered a rational thing for anyone to say. The idea of another nation invading Texas and seizing control of its oil fields and then Xi Jinping or whomever saying “We’re controlling their oil and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future” is unthinkable, but a US president can just come right out and say this about a weaker nation and it won’t even be front-page news.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Donald Trump is the most honest US president of all time. By that I don’t mean that he’s an honest person; he of course lies constantly. I simply mean that while his predecessors have always made sure to dress their imperialist military campaigns up as benevolent humanitarian intercessions, Trump just stands there out in the open like “Yeah we grabbed their oil and it’s ours now, blow me.” There was once a time when claiming a war was really about oil got you branded a conspiracy theorist. Now the US president just outright says it.

And this is really the only reason establishment power structures dislike Trump. They don’t feel directly threatened by him, they just dislike the way he’s always saying the quiet part out loud. Status quo power has a vested interest in keeping a smiling mask on things and preventing people from thinking too hard about what’s really going on in the world, and Trump keeps ripping off that mask by telling everyone what he’s doing in plain English.

Revolution (the real kind, the kind that actually changes things) is ultimately a fight against psychological compartmentalization on a mass scale. Compartmentalization is a tool people use to avoid the psychological discomfort (aka cognitive dissonance) that would otherwise be experienced by trying to hold on to two conflicting positions at one time, like, for example, seeing yourself as a good person and simultaneously giving your government your tacit permission to murder strangers on the other side of the world in your name.

Establishment power works to prevent people from looking directly at the ugly aspects of the empire, like the horrific nature of what war is and how much their country spreads it, or the fact that so many have so little while a few others have so very much, or the reason their government doesn’t seem to operate the way they were taught in school. The empire has a vested interest in keeping these things in the dark, while the clear-eyed rebel is always trying to drag them kicking and screaming into the light. This is why truth-tellers and whistleblowers are always made public enemy number one by our rulers.

The true rebel fights to enlighten things, the empire fights to endarken them. This is the struggle from the largest power structures in our world, right down to our own inner lives as individual human beings. This is why I talk so much about the importance of inner work; it’s all one struggle, from the evil secrets hidden behind thick walls of government opacity all the way down to the parts of ourselves we try not to look at. Your efforts to become a more consciously integral and less compartmentalized human being are just as important as your efforts to expose the puppet strings to the audience.

As November 2020 draws nearer the screams to shut up and stop pointing at the truth are going to get louder and louder for political dissidents in America, even louder than the “shut up and fall in line” admonishments that Bernie-or-Busters received constantly in 2016. This will only be the voice of the empire yelling “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” It will only be those who are still plugged into the imperial narrative matrix transforming into a bunch of Agent Smiths and telling you to stop saying things which cause them cognitive dissonance.

But, for someone who has signed the truth-at-all-costs contract within themselves, this simply won’t be an option. Our desire to bring what’s dark into the light will overcome any pressure to keep things endarkened, whether it be in ourselves, in our relationships, in our society, in our government, or in our world. Followed through with in a deep and integral way, it changes the way we think, it changes the way we experience our own consciousness, it alters our behavior, it ruins our experience of news media and Hollywood blockbusters, it ends our marriages, it breaks up longstanding friendships and forges new ones, and it makes the deceptions of the powerful utterly intolerable. Truth come what may means truth come what may, and it’s a lifetime commitment.

We wouldn’t have it any other way.

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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is expected to hold a long-delayed meeting next week, according to several state media sources, as the country experiences a wide range of issues, such as social and economic chaos in Hong Kong, a trade war between the US, and the possibility of sub 6% GDP in mainland China in 2020. 

Global Times reported Friday that the closed-door, secret meeting would be held from Oct. 28-31 in Beijing.

Xinhua News Agency reports that President Xi Jinping will speak at the event on Thursday.

Members of the CPC, the Communist Party’s elites, are expected to discuss several important topics, including “issues concerning how to uphold and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernize China’s system and capacity for governance,” the Global Times said. 

Plenum, what the meeting is technically called, is the convening of the CCP’s Central Committee to discuss policy and country direction. 

Last year’s plenum was delayed, so next week’s meeting will be important as communist elites discuss policy and country heading to navigate the trade war with the US and address policy that will further create a soft landing for the economy. 

“The fourth plenum will implement reform plans, and they will talk about how to improve governance, which is pressing,” one Chinese policy insider told Reuters on condition of anonymity. 

“They need to transform the overall state governance capacity and adapt to changes in global rules and withstand stress tests from external risks,” the insider said, adding that the trade war is exacerbating such pressures.

Wang Jiangsu, director of the Asian Law Institute at the National University of Singapore, told Reuters that President Xi would likely say that the Chinese political system is superior to the Western world. 

Analysts at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said a trade war with the US and decelerating economy had left President Xi with an internal power struggle. 

Sinocism blog’s Bill Bishop wrote on Monday that some CPC members would be pushing for immediate trade war solutions as the economy slows. Some are expected to push for the removal of all tariffs to improve the business environment. 

So far, China shows no slowdown in the restructuring of its domestic economy. When it comes to the trade war, Washington and Beijing have made recent efforts to talk and allow China to obtain new US agriculture purchases, but it seems a complete trade deal is far away. 

The trade war is really about a power struggle between China and the US, and mainly, who will control the world after 2025. So China has been laying out roadmaps with meetings of how it will be the next global superpower, something that has infuriated Washington. 

Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com,

A group of sex offenders in the U.S. state of Georgia are suing a sheriff’s department after local authorities placed “No Trick-Or-Treat At This Address!!” signs on the front lawns of their homes.

While Butts County Sheriff Gary Long claims that the move is meant to keep children safe on Halloween, the pedophiles claim that the move was unjust and violates their rights to privacy and free speech.

On September 24, attorney Mark Yurachek filed a complaint on behalf of plaintiffs Christopher Reed, Reginald Holden, and Corey McClendon, all of whom served prison time for sexual offenses against children. The court filing accuses the sheriff’s office of putting up warning signs on the front lawns of over 200 registered sex offenders in the county last October.

Attorney Yurachek told Fox 5 Atlanta:

“I’m just not sure that this kind of action makes your kids any safer.

It just makes your constitutional rights less safe.”

According to the lawsuit, the signs resulted in “anxiety, embarrassment and humiliation” for the offenders while, in effect, forcing them to endorse speech in the form of a warning they disagreed with—similar to a political or religious organization trespassing on someone’s property to post objectionable material without the consent of the property owner.

“The trespass stuff is pretty clear. They’re coming onto their property and putting the signs on there.”

Georgia’s sex offender registry statute also doesn’t require that warning signs be placed at the homes of offenders, as is the case in other states, Yurachek said. He added:

“They are individuals who have been brave enough to not be afraid to let the public know that they are registered sex offenders, but are also not willing to tolerate this unlawful action by the sheriff.”

The attorney also said that in addition to the offenders having paid their debts to society for their crimes, they are also not on probation and have complied with all legal requirements.

HAPPENING NOW: Butts County Sheriff Gary Long has arrived in Federal Court. Long is being sued by sex offenders over ‘No Trick or Treat’ Halloween signs placed in their yards @WGXAnews pic.twitter.com/deRm0sIrWC

— Camille Gayle (@Camille_WGXA) October 24, 2019

More importantly, the lawyer warned that the sheriff’s actions could be a slippery slope that may lead to the violation of non-offenders’ rights in the future. Yurachek told 11Alive:

“It’s easy to pick on these guys, because nobody really wants to see anything done for a sex offender.

But I promise you if this goes by without a legal challenge and push-back, it’s going to get worse… The Sheriff’s going to say the next time, when it’s the DUI registry, and he wants to identify people who drink and drive, that that’s okay, as well.” 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Thursday that a judge would decide whether or not the cops would be allowed to put the signs up again this year. However, Sheriff Long insists that the signs will stay up no matter what the court says.

In a Facebook post on Monday that has since been deleted—along with the entire page of the Butts County Sheriff’s Office, seemingly—Long defended the practice, saying:

“This Thursday, we will argue to the Federal Court that we are protecting our children and following Georgia Law by placing these signs.

Regardless of the Judge’s ruling this Thursday, I WILL do everything within the letter of the Law to protect the children of this Community.

… I ask for your prayers this Thursday into the matter.”

Yurachek, however, feels that this is about much more than protecting children—and instead is about the constitutional restraints in place preventing police from abusing their powers, even in creative ways that appear to serve the public good. The lawyer said:

“I understand that there are a lot of people who think this is a great idea, who think ‘Yeah this protects my kids, but what they should be thinking about is ‘Does this protect my rights?’” 

Freshman Democratic Congresswoman Katie Hill has hired a group of Democratic Party super-lawyers to threaten publications, including the Daily Mail, that have dared to republish naked photos of the Congresswoman with one of her legislative aides, with whom she allegedly had a yearslong “throuple” relationship with her ex-husband, Kenny Heslep, Fox News reports.

The attorneys Marc Elias, whose previous clients include the Clintons, the Democratic Party and Facebook, and Rachel Jacobs, another lawyer from the Democratic-aligned law firm Perkins Coie, sent a “cease and desist” letter to the UK tabloid the Daily Mail, which re-published several photos first published by the conservative blog Red State.

“This letter serves as notice that civil and criminal laws prohibit the publication of images of the character you have posted, and that our client is prepared to take all necessary means to protect her rights and to protect herself from an unprecedented, unwarranted and extraordinary offensive invasion of personal privacy,” the lawyers wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by several publications, including Fox News.

The Mail published a series of nude photos on Thursday, which purportedly showed Hill and a former female staffer. Red State previously reported that Hill had been involved in a “long-term relationship” with the staffer and her husband. Hill is openly bisexual, and is one of the few members of Congress openly so.

However, having sexual relationships with staffers is against Congressional ethics rules, and Hill denied during her 2018 campaign – where she unseated a longtime Republican incumbent – that she had an “inappropriate relationship”, but denied that she had a long-term “romantic affair” with any staffers.

Moreover, The Mail and others have alleged that the photos show Hill has what has been described as Nazi imagery (an Iron Cross) tattooed on her bikini area. That photo also showed Hill holding a bong, an instrument for smoking marijuana.

Of biggest concern, Hill has become the target of a Congressional ethics committee investigation, which some media outlets have described as “career threatening.”

The lawyers are suing the Daily Mail in the state of California, where laws against publishing intimate photos are strongest, Fox News said.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Why do you believe what you believe?  Some people have a really solid answer to that question, but much of the population never thinks much about deeper questions such as this.  In fact, for most Americans it is simply easier to let others do their thinking for them.  Today, most of us spend multiple hours each day absorbing information through a screen, and most of the content that is fed to us through our televisions, phones, tablets and computers is controlled by the elite.  And if you allow anyone to feed information into your mind for several hours every day, it is going to have a dramatic impact on how you view the world.

When I was younger, one of my favorite movies was “The Matrix”, and I think that it is a really good metaphor for what is going on in our society today.  In the film, nearly the entire human population was plugged into a system which continuously fed a computer-generated reality into their minds that wasn’t real at all.  Later on, I eventually came to realize that we are willingly doing the same thing to ourselves.  Our personal interactions with one another are extremely limited, but we willingly “plug in” to the enormous matrix of news, information and entertainment that the elite have constructed for many hours each day.

According to numbers that were released earlier this year, the average American spends more than three hours watching television and more than three hours on mobile devices every single day…

It’s official: This year marks the first time that Americans will spend more time staring down at their phones and tablets than they will watching television.

The average U.S. adult will spend three hours and 43 minutes on mobile devices this year, according to EMarketer Inc., which is eight minutes longer than the three hours and 35 minutes that will be spent in front of the TV.

If Americans from previous generations could visit our society right now, they would probably be horrified that we are all constantly staring at our screens like some sort of zombies.

And perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if we were feeding our minds healthy things, but instead most of what we are absorbing is garbage that has been produced by the elite.

Today, nearly all of the news, information and entertainment that Americans consume is produced by a small cluster of giant corporations.  The following summary of the current state of affairs comes from Wikipedia…

In the United States, movie production has been dominated by major studios since the early 20th century; before that, there was a period in which Edison’s Trust monopolized the industry. The music and television industries recently witnessed cases of media consolidation, with Sony Music Entertainment‘s parent company merging their music division with Bertelsmann AG’s BMG to form Sony BMG and Tribune’s The WB and CBS Corp.’s UPN merging to form The CW. In the case of Sony BMG, there existed a “Big Five” (now “Big Four“) of major record companies, while The CW’s creation was an attempt to consolidate ratings and stand up to the “Big Four” of American network (terrestrial) television (this despite the fact that the CW was, in fact, partially owned by one of the Big Four in CBS). In television, the vast majority of broadcast and basic cable networks, over a hundred in all, are controlled by eight corporations: Fox Corporation, The Walt Disney Company (which includes the ABC, ESPN, FX and Disney brands), National Amusements (which includes CBS Corporation and Viacom), Comcast (which owns NBCUniversal), AT&T (which owns WarnerMedia), Discovery, Inc., E. W. Scripps Company, Cablevision (now known as Altice USA), or some combination thereof.[92]

When you have an almost totally monopoly on news, information and entertainment, it is not too difficult to manipulate a society.  At this point, most of the population is made up of extremely pliable “NPCs” that are more than happy to go along with whatever “societal norms” are set by the elite.  The term “sheeple” has been used to describe those that allow the elite to do their thinking for them, and we need to do what we can to help those individuals wake up and to get them to start thinking for themselves.

Let me give you an example of the immense power of the media.  One recent survey found that those that watch Fox News tend to think that the U.S. economy is in great shape, while those that watch MSNBC tend to be quite pessimistic about the economy…

American voters face the same set of economic facts, from low unemployment to the risks from a trade war, but the survey’s index of overall sentiment – at 108 just above the 100 line that separates positive from negative impressions of the economic outlook – masked the huge divide between those who approve of Trump, whose views measured a far rosier 136, and those who disapprove of the president, with a reading of 88.

The results, weighted by factors like age, race and sex, to be nationally representative, were similarly skewed based on media consumption. Viewers of conservative-leaning Fox News registered 139 for current sentiment about the economy; viewers of MSNBC, an outlet often critical of Trump, registered 89. Readers of the New York Times sat in the middle at 107, near those who get their news from Facebook (110) and Twitter (112).

But the truth is somewhere in between.  We haven’t officially had a recession in recent years, but the U.S. economy has definitely not been “booming” either.  In fact, we haven’t had a full year of 3 percent GDP growth since the middle of the Bush administration.  That is the longest stretch of slow growth in American history by a very wide margin, and now it appears that the next recession is rapidly approaching.

And without a doubt, tens of millions of American families are deeply struggling right now.  As I noted yesterday, 50 percent of all American workers make less than 33,000 dollars a year, and a survey that was just released found that 70 percent of Americans “have cried about money”…

Pass along the tissues, because Americans aren’t afraid of letting the tears roll when it comes to finances.

Seven in 10 Americans said they have cried about money in their lifetimes, according to a recent online survey of 1,004 Americans by Compare Cards.com. Many cited worries over their job or making ends meet.

And household debt, which peaked at $13.86 trillion in the second quarter, weighed the heaviest on Americans. Almost a third admitted to crying over this looming concern, according to the survey.

One of the reasons why my articles upset so many people is because I just don’t follow the herd.

In this day and age, it is absolutely imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves.  Because if you don’t actively take control, the elite will be more than happy to do your thinking for you.

Question everything.  Everyone that is feeding you news, information and entertainment has an agenda, and in most cases it is not a positive agenda.

We are in a battle for hearts and minds, and the elite have an overwhelming edge because of the colossal system that they have created.

But we have the truth on our side, and in the end the truth shall prevail.

Is a humane softening of US sanctions on Iran currently in the works? A new US Treasury announcement suggests this is the case, as it is “taking steps to ease sales of food and medicine to Iran amid stringent sanctions imposed on the country by the Trump administration,” according to the AP. 

Critics of Trump’s far reaching sanctions after the May 2018 US pullout of the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), which especially hit the energy, banking, aviation, and auto sectors, have long argued the economic punitive measures have only served to make life miserable for the common populace, depriving people of outside food and medicine shipments, as well as safety-related technology, similar to the humanitarian crisis that unfolded in sanctioned Iraq under Saddam in the 1990’s.

A new “humanitarian mechanism” will seek to ensure crucial aid can still get inside the country. An official statement on the treasury website announced Friday morning:

This mechanism will help the international community perform enhanced due diligence on humanitarian trade to ensure that funds associated with permissible trade in support of the Iranian people are not diverted by the Iranian regime to develop ballistic missiles, support terrorism, or finance other malign activities. 

It will seek to only allow “permissible trade” to support “the Iranian people” even while continuing to isolate the regime’s political and military leadership. 

“This administration remains committed to the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid to the Iranian people, who have suffered for forty years under the mismanagement of this corrupt regime. This new humanitarian mechanism will help international companies that seek to engage in permissible humanitarian trade with Iran to ensure that they do not run afoul of sanctions,” Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said as part of the new mechanism. 

Over the past months Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has warned the only way it would enter into negotiations with the Trump administration, as the US president previously sought, is conditioned on immediate sanctions relief. 

Until then, it’s promised to gradually pull out of its nuclear commitments under the JCPOA by continuing to breach Uranium enrichment caps agreed to in 2015. 

Though this latest measure which seeks to soften the sanctions impact on the common populace is unlikely to cause any level of rejoicing in Tehran, it could be the start of an eventual opening after a hot summer of boiling tensions and dangerous ‘tanker wars’ in the Gulf. 

Authored by Christoph Gisiger via TheMarket.ch,

Jim Bianco, founder and chief strategist of Bianco Research, warns that the Fed’s massive liquidity injections could make the problems in the short-term funding markets even worse. He fears that the risk of a recession in the US is underestimated and he expects further downward pressure on interest rates.

Investors are hearing encouraging news. The trade dispute between the US and China seems to cool off. The risk of a chaotic Brexit is receding. The yield-curve is back to normal.

Nevertheless, the reaction of equities and bonds remains relatively modest.

«The markets are still kind of in this no-man’s-land trying to figure out what’s going to happen next,’» says Jim Bianco.

According to the internationally renowned macro strategist, the lack of a powerful breakout could be a hint that the impact of trade may be overstated and that other factors are keeping the financial markets in check.

For example, trust in the repo market remains fragile, even though the Federal Reserve is intervening with ever bigger liquidity infusions. In addition to that, the likelihood of a recession in the US is significantly greater than most economists think, notes Bianco.

In this at-length interview with The Market, the President of Chicago based Bianco Research explains why he expects government bond yields to continue to decline over the next few months and what he thinks could pop the monster bubble in European sovereign debt.

Mr. Bianco, prospects of a partial trade agreement and a Brexit deal are generating support for financial markets. Is the worst in terms of uncertainty now behind us?

Many strategists keep talking about uncertainty as if there was never any uncertainty in the markets before and we just invented that word last year. For the moment, it looks like we have avoided a hard Brexit and that we’re heading towards phase one of a trade agreement between China and the US. So there may be a bit more clarity on the horizon. But despite these headlines, markets have yet to respond. The S&P 500 and the yield on ten-year treasuries are moving towards the higher end of their range. But so far, they haven’t broken out nor negated the news. So the markets are still kind of in this no-man’s-land trying to figure out what happens next.

Why do you think that is?

I suspect that people are overstating the impact that trade has on the financial markets. There is more that holds the markets back than just trade, although that’s what strategists have been telling us for a year and a half. The old saying on Wall Street is price drives news and so far, stock prices and bond yields have not yet broken out to confirm the recent good news. The longer a breakout takes, the more concerned we become that it might not materialize. Therefore, the coming days are going to be critical.

Taking this into account, next week’s FOMC meeting could play an important part. What is the Federal Reserve going to do?

I think they are going to cut interest rates for a third time and they will do it like they have done it all throughout this cycle: They will try to make noise that they want to stop cutting rates because they never really wanted to start cutting rates in the first place. We will see whether or not the market agrees with that. One of the problems the Fed has had is that they can’t really explain why they are cutting rates. The reason they are doing it is that the market is demanding it and they are afraid to fight the market. So if the market wants more rate cuts it will get more rate cuts.

What’s more, the yield curve has moved back into positive territory. How significant is this development?

The big thing that has pushed the yield curve positive has been the announcement that the Fed will be buying $60 billion worth of Treasury bills every month to solve liquidity problems in the repo market. They have created a new demand for the front end of the yield curve and the market is responding accordingly. There has been a discussion in Fed circles that even though they are increasing bank reserves we shouldn’t call it «Quantitative Easing» or «QE». Yet, the front end of the yield curve is acting exactly as if it was QE; exactly as if they were doing something that was going to be stimulating. So the market is behaving in kind and I’m not surprised that the yield curve is un-inverting.

The yield curve is perceived as a leading indicator for the economy. What does it mean for the outlook when the curve goes back to normal?

I think the curve will steepen out a lot more when all that buying kicks in. This is the way the curve typically un-inverts. In a massive way: very hard and very fast. I like to refer to it as a «wheelie» and when the yield curve is doing that wheelie it’s usually right into the teeth of the slowdown: It’s the moment when the market and the Fed realize that they’ve made a mistake, that the economy is much weaker than we thought, that there is a big problem and that more stimulus is required. That’s when you get that massive steepening of the yield curve. But maybe this one is different because we’ve got the Fed stepping in and just manipulating the curve steeper.

To calm tensions in the short-term funding markets the Fed is pushing more and more liquidity into the system. What do you think of this approach?

The repo market has been drugged into submission by the Fed. It has medicated the problem for now, but the problem has not gone away. This situation is becoming larger and more complicated. No one is sure how this is going to play out. If we knew how to fix this problem, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Temporary injections of money can help for a while. But the longer the Fed is doing this – I mean months or years – the more they risk another set of problems coming in. So sooner or later the markets must be taken off this drug. Relaxing burdensome regulations for banks would help, but this does not appear to be on regulators’ radars.

The Fed’s reputation is already at risk, especially with regard to President Trump’s vocal criticism of Chairman Jerome Powell. To what extent are the problems in the repo market undermining trust in the world’s most important Central Bank?

It’s really the New York Fed that runs these operations. And according to all the insiders, Jay Powell had a real strong hand in getting John Williams to the New York Fed from the San Francisco Fed when his predecessor Bill Dudley left. And then, Simon Potter, the architect of all the QE programs, was pushed out the door at the end of May. Sure, there are other competent people at the Fed, but it’s like: The guy who was running everything left and then we get these problems in the repo market. So it really does beg the question if there are too many academics at the Fed and if they have lost touch with the market.

Meanwhile on the other side of the pond, Christine Lagarde takes over for Mario Draghi at the ECB. How will this change of leadership affect monetary policy in the Eurozone?

We are not fans of Ms. Lagarde and think it’s a mistake putting her at the helm of the ECB. Here’s why: If I was to put Mario Draghi under truth serum and ask him why do we have negative interest rates, his answer would probably sound like this: «I thought when we went there in 2014/15 that it would be a shock therapy and everybody will start spending money like crazy. The hope was that we just shock the market into higher growth and we could then raise rates off negative. Instead, we confused everybody and negative rates became six months, two years and now almost five years. But if you are a central banker you can’t admit a mistake. So we are kind of stuck with this policy.» That’s what I think he would say.

And what would Ms. Lagarde say if she was put under truth serum?

I think she would say that negative rates are a good idea and that more negative rates are even a better idea. She genuinely believes that. I’m giving Mario Draghi the benefit of the doubt: He got stuck with this of his own making and he’s trying to make lemonade out of a bunch of lemons. But in her view, this is lemonade.

Then again, how much further can the ECB go in terms of negative interest rates and QE? What do you think about the idea that Ms. Lagarde is going to promote a closer alignment of monetary and fiscal policy in Europe and some kind of fiscal stimulus?

Here’s the problem with that: What do the populists in Europe not want? Fiscal union. No one is ready to say: «I’m European and my capital is Brussels.» If I’m French my capital is Paris, if I’m German my capital is Berlin, and if I’m Spanish my capital is Madrid. So they want her to help usher in something that is deeply unpopular. Therefore, I worry that she’s got a policy idea – negative rates – that is out of step and I also worry that they want her to push something that’s unpopular. This could be very bad in the long run for the ECB.

Looking at a broader picture, the risk of a global recession is rising. How healthy is the world economy?

It looks pretty bad for the globe. Germany might be in recession and Italy already had two quarters with negative GDP growth. The ECB has pushed rates into negative territory and I don’t know what more they can do. Meanwhile, China is at a 28-year low in GDP growth and Japan’s GDP growth is forecasted to be negative in Q4. So far, the data for the United States looks OK. But – to use the old metaphor – it’s like you have a nice, well maintained house and every other house in your neighborhood is on fire. That’s not a good place to be. I don’t believe the US can survive if all those bad stories everywhere else continue.

What are the odds that a recession is coming to the US?

There is a lot more risk of a recession in the United States than people are giving it credit for. Today, I would put the probability at 40 to 50%. So just below 50-50, and that’s pretty high. I’m willing to give the economy the benefit of the doubt and be on the good side of 50-50. But we’re right on the limit and we’re running out of time to stop a potential recession. If the global economy could bottom and recover that could help the US avoid a recession. But the longer we go without that happening and the more we see global PMI data disappointing we’re not going to that right away.

How does this impact the outlook on the financial markets?

Central Banks are easing and that’s dragging rates lower. This will affect the US eventually because we are all globally connected in a connected world: People have a hard time understanding that our rates are tied to everybody else’s and they are going to pull us down. Today, in the G20 there is only one interest rate left that has a 2-handle on it: The US 30-year bond which is at 2.26%. Everything else is one, zero or negative. So if you’re reaching for yield and you want a really high yield, it’s 2.26%. This is a new area because we all remember when yields were double digits or at least 5%. Now, in Europe zero percent is a reach for yield. So you need to adjust to the relative world we live in and stop thinking about the world in absolute terms.

What does this mean for investors?

I’m bullish on bonds because the global economy is slowing. So, over the next several months, one of the best investments in its history might be sovereign debt. Even in Switzerland, the king of negative yields, total returns on those negative yielding bonds are up 30% or more. These are some of the best returns we have ever seen and over the next several months that will continue. That said, there’s something I worry about: One of the most mean-reverting things in finance are total returns in fixed income. In other words: If you have one of the best years in terms of total returns, one of the worst years usually is the year before or the year after. Right now, fixed income managers in Europe and especially in Switzerland are knocking the cover off the ball because their portfolios are up 20% to 40% if they are really long bonds. But next year, or 2021 at the latest, could be one of the worst years ever.

How can investors navigate this challenging environment?

One of the things we learned from 2000 and 2008 is that the best thing to buy is to buy into a bubble: You make a ton of money real fast. The problem, of course, is trying to get out in whole and that’s where we are with sovereign debt: I think that this negative yielding environment has some legs to run, but it is a very, very high risk / high reward type of environment.

What’s going to happen when this monster bubble pops?

That’s another perversion of negative interest rates: Negative interest rates could mean that the thing that the ECB wants – an economic recovery – creates such losses in European sovereign debt that you have a financial crisis. That’s because when you get to low, zero or negative rates, little movements in interest rates mean gigantic price movements. In a recovery that shoots rates up, you could lose 20% or 30% of the value of your portfolio. You could be looking at horrific losses. So very short term, European sovereign debt as a trade is working. But when the economy bottoms that trade will blow up big time.

In that context: What’s a promising trade if the economic picture brightens up?

What will work big time in Europe when the economy recovers is financial stocks. Right now, financials are the opposite: If you’re in financials, you’re suffering horribly, you’re a masochist. But eventually, when the economy turns and rates go back positive, financials will be the best performer. So the trade in Europe is long sovereigns, and when things turn and the economy looks like it’s recovering move into financials because they are going to be the biggest beneficiary of higher rates.

To get the timing exactly right is next to impossible. Why not buy European bank stocks right away?

The European bank stock index is at a 40-year low and so is the Japanese bank index. From a value perspective, they are extraordinary values. The problem is they were that three years ago, too, and you lost 60% of your money. Today, Deutsche Bank is trading at the same price it was trading at in the late 1970s, adjusted back to Deutschmark. So the last time Deutsche Bank was at these levels it wasn’t located in the same country and it wasn’t priced in the same currency. But when you have stocks that are down 90% and you buy them now and you’re early, you can still lose two thirds of your money before they turn around. I would rather give up some of the downside and buy them on the other side when they are recovering – instead of the other way around, assuming I’m still employed as a money manager.

Where else do you spot opportunities?

You also want to play gold. If you look at a chart of the gold price over the last four years, it’s identical to the amount of negative debt in the world. For 5000 years of human history, the argument against gold was that it had no yield. So why buy it? Well, in 2019 the argument for gold is that it’s the high yielding alternative at zero.

Jeff Bezos will remember this day for a while…

Not only did Microsoft’s Bill Gates overtake him as the richest man in the world, but against the odds-on favorites, Amazon, Microsoft was just awarded a hotly contested contract to provide cloud computing services to the Pentagon, the Defense Department said in a statement on Friday night.

“Today the Department of Defense has taken another step forward in the implementation of our Cloud Strategy with the award of an enterprise general-purpose cloud contract to Microsoft,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

“This continues our strategy of a multi-vendor, multi-cloud environment as the department’s needs are diverse and cannot be met by any single supplier. This contract will address critical and urgent unmet warfighter requirements for modern cloud infrastructure at all three classification levels delivered out to the tactical ed

The Defense Department said the base contract period is two years with a $1 million guarantee.

The department said it “projects that user adoption will drive an estimated $210 million of spending during the two-year base period. The DOD will rigorously review contract performance prior to the exercise of any options.”

Microsoft shares are up 2% after-hours on the news…

The contract – known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (or JEDI) and worth up to $10 billion – was the subject of a major lawsuit by Oracle which accused the Pentagon of favoring rival Amazon Web Services in the procurement process.

In July, the WSJ publicized new evidence showing that senior Amazon executives met with senior DoD officials, including then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, to discuss the project before the bidding even began, while the decision over the program was expected this month. 

Oracle eventually lost out on the project after losing a critical court case against the Pentagon and Amazon, allowing the DoD to move forward with either Amazon or Microsoft. 

And while Amazon shares are down modestly on the news (for now), a loss of government confidence in AWS (which generated $2.2 billion of net income in the first quarter, up 57% year-over-year and representing two thirds of the consolidated total) could be significant.

As a D.C.-based observer told ADG in April:

“The AWS story, as sold to enterprise customers and the Street, is built upon the [C.I.A] reference case and the cash that has come in from that deal.” 

It remains to be seen how Microsoft’s employees will react to this news. Last year, a number of Microsoft employees posted an open letter asking the company not to bid for the contract.

In a written statement, Amazon said it was “surprised” by the decision.

“We’re surprised about this conclusion,”

Amazon “is the clear leader in cloud computing, and a detailed assessment purely on the comparative offerings clearly led to a different conclusion,”

“We remain deeply committed to continuing to innovate for the new digital battlefield where security, efficiency, resiliency, and scalability of resources can be the difference between success and failure.”

Did the Trump-Bezos war just escalate?