Conservative Grad Laments “I’ve Spent The Last Four Years Defending Myself”

Authored by Kathryn Hinderaker via The College Fix,

An education that made me stronger, tougher, more resilient…

I just graduated from St. Olaf College after receiving an education I didn’t expect. That’s because as a conservative at my small, Minnesota-based liberal arts institution, I’ve spent the last four years defending myself against personal and political attacks from professors and peers alike.

The most recent example came in late April as the St. Olaf College Republicans hosted scholar Heather Mac Donald for a talk on her new book, “The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.”

As chair of the group, I fielded many angry emails, including this from a theater professor:

“This speaker is dangerous. It’s not about a difference in idealogical [sic] perspectives. This rhetoric is dangerous and puts my Black body in danger. This is antithetical to the St. Olaf mission statement. I’m not okay with this… and you all shouldn’t be either.”

Several more professors emailed similar sentiments.

This example is no outlier. In early 2018, college administrators shot down an effort to bring Ben Shapiro to campus for a speech. The officials denied the request by saying Shapiro was too divisive to bring to St. Olaf on the date in question. (It was the one-year anniversary of a racial protest on campus). They promised Shapiro could come at some unknown future date, but months of student organizing and planning were essentially wasted. Shapiro never made it to St. Olaf College.

Also last year, our College Republicans’ display called “Why I’m a Conservative” was torn down by students upset by its messaging. They were apparently triggered by expressions such as “All human life has value,” “Facts > feelings,” “I love economic freedom” and “I pay taxes.”

All these incidents spring from the prevailing ideology on campus, which was perhaps most evident the day after President Donald Trump was elected. The campus was in a tailspin. Several professors cried in front of their classes. Some canceled class altogether. Students openly wept in the quad. Protests broke out at a moment’s notice.

As a well-known conservative on campus, I received reports that my name was being mentioned frequently during those protests. As I walked into our student commons area, someone yelled:

“If you voted for Trump, you better be f**king scared.”

This prompted most students nearby to erupt in cheers and clapping. I quickly left the area.

Other conservative students have been targeted in this way. Several friends in the spring of 2017 said they felt violently threatened by peers and refrained from speaking about their political views out of fear.

In fact, fear was a constant feeling for conservatives on campus. In May 2017, when a massive protest engulfed the college over racist notes found on campus, my progressive peers put up posters declaring “I’m sick of white tears” and “f*ck your white complacency.” During the protest, student demonstrators took over portions of the school, blocking some entrances and effectively barricading students inside. Rewarding demonstrators for having successfully commandeered a campus building, administrators canceled classes the next day to address their grievances.

Later it was proven that the main “racist note” that had launched the campus coup was a hoax, written by a black, female student.

As I reflect on my four years in college, I admit I am disappointed in many ways. The lack of diversity of thought, the absence of respect for differing opinions, the threats, the bullying–it was all so juvenile and the antithesis of everything higher education is supposed to be.

Several professors stood apart from the madness and worked to provide an education, not indoctrination, but I will spare naming them here so as to protect their on-campus reputations. Meanwhile, administrators who wanted to please everyone often lacked conviction in defending marginalized voices, like conservative ones, and often made college life difficult. I can’t help but feel sad at the potential such a school, were it to focus on actual “diversity” and “inclusion” of all kinds.

But there is a bright side. I’ve learned how to stand up for myself, and I leave the campus with much thicker skin – and a clearer understanding of my own convictions. As I embark on a career, I can thank St. Olaf College for an education that made me stronger, tougher, and more resilient. I hope students like me keep going there, keep challenging the status quo, and keep fighting for the education they deserve. Even if they don’t get it, the lessons they do learn will surely prepare them for real life.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XMhPsu Tyler Durden

Russian State TV Mocks Trump’s “Salute To America” As ‘Low Energy’ 

Russian media has joined US Democrats in dissing President Trump’s 4th of July celebration, as the hosts Russia’s state-run version of “60 Minutes” mocked the Independence Day “Salute for America” as “low energy” and “weak,” with “rusty tanks,” according to Business Insider, citing Russia expert Julia Davis. 

And as the Washington Post noted, “Journalists on Rossiya 1′s popular “60 Minutes” TV show mocked the military equipment that will appear at the “Salute for America” on Thursday, claiming that the tanks and other armored vehicles being towed into Washington had “paint peeling off” and required “adhesive tape.”” 

Host Yevgeny Popov honed in on the tanks – saying “The greatest parade of all times is going to be held today in Washington, that is what our Donald Trump has said. The American president announced he would show us the newest tanks,” but that “these are Abrams and Sherman tanks, used during World War II and withdrawn from service in 1957.”

Russian co-host Olga Skabeyeva claimed that “Americans are allowed to hold a parade because theirs is democratic, but we are not allowed because ours is chauvinistic,” suggesting that the whole thing was a stunt. 

For Russians, who are accustomed to annual nationwide displays of military might, Trump’s event on Thursday isn’t impressive, according to Michael Kofman, an expert on Russia and the former Soviet Union at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.

Each year on May 9 — the day Russia celebrates victory over the Nazis in World War II — grandiose parades are held in Moscow’s Red Square and across the nation. President Vladimir Putin watches from the bleachers facing the square, as the country shows off the Kremlin’s latest flashy military hardware. –Washington Post

Perhaps Democrats and Russians will high-five each other over their succesful mockeries? 

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Most Americans Can’t Afford To Pay Rent, Eat Food, Buy Stuff, Or Get Sick (And It’s Just Going To Get Worse)

Authored by Dagny Taggart via The Organic Prepper blog,

We are living in precarious times, and if you haven’t prepared for an economic collapse yet, it is time to start taking action.

Despite what some “experts” would like you to believe, the US is on shaky financial ground. Several indicators suggest things are far worse than many think.

Let’s take a look at them now.

More than half of families in the US live in “asset poverty.”

recent study found that more than 63 percent of American children and 55 percent of Americans live in “asset poverty”. This means they have few or no assets to rely on in the event of a financial emergencysuch as a job loss, a medical crisis, recessions, or natural disasters.

In a press release, study co-author David Rothwell, an assistant professor in OSU’s College of Public Health and Human Sciences, explained that when families lack assets such as vehicles, homes, savings accounts or investments, surviving a financial crisis is very difficult. “This is a dimension of financial security that we don’t think about that much, and it’s pretty high. The findings highlight the extent of financial insecurity among American families. These shocks ripple through the family and down to the children,” Rothwell said.

The study was published in the journal Children and Youth Services Review earlier this year. Co-authors are Timothy Ottusch of the University of Arizona and Jennifer Finders of Purdue University.

Living in poverty can have devastating impacts on children, as the press release explains:

Rothwell studies poverty and its impact on families and children. Experiencing poverty in childhood can have lifetime impacts for those children; past research has shown that children who grow up in poverty are more likely to struggle in school, have lower job earnings throughout life and experience family instability as adults.

A growing body of research suggests that parents’ asset levels also predict academic achievement, educational expectations, and the likelihood of college enrollment and graduation. Families with assets that can be used when income is disrupted are also likely to experience less financial stress and strain.

Yet asset poverty is higher than income poverty for children and families. In a 2018 study of Canadian families, researchers, including Rothwell, found that asset poverty was two to three times more prevalent than income poverty. Families can have adequate day-to-day funds but be asset-poor and would likely struggle during a financial shock. (source)

Rent is becoming unaffordable for many Americans.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, renting is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many Americans. In its latest “Out of Reach” report, the organization explains that the struggle to find affordable housing is not limited to those earning minimum wage or the unemployed.

The report’s central statistic is the Housing Wage, which is an estimate of the hourly wage a full-time worker must earn to rent a home without spending more than 30 percent of income on housing costs. For 2019, the Housing Wage is $22.96 and $18.65 for a modest two and one-bedroom apartment respectively based on the “fair market rent”.

The average renter’s hourly wage is $1.08 less than the Housing Wage for a one-bedroom rental and $5.39 less than a two-bedroom rental. That means that an average renter in the U.S. has to work a 52 hour week. To put this in perspective, a median-wage worker in eight of the country’s largest ten occupations does not earn enough to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

An employee earning the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) would have to work 127 hours every week (equivalent to more than two full-time jobs) to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

This is not just a regional issue. There isn’t a single state, metro area, or county in the U.S. where a full-time employee earning the minimum wage can afford to rent a two-bedroom property. To explore data for your area, enter your zip code in the box below the map on this page: Out of Reach 2019.

According to the report, the ten jobs that are expected to see the biggest growth over the coming decade are those that pay less than the wage needed to afford housing – and that is likely to result in an even greater disparity between wages and housing costs by 2026, as this infographic from Statista illustrates:

Food is about to become more expensive.

Massive, damaging floods in the Midwest have been occurring since this past March. To make a bad situation worse, the potential for more floods in key agricultural states looms in front of us as more rain is predicted for the rest of this spring. So far, heavy flooding has impacted important agricultural states, including Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. The economic impacts of the flooding are likely to be devastating, as Cat Ellis explained in Midwest Flooding Will Cause Shortages of THESE FOODS:

Bottom line: our modern food supply is largely dependent upon grains and soy. With major producers losing at least one harvest this year, the cost of manufactured food and livestock feed will skyrocket. Meat and dairy will be doubly impacted. While many farms lost animals to floodwaters, and farmers lost money due to both lost animals and damage to property, the cost to feed those remaining animals is going to go through the roof.

Add to this livestock disease and tariffs and trade war with both Mexico and China, the two countries from whom we import the most food, both consumers and farmers are in deep financial trouble.

“Whatever your situation is, start thinking about what you eat and how to store those items,” Ellis wrote. Here’s how to get started building that stockpile.

Americans are losing purchasing power.

Purchasing power is the value of a currency expressed in terms of the amount of goods or services that one unit of money can buy. In other words, it is how much your money buys you. Purchasing power is important because, all else being equal, inflation decreases the amount of goods or services you are able to purchase. Inflation reduces the value of a currency’s purchasing power.

In the article America’s Concealed Crisis: Fifty Years of Economic Decline, 1969 to 2019, Charles Hugh Smith explains how the loss of purchasing power has pushed the middle class into the working class:

The keys to understanding the concealed crisis of decline are purchasing power relative to wages/earnings–how many goods and services can wages buy? For the average American household, wages have risen modestly while the purchasing power of those wages has plummeted.

Furthermore, the quality of goods and services has in many cases declined sharply, so that even if prices have dropped, what you get for your money has fallen even further, effectively reducing the purchasing power of your wages. (source)

Smith also discusses how planned obsolescence impacts purchasing power:

Case in point: appliances were once designed and built to last a generation or longer. Refrigerators, washers and dryers lasted for decades. Now the average appliance fails within a few years, and the electronic board–costing roughly a third of the entire appliance price–fails and must be replaced. With labor, the cost of the repair is so high, consumers often send the almost-new appliance to the landfill and buy a new (and soon to fail) appliance.

Net-net, low quality reduces purchasing power even if price has declined. (source)

Although our income is higher than it was 40 years ago, we can’t buy much with it, Smith says:

Bottom line: how much housing, higher education and well-being does the average wage buy now compared to decades past? Not much. The statistics are bleak: wages are basically unchanged from the high water mark 50 years ago, which coincidentally was also the high water mark of U.S. energy production until very recently. Adjusted for purchasing power and quality, the average paycheck buys far less than it did 50 years ago. (source)

Evidence that the economy has already entered a downturn is mounting.

A few days ago, Michael Snyder summed up some of the signs the US economy is starting to deteriorate rapidly in the article The Pain Of This New Economic Downturn Is Starting To Show Up All Over The Country:

On Tuesday we got some more new numbers, and they were just as bad as we thought they might be. \ But even before today’s numbers all of the data were telling us the exact same thing. The New York Fed’s Empire State manufacturing index just suffered the worst one month decline in U.S. history, Morgan Stanley’s Business Conditions Index just suffered the largest one month decline that we have ever seen, global trade numbers are the worst they have been since the last recession, and just last week I detailed the complete and utter “bloodbath” that we are witnessing in the U.S. trucking industry right now. So considering what we already knew, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that new home sales in the U.S. were down a whopping 7.8 percent during the month of May. (source)

In addition, an economic indicator that has preceded every recession over the past five decades occurred a few days ago, reports NPR:

It is known among economists and Wall Street traders as a “yield curve inversion,” and it refers to when long-term interest rates are paying out less than short-term rates.

That curve has been flattening out and sloping down for more than a year, raising worries among some analysts that investors’ long-term view of the market is not positive and that an economic downturn is looming.

But on Sunday, an inauspicious milestone was achieved: The yield curve remained inverted for three months, or an entire quarter, which has for half a century been a clear signal that the economy is heading for recession in the next nine to 18 months, according to Campbell Harvey, a Duke University finance professor who spoke to NPR on Sunday. His research in the mid-1980s first linked yield curve inversions to recessions.

“That has been associated with predicting a recession for the last seven recessions,” Harvey said. “From the 1960s, this indicator has been reliable in terms of foretelling a recession, and also importantly, it has not given any false signals yet.” (source)

The economy has not recovered much since the 2008 recession.

Many refer to stock market valuation and the “official” unemployment rate as indicators of an improving economy, but the truth is that they “paint a deceiving picture of the true state of the American economy,” as economist Antony P. Mueller outlines in Phony Economic Growth Stats Conceal Deep Problems on Main Street:

Alternative calculations of the employment data — which include long-term discouraged workers and chronically unemployed — indicate that the labor market is much slacker than the official statistics indicate. Profits recovered in the first few years after the crisis of 2008 but over the past five years, they have been flat. Stock prices, in turn, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, have risen by over 50 percent since 2012.

The recovery after the crisis of 2008 was brought about by the stimulus packages and later on by the monetary policy of “quantitative easing.” The expansion that followed does not constitute genuine economic growth. While the financial asset markets indicate wealth creation, the economy’s productive capacity tends to remain weak. Over the past ten years, the Congressional Budget Office had to lower its estimate of potential output year by year and productivity growth has stayed below the trend of the time before the crisis of 2008. (source)

In the conclusion of that piece, Dr. Mueller states:

Policymakers ignore the main lesson of the crisis of 2008 that monetary and fiscal stimulus policies do not bring about a solid recovery but manufacture a phony economic growth that distorts the economy’s structure of production. Instead of a V-shaped recovery that would occur if government abstained from intervention, policymakers produce an L-shaped agony.

As if a prolonged stagnation wasn’t already bad enough, the interventionists also act as the undertakers of capitalism. Policy intervention distorts the economy and drives a wedge between Wall Street and Main Street. The majority of the people do not attribute the discrepancy between the growth of financial wealth and the stagnation of the real economy to the policy of the authorities — but accuses capitalism of this evil. (source)

Here’s what you can do to prepare for a financial crisis.

If you are skeptical about the warning signs of the impending economic disaster that I have outlined in this brief article, here’s a great resource to refer to as you monitor current events: 10 Recession Warning Signs You Need To Know. “As much as one would like to believe that the American economy has bucked the cycle of boom and bust that has defined every market economy since the dawn of time, that’s probably not the case. In spite of a booming stock market and rock-bottom unemployment, history would dictate that the good times will be coming to an end — probably sooner rather than later,” writer Joel Anderson warns. In the article, he describes economic behaviors that point to the possibility of a looming recession.

Here is a list of resources to help you prepare:

While the fate of the US economy is out of our hands, there are things we can do to prepare for an economic downturn (and eventual crash). The preparation is completely in our hands. Those who choose not to prepare are going to be in for a very hard time.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2L6p9Jd Tyler Durden

European Aviation Regulator Sends Boeing List Of Demands

The Trump Administration’s FAA still doesn’t have a permanent leader (since the president’s pick is facing opposition in Congress), and in the absence of a coordinated strategy for returning the Boeing 737 MAX 8 to service regulators in other parts of the world have started taking a more active role in setting standards that Boeing must meet before the company’s ‘workhorse’ passenger plane receives permission to once again fly the friendly skies.

Southwest

According to the FT, the European Aviation Safety Agency has set out a detailed list of topics in a letter addressed to Boeing senior management, as well as its US counterpart.

EASA has been working with the FAA to review changes to the software proposed by Boeing. But additional issues have surfaced in recent weeks that will likely extend the timeline needed for Boeing to implement proposed changes to its MCAS anti-stall software. Malfunctioning MCAS systems are believed to have contributed to deadly crashes in Jakarta and Ethiopia that caused the deaths of all 346 people on board.

While the FAA’s standards for lifting the flight ban are still murky, the letter sent by the EASA makes its criteria for lifting the ban abundantly clear.

“These are things that need to be resolved before EASA lifts the ban on the Max. Some of them are being worked on but not yet all to its satisfaction,” one person familiar with the situation said.

Here’s a rundown of the five issues outlined by the EASA, per the FT report.

  • Resolve a new software flaw in the 737 MAX’s flight control system identified during simulator training by the FAA. During simulations, the on-board computer appeared to become overloaded, and it took the pilots too long to save the plane from a stall. This is the issue that prompted Southwest Airlines, the largest 737 MAX customer, to delay reintroduction of the plane until at least Oct. 1.
  • Boeing and the FAA must assess whether the average pilot has enough physical strength to turn the trim wheel in the cockpit.
  • Review how the plane’s autopilot software engages and disengages when the plane approaches a stall.
  • Review the crew’s procedures for handling multiple emergency alerts.
  • Assess the apparent failure of the angle of attack sensors in the planes that crashed. Since MCAS relied on data flowing in from just one sensor, faulty readings were left unchecked, and the system reportedly triggered incorrectly.

EASA declined to comment to the FT, and Boeing declined to comment on the letter, aside from reiterating that it plans to “engage with regulators and provide information as we work towards the safe return to service for the Max.”

Meanwhile, the FAA – which faces suspicion after waiting so long to ground the 737 MAX, and for lapses during the approval process for the plane – said it continues to work closely with other validating civil aviation authorities, and insisted that the FAA and EASA are on the same page.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Xu4VQh Tyler Durden

CrowdStrikeOut: Mueller’s Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia-Meddling Claims

Brooklyn-based journalist Aaron Maté has absolutely destroyed the notion that the Mueller report supports its core claim of “sweeping and systematic” Russian government election interference. 

Authored by Aaron Maté, excerpt via RealClear Investigations (emphasis ours)

At a May press conference capping his tenure as special counsel, Robert Mueller emphasized what he called “the central allegation” of the two-year Russia probe. The Russian government, Mueller sternly declared, engaged in “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election, and that allegation deserves the attention of every American.” Mueller’s comments echoed a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) asserting with “high confidence” that Russia conducted a sweeping 2016 election influence campaign. “I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process,” then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate hearing.

While the 448-page Mueller report found no conspiracy between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, it offered voluminous details to support the sweeping conclusion that the Kremlin worked to secure Trump’s victory. The report claims that the interference operation occurred “principally” on two fronts: Russian military intelligence officers hacked and leaked embarrassing Democratic Party documents, and a government-linked troll farm orchestrated a sophisticated and far-reaching social media campaign that denigrated Hillary Clinton and promoted Trump.

But a close examination of the report shows that none of those headline assertions are supported by the report’s evidence or other publicly available sources. They are further undercut by investigative shortcomings and the conflicts of interest of key players involved

  • The report uses qualified and vague language to describe key events, indicating that Mueller and his investigators do not actually know for certain whether Russian intelligence officers stole Democratic Party emails, or how those emails were transferred to WikiLeaks.
  • The report’s timeline of events appears to defy logic. According to its narrative, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of Democratic Party emails not only before he received the documents but before he even communicated with the source that provided them.
  • There is strong reason to doubt Mueller’s suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange.
  • Mueller’s decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of evidence on fundamental questions.
  • U.S. intelligence officials cannot make definitive conclusions about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee computer servers because they did not analyze those servers themselves. Instead, they relied on the forensics of CrowdStrike, a private contractor for the DNC that was not a neutral party, much as “Russian dossier” compiler Christopher Steele, also a DNC contractor, was not a neutral party. This puts two Democrat-hired contractors squarely behind underlying allegations in the affair – a key circumstance that Mueller ignores.
  • Further, the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party’s legal counsel to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking.
  • Mueller’s report conspicuously does not allege that the Russian government carried out the social media campaign. Instead it blames, as Mueller said in his closing remarks, “a private Russian entity” known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
  • Mueller also falls far short of proving that the Russian social campaign was sophisticated, or even more than minimally related to the 2016 election. As with the collusion and Russian hacking allegations, Democratic officials had a central and overlooked hand in generating the alarm about Russian social media activity.
  • John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all facets of what became Mueller’s investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate. Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral party — in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump.

None of this means that the Mueller report’s core finding of “sweeping and systematic” Russian government election interference is necessarily false. But his report does not present sufficient evidence to substantiate it. This shortcoming has gone overlooked in the partisan battle over two more highly charged aspects of Mueller’s report: potential Trump-Russia collusion and Trump’s potential obstruction of the resulting investigation. As Mueller prepares to testify before House committees later this month, the questions surrounding his claims of a far-reaching Russian influence campaign are no less important. They raise doubts about the genesis and perpetuation of Russiagate and the performance of those tasked with investigating it.

Read the rest of Maté’s report here. It’s worth the click…

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32cgrOY Tyler Durden

How Iran Will Determine If The US Dollar Remains The World’s Reserve Currency

For almost two centuries, Sterling reigned supreme as the world’s reserve currency, propping up the vast British Empire which was the world’s superpower during the 19th century and the early 20th. Then, in the span of just a few months, everything changed and the US Dollar took over after a series of dramatic events.

For those unfamiliar with this historic transformation, Clarmond’s Mustafa Zaidi and Chris Andrew describe the series of events in which Iran and its oil reserves proved to be the final nail in the coffin of sterling and the British Empire. However, what is far more interesting, is their suggestion that the current tensions between Washington and Tehran, and what happens to Iranian gas, could also be the event that results in the end of the dollar’s own reserve status.

Why? Read on in Clarmond’s observation on “Self Deception and Pride.”

Wilting in the muggy summer of 1945 in Washington DC, an ailing Lord Keynes messaged London – his mission to procure a $5b grant to avoid a ‘financial Dunkirk’ had failed.

Instead the Americans had offered a $3.5b loan loaded high with conditions. “We are in Shylock’s hands” muttered Ernie Bevin, the Labour Foreign Minister. The American demands were put forward by a former cotton king (Will Clayton) a future Chief Justice (Fred Vinson) and crafted by the President of Chase Bank (Winthrop Aldrich). There were three immovable requirements for the loan. First an end to Imperial Preference in trade, secondly the floatation of Sterling within a year, and thirdly Britain signing up to the Bretton Woods system.

The American objective was to put American industry and finance at the centre of the world. This meant dismantling the sterling free-trade market and destroying sterling’s status as a settlement and reserve currency. During WWII Britain had already traded away to the US its naval bases and its world-leading technology; now its American ally was now gunning for the Empire’s trade markets and currency.

New Jerusalem

The Labour Atlee government needed US dollars to deliver its promise of a ‘New Jerusalem’ – full employment, the national health service and social welfare. In just five days of debate, Atlee’s government agreed to all the loan’s conditions. Ironically, Labour was agreeing to free trade overseas yet was busily nationalising domestic industry. It sacrificed its trade empire and sterling’s global dominance for its vision of a post-war utopia.  

A year later, sterling was floated. It last only a disastrous 37 days before being controlled again; two years later it was devalued by 30%. As Keynes commented previously this exercise had been an odd mixture of ‘self deception and pride’.

Sterling Oil…

With the loss of India, Bevin now turned to the Middle East where access to sterling-denominated oil from Iran kept Britain’s balance of payments afloat. The UK could still pay for Iranian oil in sterling and thus preserve its precious dollars.

But American oil  partnerships in Venezuela and Arabia, based on a 50/50 US/local ownership rule, made Britain’s 70/30 structure in Iran untenable. Iranian nationalists now started to demand, and ultimately obtain, full control of their natural resource.

With the nationalisation of the AIOC (Anglo Iranian Oil Company), Britain was deprived of sterling oil, and thus became utterly dependent on the Americans to earn enough dollars to pay for their energy. Immediately this started a rapid exodus from holding sterling as a settlement currency and reserve. Iranian oil joined its other dollar-denominated brethren.

Fast forward 70 years and once again Iran stands at the fulcrum of how the energy source of the future is to be priced.

Persian deals

Britain’s loss of sterling- denominated oil was the final nail in the coffin of sterling being a global currency. Its collapse was imperceptible and then a precipice.

As of today the US finds itself in a similar position as it remains to be seen what currency natural gas will be priced in. The world is transitioning from oil to gas, as, 70 years ago it had transitioned from coal to oil; once again Iran holds the key for this critical resource.

Today, natural gas is priced in US dollars in America, in euros for Russian gas in Europe, in renminbis for Russian gas in China, and US dollars for Qatari gas. It shall be the pricing of Iran’s massive reserve of gas that will determine the future global currency denominator of this energy source. Or, to put it another way, the US$’s continuing position as the global reserve currency may be decided in how Washington deals with Tehran. War serves neither the dollar’s nor the Donald’s future longevity. America must find a way to have dollar-denominated Iranian natural gas.

Don’t Tread on Me

Unlike post WWII Britain, America does not face an overwhelming competitor. But America seems to be in an Atlee-esque conundrum with domestic issues overriding international obligations. America’s ‘New Jerusalem’ is captured on red baseball caps… ‘Make America Great Again’. And this aspiration has a price – a peaceful withdrawal from global commitments – no Persian misadventures.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2S3LB6I Tyler Durden

US Government Mulls Banning Encryption

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Here’s our Friday roll up of the most absurd and concerning articles we came across this week…

US Government officials consider banning end to end encryption

Leaders from US government agencies are rumored to be pursuing a ban on end-to-end encryption.

Tech companies like Apple and Google often build encryption into their technology to prevent data from being hacked and stolen.

Apps like Whatsapp and Signal also encrypt communications so that even if they are intercepted, they can not be read by anyone but the intended recipient.

Three different sources familiar with the meetings reported on the discussion.

The Department of Justice, FBI, Secret Service and ICE want Congress to ban encryption to make their jobs easier. They say a backdoor should be built into any encrypted technology so that they can access any communications they want in the course of their investigations.

The State Department and Commerce Departments are against asking Congress to ban encryption, mainly for diplomatic and proprietary reasons.

(Surprisingly, DHS leadership has mixed opinions.)

This would put everyone’s data at risk. But it also gives the government power we know they cannot be trusted with.

Even if we forget about privacy concerns, the government has admitted to far too many massive security breaches to trust them with this level of data.

Click here for the full story.

Soylent green is… geese?

Here is a partnership between the federal and local government that we can get behind.

In Denver, the growing population of geese has become a problem. Parks and lakes are filling up with goose poop.

That risks spreading disease and makes it impossible to lay out on the grassy fields– not to mention the occasional aggressive goose.

So the City of Denver has teamed up with the USDA to kill two birds with one stone.

They are culling flocks of geese and sending the bird carcasses to nearby poultry processing centers.

The goose meat is then donated to needy Denver families for a hearty, natural meal.

Let this rare example of government efficiency inspire bureaucrats everywhere.

Click here for the full story.

Banana Festival can’t afford anti-terrorism requirements

Since 1956, a small town in Australia has held an annual banana festival.

The main event is always the mascot, Banana Jim, leading a parade of floats through the town to the festival.

Unfortunately, Banana Jim doesn’t come with his own security force. So this year, the parade will be cancelled.

See, Australia has mandated security measures for public events which include anti-terrorism “hostile vehicle” security like concrete blocks to protect crowds and increased police presence.

But this small town cannot afford the estimated $10,000 extra it would cost to implement the extra security.

The festival coordinator said she doubts that Banana Jim is a high profile ISIS target…

Statistically speaking, in fact, it is probably far more likely that a festival-goer would be killed by slipping on a banana peel than become the victim of a terrorist attack.

Click here for the full story.

Italian social services convinced kids they were abused, then sold them

It is hard to fathom that there are people this patently evil in the world.

Eighteen officials have been arrested in Italy over a social services scheme that took children from innocent parents and sold them to foster parents.

Doctors, social workers and even a mayor are among the conspirators.

Through intensive psychological manipulation– including electroshocks– psychologists convinced children from low income homes that they had been sexually abused by their parents.

Then they placed the children in foster homes in exchange for money.

It’s not entirely clear what motivation the foster parents had to pay for the children. Some may have wanted government kickbacks for fostering children. But at least two of the children were sexually abused in their new foster homes.

It’s horrible that this type of abuse of power happens and a good reminder of why the government needs to be kept on the shortest possible leash.

Click here for the full story.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Jv5teP Tyler Durden

“Good” News On Jobs Sparks Selling In Stocks, Bonds, & Gold; Dollar Surged

Trade-Truce ‘good‘ news was good news for stocks, ‘bad‘ news in macro data this week was good for stocks, and jobs ‘good‘ news today was bad news for stocks (initially)…

But only stocks rebounded from the hawkish-tilt from the payrolls print

 

The Truce-Boost fizzled out in China…

 

European stocks faded to end the week but remain notably higher post-trade-truce…

 

On the week, Trannies barely managed to hold on to post-trade-truce gains, while Nasdaq surged followed by the S&P and Dow…

Volume was well below average (though somewhat expected given the holiday)

But on the day, good news on jobs was initially dumped and then pumped back to unchanged… once it ran out of ammo, stocks faded into the close…Small Caps were the only major US index in the green on the day…

 

Defensive stocks dominated cyclicals on the week…

 

VIX mini-flash-crashed on the payrolls print, spiked higher then faded from the european close…

 

Treasury yields screamed higher today, erasing the week’s bond price gains and erasing yield’s drop since The FOMC for the short-end…

 

As good-ish jobs data ruined the Fed’s 50bps rate-cut party, crashing the odds to just 2.5%!…

 

The spike in yields stalled at critical resistance once again…

 

And the yield curve collapsed, erasing the post-FOMC steepening…

 

3m10Y spreads are inverted for the 30 straight days…

 

The Dollar index had the best week since February, spiking today after the good payrolls data…

 

 

The Dollar spike stalled at critical resistance…

 

Yuan gave up all its trade truce gains and ended at the lows of the range…

 

As the dollar rallied, cryptos stumbled with Bitcoin and Ripple down 8% on the week (and Litecoin unch)…

 

Bitcoin remains above $11,000…

 

Commodities were all lower on the week not helped by the dollar strength…

 

Gold suffered its first losing week in seven weeks, but ended back above $1400…

 

Ugly week for oil after OPEC’s deal and the trade-truce…

 

Finally, we note the recent collapse in UK, China, and US macro data…

As bonds agree with the data, but stocks only know one thing…

Until it all ends badly…

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FVH4y7 Tyler Durden

Jim Kunstler Reflects On Ghosts Of The Fourth

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Here in the Battenkill Valley in far upstate New York, the bones of the small towns are still visible while the flesh of the economy that built the towns is now long gone. The Battenkill River runs from the other side of the Vermont line across Washington County to the Hudson River. It’s a swift, clear stream, and back-in-the-day it powered dozens of little factories along its winding way. They made men’s shirts, women’s lingerie, tea trays, ploughs, rye thrashers, boots, paper, and lots more. In a few places you can still find the ruins of these once-grand buildings.

Ruins of the Baxter Marble Mill, later the Bartlett All-Steel Scythe Company

We heard there was a good parade up in Salem, NY, ten miles northeast of here. Salem was a railroad town after 1852. It changed everything for a while. Farmers could send their potatoes and milk all the way to Boston. Slate was abundant nearby and there was a lively commerce in it for roofing and other things. Marble came over from Vermont and was dressed into tombstone blanks, which were sent as far as the Midwest. The railroad itself employed scores of hands in the roundhouse where its locomotives were repaired. This rail connection to distant places and markets must have seemed wondrous.

Waiting for the parade to start in Salem, NY

The system held together for less than 100 years and now it, too, is a ghost presence, along with the factories. History has treated this corner of the country with something that feels like swift injustice. Today, we remain hostages to the automobile, with its geography-negating banality, but you can see the end of that road from here, too, and it is already subject to a very public nostalgia. The Fourth of July parade up in Salem was mostly a parade of motor vehicles: fire engines, EMT trucks, tractors, vintage 1920s flivvers, 1960s muscle cars, one classic hot-rod, and one weird Avanti, a mid-60s product of the then-floundering Studebaker Company — which, ironically, had run a wagon and carriage assembly factory in Salem around 1910, just as cars were being introduced.

These days, even the American Eagle is relegated to sitting in a motor vehicle

The economic history of this place looks like a sequence of great works performed at enormous capital investment, and then quickly trashed for the next new thing. It must have been intoxicating at the time. I’d put the high-tide of it all at about 1900, when all the systems of manufacturing and transport were humming in synchrony. Turns out it was an economy with a surprising purpose: to get rid of itself!  And it’s stunning how gone it all is now. What replaced it is not only happening far, far away, but many items made far, far away can’t even be bought within a twenty-mile journey of any town in the county.

I pass through Salem about six or seven times a year for one reason or another. The rather grand old Main Street is usually empty of pedestrians. Only a few of the remaining shopfronts sell useful merchandise so there is no reason to walk down the street. There are several impressive old buildings — skeletons of that ghost economy — clearly falling into terminal disrepair. Yet, on the Fourth of July, the streets were full of life, for a change. Many (like us) had come from far-and-wide. We turned out to show love and respect (and curiosity) for whatever it is this enterprise called the USA is supposed to be now. Mostly, our national situation seems a matter of waiting for various shoes to drop.

The Central House, formerly a hotel, now an evangelical social center

There’s one big advantage to living in this flyover corner of America: it has received next-to-zero of the destructive suburban development overlay that has obliterated the landscape in those parts of the country that can pretend to still be booming.

It is a blessing that I’m keenly aware of. We’re just too far away from the cities, and even from the Interstate Highway network. So, when I behold the economic desolation in these little towns of the Battenkill Valley, I’m aware that, at least, we will not have to dig out from under the burden of the Big Box hell imposed on just about every other place from sea to shining sea, when that economy turns over — a process actually underway now. The K-Mart in my town, Greenwich, NY, shut down in March. When enough of those predatory outfits are gone, someone may get a notion to sell stuff out of our empty main streets shops again. Of course, nobody’s thinking about making stuff that might be sold in those storefronts, but a sense of opportunity may arise quickly as the wind-down of Globalism — and all it implies for local places — becomes self-evident.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2RZDF69 Tyler Durden

Trump Spoke To Powell For 5 Minutes On May 20, Following Phone Calls In March And April

While Trump has been slamming and badmouthing Jerome Powell before the entire world on his public Twitter account, demanding rate cuts and/or QE, the president has also been keeping periodic tabs on the Fed Chair via brief phone calls, with Powell’s calendar revealing that the two spoke for five minutes on May 20, from 4:42pm to 4:47pm. The call represents the fourth publicly disclosed conversation between the two this year, with May’s telephone call following similar conversations in April and March as well as a dinner meeting in February.

While there were no major fireworks in the market on or around May 20, when the S&P traded down from 2,880 to as low as 2,840…

… the call took place hours before Powell delivered speech at Atlanta Fed conference on financial markets, in which Powell flagged financial stability risks such as record debt, high valuations, leverage and CLO liquidity, and where Powell said the following:

Equity prices have recently reached new highs, and corporate bond and loan spreads are narrow. Both commercial and residential property prices have moved above their long-run relationship with rents, although price gains slowed substantially last year. All of these developments point to strong risk appetite—as might be expected given the strong economy. But there does not appear to be a feedback loop between borrowing and asset prices, as was the case in the run-up to the financial crisis.

One week ahead of the call, on May 14, Trump tweeted his desire for the Fed to “match” what he said China would do to offset economic hardship being caused by tariffs.

According to Bloomberg, Fed spokesman David Skidmore did not comment on what was said between the two.

The conversations came as the president has been attacking Powell for what he views as restrictive interest rates, which he argues undermines U.S. trade deliberations and dampen GDP growth. Just today Trump said that the U.S. “would be like a rocket ship” if the economy had lower interest rates.

The administration’s frustration at rising interest rates had grown so severe that the White House had reportedly explored the possibility of “legally demoting” the Fed chief.

Briefly addressing those criticisms, Powell said at the Fed’s most recent press conference in mid-June that he doesn’t plan on leaving the central bank anytime soon. “I think the law is clear that I have a four-year term, and I fully intend to serve it,” Powell said at a news conference in Washington.

Asked later at the event when it might be appropriate to publicly address Trump’s criticism, Powell said he doesn’t “discuss elected officials publicly or privately” according to CNBC. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the May telephone conversation between Powell and Trump.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XVPWhK Tyler Durden