For the first time ever, the yield on the German 10Y Bund, considered as Europe’s go to safe asset, dropped below the ECB’s -0.40% deposit rate, as consensus forms that the ECB will cut rates by at least 10bps in September, if not sooner especially with Christine Lagarde – widely perceived as just as dovish as Mario Draghi if not more – set to head the ECB.
“The markets are really saying we expect more from the ECB,” Marilyn Watson, head of global fundamental fixed-income strategy at BlackRock told Bloomberg TV. “We expect yields to go lower still.”
The inversion is notable because while the ECB can buy bonds that yield less than the deposit rate, priority is given to those that still offer a premium…. although in Germany, only 15% of the entire bond universe still has a positive yield as 20-year yields also turned negative this week and the 30Y set to follow soon.
This latest curve inversion, which signals that a European recession is looming, has spurred investors to buy riskier assets such as 30 Year Italian bonds, which yesterday saw their biggest one day gain since Draghi’s 2012 “whatever it takes” speech.
10-year German bund yields fell 8bps this week to a record-low minus 0.41%. Italian bonds have outpaced the bund rally to narrow the spread between the two to below 200 basis points Wednesday, the lowest since May 2018.
Germany joins the global curve inversion party, where the U.S., Japan, Canada and the U.K. all now have benchmark bond yields below the central bank’s key interest rate.
Meanwhile, confirming that Albert Edwards’ deflationary “ice age” is upon us, 10Y bonds from Belgium, France and the Netherlands have already joined the sub-zero club, which now amounts to a record $13.4 trillion in negative-yielding debt.
Predictably, as Bloomberg notes, European governments are cashing in, with both Spain and France auctioning debt at record-low borrowing costs on Thursday. France sold a total of 10 billion euros of 10- and 15-year bonds at record-low yields, while Spain sold 3.5 billion euros of debt across the curve.
And while the “Ice Age” is only set to get colder as the world slows down, ADM Investor Services strategist Marc Ostwald warned that the huge stock of bonds yielding below zero might pose risks if the global economy shows signs of a rebound in the second half of the year: “There’s too much cash looking for a safe haven home,” Ostwald said. “Bonds are in for a rough ride.”
Finally, courtesy of Bloomberg’s Tanvir Sindhu, here are some remarkable stats as global bond yields hit all time lows:
Year-to-date EGBs returns led by Greece (23%), Spain (10%), Portugal (9.8%) and Belgium (8.8%)
Around 25% of global debt now has a negative yield, amounting to a record high of $13.4 trillion
The entire core and semi-core European government bond spectrum out to 10-year is trading in negative yielding territory
Around 85% of the German government curve trades below 0%
Around 55% of Spanish government debt has a negative yield (with selective carry the place to be this year, see more here and here)
Italian front-end goes negative as BTPs turbo-charged sending 10Y lower by ~50bps in the five days through Wednesday, the largest such move since June 2018
Around 75% of Japanese government debt trades below 0%, highlighting the importance of yield-thirsty flow from Japan into the global bond markets (see examples of analysis here and here on this theme)
Around 80% of the active covered bonds of Germany and France, 83% of Spain and 57% of Denmark have negative yields
EUR 5y5y inflation swap has given back nearly all of the post-Sintra spike; the ECB needs to restore some inflation credibility, which should be the trigger for 10Y Bund yield to move back toward 0%, helped by positioning being built at yield lows
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2RSB4ef Tyler Durden
With the US closed for Trump Military Parade Day (also known as the 4th of July), and global markets drifting merrily in virtually non-existant volumes, stocks are where we left them at the close on Wednesday, with US futures celebrating not only today’s holiday but also the longest economic expansion in history in style – with the S&P, Dow Nasdaq all at all time highs, and the Emini just above 3,000.
Meanwhile, around the globe government bonds holding near all time lows on Thursday on the hope that economic data deteriorates further, and that a recession, or worse, forces the Fed and other central banks to unleash ZIRP, NIRP and more QE, has pushed world stocks to new 18-month highs.
With US markets closed, there was little action elsewhere: European bourses were flat, with Europe’s Stoxx 600 unchanged amid thin volumes. In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2%.
Germany’s 10-year Bund yield fell below -0.4%, dropping as low as -0.49%, piercing the rate set by the ECB’s -0.40% deposit rate for the first time — a sign that markets are expecting further rate cuts.
Other benchmark debt yields also held near record lows in the wake of their recent rally. U.S. 10-year Treasury notes had hit their lowest since November 2016 on Wednesday, pushed down by bets that the European Central Bank’s next head will maintain a dovish policy stance to buoy the euro zone economy. Italian 10-year bond yields stayed close to their lowest since late 2016 after the European Commission dropped its threat to discipline Rome over its public finances, pushing the country’s main bourse to a new two-month peak.
“For central banks, everyone is expecting dovish moves, not only for U.S. but also for Europe and even Japan,” Christophe Barraud, chief economist at Market Securities in Paris, told Reujters. “Everybody is a optimistic for quick central bank moves.”
The fall in U.S. Treasuries came after a barrage of economic data disappointments out of the US, capped by the ADP report showing that U.S. companies added fewer jobs than expected in June, raising concerns the labor market is softening even as the current U.S. economic expansion marked a record run last month. Meanwhile, the Citi US Econ surprise index is trading near the lowest levels observed since the financial crisis.
There was continued weakness in the dollar after President Donald Trump on Wednesday repeated his call for the United States to devalue the USD, and match efforts by China and Europe to manipulate currencies and pump money into their economies.
In FX, continued expectations for rate cuts by the Fed saw the dollar drift away from recent highs amid light flows as most pairs stay range bound. Weaker-than-forecast private U.S. employment data on Wednesday spurred concern that Friday’s jobs data could follow suit and boost the case for lower interest rates. That said, currencies were by and large quiet in early European trade. The euro traded at $1.1284, a touch higher than its two-week low of $1.1268 touched on Wednesday. FX strategists cited by Reuters, said that although the drop in U.S. Treasury yields overnight was negative for the dollar, softness in other currencies was lending some support.
“We are seeing some euro weakness and some dollar weakness, and the two are cancelling each other out,” said Thu Lan Nguyen, FX strategist at Commerzbank. “What is happening in U.S. and euro zone monetary policy will also determine what happens in smaller countries,” she added.
In commodity markets, oil fell on data showing a smaller-than-expected decline in U.S. crude stockpiles and worries about the global economy. Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were flat at $63.84 per barrel by 1109 GMT.
After taking a breather today, US investors will now focus on Friday’s U.S. non-farm payrolls, which economists expect to have sharply rebounded to 160,000 in June compared with 75,000 in May; the number will be closely watched for clues on the Federal Reserve’s next move due in just 4 weeks.
“Friday’s data is important to the extent that it will calibrate expectations for what the Fed could deliver later this month,” said Ned Rumpeltin, European head of FX strategy at Toronto-Dominion Bank in London. “It is more about confirming the market’s current bias rather than setting fresh expectations.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XIMqHj Tyler Durden
As a result of Boeing grounding its 737 Max narrow body jet, Emirates Airlines has been forced to divert its massive Airbus A380 super jumbo jets onto short 40 minute trips to replace lost capacity, according to Bloomberg.
Emirates is using the double-decker jets for short flights, like those from Dubai to Oman, which is only 211 miles and is the shortest flight performed by the model. They’re doing it in response to FlyDubai reducing services following the idling of its fleet of fourteen 737 Max planes.
These flights are good indicator of how fallout from the grounding is rippling across the airline industry. Airlines across the globe are being forced to redeploy or lease planes while delaying the retirement of older ones as Boeing works on a fix for the 737 Max.
Emirates said that the A380 flights last only five minutes longer than it takes to clean the jet’s interior in between trips. Online flight data shows that the carrier is managing to fit in other services around the short hops, with some planes being deployed to places like Madrid the same day that they make the short trek.
Muscat was one of the main destinations hit as FlyDubai cut 17% of its services in response to the grounding. Frequencies of flights have been moved down to three times a day, from five times a day, now using Boeing 737–800 planes.
Emirates sells tickets for FlyDubai jets and is operating two of its own flights daily with A380s that carry 519 people. That is 159 more people per trip than the Boeing 777–300s it previously used.
Demand on the route to Muscat is high because the city has acted as a transfer hub for people traveling between the Untied Arab Emirates and Qatar for the last two years after a Saudi boycott of the nation led to a moratorium on direct flights.
Emirates and FlyDubai have become more integrated recently to the extent where they have worked together on routes to avoid duplication. Emirates is still working on deployment plans for its A380 fleet as it continues to try and establish the optimum route schedules for the next 5 to 10 years.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Jll14W Tyler Durden
If you’re woke, then the Fourth of July can be a very triggering “holiday.” After all, it’s the celebration of the founding of the United States of America—a genocidal, colonialist, imperialist warmongering nation that, to this day, doesn’t even guarantee free health care and free condoms for everyone.
It’s possible that you’re marking this year’s Fourth all alone: Many of you may have chosen to remain on campus over the summer rather than return home to your close-minded, ultra-right-wing fascist families, the ones who drink nonorganic dairy milk and who can’t even be bothered to attend any anti-sweatshop protests throughout the year. If that’s the case, then here is a handy guide for “celebrating” the Fourth on your own:
Don’t buy fireworks. First of all, they’re probably illegal to set off out front of your dorm building. Second of all, fireworks are quite obviously symbolic tools of violent colonialist imperialism: Only the ultra-privileged among us could possibly find loud, explosive pyrotechnics “fun” rather than terrifying and triggering. If you must celebrate in some sort of fire-based medium, consider symbolically burning your laptop, which was probably made in China using non-union labor. (Be sure to write your parents and ask for another laptop, because you’ll need it once school starts up again.)
Grill responsibly. Meat is murder. So are most vegetables, which cannot be grown and harvested without killing at least a few groundhogs and numerous pollinators. All is death. If you’re determined to grill out (an obvious callback to patriarchal 1950s white suburban norms, but whatever), be sure to purchase minimally-processed “tofu pups,” meatless alternatives to hotdogs that taste a whopping 5% as good as the real thing (this is an improvement from recent years). Flaxseed and parsley burgers are also an option. Of course, grilling with charcoal does release greenhouse gasses into the air, contributing to colonialist global warming. Consider going to the dining hall instead for a kale-and-quinoa salad, a truly American dinner if ever there was one.
Do your part to fight the fascist government of America. The Fourth of July is supposed to be all about freedom. But actually it’s really a holiday about freedom for white, straight, cisgendered, able-bodied, upper-class, heterosexist white men. We all know this. Instead of taking part in this patriarchal terrorist celebration, consider making it a holiday about real freedom-fighting. Suggestions: Write several snarky tweets about President Trump (bonus points if you retweet some whip-smart anti-conservative takedowns by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). Attend a campus Resistance meeting (make sure it’s chaired by a nonbinary two-spirit pansexual person of nonwhite origins). Stage a protest on the Quad in which you gnash your teeth, wail to the heavens and announce your unearned privilege to the world. Probably nobody will attend it, because they’ll all be off at cookouts and pool parties having what they call “fun.” But you know better. Congratulations.
American freedom is facing an existential crisis. This is not—not entirely—because of the determined and persistent efforts of progressives to undermine most of the Bill of Rights; those efforts matter, but they are almost secondary to the broader problem, which is one of apathy. Americans are apt to forget just what it is we have here; we are apt to forget what the Fourth of July means, and what it signifies.
You can see this most clearly on campuses today: The vicious and growing hatred of free speech; the ceaseless trashing of America, of American history, of American government, of American values; the relentless attacks on due process in the form of campus rape tribunals and Title IX kangaroo courts; the opposition to religious plurality and tolerance. The modern American university is, in microcosm, a good encapsulation of many of the major problems affecting American society today.
These nasty values, of course, are increasingly spilling over into the broader culture. And that is a larger problem. The freedoms that we have taken for granted for decades and centuries do not just spring into existence on their own; they are vanishingly rare, not just from a historical perspective but in present-day terms as well. There is not a country in Europe that affords its citizens free speech protections the likes of which are found in America; there is no other country in the world in which the right to bear arms is a basic civic assumption; for goodness’s sake, our foundational document presumes the right of the people to overthrow their own government. These are unique and precious freedoms. They came to be only after a long series of difficult choices by men and women who had no guarantee of success. We are inestimably lucky to have them.
This Fourth of July, remember that. Remember that the campus social justice warriors are wrong; remember that their counterparts on progressive cable television are wrong as well, and that their efforts to dismantle our invaluable liberties should be resisted at every opportunity. This holiday is not merely an excuse to grill out, drink beer and watch colorful explosions (though those things are very fun); it is a chance to remember why this country exists, why it has endured, and why we should rededicate ourselves every year to the continuation of the freedom with which we have been so long blessed.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2RUK96h Tyler Durden
Researchers from the University of Plymouth in the UK have made a discovery that could shock alcoholics: designs and writings on glass bottles of beer, wine, and spirits, contain toxic substances such as lead and cadmium, reported Daily Mirror.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, examined both the glass and enameled designs on transparent and colored bottles that were readily available at national supermarkets in the UK.
“It has always been a surprise to see such high levels of toxic elements in the products we use on a daily basis.This is just another example of that, and further evidence of harmful elements being unnecessarily used where there are alternatives available. The added potential for these substances to leach into other items during the waste and recycling process is an obvious and additional cause for concern,” Dr. Andrew Turner, Associate Professor in Aquatic Geochemistry and Pollution Science.
Turner wrote in the study that cadmium, lead, and chromium was found in bottles, but at small concentrations and health risks were considered to be low.
He said enamels contained the most toxicity, with cadmium concentrations of 20,000 parts per million (ppm) in the label of bottles, and lead concentrations of 80,000 ppm in wine bottles.
Several bottles exceeded US Model Toxins in Packaging Legislation levels and could be marked as “hazardous.”
Turner and his team purchased bottles of beer, wine, and spirits from national retail outlets between September 2017 and August 2018, with bottles sizes ranging from 50 ml to 750 ml.
Most of the bottles were transparent, frosted, green, ultraviolet-absorbing green (UVAG), and or brown — with some having painted images, patterns, logos, text, and or barcodes.
Nearly 89 bottles and pieces were examined using x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, 76 had low levels of lead and 55 had positives for cadmium. Chromium was identified in green bottles, 40% in brown bottles, but no detection in transparent bottles.
In past research, Turner has shown that enamel on drinking glasses, playground equipment, and toys contain toxic substances that are seen as harmful to human health.
Turner said: “It has always been a surprise to see such high levels of toxic elements in the products we use daily.”
Turner added: “Governments across the world have clear legislation in place to restrict the use of harmful substances on everyday consumer products.”
When Turner’s team contacted several of the bottle suppliers, they were troubled by how most bottles were not sourced domestically but rather from abroad.
“This poses obvious challenges for the glass industry and for glass recycling and is perhaps something that needs to be factored into future legislation covering this area.”
While the study was only limited to the UK, it remains to be seen if the US has toxic bottles.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YFKagY Tyler Durden
When the UK’s annual mid-year population estimates were released in late June 2019, much of the media coveragefocused on the fact that the population had risen, but growth rates had stalled.
The Express newspaper reported that the total population rise of just under 400,000 in the year to mid-2018 was still fuelled by immigration, and that:
“The surge is the equivalent of adding a city the size of Coventry to the country.”
But what reporting on this data missed were the 623,000 deaths in the year to mid-2018. This was 20,000 more than the previous year – a 3% increase. That is startling because it continues a rise in mortality that began with the first significant fall in UK life expectancy in 2014 and means that UK life expectancy will still be lower today than it was then, five long years ago.
The mid-year population estimates also reveal by how much the population has aged, and that the rise in mortality is not due to ageing. As mortality rates for almost all age groups have risen, for both men and women, overall life expectancy will have fallen yet again.
When, in August 2018, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) compared the UK with 19 other countries, mostly in Europe, but also including the US and Japan, it found that only the UK had seen such a large fall in life expectancy since 2014, for both men and women. We now know that has continued through to at least the end of the summer of 2018.
Digging into the data
The fact that nobody appears to have noticed is largely due to the volume of data journalists needed to sift through to find this out and because the ONS didn’t point them towards the significance of continued mortality rises in its press release.
Anyone who wants to know what has actually happened most recently to mortality rates in the UK has to download a huge dataset from the ONS website titled: “MYBE2_detailed components of change series”.
The data is very detailed. For instance, it shows that in Coventry more men aged 86, 87, 88, 89 and 90+ died in the year to mid-2018 than the year before. The spreadsheet also revealed, using NHS patient registrations, that the rise in mortality of very elderly men in Coventry was not due to a sudden influx of people aged over 90-years-old – in fact more left than arrived. It even goes as far as to explain that only three men aged 90 or more arrived into Coventry from outside the UK that year.
But Coventry is too small an area to try to examine for reliable trends in just one year for this one small age group. So I combined all the data for all the local authorities in England and Wales to see what has happened.
Office for National Statistics
The table above shows that, overall, 9,493 more men died in England between the summer of 2017 and 2018 and the preceding 12 months – a rise of 3%. There was a rise in mortality rates for most age groups, of which the largest relative rise year-on-year was a 14% increase in the rate of mortality of boys aged five to nine.
The table above includes the absolute rise per million people at risk. “At risk” just means being alive at the start of the period, in June 2017. The changes in risk are for each group dying in the subsequent 12 months compared to the same aged group over the 12 months before. Everyone resident in England is included in the groups “at risk”. By that measure, an additional nine boys aged between five and nine-years-old died for every one million alive at the start of the year, compared to the previous year.
For some age groups there has been a rise in deaths – for instance of 802 more women aged 70-74 – but a fall in the death rates as the population at risk rose faster than the number of deaths. However, such examples are rare.
Rising mortality
For men, the largest rise per million people alive was an extra 3,459 deaths for all men aged 90+. This means that the large increase in deaths in this age group was not due to many more people aged 89 becoming aged 90. It was not due to the ageing within the group, nor was it due to a sudden increase in inward migration of very elderly men into Britain (returning from Spain perhaps due to concern over their future health care and Brexit). Instead the rise in mortality is real.
Women did a little better than men according to these latest figures – and the table above shows a 2% rise in age-adjusted mortality rates in the year to summer 2018. But in earlier years it’s been mostly women who’ve died in the greatest increasing numbers. For women in England the highest rise in mortality rates has been for those in their 90s with an additional 2,504 dying of these oldest ages – an additional 6,358 per million at risk. This is the largest rise of all shown in the table above.
On a graph, the trend of the continued increases in mortality in England is a little more shocking. Only men and women aged 70-74 have experienced the usual improvements in life expectancy that should occur in a normal year for every single age group. The UK has not had a “normal” year when it comes to mortality for at least seven years now.
Office for National Statistics
The larger changes shown in the table above will not be due to random variation because the population of England is so large. But for children – for whom death is far less common – random factors can be important when considering annual changes. The rise of deaths of girls aged between five and nine could be due to chance events, road crashes, childhood cancer, or just neglect. But add the numbers up over recent years and these rates do not rise again and again due to chance.
Warnings for the future
Something is going very wrong. And whatever is going on is unique to the UK because in no other European country have there been overall falls in life expectancy that look at all like this. The figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are almost certainly as bad as England, but no one has as yet bothered to study them in any detail – let alone tried to work out where they are heading.
ONS has left some clues about why this is happening. Its statisticians say that currently: “Some 45 local authorities now have falling population.” And they explain that there were also very few births between the summer 2017 and summer of 2018, just 744,000 for the UK as a whole. That’s a remarkable fall of 69,000 births since the year that began in the summer of 2011, when births would have been due to conceptions in early autumn 2010 onwards. We forget how much better things were in 2010, how much more optimistic many of us then felt to start a family, despite the great financial crash of 2008.
The rise in UK mortality began with elderly women and became very clear by February 2014. In June 2016, it was ONS mid-year estimates released on the day of the Brexit referendum result that revealed the rise in mortality rate from earlier to now be accelerating. Few noticed as Brexit transfixed us. In 2017, new ONS figures revealed that a million future years of life in Britain were no longer forecast to be lived. By March 2019, the actuaries of the UK had declared that this change was now established for all age groups including new born infants.
Ask yourself this: why do we care so little that we cannot even be bothered to analyse and interrogate our mortality statistics properly? Why, when infant mortality has risen each year from 2014 onwards – from 3.6 to 3.7 to 3.8 to 3.9 children dying per 1,000 born – do we not care? Why instead are we lamenting that there are still gross annual immigration rates equivalent to the population of the city of Coventry?
We should realise that with birth rates falling and more and more people dying more quickly than those the same age as them were in the past, as well as more falling ill, we will soon need all the people we can get.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NzM01W Tyler Durden
Taxpayers in the United Kingdom are paying more money than ever for the Royal Family.
The latest Sovereign Grant accounts were published early last week and they show that the monarchy cost £67 million ($86 million) in 2018-19 – a 41 percent increase on the previous financial year.Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes one interesting aspect of the accounts is that Frogmore Cottage cost £2.4 million of public money to renovate. The official residence of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the cottage was given to the couple as a gift by the Queen.
In a nutshell, the complicated system of funding the monarchy works when the UK government makes a payment called the Sovereign Grant to the Royal Household every year. Its value is determined by how uch money the Crown Estate real estate portfolio has brought in. That total added up to £82 million this year with a sizeable chunk of that money added to cover renovation work at Buckingham Palace. Of that total, the monarchy spent £67 million on official duties including travel as well as other costs such as staff and property maintenance. Maintenance and the renovation of Buckingham Palace are the key reasons the total is so high this year.
Buckingham Palace’s electrical, heating and plumbing systems all date from the 1950s and are in urgent need of replacement. As part of 10-year renovation plan, wiring and pipework will be replaced while asbestos will be removed from the building. New elevators will also be installed to assist disabled visitors. The complexity and duration of the work will ensure that the next financial year will also be expensive for taxpayers with the Sovereign Grant expected to rise to £85.7 million.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Xrtdun Tyler Durden
We can wag our finger at other countries’ trampling religious rights, but we share in the guilt.
Seven Christian families were forced to flee their village in India under threat of forced conversion to Hinduism. For refusing, they would have been subject to bodily harm or even worse. Unfortunately, this is not news anymore. In a world where tolerance is not only encouraged, it is demanded, people nevertheless are being threatened and even murdered for following Jesus.
Last month, at least seven families had to escape their homes in Masiya Mahuwatoli village in the Jharkhand state of India after harassment and threats from the local fundamentalist group Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM). On June 12, the HJM made a list of the Christian families residing in the village and confronted them, telling them they had to renounce their faith and convert to Hinduism. If the Christians did not recant, they would be excommunicated, prohibited from using the village road, deprived of their land, excluded from government rations, and prevented access to communal water.
Several families fled, including a pregnant woman, but the HJM did not stop there. On June 14, about 22 HJM members entered a home and dragged a man and his widowed mother to the street. Taken to the temple, they refused to renounce their Christian faith. As punishment, their Bibles were burned, and a conversion ceremony was carried out. That same evening, the group damaged the home of Mangra Munda, who said they told him they were going to kill him; fortunately, he managed to escape. Of the 47 Christians residing in the village, 37 fled to seek refuge in other villages.
The War On Christians
It’s a sad and scary fact that the war against Christians is getting worse, not better. Open Doors released its 2019 World Watch List on global persecution with this terrifying observation: “Persecution is increasing at an alarming rate.” In fact, according to the study, “each day, a staggering 11 Christians are killed for their faith in the top 50 countries ranked on the World Watch List.”
North Korea remains the No. 1 worst country for Christians, with Afghanistan coming in at second. Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, and India round out the top 10 of the Watch List’s top 50 countries.
Here are some other disturbing monthly statistics:
345 Christians are killed for faith-related reasons.
105 churches and Christian buildings are burned or attacked.
219 Christians are detained without trial, arrested, sentenced, and imprisoned.
The recording period for the 2019 World Watch List shows some other staggering figures for Christians in the top 50 countries for persecution and the most dangerous to be a Christian.
1 in 9 Christians experience high levels of persecution worldwide.
4,136 were killed for faith-related reasons – 11 per day.
1,266 Churches or Christian buildings were attacked.
2,625 Christians were detained without trial, arrested, sentenced, and imprisoned.
Christian Women: The Worst Persecuted
Despite women’s liberation, the #MeToo movement, and the left’s loud proclamation of equality for all, it seems that women still face an upward battle for basic rights, including freedom to practice their religion of choice. Instead of gaining equal rights and staking a position among the other genders and minority groups, women are being marginalized in their own sports pursuits and persecuted for their faith.
According to the Open Doors study:
“In many places, they [women] experience ‘double persecution’— one for being a Christian and one for being a woman. Even in the most restricted circumstances, gender-specific persecution is a key means of destroying the minority Christian community. This kind of persecution is difficult to assess because it is complex, violent and hidden—in many cultures where women are specifically targeted, it is difficult if not impossible to report accurate numbers.”
Christian Persecution In The U.S.? You Betcha
While the United States did not make the top 50 worst countries for Christians on the World Watch List, that doesn’t mean persecution of some variety isn’t going on around us – and, worse, becoming a dangerous trend. The supposedly tolerant left is increasingly intolerant of those who do not subscribe to its beliefs and agenda. And this is glaringly obvious in today’s politics.
Just a couple of months ago, one of Christianity’s primary religious holidays was attacked – or rather the believers were. Remember Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Easter tweet calling Christians “Easter worshippers”? Who knows if they were just trying to be politically correct or intentionally sought to insult the world’s Christians?
Those on the right are being attacked on every level, it appears, and because many on the right are Christians, it makes sense that Christianity is being attacked. Our beliefs and politics are branded intolerant and racist. For example, Colorado baker Jack Phillips has been sued repeatedly because his Christian beliefs conflicted with a customer’s demand for a cake for a gay marriage cake or a transgender ceremony. “In God We Trust” was a fundamental pillar in the birth of our nation, yet now such a phrase is considered insulting and in many government establishments is being removed. Politicians who oppose bills that place restrictions on Christian beliefs are villainized. A teacher in New Jersey was suspended for giving a student a Bible, and a football coach in Washington state was placed on leave because he dared to say a prayer before a game. Conservative speakers have been banned from speaking at schools, while fascist hate groups such as Antifa are praised by some on the left.
Who would have ever thought late-term abortions would become not only acceptable but also defended as a woman’s right? Or that we’d allow an anti-American politician such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to remain in office? Omar blatantly denigrated Christians for their positions on abortions and a woman’s right to choose:
“Let’s just be honest, for the religious Right, this isn’t simply about their care or concern for life. If they cared about or were concerned about children, they would be concerned about the children that are being detained and those that are dying in camps across our borders, or the children who are languishing in hunger and facing homelessness.”
While we fight to bring religious freedom to other countries and provide asylum to those who are attacked for their beliefs, we need to take a look closer to home. Our freedom of faith is rapidly decreasing – especially if you happen to be a Christian.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KY0V4a Tyler Durden
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine, December 1776
It’s time to declare your independence from tyranny, America.
For too long now, we have suffered the injustices of a government that has no regard for our rights or our humanity.
Too easily pacified and placated by the pomp and pageantry of manufactured spectacles (fireworks on the Fourth of July, military parades, ritualized elections, etc.) that are a poor substitute for a representative government that respects the rights of its people, the American people have opted, time and again, to overlook the government’s excesses, abuses and power grabs that fly in the face of every principle for which America’s founders risked their lives.
We have done this to ourselves.
Indeed, it is painfully fitting that mere days before the nation prepared to celebrate its freedoms on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the City Council for Charlottesville, Virginia—the home of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration—voted to do away with a holiday to honor Jefferson’s birthday, because Jefferson, like many of his contemporaries, owned slaves. City councilors have opted instead to celebrate “Liberation and Freedom Day” in honor of slaves who were emancipated after the Civil War.
This is what we have been reduced to: bureaucrats dithering over meaningless trivialities while the government goosesteps all over our freedoms.
Too often, we pay lip service to those freedoms, yet they did not come about by happenstance. They were hard won through sheer determination, suffering and sacrifice by thousands of patriotic Americans who not only believed in the cause of freedom but also had the intestinal fortitude to act on that belief. The success of the American revolution owes much to these men and women.
In standing up to the British Empire and speaking out against an oppressive regime, they exemplified courage in the face of what seemed like an overwhelming foe.
Indeed, imagine living in a country where armed soldiers crash through doors to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government officials.
Imagine that in this very same country, you’re watched all the time, and if you look even a little bit suspicious, the police stop and frisk you or pull you over to search you on the off chance you’re doing something illegal.
Keep in mind that if you have a firearm of any kind (or anything that resembled a firearm) while in this country, it may get you arrested and, in some circumstances, shot by police.
If you’re thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn’t be far wrong.
However, the scenario described above took place more than 200 years ago, when American colonists suffered under Great Britain’s version of an early police state. It was only when the colonists finally got fed up with being silenced, censored, searched, frisked, threatened, and arrested that they finally revolted against the tyrant’s fetters.
No document better states their grievances than the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson.
A document seething with outrage over a government which had betrayed its citizens, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, by 56 men who laid everything on the line, pledged it all—“our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”—because they believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free.
Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price—their lives.
Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up when silence could not be tolerated. Even after they had won their independence from Great Britain, these new Americans worked to ensure that the rights they had risked their lives to secure would remain secure for future generations.
The result: our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Imagine the shock and outrage these 56 men would feel were they to discover that 243 years later, the government they had risked their lives to create has been transformed into a militaristic police state in which exercising one’s freedoms—at a minimum, merely questioning a government agent—is often viewed as a flagrant act of defiance.
In fact, had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it would have rendered its signers extremists or terrorists, resulting in them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled enemy combatants.
The danger is real.
We could certainly use some of that revolutionary outrage today.
Certainly, we would do well to reclaim the revolutionary spirit of our ancestors and remember what drove them to such drastic measures in the first place.
Then again, perhaps what we need to do is declare our independence from the tyranny of the American police state.
It’s not a radical idea.
It has been done before.
The Declaration of Independence speaks volumes about the abuses suffered by early Americans at the hands of the British police state.
Read the Declaration of Independence again, and ask yourself if the list of complaints tallied by Jefferson don’t bear a startling resemblance to the abuses “we the people” are suffering at the hands of the American police state.
If you find the purple prose used by the Founders hard to decipher, here’s my translation of what the Declaration of Independence would look and sound like if it were written in the modern vernacular:
There comes a time when a populace must stand united and say “enough is enough” to the government’s abuses, even if it means getting rid of the political parties in power.
Believing that “we the people” have a natural and divine right to direct our own lives, here are truths about the power of the people and how we arrived at the decision to sever our ties to the government:
All people are created equal.
All people possess certain innate rights that no government or agency or individual can take away from them. Among these are the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The government’s job is to protect the people’s innate rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The government’s power comes from the will of the people.
Whenever any government abuses its power, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish that government and replace it with a new government that will respect and protect the rights of the people.
It is not wise to get rid of a government for minor transgressions. In fact, as history has shown, people resist change and are inclined to suffer all manner of abuses to which they have become accustomed.
However, when the people have been subjected to repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the purpose of establishing a tyrannical government, people have a right and duty to do away with that tyrannical Government and to replace it with a new government that will protect and preserve their innate rights for their future wellbeing.
This is exactly the state of affairs we are under suffering under right now, which is why it is necessary that we change this imperial system of government.
The history of the present Imperial Government is a history of repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the intention of establishing absolute Tyranny over the country.
To prove this, consider the following:
The government has, through its own negligence and arrogance, refused to adopt urgent and necessary laws for the good of the people.
The government has threatened to hold up critical laws unless the people agree to relinquish their right to be fully represented in the Legislature.
In order to expand its power and bring about compliance with its dictates, the government has made it nearly impossible for the people to make their views and needs heard by their representatives.
The government has repeatedly suppressed protests arising in response to its actions.
The government has obstructed justice by refusing to appoint judges who respect the Constitution and has instead made the Courts march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.
The government has allowed its agents to harass the people, steal from them, jail them and even execute them.
The government has directed militarized government agents—a.k.a., a standing army—to police domestic affairs in peacetime.
The government has turned the country into a militarized police state.
The government has conspired to undermine the rule of law and the constitution in order to expand its own powers.
The government has allowed its militarized police to invade our homes and inflict violence on homeowners.
The government has failed to hold its agents accountable for wrongdoing and murder under the guise of “qualified immunity.”
The government has jeopardized our international trade agreements.
The government has overtaxed us without our permission.
The government has denied us due process and the right to a fair trial.
The government has engaged in extraordinary rendition.
The government has continued to expand its military empire in collusion with its corporate partners-in-crime and occupy foreign nations.
The government has eroded fundamental legal protections and destabilized the structure of government.
The government has not only declared its federal powers superior to those of the states but has also asserted its sovereign power over the rights of “we the people.”
The government has ceased to protect the people and instead waged domestic war against the people.
The government has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, and destroyed the lives of the people.
The government has employed private contractors and mercenaries to carry out acts of death, desolation and tyranny, totally unworthy of a civilized nation.
The government through its political propaganda has pitted its citizens against each other.
The government has stirred up civil unrest and laid the groundwork for martial law.
Repeatedly, we have asked the government to cease its abuses. Each time, the government has responded with more abuse.
An Imperial Ruler who acts like a tyrant is not fit to govern a free people.
We have repeatedly sounded the alarm to our fellow citizens about the government’s abuses. We have warned them about the government’s power grabs. We have appealed to their sense of justice. We have reminded them of our common bonds.
They have rejected our plea for justice and brotherhood. They are equally at fault for the injustices being carried out by the government.
Thus, for the reasons mentioned above, we the people of the united States of America declare ourselves free from the chains of an abusive government. Relying on God’s protection, we pledge to stand by this Declaration of Independence with our lives, our fortunes and our honor.
That was 243 years ago.
In the years since early Americans first declared and eventually won their independence from Great Britain, we – the descendants of those revolutionary patriots – have through our inaction and complacency somehow managed to work ourselves right back under the tyrant’s thumb.
Only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making: the American Police State.
The abuses meted out by an imperial government and endured by the American people have not ended. They have merely evolved.
“We the people” are still being robbed blind by a government of thieves.
We are still being taken advantage of by a government of scoundrels, idiots and monsters.
We are still being locked up by a government of greedy jailers.
We are still being spied on by a government of Peeping Toms.
We are still being ravaged by a government of ruffians, rapists and killers.
We are still being forced to surrender our freedoms—and those of our children—to a government of extortionists, money launderers and corporate pirates.
And we are still being held at gunpoint by a government of soldiers: a standing army in the form of a militarized police.
Given the fact that we are a relatively young nation, it hasn’t taken very long for an authoritarian regime to creep into power.
Unfortunately, the bipartisan coup that laid siege to our nation did not happen overnight.
It snuck in under our radar, hiding behind the guise of national security, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on immigration, political correctness, hate crimes and a host of other official-sounding programs aimed at expanding the government’s power at the expense of individual freedoms.
The building blocks for the bleak future we’re just now getting a foretaste of—police shootings of unarmed citizens, profit-driven prisons, weapons of compliance, a wall-to-wall surveillance state, pre-crime programs, a suspect society, school-to-prison pipelines, militarized police, overcriminalization, SWAT team raids, endless wars, etc.—were put in place by government officials we trusted to look out for our best interests and by American citizens who failed to heed James Madison’s warning to “take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.”
In so doing, we compromised our principles, negotiated away our rights, and allowed the rule of law to be rendered irrelevant.
There is no knowing how long it will take to undo the damage wrought by government corruption, corporate greed, militarization, and a nation of apathetic, gullible sheep.
The problems we are facing will not be fixed overnight: that is the grim reality with which we must contend.
That does not mean we should give up or give in or tune out.
Remember, there is always a price to be paid for remaining silent in the face of injustice.
That price is tyranny.
As Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century British statesman and author who supported the American colonists warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YtOksx Tyler Durden
For people aiming to “buy American” for Independence Day this year, it might prove difficult to obtain U.S.-manufactured fireworks.
As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, most of the bottle rockets, roman candles and other fireworks on sale across the country trace their origin to China. Last year, China accounted for 90 percent of total U.S. fireworks imports, amounting to approximately $325 million, according to website World City.
Revenue from consumer fireworks has exploded, increasing by 232 percent over the past two decades. Over that same time, revenue from display fireworks has increased by 155 percent as well. While a fun time for many and a growing consumer industry, over 15,000 people visited the hospital due to fireworks in July alone between 2006 and 2010, according to a recent study published by the Journal of Surgical Research.
Interestingly, one man drives fireworks trade across the Pacific and his name is Ding Yan Zhong, a Chinese businessman. Also known as “Mr. Ding”, his companies account for about 70 percent of the pyrotechnics entering the U.S. and on average, 72 of his containers enter the country every single day.
Even though China accounts for the bulk of the fireworks trade by far, the U.S. does rely on several other countries for imports. Israel comes second in terms of import value with nearly $10 million, a miniscule amount compared to China.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JrrQSJ Tyler Durden
