Tag: finance

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

“After the Mueller report was released, our president called Vladimir Putin, spent an hour on the phone with him,” Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said on CBS’s Face The Nation yesterday. “Described the report as a hoax, giving Putin a green light to further interfere in our democracy.”

“Russia interfered in the 2016 election,” tweeted presidential candidate Kamala Harris the other day. “If we don’t do anything to upgrade our election infrastructure, we will leave our nation vulnerable to future attacks.”

We’ve been seeing many such hysterical warnings about Russian interference in the upcoming 2020 elections, and as the election gets nearer we are 100 percent guaranteed to see a lot more.

Lawmakers worry that elections will be held on woefully outdated voting machines and that any tampering by adversaries could lead to disputed results https://t.co/dVW2bqxndr

— Roll Call (@rollcall) May 22, 2019

Another concern people have been voicing, which has far more legitimacy, is the fear of election tampering from domestic actors. An article published the other day by Roll Call reports that experts are warning America’s 2020 elections “will be held on voting machines that are woefully outdated and that any tampering by adversaries could lead to disputed results.” An article published last month by the Guardian warns that new voting machines aren’t necessarily an improvement.

“The purchases replace machines from the turn of the century that raise serious security concerns,” the Guardian reports. “But the same companies that made and sold those machines are behind the new generation of technology, and a history of distrust between election security advocates and voting machine vendors has led to a bitter debate over the viability of the new voting equipment — leaving some campaigners wondering if America’s election system in 2020 might still be just as vulnerable to attack.”

Initiatives are sprouting up to bring more election security and reliability to the United States, which is currently ranked dead last in election integrity among all western democracies. Support for paper ballots is picking up steam with support from Senate Democrats and multiple presidential candidates, and rightly so; hand-counted paper ballots is considered the gold standard for election integrity, and every nation should want that for their voting systems.

But neither foreign interference nor domestic vote tampering will be the most egregious form of election meddling that we will see in America’s 2020 presidential elections.

Reminder: In 2016, Washington Post ran 16 negative stories about @SenSanders in 16 hours. Has to be a record of its kind. https://t.co/0RH9pQfRvi@adamjohnsonNYC for @FAIRmediawatch#BernieSanders2020 #BernieSanders

— Raza Ahmad Rumi (@Razarumi) March 4, 2019

In 2016, at the single hottest and most contested moment of the Democratic presidential primaries, the Washington Post published no less than sixteen smear pieces against Bernie Sanders in the span of sixteen hours. This campaign by a newspaper which is solely owned by the richest man in the world (who also happens to be a CIA contractor and Pentagon advisory board member) was plainly geared at manipulating the 2016 presidential primary results. And, along with similar campaigns by the rest of the plutocrat-owned media which ranged from blacking out coverage on Sanders to deliberately manipulating narratives about him to circulating outright lies, it succeeded.

We are already seeing this same pattern repeated today, arguably in an even more egregious way. A recent article by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone titled “We’ve Hit a New Low in Campaign Hit Pieces” documents some jaw-droppingly obnoxious smears leveled against the two Democratic candidates who are taking the most flack from the mass media, Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. The Daily Beast added to the growing mountain of MSM Gabbard smears with an article titled “Tulsi Gabbard’s Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists”, claiming on essentially zero evidence that the Hawaii congresswoman has a suspicious amount of support from Kremlin loyalists, a smear which was elevated into mainstream consciousness by ABC and CNN. Sanders was smeared by the New York Times for his previous opposition to US interventionism in Nicaragua.

We’re not even halfway through 2019 and there are already far too many of such mass media hit pieces for me to list in this article. These plutocrat-owned outlets are doing everything they can to make sure that Trump will be running against a more polite version of himself come November 2020. Hell, Fortune Magazine just published an article titled “Why Joe Biden Is the Only True Progressive Candidate”, which attempts to argue exactly what the headline promises. Once the primaries are over, this manipulation will shift toward whoever’s the oligarchic favorite for the general election.

Why Joe Biden is the only true progressive candidate https://t.co/9jyEBgmFGf

— FORTUNE (@FortuneMagazine) May 24, 2019

As soon as you see someone become extremely wealthy, you immediately see them start buying up public narrative control. They buy and invest in media outlets, they pour money into influential think tanks, they send lobbyists into government offices to persuade politicians to think a certain way about a given subject. Ordinary people can’t afford to do these things, so they have relatively little control over the dominant narratives about what’s going on in our society and our world.

It is therefore an indisputable fact that the very wealthy therefore have an immensely disproportionate influence over the way that people think and vote, which means the plutocratic class has the fully legal ability to practice election interference. Both the plutocratic media and the US government have already tacitly admitted that this is true in the frantic, hysterical way they’ve been talking about Russian Facebook memes as election interference, despite the fact that those social media posts are a microscopic drop in the barrel of the billions and billions of dollars that goes into mass media election coverage. If the Internet Research Agency of St Petersburg was election meddling, then the plutocratic class which consistently manipulates public narratives to its favor certainly is as well, to an extent that is greater by orders of magnitude.

Of course it’s good that people are pushing for paper ballots, and it’s not a bad idea to take precautions against foreign interference as well, but we must become aware that the greatest share of election interference happens before anyone sets foot in a polling booth. The way the American psyche is pummeled with mass media narratives designed to manufacture consent for war, economic injustice, ecocide, Orwellian government intrusiveness, and the politicians who promote these things will influence far more votes in 2020 than any other election tampering, foreign or domestic.

Mass media propaganda is the single most overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of our society. The ability of an elite class to control the way a supermajority of the population thinks, acts and votes has shaped our entire world in the favor of a few sociopaths driven by an insatiable lust for money and power who got to where they are because they were willing to do anything to get ahead. If we can’t find a way to get a handle on that, then it won’t matter how pristine your elections are, how ethical the DNC primary process becomes, or what the Russians are up to this year.

Do you want to live in a world which is built around the selfish desires of powerful, amoral manipulators and hoarders? No? Then you’re going to have to start doing what you can to oppose such a system, and to convince as many of your brothers and sisters as possible to join you.

*  *  *

Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.

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via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2McGC47 Tyler Durden

While China is still debating whether or not to implement rare-earth quotas or use any of the other “nuclear options” it has available in response to escalating trade and tech war, the Global Times reports that a new cybersecurity rule indicates possible retaliation against the US as it could set the stage for Chinese regulators to take necessary action against US technology companies if their products and services are found to pose a threat to China’s national security, the Global Times reported overnight.

Under the draft regulation, which is a direct response to rising pressure on Huawei by the US and various other nations and which was released on Friday for public comment, companies involved in key information infrastructure would face cybersecurity reviews by regulators, if they acquired internet products and services.

In what is China’s response to America’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, nearly a dozen government agencies, including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Commerce, will set up a mechanism for cybersecurity reviews and the CAC will set up an office to coordinate the efforts.

If acquisitions of products and services could cause disruption to key information infrastructure, or major losses of personal information and important data, or pose other security risks, they must be reported to the CAC’s cybersecurity review office.

“This is a very major move for China to step up its efforts in protecting its cyberspace security,” Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times on Sunday. “Establishing an effective cybersecurity review mechanism is very important for the country,” he said, a hint that since the US will block Chinese acquisitions, Beijing will do the same although it’s not quite clear how China – a crhonic thief of offshore technology will benefit from this.

In 2016, China adopted a cybersecurity law that paid great attention to protection of national security and privacy and offered great leeway for security officials and regulators to conduct oversight of the country’s massive internet sector. The latest draft regulations are aimed at improving enforcement of those laws, Xiang said.

But the timing of the new regulation has also gained much attention and even speculation that China could retaliate against the US crackdown on Chinese tech giant Huawei by also using national security reviews.

“[The Huawei case and the new regulations are not inherently] related but I think this also gives officials a direct tool to investigate US companies if they pose cybersecurity risks,” Xiang said. “If [the US] can conduct reviews of Chinese companies on the grounds of national security, so can China. That’s beyond reproach.”

Amid the US crackdown on Huawei, Chinese officials have repeatedly criticized what they call US officials’ abuse of the national security review process to target Chinese tech companies, and they have vowed to take necessary measures to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies. And yet, as noted above, it is unclear how China’s blocking of foreign investment on the mainland – a critical cog of China’s relentless directive to reverse engineer and steal every foreign technology it has access to – will benefit Beijing’s aspirations to supplant the US over the next decade.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2VOVkhr Tyler Durden

North Korea on Monday called US National Security Adviser John Bolton a “war monger” and “defective human product” after he claimed that Pyongyang’s recent short-range missile tests were a violation of UN Security Council resolutions, according to CBS News, citing an unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesman. 

The comments come amid President Trump’s visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, during which the North Korean nuclear discussions are likely to be high on the agenda. 

North Korea tested short-range ballistic missiles on May 4 and 9, ending a pause in launches that began in late 2017. The tests have been seen as a way for North Korea to pressure Washington to soften its stance on easing sanctions against it without actually causing negotiations to collapse. –CBS News

On Saturday, Bolton told reporters in Tokyo that he had “no doubt” that North Korea’s launches violated UN resolutions, which justifies keeping sanctions in place. According to Reuters, Japan shares Bolton’s view on the matter. 

North Korea’s Central New Agency, the North Korean Spokesman, said that the North was rightfully exercising its rights of self-defense by conducting the launches. “Demanding us to ban all launches using ballistic technology regardless of range is same with asking us to relinquish our rights for self-defense,” said a spokesman, who added that Bolton is an “ignorant” hard-liner who has consistently pushed provocative policies against North Korea – including pre-emptive strikes and regime change. 

The spokesman also said Bolton’s “hammer act” was responsible for the collapse of a major nuclear deal between the countries reached in 1994, when the North agreed to halt its nuclear program in exchange for U.S. fuel aid. The deal broke down in 2002 after U.S. intelligence agencies said North Korea was continuing its pursuit of bombs with a secret uranium enrichment program.

“Bolton should not be called a security adviser who works to secure security, but an adviser for security destruction who destroys peace and security,” the spokesman said. “It’s not that strange that crooked sound will always come out the mouth of a man who is structurally flawed, and it’s best that this defective human product goes away as soon as possible.” –CBS News

Trump takes a different position 

President Trump said on Monday that he views North Korea’s missile tests differently than some of his advisers and was not bothered by Pyongyang’s actions. 

“My people think it could have been a violation, as you know. I view it differently – I view it as a man, perhaps he wants to get attention. Perhaps not. Who knows? It doesn’t matter. All I know is that there have been no nuclear tests, no ballistic missiles going out, no long-range missiles going out. And I think that someday we’ll have a deal,” said Trump, adding “I’m not in a rush.” 

On Saturday, Trump tweeted: “North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” adding that he has confidence that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will keep his promise to Trump. 

North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2019

Negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have virtually stalled since a February summit between Trump and Kim broke down after it was reported that Trump handed Kim a piece of paper demanding Pyongyang give the United States its existing nuclear weapons and enriched uranium, according to Reuters, which described the document as representing Bolton’s long-held hardline “Libya model” of denuclearization. A lunch between the two leaders was canceled that day. 

On the flipside, North Korea reportedly asked that the United States remove the strategic nuclear umbrella and the dismantling of the Indian Pacific Command, according to South Korea’s DongA. 

In April, Kim gave the United States “till the end of this year” before he walks away from negotiations for good. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Ezzxo2 Tyler Durden

The preliminary results from the European Parliamentary elections are in. And just like the polls anticipated, the pro-European status quo has suffered a serious blow.

Winning over 30% of seats, Eurosceptic parties and anti-establishment groups now control their largest bloc of votes since the first EU Parliamentary election in 1979.

Meanwhile, the long-ruling “grand coalition” of center-right and center-left parties (the EPP, a collection of center right parties, and S&D, a collection of center-left parties) lost its combined majority, though both coalition groups retained a plurality of seats (180, or 24%, for EPP, and 146, or 19.4%, for S&D).

Though pro-European groups together maintain a clear majority, this broad grouping has become increasingly fragmented, which could complicate policy making, while a strong showing from eurosceptics will mount a serious challenge to the status quo, according to a group of analysts from Deutsche Bank.

This shows us two things: first, the pro-European camp has definitely become more fragmented and could not prevent losing some seats to the Eurosceptics who dream if not (anymore) of the end of the EU at least of a substantially different one. Second, pro-Europeans group together will still hold a clear majority of two-thirds of the seats in the next EP. This means: policymaking for them will become more complex and require broader cross-party agreements and discipline. But Eurosceptics will not be able block decisions unless centrist pro-European parties fail to cooperate.

Typically, turnout in the EU Parliamentary race is lackluster, similar to that of a (typical) American midterm election. But this year, turnout surged to its highest level in decades: With a provisional turnout of 51%, the strongest in 25 years, electoral turnout broke the downward trend of the past decade (that’s compared with 43% in 2014). However, differences in turnout were substantial across EU members, with the UK and Eastern European states recording the lowest turnount.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In the UK, which only opted to participate in the vote at the last minute as part of a can-kicking agreement with Brussels to extend the deadline for the UK’s departure from the EU, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party won a plurality of votes (31.7%) – though liberal-leaning media outlets in the UK opted to spin the result as a victory for the “remain” camp, as the LibDems, Greens, SNP, Change UK and miscellaneous other parties won a combined 38%.

Despite being only four months old, Farage’s Brexit Party emerged as one of the largest parties in the European Parliament (it’s tied for first with Angela Merkel’s center-right CDU/CSU, both with 29 seats).

Matteo Salvini’s League Party came in second with 28 seats. Poland’s Nationalist Law and Justice Party came in third with 23, while Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Party won 22 seats, ahead of the 21 seats won by French President Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique En Marche. Viktor Orban’s Fidesz won 52% of the vote in Hungary, taking 13 of Hungary’s 21 seats.

Though Sweden’s Social Democrats remained the largest party in Europe, Sweden’s anti-immigration Sweden Democrats won 15.4% of the vote, up from roughly 4% in the 2014 EU Parliamentary vote, growing their share of seats from two to three.

However, analysts are skeptical that the eurosceptic groups will be able to overcome partisan squabbling and work together to form a pan-European coalition – which is the only way to exercise real influence within the European Parliament. They will also lose some of their support when the UK finally leaves the bloc (if that ever happens), and the UK’s 73 parliamentary seats are redistributed.

Here’s what a group of analysts from Deutsche Bank said.

With above 30% of seats, Eurosceptic and anti-establishment groups and (nonaligned) parties are estimated to have increased their weight in EU policy making over next five years. But we remain doubtful that these groups will manage to permanently overcome their (many) differences and use their leverage to promote their own coherent policy agenda.

One issue: Whether Farage’s Brexit Party will break away from Farage’s longstanding alliance with M5S in the EU Parliament to instead align itself with Salvini’s League Party. But the same issue exists on the other end of the spectrum, as DB points out.

Balance in the next EP will also depend on group formation over the next few weeks. Big questions remain e.g. regarding the planned joint group between the liberal ALDE and French President Macron’s Renaissance as well as the composition of Italian Deputy PM Matteo Salvini’s new far-right Eurosceptic alliance and the efforts of Five Star Movement to create a new (also Eurosceptic) anti-establishment group, potentially to be joined by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party from the UK.

Whatever the case may be, the election of the next European Commission President looks to be an incredibly fraught process, as none of the ‘lead candidates’ will find it easy to win a majority of support. A lengthy standoff with the European Council could push the appointment of the next Commission beyond October, which would raise serious questions about the bloc’s governability. EU leaders will meet on Tuesday at an informal summit to begin what could be an extremely fraught process of picking the next top jobs (which, remember, will include the next board of governors and president of the ECB).

• The increased fragmentation on the next EP will make the appointment of the next Commission President a potentially lengthy procedure. None of the EP’s “lead candidates” will find it easy to secure support of a majority of the MEPs and the Council might see this as a reason to deviate from the “lead candidate” procedure altogether.
• A lengthy standoff between Council and Parliament as well as intense negotiations on the top jobs between leaders could push the appointment of the next Commission beyond October. This would reflect badly on the EU’s prospective ability for constructive policy making and joint decisions and could thus impact market’s confidence and trust in the single currency.

In summary: The vote was a sweeping victory for populists, a fact that the liberal press across the Continent has been working to obscure.

– Farage wins in UK.
– Le Pen wins in France
– Salvini wins in Italy.
– Orban wins in Hungary.
– Right wing surging in Sweden.

Massive success for the right-wing and EU skeptics this election!

— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) May 26, 2019

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XeZdxO Tyler Durden

Hours after Deputy PM Matteo Salvini was handed an even clearer mandate by the Italian people to oppose austerity, promising the next budget will focus on tax cuts, EU officials have reportedly threatened a huge fine over its failure to rein in debt.

Bloomberg reports that the 3.5 billion euro ($4 billion) fine could come as part of the European Union’s regular budget monitoring process on June 5 and would mark an escalation of Rome’s budget tussle with Brussels that roiled markets at the end of 2018.

Italian bond markets spiked 6bps on the headlines…

As a reminder, under EU fiscal rules, the bloc’s members need to keep their deficit below 3% of GDP and debt under 60% of GDP. Countries with debt that exceeds that level need to be reducing it at a satisfactory pace. At 132% of output, Italy’s debt is more than twice the EU limit, and, according to the bloc’s executive arm, not falling fast enough.

However, this seems more like a well-timed leak/threat after Salvini’s comments as the final decision on further fines may not come for months, after Italy is given time to correct its finances.

The EU has never fined a country over its budget so far.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Xgotnn Tyler Durden

China has a problem.

Historically, when the PBOC wanted to exert a little influence on its FX market, it had merely to suggest intervention, or prompt its bankers to bid the yuan to squeeze the shorts… and it worked. In January 2017, when officials grew upset about the yuan’s weakness, they choked cash supply in Hong Kong and sent the currency’s deposit rates to record highs. That helped drive a rally in the offshore yuan.

And the last six months have seen numerous significant squeezes.

But something has changed.

After the recent plunge took the currency to the brink of the critical 7 per dollar level, Guo Shuqing, head of China’s banking and insurance regulator, warned in a speech last night that speculators “shorting the yuan will inevitably suffer from a huge loss.“

The reaction was as expected, Yuan started to accelerate higher as the speech, delivered by a spokesman for the agency in Beijing, was run on front-page articles among local media, as Guo attempted to placate fears (and capital flight) claiming that higher U.S. tariffs will have a “very limited” impact on China’s economy even if it raises levies to the maximum level, and would hurt the U.S. about as much.

However, the short-squeeze in yuan lasted around an hour, before sellers returned…

Erasing all Guo’s hard jawboning work.

Perhaps it was his additional jab at recent chatter from Washington around currency manipulation as he exclaimed, how “ridiculous” it was that developed countries have long asked for more currency flexibility, but when the yuan’s rate become more market oriented, some of them showed fear.

Either way, it appears – outside of direct intervention – China’s jawboning policy is beginning to lose its mojo.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2M89n1P Tyler Durden

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

So we’re going to do this all over again? Well, not if I can help it. Not that I have much hope that I can, mind you. As the bastions of war chime on, my voice, like so many others, will be drowned out. The military industrial complex knows how to do propaganda, better than anyone. But I’ll try.

Vietnam gave the US its biggest ever defeat, both militarily and morally, and yet mere years after its deeply humiliating withdrawal was put into action, the country was back at sending its promising young boys and girls not to its school systems, but to far away battle fields to be crippled, traumatized and slaughtered.

I know, I know, the UK and France do that too, but few other places do. Russia today uses its troops to defend its territory, China has yet to reveal its intentions. But the intentions of the US have been known ever since WWII ended.

In 1956, president Eisenhower, himself a longtime military man, warned the country upon taking leave of office, of the military-industrial complex that was threatening to take over its government. Less than 10 years later, that’s exactly what the complex did, and it’s never looked back.

And I’m thinking: you never learned anything at all? Not from Ike, not from Vietnam, not from the non-existent Iraqi WMD, and not from Libya or Syria? How is that even possible? Oh wait, I know, because the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN et al is where you get your so-called news. That’s why. Gotcha.

Today, May 26 2019, and I’m deeply ashamed to say it, I have two stories, one concerning a speech by VP Mike Pence at West Point, the other from Caitlin Johnstone about a Twitter thread initiated by the US military itself. Pence’s speech is heart breaking in its ignorance of US history, Caitlin’s is heart wrenching in its acknowledgment of that same history, and what it does to young Americans.

Now, I think this is not about Trump, as many will undoubtedly claim, it’s about Trump and Pelosi and Pence and McCain and Bolton and Hillary and Pompeo and Obama and all of the people hanging around both administrations. Let’s see what YOU think.

Pence To West Point Grads: You Will Fight On a Battlefield for America at Some Point in Your Life

Vice President Mike Pence told the graduating class of the West Point Military Academy on Saturday that the world is “a dangerous place” and they should expect to see combat. “Men and women of West Point, no matter where you’re deployed, you will be the vanguard of freedom, and you know that the “soldier does not bear the sword in vain.” The work you do has never been more important. America will always seek peace, but peace comes through strength. And you are now that strength. It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen.

Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific, where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region. Some of you will join the fight in Europe, where an aggressive Russia seeks to redraw international boundaries by force. And some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere. And when that day comes, I know you will move to the sound of the guns and do your duty, and you will fight, and you will win. The American people expect nothing less.”

Mike Pence is a very dangerous person. He’s planning to send American children into endless wars once again, 45-odd years after Vietnam and 20-odd years after Iraq. And there’s no-one left to stop him, other than Trump, Not exactly a solid guarantee. The Democrats will cheer this on, and their media will too. They always have.

Now, I’m not old enough to remember the whole story of the US involvement in Vietnam, but I do recall this 1985 video from Paul Hardcastle, which stated that the average age of the US soldier in Vietnam -towards the end- was 19. I have also seen Coppola’s movie “Apocalypse Now”, and many others, and yes, I’m wondering where today’s versions of these movies are.

Because, you know, when I read the Twitter thread picked up by Caitlin Johnstone listing what was supposed to be a promo thing from the army, my heart sinks and hurts and in the end is downright defeated. It’s like reading the accounts from Vietnam, and nothing has changed in 50+ years. How can that be? Says innocent me.

But religious nut Mike Pence has the guts to present this as some sort of heroic thing. For young Americans to go die in a desert for nothing at all other than Exxon’s access to oil and the profits of Boeing and Raytheon. And of course they’ve been setting this up for decades, that young kids -certainly blacks- who have no shot at a proper education, can get one only if they agree to become cannon fodder.

That’s ‘Nam, guys, that’s the 1960’s, history. And just look at how terribly that failed. Well, Mike Pence would like to repeat that failure.

The US Army Asked Twitter How Service Has Impacted People. The Answers Were Gut-Wrenching.

After posting a video of a young recruit talking to the camera about how service allows him to better himself “as a man and a warrior”, the US Army tweeted, “How has serving impacted you?” As of this writing, the post has over 5,300 responses. Most of them are heartbreaking. “My daughter was raped while in the army,” said one responder. “They took her to the hospital where an all male staff tried to convince her to give the guy a break because it would ruin his life. She persisted. Wouldn’t back down. Did a tour in Iraq. Now suffers from PTSD.”

“I’ve had the same nightmare almost every night for the past 15 years,” said another. Tweet after tweet after tweet, people used the opportunity that the Army had inadvertently given them to describe how they or their loved one had been chewed up and spit out by a war machine that never cared about them. This article exists solely to document a few of the things that have been posted in that space, partly to help spread public awareness and partly in case the thread gets deleted in the interests of “national security”.

“my grandpa served in vietnam from when he was 18–25. he’s 70 now and every night he still has nightmares where he stands up tugging at the curtains or banging on the walls screaming at the top of his lungs for someone to help him. he refuses to talk about his time and when you mention anything about the war to him his face goes white and he has a panic attack. he cries almost every day and night and had to spend 10 years in a psychiatric facility for suicidal ideations from what he saw there.”

“My best friend joined the Army straight out of high school because his family was poor & he wanted a college education. He served his time & then some. Just as he was ready to retire he was sent to Iraq. You guys sent him back in a box. It destroyed his children.”

“My best friend from high school was denied his mental health treatment and forced to return to a third tour in Iraq, despite having such deep trauma that he could barely function. He took a handful of sleeping pills and shot himself in the head two weeks before deploying.”

If you got the stomach for it, guys, do read it. But I got to tell you, I find it hard.

The US killed millions of people and maimed ten times that in Vietnam, and that very much includes its own young and promising American citizens, and they did it again in Iraq. Mike Pence wants to repeat that in Iran and other theaters. Supported by Pelosi, Pompeo, Schumer, Bolton etc. Shame for them John McCain passed.

There’s only one US presidential candidate who’s explicitly spoken out against this mad repeat of Vietnam, and that’s Tulsi Gabbard, who actually “served” in Iraq. So she will be pushed aside by the DNC. Who are funded by the military industrial complex, don’t you know. Must serve the machine. We have a long way to go.

I always thought that Springsteen talking about Vietnam from Born In The USA is sort of like a haiku, encompassing the essence in just a few words, even if he doesn’t catch all the misery and bloodshed and mental anguish and broken lives and all of it (but how could you?):

I had a brother at Khe San;

Fighting off the Viet Cong

They’re still there, he’s all gone

He had a woman he loved in Saigon

I got a picture of him in her arms now

I know people older than me have many more examples of this and from the time when the ‘war’ was actually ongoing. Eve of Destruction? Creedence? Please send suggestions.

But also, please recognize the similarities in the madness then and now.

And let’s try and make it stop.

Let’s try and stop history from even rhyming, let alone repeating.

Nassim Taleb likes to point out that in olden days those who declared wars would also be first in line to fight them. By design. The fair thing to do.

Let’s send Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump and Chuck Schumer and Mike Pompeo and John Bolton and all of their families into Iran first. And then we can talk.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2JIdiRg Tyler Durden

With President Trump in Japan for a state visit and most of Europe headed to the polls to vote in the quinquennial EU Parliamentary elections, there was enough news to keep market watchers occupied during what was supposed to be a quiet holiday weekend in the US. 

But on top of these political headlines, on Saturday afternoon, the news broke that Italian-American carmaker Fiat Chrysler had approached France’s Renault with a merger proposal that would leave the shareholders of each carmaker with half of the combined company, in a tie-up that would create the world’s third-largest automaker by production.

Several updates followed, and according to the most current reports published Monday morning, Renault – which has been struggling to forge a new path after the arrest of CEO Carlos Ghosn soured relations with Nissan, its longtime partner – was seriously considering the offer. Fiat confirmed on Monday that it made the “transformative merger” proposal, according to the New York Times.

Both companies talked over the weekend about a strategic partnership. But proposing a full-blown merger illustrates the urgency that automakers feel as they stand on the brink of what may be the biggest period of transition since the early days of the automobile.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said in a statement that it was motivated by “the need to take bold decisions to capture at scale the opportunities created by the transformation of the auto industry in areas like connectivity, electrification and autonomous driving.”

Renault said Monday that its board would consider Fiat’s “friendly proposal.”

Confirmation of the merger talks sent shares of European automakers 1.8% higher in early European trade, while shares of both Fiat and Renault gapped higher from their closing levels on Friday, a sign that investors are readily embracing the merger.

However, before traders get too enthusiastic, there are many delicate aspects of a merger between the two European auto giants that still need to be worked out. Given the French government’s stake in Renault (the State of France is its largest shareholder), the involvement of political leaders in Paris and Rome is almost inevitable, as both sides will likely fight to save as many jobs as possible. Already, one senior League lawmaker told the Italian press that Italy might consider buying a stake in Fiat Chrysler to match France’s stake in Renault to protect against job cuts.

“We will focus particularly on the national interest,” senior League lawmaker Claudio Borghi said. “Given the state presence in Renault, the fact that two companies of this size plan to merge has to be looked at with special care.”

But as automakers look for ways to consolidate to ease the inevitable transition from combustion engines to electric-powered vehicles, we imagine shareholders and customers are looking forward to the innovations a combined Fiat-Chrysler-Renault will inevitably produce.

Renault Grand Cherokee https://t.co/jw3C5UxBpY

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 26, 2019

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2QtlK7l Tyler Durden

With the US and UK closed for holiday, European shares rose on Monday led by automaker stocks following confirmation of merger talks between Fiat Chrysler and Renault, which sent the two companies surging…

… and after European parliamentary elections saw pro-Europe parties cling to a majority despite major gains for nationalist eurosceptic parties in Italy and France, where Macron was narrowly defeated by Marine Le Pen in a major blow to the deemed successor of Angela Merkel.

The pan-European STOXX 600 added 0.4% with all major European indices in the black, however trading volumes were thin as US and United Kingdom markets are closed for market holidays. Auto stocks climbed 1.8% as Italian-American carmaker Fiat Chrysler confirmed it had made a “transformative merger” proposal to French peer Renault in a deal which would create the world’s third-biggest carmaker. Shares of both companies rallied.

European sentiment was also boosted as pro-European parties retained a grip on the EU parliament, provisional results from the bloc’s elections showed, “though eurosceptic opponents saw strong gains” according to Reuters. Most notably, Europe’s centrists got crushed as the centre-left and centre-right parties lost their combined majority for the first time in 40 years as the FT reported.

That said, investors had been worried about eurosceptic parties gaining a 30% vote share – the level at which they could seriously disrupt European governance and the region’s ability to show unity in addressing key concerns like a global trade war. But while far-right, nationalist or anti-EU groups came out on top in Italy, Britain, France and Poland, they failed to alter dramatically the balance of pro-European power in the EU assembly.

“The impression of a fragmented political system remains, but perhaps when all is said and done, the message will be that Brexit has reduced appetite to leave the EU,” said SocGen FX strategist Kit Juckes.”In the simple world of FX a possible crisis is averted, leaving us with familiar issues. Europe needs more growth and while EU leaders argue over who gets which top jobs, it needs easier fiscal policy perhaps most of all,” Juckes said.

The euro initially rallied above $1.12 but by 0920 GMT the single currency was struggling, down 0.1% at $1.1195.

Europe’s gains followed a similar push higher across Asian markets, where shares rose but remained near 4-month lows. Asian stocks edged up, led by material and consumer discretionary firms, after rising on Friday. Most markets in the region advanced, with China, Indonesia and India leading gains. The Topix gauge rose 0.4%, driven by Takeda Pharmaceutical and SoftBank Group. The Shanghai Composite Index advanced 1.4%, with CSC Financial and China Life Insurance providing the biggest boosts. The S&P BSE Sensex Index climbed as much as 1%, as HDFC Bank and Housing Development Finance led a rally.

US equity futures traded in a narrow range, and after posting modest gains following the European open, gave up all their upside.

As always, the latest Trump trade commentary defined trader sentiment. During a state visit to Japan, Trump said the U.S. “isn’t ready to make a trade deal with China” adding that “they probably wish they made the deal that they had on the table before they tried to renegotiate it.” Speaking at a joint press conference in Tokyo alongside Japanese leader Shinzo Abe, Trump also said that “they would like to make a deal. We’re not ready to make a deal.”

Trump said American tariffs on Chinese goods “could go up very, very substantially, very easily.” His comments came after trade talks between the two countries stalled earlier this month. Each side has since blamed the other, and Trump has threatened billions more in tariffs.

Offsetting some of that gloom, Trump also said that he thinks “in the future China and the United States will absolutely have a great trade deal, and we look forward to that. Because I don’t believe that China can continue to pay these, really, hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs. I don’t believe they can do that.”

With the US closed, bullishness prevailed modestly, with the MSCI world equity index ahead by 0.1%.

Emerging-market assets were steady as traders awaited the next chapter in the U.S.-China trade standoff. Trading was muted with the U.S. and U.K. markets closed for public holidays.

“In a nutshell, there is nothing really new here, but a sustained flow of mixed news is maintaining a cap of appetite for EMs, particularly those countries that are integrated with China and commodity exporters,” Credit Agricole SA strategists, led by Sebastien Barbe, wrote in a report.

Turkey’s lira climbed for a third day, its longest streak since February, after Turkey’s central bank increased reserve requirements for foreign-exchange deposits by 200 basis points.

Meanwhile, the yuan climbed to its highest in more than a week as China warned traders against shorting it. The currency jumped as much as 0.22% on Monday morning before paring its gain. Guo Shuqing, the head of China’s banking and insurance regulator, said in a speech on Saturday that speculators “shorting the yuan will inevitably suffer from a huge loss.” He joined a chorus of officials and state media outlets who have voiced support for the nation’s currency in recent weeks. “There is less fear that the Chinese yuan will depreciate past 7 against the USD, for now,” DBS Bank Ltd. economists Philip Wee and Eugene Leow write in a note dated Monday.

Meanwhile, the fallout from the government taking control of China’s Baoshang Bank hit the nation’s bond market, pushing up funding costs for lenders and yields on government debt.

European government bond markets were little moved with the spread between the German 10-year bond yield and the Italian 10-year government bond yield little moved after initially narrowing. Spanish and Portuguese bond yields hit record lows.

Elsewhere, U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Japan was overshadowed by trade tensions. Trump pressed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to even out a trade imbalance with the United States.The yen fell 0.2% against the dollar to 109.495 but remained close to four-month highs hit earlier in May as traders looked for safety in the face of mounting trade-related woes. The South Africa’s rand underperformed peers after debt-laden state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. said Friday its chief executive officer will step down. Hungary’s forint held on to most of the gains against the euro from Friday as investors awaited a rate meeting on Tuesday for clues of potential policy action in June.

Finally, the pound held around $1.2703. Sterling had bounced back from a near five-month trough of $1.2605 after British Prime Minister Theresa May last week named a date for her to step down – triggering a leadership contest during which investors fear the risk of a no-deal Brexit will rise.

In commodities, oil prices were mixed following losses from last week when crude dropped the most this year. Concerns the Sino-U.S. trade war could trigger a broad economic slowdown have sent this year’s oil rally into reverse, although OPEC’s supply cuts provided some support. Front-month Brent crude futures rose 0.1% to $68.80 per barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures shed 0.5% to $58.33 per barrel.

Iron ore continued its rally, on concern there’s a global shortage in the seaborne market. And Bitcoin climbed to the highest level in a year, after surging almost 70% this month.

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

• China advised traders against shorting its currency, with a regulatory official warning that speculators “shorting the yuan will inevitably suffer from a huge loss”
• With nearly all the vote counts complete from the European Parliament elections, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party — which wants the U.K. to leave the EU without a deal — was in first place, followed by the Liberal Democrats
• Mainstream EU parties held their ground against the assault from populists in elections for the bloc’s Parliament as the highest turnout in two decades looked set to reward pro-EU Liberals and Greens
• Matteo Salvini is set to make his League party Italy’s biggest political force while falling short of the knockout blow that would allow him to seek the premiership, according to projections of votes in the European Parliament elections. French President Emmanuel Macron suffered a narrow defeat to Marine Le Pen’s nationalist movement in the European election
• South Korean won advanced for a fourth day after the authorities stepped up their attempts to jawbone the currency in the past week
• Philip Hammond warned Conservative leadership candidates that a government that tries to force a no-deal Brexit on Parliament risks being brought down in a no-confidence vote
• President Donald Trump acknowledged on Sunday a trade deal with Japan wouldn’t occur during his trip to Tokyo, saying that nothing would be finalized until after Japan’s elections in July
• President Jair Bolsonaro called on lawmakers to further his reform agenda, starting with the approval of a crucial pension bill in Congress, after thousands of government supporters took to the streets in more than 100 cities across Brazil on Sunday

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wmJcdd Tyler Durden

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The European Central Bank continues to disproportionately inflate the debt bubble of the Eurozone, while the economic slowdown of the main European economies worsens. What was designed as a tool for governments to buy time in order to carry out structural reforms and reduce imbalances, has become a dangerous incentive to perpetuate the excessive spending and increase debt under two very harmful and wrong excuses: That there is no problem as long as debt is cheap and that there’s no inflation.

1. Cheap borrowing is not an excuse to increase debt. Japan has a very low cost of debt and the cost of servicing Japan’s public debt is almost half of the state’s tax revenues. Japan’s debt is 15 times higher than the tax revenue collected by the government in 2018.

2. The Eurozone official inflation since 2000 shows an increase of 40% in CPI while productivity growth has been negligible and salaries and employment remain depressed.

Monetary policy has gone from being a tool to support reforms to an excuse for not implementing them.

We must remember that the euro is not a global reserve currency. The euro is only used in 31% of global transactions, while the US dollar is used in 88%, according to the Bank Of International Settlements (the total sum of transactions, as the BIS explains in its report, is 200% because each transaction involves two currencies).

Bond yields in the Eurozone are artificially depressed and give a false sense of security that is completely clouded by extremely low interest rates and excess liquidity.

• The balance sheet of the European Central Bank has been inflated to be 40% of the GDP of the Eurozone, while at the peak of quantitative easing the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet did not reach 26% of the US GDP.

• The Federal Reserve Treasury purchases never exceeded net issuances. The ECB continues to buy back bonds once they mature despite having multiplied the repurchases and having reached seven times the figure of net issuances .

•  Sixteen 10-year sovereign bonds in the Eurozone show negative real yields. Greece and Italy, the other two, are amazing examples, as their yields (adjusted for currency and inflation) show a negligible differential over the US ten-year bond.

• Excess liquidity in the Eurozone exceeds 18 trillion euros.

Everything is justified because “there is no inflation” and yet there is, and a lot. Not only in financial assets (huge bubble in the aforementioned sovereign bonds), prices in the Eurozone have increased by 40% since 2000 while productivity has barely increased.

Cheap debt must never be an excuse to increase it, but an opportunity to reduce it.

All this generates excessive complacency and accumulation of long-term risk.

The ECB ignores tail risk and accumulation of imbalances and expects liquidity to generate the levels of growth and inflation that have not been achieved after two trillion euro of expansion. Meanwhile, the risks of debt saturation rise.

Governments all over the eurozone identify low yields as some kind of market validation of their policies, when markets are artificially inflated by the central banks’ policies. This placebo effect has led many countries in Europe to abandon the reform impulse, and many believe that the solution to low growth is to return to the wrong policies of 2008.

Low yields are not a sign of credibility and low risk, but of financial repression and fear of a weaker macroeconomic environment in other assets.

The problem of the Eurozone is that it has relied entirely on the placebo effect of monetary policy to strengthen the recovery, focusing on a single objective, to make public spending cheap to finance, whatever the cost. This perpetuates structural imbalances, the perception of risk is clouded and the economy becomes less dynamic while long-term risks rise. 

The ECB finds itself in a monetary trap. if it normalizes policy, the mirage of low yields will disappear and governments will react against it. However, if it keeps the policy, there is an increasing risk of repeating a Eurozone crisis without any tools to address it. That is why it must raise rates now and stop repurchasing maturities while markets remain optimistic.

Unfortunately, instead of proposing supply-side measures and curbing the excessive taxation and stagnating effect of government spending, many analysts will recommend more spending and more liquidity as solutions that will make the economy even weaker. The main problem with the accumulation of debt at low rates is that it has the same effect as a real estate bubble. It disguises real liquidity and solvency risk, because borrowing costs are too good to be true. And they are not true.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HFwlJD Tyler Durden