Tag: news

Authored by Kurt Schlichter, op-ed via Townhall.com,

As the undisputed star of the new film No Safe Spaces – the hit documentary on academia’s descent into Orwellian tyranny features a quick shot of a lawyer letter I wrote to some collegiate gulag apparatchiks – I wholeheartedly recommend that you go see it.

Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager take you on a guided tour of the insanity and evil that has gripped academia, and it’s utterly terrifying. You need to see it not merely to gape at the freak show but to learn what’s coming for society as a whole. The dreary conformity factories that pretend to be providing our next generation of leaders with a higher education have instead embarked on a campaign of indoctrination designed to manufacture a generation of goose-stepping creeps who use their bizarre collection of buzzwords and fetishes as weapons to suppress any kind of dissent.

And the problem is that this PC Nazism is not just limited to academia. Eventually, these daddy-issue cadres are going to get out into the world and contaminate all of our institutions even worse than they are contaminated now. We’ve seen weeks of pretentious ruling caste losers presuming to lecture us on how we should fix the messes they and their pals made. Imagine if they compounded their failure with the desire to burn you at the stake for refusing to concede that a dude can get pregnant.

A dude can’t get pregnant, not ever. And there’s a whole generation of future elitists who would want to cancel you permanently for daring to state this indisputable fact.

The key to understanding what is happening on campuses, and increasingly in society as a whole, is to discard your bourgeois notions of reason and the presumption of good faith. What’s kind of funny is to watch people shake their heads at the incoherence of the leftist lies – what these people say is manifestly false and usually both contradictory and hypocritical. They have no evidence to support their claims, and they ignore contrary evidence. This freaks out the squares because normal people approach disputes with the understanding that facts and evidence and arguments can change one’s positions. But with these people, that doesn’t happen. It can’t happen, because they are not engaged in argument. Rather, they simply assert whatever nonsense they believe will increase their own power.

That’s all it is. This PC leftist garbage is simply about power.

You can’t prove your innocence or change their minds because actual facts are beside the point. The point is to generate a narrative that results in you being deprived of the moral capacity to assert your own rights and interests. You are disenfranchised, totally, by the moral failure that is your race or your sex or your religion or your sexual preference or whatever has been designated as bad this week. That is why we get evil concepts like “white privilege,” “mansplaining” and “heteronormativity” tossed around as if they are conceptual trump cards that instantly silence you merely by being asserted.

Now, as someone of good faith who strives to operate in a universe that makes sense, you might observe that these kinds of prejudgments based on race and sex and so forth seem an awful lot like prejudice based on race and sex and so forth, and you would be right because that is exactly what they are. And you would scratch your head because aren’t these adolescent inquisitors supposedly really upset about prejudice based on race and sex and so forth?

Except they aren’t, because they don’t care about prejudice, except to the extent they can use it as a weapon to get what they want. The left is not against prejudice or bigotry. It is actively in favor of both. It’s just that the targets change and morph based on necessity. Go on social media, if you dare, and find a black conservative or a gay conservative or a conservative woman and see what crap they take from the loving left. The crude hatred would shock and appall even the Democrats who invented and filled the ranks of the KKK. The left is supposed to be in favor of black people and gay people and women people and it takes only a few seconds to realize that this is utterly false. They don’t care about bigotry or prejudice. They care about leftist power, and if bigotry and prejudice help them get more of it then the left is all in.

On the upside, they often turn on each other in internal power struggles where the radicals attempt to out-woke each other to become the king/queen/non-binary monarch of the hill. “You’re a person of color? I’ll see your race card and raise you the fact that I was born Dennis but now I’m Denise.”

Today on campus, these creeps have power because the administrators tend to be cowed by the left when not in active cahoots with it. The left can even LARP violent revolution because the schools hold back the cops who ought to be beating down and hooking up these black-masked punks. The scary thing is that someday, some of these quad gestapo types are going to be in real positions of power in real society, and they do not believe in rules and they do not believe in rights for anyone who opposes them. Their sole goal is their own power. And to increase their power, they need to take power from someone else. You are the someone else.

In a society they control, you will have no rights, no voice, and no future. Leftism always ends in tyranny and murder, which is why we’re blessed to have the Second Amendment. And if you are ever disarmed and at the mercy of these aspiring monsters, the only safe space will be a mass grave.

*  *  *

The nightmarish end state the left seeks is on full display in Collapse, my hard-hitting yet hilarious sequel to People’s Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire. My novels have been hailed by Bill Kristol as “Appalling,” so that kind of vouches for them!

Kurt will be doing a live video chat tonight (Dec. 9) w/ PJ’s Stephen Kruiser at 8:15pm ET for VIP Gold members. Join quickly to be able to take part in the fun.

Following the highly anticipated release of the DOJ Inspector General’s so-called FISA report, Attorney General Bill Barr and his hand-picked US Attorney, John Durham, have issued statements disagreeing with the IG’s conclusions.

The report found that while the FBI made serious errors investigating the Trump campaign, and relied heavily on the discredited Steele dossier, that the agency was ultimately justified in launching a counterintelligence operation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane.

“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” Barr said in a statement released shortly after the FISA report.

“It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory,” he continued. “Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump’s administration.”

Barr added that the FISA report reveals a “clear abuse” of the surveillance court.

“In the rush to obtain and maintain FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates, FBI officials misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts from their filings, and suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principal source.”

“The Inspector General found the explanations given for these actions unsatisfactory. While most of the misconduct identified by the Inspector General was committed in 2016 and 2017 by a small group of now-former FBI officials, the malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General’s report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process.”

Statement from U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr:

“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken… pic.twitter.com/xVNfOJxzCP

— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) December 9, 2019

Durham, meanwhile, said “Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff,” Durham also said. “However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department. Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.“

Full Durham statement:

“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff.  However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department.  Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.  Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Tell me if you heard this one lately:

“There’s a trillion dollars in cash sitting on the sidelines just waiting to come into the market.” 

No.

Well, here it is directly from the Wall Street Journal:

“Assets in money-market funds have grown by $1 trillion over the last three years to their highest level in around a decade, according to Lipper data. A variety of factors are fueling the flows, from higher money-market rates to concerns over the health of the 10-year economic expansion and an aging bull market.

Yet some analysts say the heap of cash shows that investors haven’t grown excessively exuberant despite markets’ double-digit gains this year, and have plenty of money available to buy when lower prices prevail.”

See…there is just tons of “cash on the sidelines” waiting to flow into the market.

Except there isn’t.

The Myth Of Cash On The Sidelines

Despite 10-years of a bull market advance, one of the prevailing myths that seeming will not die is that of “cash on the sidelines.” To wit:

“’Cash always makes me feel good, both having it and seeing it on the sidelines,’ said Michael Farr, president of the money-management firm Farr, Miller & Washington.

Stop it.

This is the age-old excuse why the current “bull market” rally is set to continue into the indefinite future. The ongoing belief is that at any moment investors are suddenly going to empty bank accounts and pour it into the markets. However, the reality is if they haven’t done it by now, following 4-consecutive rounds of Q.E. in the U.S., a 330% advance in the markets, and ongoing global Q.E., exactly what is it going to take?

But here is the other problem.

For every buyer there MUST be someone willing to sell. As noted by Clifford Asness:

“There are no sidelines. Those saying this seem to envision a seller of stocks moving her money to cash and awaiting a chance to return. But they always ignore that this seller sold to somebody, who presumably moved a precisely equal amount of cash off the sidelines.”

Every transaction in the market requires both a buyer and a seller with the only differentiating factor being at what PRICE the transaction occurs. Since this is required for there to be equilibrium in the markets, there can be no “sidelines.” 

Think of this dynamic like a football game. Each team must field 11 players despite having over 50 players on the team. If a player comes off the sidelines to replace a player on the field, the player being replaced will join the ranks of the 40 or so other players on the sidelines. At all times there will only be 11 players per team on the field. This holds equally true if teams expand to 100 or even 1000 players.

Furthermore, despite this very salient point, a look at the stock-to-cash ratios (cash as a percentage of investment portfolios) also suggest there is very little available buying power for investors currently. As we noted just recently with charts from Sentiment Trader:

“As asset prices have escalated, so have individual’s appetite to chase risk. The herding into equities suggests that investors have thrown caution to the wind.

With cash levels at the lowest level since 1997, and equity allocations near the highest levels since 1999 and 2007, it suggests investors are now functionally “all in.” 

With net exposure to equity risk by individuals at historically high levels, it suggests two things:

1. There is little buying left from individuals to push markets marginally higher, and;

2. The stock/cash ratio, shown below, is at levels normally coincident with more important market peaks.

But it isn’t just individual investors that are “all in,” but professionals as well.

Importantly, while investors are holding very little ‘cash,’ they have taken on a tremendous amount of ‘risk’ to chase the market. It is worth noting the current levels versus previous market peaks.”

Even Ned Davis noted that investors remain more invested in riskier assets than has historically been the case.

“Cash is low, meaning households are fairly fully invested.” 

So, Where Is All This Cash Then?

The Wall Street Journal was correct in their statement that money market cash levels have indeed been climbing. The chart from the Office Of Financial Research shows this:

There are a few things we need to consider about money market funds.

1. Just because I have money in a money market account, doesn’t mean I am saving it for investing purposes. It could be an emergency savings account, a down payment for a house, or a vacation fund on which I want to earn a higher rate of interest. 

2. Also, money markets are used by corporations to store cash for payroll, capital expenditures, operations, and a variety of other uses not related to investing in the stock market. 

3. Foreign entities also store cash in the U.S. for transactions processed in the United States which they may not want to immediately repatriate back into their country of origin.

The list goes on, but you get the idea.

If you take a look at the chart above, you will notice that the bulk of the money is in Government Money Market funds. These particular types of money market funds generally have much higher account minimums (from $100,000 to $1 million) which suggests that these funds are predominately not retail investors. (Those would be the smaller balances of prime retail funds.)

So, where is all that cash likely coming from?

Hoarding Cash

You are already most likely aware that Warren Buffett is hoarding $128 billion in cash, and that Apple is sitting on a cash trove of $100 billion, with Microsoft holding $136.6 billion, and Alphabet amassing $121 billion.

Yes, some of that cash has been used for share buybacks, but much of it is sitting there waiting for acquisitions, R&D, capital expenditures, etc. However, that cash is primarily sitting in short-term and longer-term dated treasuries, AND, you guessed it, money market funds.

However, as noted above, there is also a flood of money coming into U.S. Dollar denominated assets for better yield and safety than what is available elsewhere in the world.  

At RIAPRO.NET we regularly track the U.S. Dollar for our subscribers. (You can access these reports with a FREE 30-day Trial.)

• Despite much of the rhetoric to the contrary, the dollar remains in a strongly rising uptrend. Given a “strong dollar” erodes corporate profits on exports (which makes up 40% of corporate profits overall) a strong dollar combined with tariffs isn’t great for corporate bottom lines. Watch earnings carefully during this quarter.

• Furthermore, the dollar bounced off support of the 200-dma and the bottom of the uptrend. If the dollar rallies back to the top of its trend, which is likely, this will take the wind out of the emerging market, international, and oil plays.

• The “sell” signal is also turning up. If it triggers a “buy” the dollar will likely accelerate pretty quickly.

Much of the bulls rallying cry has been based on the dollar weakening with the onset of QE, but as shown above, that has yet to be the case. However, US Dollar positioning has been surging as of late as money has been flowing into US Dollar denominated assets. Importantly, it is worth watching positioning in the dollar as a reversal of dollar-longs are usually reflective of short- to intermediate-term market peaks.

As shown above, and below, such net-long positions have generally marked both a short to intermediate-term peak in the dollar. The bad news is that a stronger dollar will trip up the bulls, and commodities, sooner rather than later.

However, as it relates to foreign positioning, it is worth noting that EURO-DOLLAR positioning has been surging over the last 2-years. This surge corresponds with the surge in dollar-denominated money market assets.

What are Euro-dollars? The term Eurodollar refers to U.S. dollar-denominated deposits at foreign banks, or at the overseas branches, of American banks. Net-long Eurodollar positioning is at an all-time record as foreign banks are cramming money into dollar-denominated assets to get away from negative interest rates abroad.

Importantly, when positioning in the Eurodollar becomes NET-LONG, as it is currently, such has been associated with short- to intermediate corrections in the markets, including outright bear markets. 

What could cause such a reversal? A pick up of economic growth, a reversal of negative rates, a realization of over-valuation in domestic markets, which starts the decline in asset prices. Then, the virtual spiral begins of assets flowing out, lowers asset prices, leading to more asset outflows.

While the bulls are certainly hoping the “cash hoard” will flow into U.S. equities, the reality may be quite different.

That’s how the bear markets begin.

Slowly at first. Then all of a sudden.

Headlines are suggesting it’s a “now or never” opportunity to bring the five-year long war in eastern Ukraine to an end, and to initiate a lasting peace. The meeting dubbed the “Normandy Four” summit kicked off in Paris Monday, crucially including Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron playing host for the talks.

It marked the first face to face meeting ever between Putin and Ukraine’s leader, who assumed office in May of this year, after an unlikely landslide victory based largely on promising to end the war in Donbass and improve relations with Russia. 

The Minsk agreements brokered with the help of Germany and France have been largely a stalled disappointment in terms of solving the stalemate. 

Though the conflict has been in and out of the headlines, a shocking 13,000 people have died since 2014, including civilians and militants on both sides, according to UN estimates. A further nearly four million people have been displaced by fighting, and a fragile ceasefire is currently in effect in the region.

Zelensky has lately come under fire especially from Ukrainian nationalists over his controversially agreeing to major concessions based on a road map to peace, including holding elections in the Russian-speaking war-torn region; however, he’s said “there won’t be any elections under the barrel of a gun,” meaning pro-Russian separatist militants and their backers would have to lay down their arms for it to work.

The summit kicked off with a few awkward moments Monday, with Putin appearing to give some cues to the lesser experienced Zelensky:

Путин подсказал Зеленскому, что нужно развернуться для совместного фото pic.twitter.com/Q88g9GMQjf

— Кремлевский пул РИА (@Kremlinpool_RIA) December 9, 2019

There have been few significant statements given to the press, as the schedule appears to have shifted, and no ‘breakthroughs’ on the Ukraine crisis are expected, but it’s hoped that the meeting will reinvigorate negotiations potentially leading to a permanent ceasefire. 

But at home Zelensky is facing threats that civil unrest could break out if he says anything seen as giving Putin too much.

Protest underway against tomorrow’s talks between Zelensky and Putin in Paris. Crowd probably over 4,000 but not as big or as energized as October demonstrations. Most flags are Ukrainian and the nationalist Svoboda party, which lost in parliamentary elections. pic.twitter.com/yLRvGWUdPw

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 8, 2019

The iconic Maidan square has since filled with thousands of demonstrators Sunday into Monday, with one prominent speaker addressing the crowd with a warning for Zelensky himself: “Your flight will be not from Paris to Kiev, but from Paris to Rostov[-on-Don]. If it won’t be tomorrow then it’ll be a bit later,” prominent news host Vitaly Gaidukevich warned, referencing the southern Russian port city as a potential place of exile. 

Hardline nationalists have promised to effectively overthrow the young Ukrainian leader should he cross ‘red lines’ in Paris. 

This also as the Russian and Ukrainian leaders are expected to engage in an unprecedented one-on-one meeting later in the summit :

A special bilateral meeting of the presidents of Russia and Ukraine – Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky – is scheduled for Monday at the Elysee Palace after the completion of the negotiations between the leaders of the “Normandy format” (Germany, Russia, France, Ukraine). This was announced by a source close to the organization of the summit in Paris.

The protesters, in a reminiscent scene to 2014, have demanded that Zelensky not cave to a “peace at any cost” program, including holding the line of ‘no compromise’ when it comes to “de-occupation” and return of Crimea.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The higher up the wealth-power pyramid the observer is, the more prone they are to a magical-thinking belief that the empire is forever, even as it is crumbling around them.

How great nations and empires arise, mature, decay and collapse has long been of interest for a self-evident reason: if we can discern a template or process, we can predict when the great nations and empires of today will slide into the dustbin of history.

One of the justly famous attempts to lay out the stages of expansion, zenith, decline and collapse is Sir John Glubb’s 1978 The Fate of Empires. Succinct and deeply informed, Glubb’s essay lists these stages:

• The Age of Pioneers (outburst or Boost Phase)

• The Age of Conquests

• The Age of Commerce

• The Age of Affluence

• The Age of Intellect

• The Age of Decadence

The slippery slope to collapse – decadence – is characterized by greed, corruption, irreconcilable internal political rifts, moral decay, frivolity, materialism – hmm, sound familiar?

All of this fits the S-Curve model which I’ve described here many times, for example:

But what triggers the collapse of a weakening but still functioning empire? For that, I propose a taxonomy of collapse. A taxonomy is a system of classification that groups organisms or types that share characteristics and origins.

What taxonomy of collapse does history suggest? I would start with:

1. Bolt from the blue: a fast-moving, unexpected crisis that overwhelms the usual defenses and responses of the empire. An invasion by previously unknown forces with superior technology and/or organization fits the bill: the Mongols in Eurasia, the Spanish in the New World, etc.

Extremely contagious and previously unknown infectious diseases like plague and smallpox are also bolts from the blue, devastating populations with no immunity. It is estimated that 80% or more of the population of North America died from exposure to smallpox and other European diseases, in many cases long before the victims had ever seen a European, as the diseases spread much faster than the invaders themselves.

A drought that never ends is another unexpected catastrophe that quickly depletes food stores.

These bolts from the blue can strike at the same time: one reason why the small-in-number Spanish forces conquered vast empires in the New World was the empires had already been fatally weakened by diseases introduced by Columbus decades earlier.

2. Irreplaceable declines in essential resources. Food tops the list, as a decline in calories leads to weakened immune systems and heightened odds of pandemics spreading and a subsequent drop in the number of workers needed to support the empire’s vast infrastructure.

The book The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire makes a compelling case that the Western Roman Empire centered around the Mediterranean suffered from a slow environmental transition from an unusually wet era that enabled grain to be grown in previously marginal areas to a drier era that no longer supported the immense grain harvests needed to feed the empire.

Other forms of depletion can also sap the empire of essentials: forests are cut down, silver mines are tapped out, nearby sources of slaves (labor) are no longer available, and so on.

The imperial machinery that is accustomed to there’s always more somewhere refuses to trim its expenses, elites refuse to lessen their skim, and since the fat of elite excess is retained, eventually the muscle of military power and trade decay, leaving a hollowed out empire on the edge of a precipice awaiting one final kick into the abyss.

3. Reversal of fortune. Military misadventures top the list, as invasions of nearby competing powers are in effect last-ditch gambles to acquire desperately needed wealth and resources to prop up the status quo. When the imperial army is defeated and destroyed, there are no longer sufficient resources and recruits to rebuild the army.

4. Internal civil conflict: civil wars and political conflicts that break out into society and the economy end up consuming the last of the empire’s seed corn, just like an invasion of a bordering empire that fails. Once the conflict is resolved, there are no longer enough resources left to support the imperial infrastructure.

Like Nature, History offers a near-infinite variety, but just as Nature fits into taxonomies of organisms, history can be shuffled into its own taxonomy, however messy and imperfect it might be.

These triggers of collapse can overlap, of course, accelerating the final decline. All complex hierarchical systems are intrinsically fragile and prone to disruption; we don’t see the fragility or vulnerabilities until the decline has reached the terminal phase. The higher up the wealth-power pyramid the observer is, the more prone they are to a magical-thinking belief that the empire is forever, even as it is crumbling around them.

*  *  *

My recent books:

Will You Be Richer or Poorer? Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World (Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

*  *  *

If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Days after top US defense officials warned they had credible intelligence of a major Iran threat against American troops and interests in the region (though as usual the anonymously sourced ‘evidence’ was not forthcoming), a top Israeli military leader has put the region on notice, suggesting the possibility of yet more ‘preemptive strikes’ on Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and even possibly Iran itself.

Israel’s ultra-hawkish defense minister Naftali Bennett has warned the IDF is ready to give Iran its own ‘Vietnam’ in new remarks vowing the Islamic Republic will never get a firm foothold there. 

Addressing an Israeli conference on Sunday, Bennett further stated “it is no secret that Iran is trying to establish a ring of fire around our country, it is already based in Lebanon and is trying to establish itself in Syria, Gaza and more.”

“If we are determined, we can take Iran’s aggression forces out of Syria. They have nothing to look for on the borders of the State of Israel. We say to Iran: Syria will become your Vietnam. If you do not come out, you will bleed because we will work tirelessly until you take the forces of aggression out of Syria,” he stated.

Israel a mere weeks ago conducted what was said to be one of the largest single missile and air attacks against ‘Iranian targets’ in and around Damascus throughout the entirety of the war. And in a worrisome prospect for a continued broader war, the Israeli defense minister urged, “We need to move from containment to attack.”

As Tehran continues to blow through uranium enrichment caps agreed to as part of the increasingly defunct 2015 JCPOA (despite recent European efforts to save it through INSTEX and other sanctions-circumventing trade alternatives), the Israeli defense chief is warning that Tel Aviv may be left with no choice but to take action.

However, Naftali Bennett has also reportedly created deep tensions within the defense ministry and among the military command based on his near daily boasting about “killing Iranians,” which some generals fear is unnecessarily stoking tensions and security concerns.

When asked late last week about the alarming scenario of a major Israeli preemptive direct attack on Iran, Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz also echoed Bennett’s consistent confrontational tone.

“It’s an option. We will not allow Iran to produce or obtain nuclear weapons. If the only option left to us is the military option, we’ll act militarily,” Katz told Italy’s Corriere Della Sera daily.

At the very least this likely means we will soon witness heightened Israeli engagement in Syria; however, it remains unclear what the Russians have stated behind the scenes in terms of ‘red lines’ imposed on Tel Aviv. Moscow has repeatedly warned Syria could once again turn into a major international military showdown through irresponsible offensive actions by Israel.