An audit has found nearly 60 former Sacramento, California, city employees, including 18 former police officers, continued to use their city IDs to get free gasoline after leaving city employment. All told, they took some 10,000 gallons of fuel. Records show that the fleet management division was informed the employees had retired, resigned or been fired but did not revoke their access to city fuel pumps. Officials say they are taking steps to stop this from happening again, including installing surveillance cameras. No word on whether the former employees who took the gas will face charges or whether the employees who didn’t revoked their pump access will face any punishment.
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In June 2014 I wrote an article called Draghi’s Plan does not fix Europe. In that article, I explained that the structural challenges of the eurozone -high government spending, excessive tax wedge, lack of technology leadership and demographics- were not going to be solved by a round of quantitative easing.
Now, the evidence of the European Union leads the ECB to hint at another stimulus plan. Gone is the triumphalism displayed by of the European Commission on August 2017 (read). The “strong recovery” they credited to the “decisive action of the European Union” has all but disappeared.
The slowdown in the eurozone is not similar to other economies. The ECB has slashed growth estimates consistently and currently expects a level of growth that is half of what they had projected eighteen months ago.
It is fascinating because many analysts tend to discuss the European slowdown as if the stimulus had been abandoned. Far from it. Let us remember that the European Central Bank repurchases all debt maturities in its balance sheet and that it has launched a new liquidity injection (TLTRO) in March this year.
That is why it is appropriate to discuss the severity of the Eurozone slowdown in the context of the chain of fiscal and monetary stimuli that have been implemented. To understand the serious mistake of constantly stumbling on the same stone, we need to understand the size of the fiscal and monetary programs and their underwhelming results.
2014 “Investment Plan for Europe”, of which more than 424 billion euro have been mobilized and 77 billion approved. It was going to “increase the GDP of the European Union by 1.3% until 2020″. The GDP of the European Union has been revised down to half of the growth estimated by the ECB nearly two years ago.
Energy directiveaimed at mobilizing tens of billions of euros in investment in green energy and networks and creating “millions of jobs”.
More than two billion euros of monetary expansion. The balance of the European Central Bank reaches 40% of the GDP of the eurozone, compared with 18% in the case of the Federal Reserve.
TLTROs . Three series of liquidity injections in 2014, 2016 and 2019.
Negative rates. Deficit spending financed at negative rates, junk debt with negative yields, zero interest rate policy and increased credit granted at dangerously low rates (with the consequent proliferation of zombie companies.
Extraordinary fiscal policies. The 19 eurozone countries have saved more than 1.15 trillion euros in debt interest due to the expansionary policy against savers and pensioners, but the vast majority continue to finance public spending and structural deficits. Thus, a large part of the countries’ deficit reduction comes from artificially reducing rates, not improving imbalances, showing a distorted picture of risk and disguising many fiscal imbalances, since public spending has not been reduced.
We can only understand the magnitude of the failure and deterioration of the European economy within the context of what is, in every aspect, the largest stimulus chain ever implemented.
The slowdown of the European economy is a disaster considering the enormous stimulus we are immersed in.
When many analysts tell us that Europe “is not so bad” or that “it is only a slowdown,” they ignore that all this happens amidst an unprecedented chained stimulus. The results are not only extremely poor, but they are also deeply worrying.
Why the next “bazooka” will not work either.
According to Morgan Stanley, the European Central Bank could be preparing a new repurchase program of between 2.2 and 3.3 billion euros. Not only buying back bonds from governments, but also from banks and companies.
What for? Even Italy – in the midst of a political crisis – has negative real sovereign bond yields. The sovereign debt of all the eurozone countries shows negative yields in two-year maturity and negative as well going up to seven years. Germany has just launched a 30-year bond at -0.11%. Is it really necessary to artificially depress yields even more?
In the eurozone there are already fourteen junk bonds listed with negative yields and high-risk bonds of banks and companies are listed with ridiculous returns of 3-4%.
The problem of the eurozone is not lack of liquidity, when excessive liquidity reaches 1.8 trillion euros, or low rates when they are already negative,. The eurozone problem is precisely the constant practice of using monetary policy as a perverse incentive to maintain structural imbalances.
Monetary policy works as a huge transfer of wealth from savers and productive sectors of the eurozone to inefficient governments and unproductive sectors that are constantly refinanced, zombifying the economy, putting obstacles to productivity and technological change. The stimulus chain described above can be summed up in the phrase: a huge subsidy to low productivity.
Here is the debate. Why has it worked in the US and not in Europe? First, because it is not true that the United States owes its improvement to quantitative easing. In a report by Stephen Williamson for the Federal Reserve, he already warned that “there is no relationship between greater economic activity and quantitative easing.”
The US economy is the most dynamic, open and least dependent on bank financing of the world’s leading countries. The Federal Reserve never accounted for 100% of the demand for government bonds, it always kept an eye on the secondary market. The ECB became seven times the bond supply, according to Deutsche Bank. While in Europe most of the real economy is financed through bank debt (170% of GDP), in the US it is mainly via capital markets. That is why imposing negative rates is crazy. By weakening the banks and manipulating the cost of money, the credit transmission mechanism inexorably gears towards low-productivity, subsidized or zombified refinanced debt sectors. The magical idea that central planners will manage the yield curve, strengthening the credit mechanism while avoiding bubbles is simply ridiculous. It is exactly the same as thinking that if a subsidized company does not work, it is because it does not have enough subsidies.
Playing to be more than the Federal Reserve without having the dynamism, openness and free market of the United States is one of the reasons for the failure of the stimulus chain. Using monetary policy to perpetuate the interventionist model rather than strengthening private initiative in technology and high productivity sectors is another. But, above all, the biggest mistake is to ignore that the United States has the world’s reserve currency, which is used in 87% of global transactions while the euro is very far and falling.
In the eurozone that governments have not used the period of low rates and high liquidity to make structural reforms, but to advance and strengthen a directed and interventionist model.
The European Central Bank has become hostage to its own policy. A policy designed to buy time and implement structural reforms has become an excuse to avoid change.
When the stimuli are designed or used to direct the economic activity by politicians, the result is always the same. Stagnation and low productivity.
The diminishing returns of the policies of the European Central Bank are not due to lack of action, but because of the perverse combination of incentives. Probably without wishing it, they are constantly incentivizing the indebted and obsolete sectors while discouraging the high productivity and growing sectors with increasing taxes via fiscal policy. I’m afraid it won’t change and the results will be as disappointing as before.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NCR0S5 Tyler Durden
As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, in the year ending June 2016, the number of people moving to the UK for work stood at 190,000 and in the year ending March 2019, that plummeted to 92,000.
Turkey will continue exploring for oil and gas in the eastern Mediterranean waters around disputed Cyprus, and “No project can be realised if Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus are not involved,” President Recept Erdogan said, as quoted by Cypriot media.
“We will continue to defend the rights of Turkish Cypriots with the same dedication,” Erdogan said following a meeting with the head of the Cypriot Turks.
Turkey, which recognizes the northern Turkish Cypriot government and doesn’t have diplomatic relations with the internationally recognized government of EU member Cyprus, claims that part of the Cyprus offshore area is under the jurisdiction of Turkish Cypriots or Turkey, and they are entitled to part of the potential oil and gas resources in the area. Turkey doesn’t recognize the agreements that Cyprus has signed with other countries in the Mediterranean over the exclusive maritime zones either.
Last month, tensions between Turkey and Greece regarding the Cyprus drilling rights spiked again when Greece’s newly elected government said Turkey undermined the security of the eastern Mediterranean with its drilling operations off the Cypriot shores.
“The illegal actions of Turkey, which defy international law are placing the security of the region at risk. As such, they are absolutely condemnable,” Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said,
adding “We discussed this flagrant violation of the sovereignty and the sovereign rights of the Republic of Cyprus perpetrated by Turkey.”
A string of natural gas discoveries in the waters around Cyprus have turned the divided island into one of the new hot spots for gas, along with Egypt and Israel. Just recently, the island greenlit a consortium involving Eni and Total to drill for gas in a new part of its exclusive economic zone.
Turkey’s strong position on the issue of oil and gas suggests that internal tensions in Cyprus will continue and the newly found gas wealth will not help their resolution.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KUmctX Tyler Durden
There is no other way to say it: It was a political assassination.
Osama bin Laden was unarmed. SEALs captured him alive. Following brazenly illegal orders from Washington, they executed him. “The (Obama) administration had made clear to the military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead,” The Atlantic reported on May 4, 2011.
State-controlled media outlets like The Atlantic claimed that President Barack Obama was desperate to avoid a trial that would give the al-Qaida leader a “high-profile platform for spreading his extremist views.” Left unsaid, as so much is in the American steno-journalism reminiscent of the Soviet Union, was a more pressing reason to silence the Saudi scion.
As much as the families of 9/11 victims craved justice, it was infinitely more important to the U.S. political establishment to deny bin Laden an opportunity to publicly expound on his ties to the CIA and the CIA-funded Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, who were training and funding the “Afghan Arabs” who fought Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Letting people learn that 9/11 would likely never have happened if not for the CIA would have been… awkward.
Such is the fate of enemies of the state.
Last week, not so much an enemy but a man whose existence had become inconvenient, not exactly to the state but certainly to a cabal of powerful men, including a former president as well as the sitting one, joined bin Laden in the kingdom of the dead.
The official narrative of billionaire accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s death shifted faster than a New York subway rider when a homeless guy plops down next to them on a hot day. First, they said Epstein had been on suicide watch, and then that he hadn’t. Prisons are full of cameras, yet there’s still no video of Epstein’s death. Then, suicide watch or not, they claimed he’d been checked on every 30 minutes. Then more like every three hours. The medical examiner said his injuries were consistent with strangulation by a second person, but then thought better of it and ruled Epstein’s convenient demise a suicide.
I tweeted the morning of Epstein’s passing: “Bill Clinton is the happiest man in America today.” Clinton flew on Epstein’s infamous “Lolita Express” private jet at least six times, including to such sex-tourism destinations as Thailand and Hong Kong. Perhaps he refrained from partaking in the underaged prostitutes and rape victims Epstein stands accused of procuring for his traveling companions. Whatever happened or didn’t, the Epstein-Clinton connection is sketchy.
As is Epstein’s suicide — the first at the Manhattan Correctional Facility since 1998.
At this writing, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever know who killed Epstein, whether it be himself or someone else. What we do know is that, if we take the government at its word, they were incompetent and negligent to an unfathomable extent. Being insanely stupid and lazy is their defense.
Now we’re descending into the usual idiotic post-death debate between credulists (those who believe anything the government and its pet media says) and conspiracy theorists. Truth: No one knows anything. We weren’t there. The video was, but they deep-sixed that.
We don’t know how Epstein bit it but the fact of Epstein’s death tells us everything we need to know about America today. No matter what, Epstein died because the government let it happen. He was a ward of the state, the highest of high-profile prisoners, a man whose trial stood to expose extreme wrongdoing at the expense of numerous horribly violated victims, yet no one in charge took steps to make certain that he appeared at every hearing healthy and alive.
The carelessness of the powers that be reflects their confidence that they shall never, ever, be held accountable for anything.
So another man vanishes, and the few questions asked are left unanswered — intentionally.
So it was with Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan dictator who signed a deal with the U.S. to rid Libya of a nuclear program only to be blown up by one of Obama’s assassination drones lest he say too much about his relationship with the Bush administration.
So it was with Chris Dorner, the police officer who went on a shooting spree after he was fired by the LAPD, apparently in retaliation for reporting a fellow cop’s excessive force against a mentally ill suspect, before being hunted down and killed in a cabin the police set ablaze with “pyrotechnic tear gas” canisters.
So it was with Sandra Bland, the African-American woman who apparently killed herself after being beaten and jailed by the police for the crimes of failing to signal a lane change, sassiness and the likelihood she would have spoken out about being brutalized.
So it was a bunch of Nazi war criminals who escaped judgment at Nuremberg.
So it was Lee Harvey Oswald, whom the authorities couldn’t resist parading before reporters, without screening attendees like Jack Ruby for weapons.
More will die.
It’s better for those in charge.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZviRWF Tyler Durden
Hedge fund manager Alphonse “Buddy” Fletcher has been forced to sell his Cornwall, Connecticut mansion for just pennies on the dollar, according to Bloomberg.
The estate, called Cornwall Castle, has seen its prestigious owners arrive in vehicles like pink Cadillacs and helicopters over the years. Among the list of previous owners, Saul Steinberg, the lead chairman of Reliance Group Holdings and Macy’s executive Joseph Cicio.
Fletcher bought the castle in 2001, before his American dream-style narrative of wealth and success ended in bankruptcy. For years, Fletcher and his wife, Ellen Pao, were well-known figures on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.
And like any good criminal, Fletcher has been falling back on the race card for a living. He gained notoriety in 2011 when he sued The Dakota, one of Manhattan’s most exclusive co-ops, for racial discrimination. This was after he had also sued his previous employer, Kidder Peabody, for racial discrimination, in 1991. He won a $1.26 million award in NYSE arbitration as a result. In 2012, his wife filed a gender discriminationlawsuit against her employer, Kleiner Perkins.
But in 2012, the real problems under the surface for Fletcher started to rear their heads.
Fletcher’s funds were forced into liquidation or bankruptcy amid fraud allegations and an investigation by the SEC. Fletcher was accused of inflating his returns and using his clients’ money as a piggy bank. He was ordered to return $212 million in a default judgment in 2015 and divorced with his wife two years later.
The bankruptcy trustee trying to recoup the funds said: “We never located any meaningful assets.”
This brings us back to Cornwall Castle. In 2001, Fletcher took out a $4.4 million mortgage to pay $5.9 million for the 330 acre property – a record high price for a home in the area. Neighbors recalled his helicopter hovering overhead and annual parties thrown on Halloween. Fletcher, meanwhile, kept tacking on debt to buy more land, and eventually bought more than 1000 acres.
Fletcher, thinking about his next racial discrimination lawsuit
In 2013, he put the castle on the market for $8.9 million and there were no takers. In 2014, he started to fall behind on the payments and JP Morgan began foreclosure proceedings the next year. And so the grand building and land have now been sold off in pieces to pay his debts.
In March, a local conservation group agreed to buy 107 acres for $622,000. In June, JP Morgan sold the 16,800 square-foot castle and 275 acres for $1.6 million. The remaining portions of his land will hit the market over the next few months.
Former owner Cicio said: “To me, it was out of a storybook. Sadly, in the very recent past, they let it dramatically deteriorate.”
Cicio is right – the house needs a significant amount of work. A barn on the property was ruined by a fire in 2013. Meanwhile, pipes burst, grass was overgrown and the roof developed leaks. The HVAC systems need to be replaced and there’s a mold problem that needs to be dealt with.
This condition belies the once prestigious nature of the castle. Built in 1925, it was supposed to be a fairytale retreat for New York society couple Charlotte Bronson Hunnewell, who had developed Manhattan’s Turtle Bay Gardens, and her second husband, Dr. Walton Martin.
David Bain, a real estate broker who handled the foreclosure sale said: “It needed everything. Not a pretty picture for most buyers.”
Jeffrey Jacobson, who wrote a book about the history of the castle said: “What kind of a sensible, logical person wants to buy a castle?”
Most wealthy buyers today would likely have no tolerance to make improvements to an old castle, according to Graham Klemm, a local real estate broker.
However, it appealed to one man: Russell Barton, a developer who recently transformed a former jail into a mixed use complex featuring residences and a restaurant. Barton was taken back by the gargoyles on the building and the original lead windows, stonework and seclusion. Being a developer, he also has the resources and the know-how to fix it. He has spent the past month renovating the castle with 20 workers on site, doing eight hour shifts each.
Barton said: “This is a small job for me. The jail took two years. This will take two months.”
Barton and his wife
He thinks the renovations will cost about $150,000, which is far less than the $3 million to $4 million estimated by some real estate professionals. His goal is to use the castle as a permanent home for himself and his wife and to use the castle’s servant quarters as his company’s headquarters. For now, the couple is living with their Jack Russell terrier in a one bedroom stone cottage by the pool.
Barton concluded: “I like this old lady. Everything about it is spectacular.”
Meanwhile, we’re sure Fletcher is busy preparing another racial discrimination suit, perhaps against the SEC or his home’s new owner, as we speak.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Zswupo Tyler Durden
The former chief of the Duke University Psychiatry Department went on CNN this weekend to claim President Trump is mentally unfit for the office, and proceeded to up the hyperbole quotient to unprecedented levels.
Appearing on “Reliable Sources,” Dr. Allen Frances said comparing Donald Trump to the mentally ill is “an insult” to the latter.
While he differs with Yale’s Bandy Lee regarding the so-called Goldwater Rule – the American Psychiatric Association’s decree that “members never publicly discuss the mental health of a public figure” – Frances’ diatribe fit in well with Lee’s crusade to convince anyone who will listen that Trump’s mental state is endangering all Americans.
Well, I think ‘medicalizing’ politics has three very dire consequences. The first is that it stigmatizes the mentally ill. I’ve known thousands of patients, almost all of them are well-behaved, well-mannered good people. Trump is none of these. Lumping that is a terrible insult to the mentally ill and they have enough problems and stigma as it is.
Second, calling Trump crazy hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist.
The kicker: Trump “may be” culpable for “many more million deaths” than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, Frances continued.
“Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were,” Frances continued.
“He needs to be contained but he needs to be contained by attacking his policies, not his person.”
“It’s crazy for us to be destroying the climate our children will live in,” Frances continued.
“It’s crazy to be giving tax cuts to the rich that will add trillions of dollars to the debt our children will have to pay. It’s crazy to be destroying our democracy by claiming that the press and the courts are the enemy of the people.”
With such insane comparisons, Frances sounded like he needed to lie down on his own couch.
“There is absolutely no doubt that Trump is dangerous,” Frances claimed, arguing that Trump was “dangerous because he’s a bad, evil con man” rather than because he was mentally ill.
He then suggested that it would be acceptable to lie about Trump’s mental state if there was a way to use that false narrative to get him out of office.
“I think it’s very clear that he’s dangerous because he’s evil, he’s not dangerous because he’s mentally ill, and the mentally ill argument, if it would get him out of the office, I would say go with it even if it’s inaccurate,” Frances continued.
“Anything to get this man out of office. But it won’t work, so piling on inaccuracy, stigma, the press will get people who know nothing about psychiatric diagnosis spouting off at the mouth, it won’t add to the discussion, it will distract from the political stuff and we have to focus on how evil…”
But all host Brain Stelter could muster was this odd facial expression…
(Stelter later claimed on Twitter that his show was suffering from technical difficulties and thus did not hear Frances’s statements.)
Dr. Lee sat quiet during the Frances segment; nevertheless, a month ago she and several peers testified in an online gathering that President Trump was psychologically unfit for the presidency.
In that testimony, James Merikangas of George Washington University said Trump’s campaign rallies are like the “Nuremberg rallies that Adolf Hilter had,” while NYU’s James Gilligan added the president is “dangerous to an unprecedented degree in our history.”
Dr. Frances’s Twitter timeline is chock full of material like this:
Trump by far most dangerous president in history. Destroys democracy/ruins world climate/may start diversion war.
But psychological name calling is a dumb response to his political evil. Naive to think he’ll be removed re #mentalillness.
I wrote the DSM criteria for Narcissistic PD.
Trump doesn’t meet them because he enjoys being a narcissistic asshole & is rewarded for it.
We should stop worrying about his sanity & start worrying about our societal insanity- allowing him to threaten US democracy & world climate. https://t.co/z7MdzOPkPX
A space capsule that was carrying a Russian humanoid robot failed to dock as planned with the International Space Station, according to AP.
Russia’s space agency said that the failure involving the planned docking on Saturday was due to faults with “the docking system” and that the Space Station and the 6 person crew were both safe. A new docking attempt will be made on Tuesday.
We reported on Friday that Russia had launched an unmanned rocket carrying its first life-sized humanoid robot to the International Space Station. The robot, named Fedor (Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research), was supposed to spend 10 days learning to help astronauts in space.
Now, it looks as though the project could be in jeopardy.
As we reported, the humanoid blasted off Thursday “in a Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft at 6:38 am Moscow time (0338 GMT) from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.” He was scheduled to dock at the International Space Station on Saturday and stay until September 7. No word on whether or not that schedule has changed a result of the docking failure.
The launch was unmanned in order to help test new emergency rescue systems on board. The humanoid was strapped into a specially-made pilot seat with a small Russian flag in its hand before being launched into space. It even said: “Let’s go, let’s go,” during the launch, an homage to the famous phrase used by first man in space Yuri Gagarin.
The human-like robot stands about 5‘11“ tall and weighs about 353 pounds. And of course, what would a scientific technological advancement be without having its own Instagram and Twitter accounts? Fedor’s social media accounts update its followers with posts on when it acquires new skills, like opening a bottle of water.
“The first stage of in-flight experiments went according to the flight plan,” Fedor Tweeted after reaching orbit.
If it can dock with the International Space Station successfully, the robot will have a chance to try these skills in a low gravity environment.
Russian space agency’s director for prospective programmes and science, Alexander Bloshenko, said: “That’s connecting and disconnecting electric cables (and) using standard items, from a screwdriver and a spanner to a fire extinguisher.”
Fedor copies human movements, which is a key skill that allows it to help astronauts remotely while humans are strapped into an exoskeleton. These humanoids could eventually carry out dangerous operations, like spacewalks, instead of putting humans at risk.
The humanoid is also described as being potentially useful for high radiation environments and tricky rescue missions. The robot was initially developed for the emergencies ministry, but it can also be seen seen shooting at targets using two handguns in a video posted by Russian space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin.
If the capsule can dock successfully, the plan is for the humanoid robot to perform tasks supervised by a Russian cosmonaut who docked at the ISS in July. The cosmonaut will “wear an exoskeleton and augmented reality glasses in a series of experiments later this month.”
Fedor’s legs will be immobilized on the space station because it isn’t yet trained to grab handles and move in microgravity conditions. While showing President Putin photographs of the humanoid robot, space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin told him: “In the future we plan that this machine will also help us conquer deep space.”
Russian media also speculated that these types of robots will be used in Russia’s moon program.
Although Fedor is the first Russian humanoid robot to make it to space, he is not the first robot globally to make the journey. In 2011, NASA sent up a humanoid robot developed in conjunction with General Motors that had a similar aim of working in high-risk environments. It experienced technical difficulties and was flown back to the earth in 2018.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HqCx7J Tyler Durden
Last week, the yield curve inverted, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury falling below the yield on the 2-year for the first time in 12 years. This has historically been a good predictor of recessions. US stock markets sold off on the news, with the Dow shedding 800 points. As Peter Schiff noted in his most recent podcast, the mainstream also suddenly started talking about the possibility of an economic downturn.
As Peter put it, the media has flipped the narrative on Trump.
All of a sudden, a media, which was pretty much buying the booming economy narrative, now is questioning whether the economy is actually strong.”
Peter said Trump is now accusing the media of being involved in some kind of conspiracy to make the economy look bad. He’s basically saying that all of the negative economic data we’ve seen coming out is nothing but “fake news.”
Trump has worked himself into a political corner. His claim to fame is that he’s created the greatest economy ever. He has a vested interest in ensuring that the narrative continues. He won’t likely win a second term if the economy is in recession, or if stocks appear to be in a bear market.
If stocks are going down, if we’re in a recession, well then by his own standard, he is a failure. And if his presidency failed, then why should the public reelect him?”
When Trump was running for office, he said the numbers were fake – that the economy was worse than the data indicated. Now he’s saying the numbers are fake and the economy is much better than the data indicates.
Peter said that ironically, some of the best evidence that the economy is in trouble comes directly from the policies that Trump is demanding – particularly a 100 basis-point cut in the interest rate. As Peter pointed out, that would take the interest rate down to 1%. That was the level Alan Greenspan took interest rates down to during the recession after the dot-com bubble burst.
Donald Trump wants rates to be at 1% again. Well, if the economy is so great, why do we need to return interest rates to the level that we had during a recession following the bursting of a stock market bubble and the 9/11 terrorist attacks?”
But that’s not enough for Trump. Now there’s all these rumors, and I’m sure they’re true, that the Trump administration is thinking of cutting capital gains taxes, having an emergency temporary payroll tax cut … that is a stimulus. That is a pure Keynesian stimulus. Why do we need more stimulus when we’ve got so much stimulus?”
Trump wants all of this stimulus and yet says we aren’t close to recession.
Well, this is a bunch of BS! Obviously, if we weren’t close to recession, the president wouldn’t be looking for monetary and fiscal stimulus to prop up the economy. Strong economies don’t need to be artificially propped up. It’s weak economies that need to be artificially propped up. I mean, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t claim that the economy doesn’t need a stimulus, but then advocate for a stimulus.”
The media is having a field day with this. It’s finally questioning the narrative.
It should be noted that Peter has been talking about a looming recession for months. Back in January, Peter was already saying “the recession is a done deal.”
Peter goes on to analyze the economics behind the looming recession and the political ramifications. Peter said that analysts and pundits who are now suddenly predicting a recession are right, but they still don’t realize just how bad it’s going to be.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Ud506l Tyler Durden
According to a recent UNICEF report, examined by The Hindu, the number of homicides of young males in Brazil is higher than warzones in Syria and Iraq.
“Homicide victims are mostly black boys who live on the outskirts of the major cities. They are out of school and come from low-income families,” said the report.
Brazil is a culturally diverse country, with about 50% of the population defined as mixed. The racial divide is vast, and government officials mostly avoid the debate on racial inequality. But several studies in recent years have started looking at the role of race in murders — both criminal as well as by government forces.
One report, titled “Atlas of Violence,” was recently published by the Institute of Applied Economic Research in Brazil shows that in the Rio Grande do Su, Brazil’s southernmost state, bordering Argentina and Uruguay, has a population of 82% white population, but the number of black youth murdered nearly doubled between 2007 and 2017.
With limited economic opportunity, young black males in the country resort to gangs for stability. This has led to a surge in black killings by police, which has spiked in recent years, mostly in the name of “fighting crime.”
Since 2003, Brazil’s Communist regime has disarmed all lawful abiding citizens and today the country has the world’s highest homicide rate at 70,000/year. Furthermore, Brazil’s gun ban law has not blocked the supply of military grade rifles (AK47, M4, etc.) of any criminal gang. pic.twitter.com/ccsz2NgzZm
— Eddie Donovan, Ph.D. 🇺🇸 (@EddieDonovan) August 7, 2019
Earlier this year, we reported how a rash of gang violence across the country forced President Jair Bolsonaro to crackdown on crime — which includes military takeovers of Brazilian cities and shoot-to-kill orders carried out by teams of sharpshooters.
Prison gangs launched 153 arson attacks in and around Fortaleza, Brazil since Wednesday night. Cars, buses, shopping centers, banks, and government buildings have been targeted. 148 have been detained, and 2 suspects have been killed.https://t.co/MEy32M6NzMpic.twitter.com/APgc73BmQX
According to the State Institute of Public Security (ISP), Brazil’s military police killed 1,544 people last year in Rio de Janeiro state.
“Summary executions are being carried out in favelas and other peripheral areas,” said Renata Souza, a local politician. “It is a barbaric state policy that amounts to genocide.”
President Bolsonaro has even threatened to make new laws that will enable police and civilians to “shoot suspected offenders” without concern of prosecution.
“These guys are going to die in the streets like cockroaches — and that’s how it should be,” he said in a recent interview. He told Brazil’s police should be decorated for using rifles, not taken to courts.
In an interview, broadcasted on YouTube on August 05, Bolsonaro said if congress passed his changes to the criminal code, it would see criminals gunned down in droves.
The only way to reduce Brazil’s violent crime is to provide “legal cover” to police officers so they can kill suspects, he added.
With murders surging across 14 states, and high rates of young blacks murdered, The Hindu warned: “the last thing Brazil needs is an out-of-control police force. But that may just become legal.”
And if you didn’t think The Purge, a movie where murder is legal for 12 hours, could’ve come true, well, think again in Brazil.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2U1BbW4 Tyler Durden
