Tag: news

Europe Is Working On Alternative To SWIFT For “Financial Independence” From The US

In the aftermath of a report that Germany was working on a global payment system that is independent of the US and SWIFT, on Monday Germany and France said they’re working on financing solutions to sidestep U.S. sanctions against countries such as Iran, including a possible role for central banks, Bloomberg reported.

“With Germany, we are determined to work on an independent European or Franco-German financing tool which would allow us to avoid being the collateral victims of U.S. extra-territorial sanctions,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Monday during a meeting with press association AJEF. “I want Europe to be a sovereign continent not a vassal, and that means having totally independent financing instruments that do not today exist.”

The discussions, which also involve the U.K., are a signal that European powers are trying to get serious about demonstrating a greater level of independence from the U.S. as President Donald Trump pursues his “America First” agenda.

After the US reimposed sanctions on Iran, making funding to Iran projects virtually impossible, European companies including Daimler and Total halted activity or backtracked on investment plans to avoid U.S. punishment, but France and Germany and their European Union partners want business with the Islamic Republic to continue.

Le Maire said using the European Investment Bank, which has exposure to the U.S., as a “financial channel” would be “very complicated” and that the French and German governments are talking to their respective central banks about their involvement. “If we want to build a truly independent instrument we must open up all the options,” he said.

Separately, Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas again weighed in on the topic of European financial independence on Monday, saying the EU is working to protect economic ties with Iran and keep payment channels open.

Maas said Europe has started work on creating a system for money transfers that will be autonomous from the currently prevailing Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).

German foreign minister Heiko Maas

“That won’t be easy, but we have already started to do that,” Maas said at the annual Ambassadors Conference in Berlin on Monday, as quoted by RIA Novosti. “We are studying proposals for payment channels and systems, more independent from SWIFT, and for creating European monetary fund.”

Maas also announced plans to reveal a new foreign policy strategy towards the US.

“We have to react and strengthen Europe’s autonomy and sovereignty in trade, economic and finance policy,” Maas said in a speech in Berlin. “It’s high time to recalibrate the Transatlantic Partnership – rationally, critically, and even self-critically,” the FM added.

Maas echoed his comments from last week when he called for European autonomy to be strengthened by creating payment channels that are independent of the United States, establishing a ‘European Monetary Fund’.

Europe’s desire to create its own system is connected to Washington’s recent withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, and the re-imposition economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. As Brussels stays committed to the pact signed in 2015 between Tehran and the world powers, the EU had to enforce the ‘Blocking Statute’ in order to safeguard European businesses operating in Iran from US sanctions against the country. However, the measure failed to keep European majors like Total, Maersk, Mercedes in Iran, as they cannot function independently of the US-dominated international banking system and international financial markets.

SWIFT, which is short for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is the financial network that provides high-value cross-border transfers for members across the world. It is based in Belgium, but its board includes executives from US banks with US federal law allowing the administration to act against banks and regulators across the globe. It supports most interbank messages, connecting over 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories.

Ironically, it was Russia who took the first initiative, after its Central Bank governor, Elvira Nabiullina, said that the country had created a national system for money transfers that could protect its banking from a potential cut off from SWIFT transfer services. The step was triggered by the constant anti-Russia penalties introduced by Washington since 2014 for various reasons, including the reunification with Crimea, alleged involvement in the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, alleged US election meddling, and the alleged poisoning of former double-agent Sergei Skripal in the UK. The result was also a near complete liquidation of Russian holdings of US Treasuries and their conversion into gold and other non-US foreign reserves.

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NASA Administrator: We Need a Space Force to Save Energy Grid From ‘Existential Threat’

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine thinks the U.S. needs a Space Force to protect the nation’s energy grid from the “existential threat” posed by our adversaries. But while the threat may be real, that doesn’t mean a whole new branch of the military is the solution.

In a recent interview with the Washington Examiner, Bridenstine notes that the energy grid and Wall Street are both heavily dependent on Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. “Every banking transaction requires a timing signal from GPS,” he tells the Examiner. “In other words, if there is no GPS, there is no banking in the United States. Everything shuts down.” This, he adds, is “an existential threat.”

Who might be capable of such a disruption? The administration points to Russia and China. Laying out the White House’s plans for a Space Force earlier this month, Vice President Mike Pence cited the security threats posed by both countries’ space capabilities.

“We are dependent as a nation…on space to the point where our potential adversaries have called it the ‘American Achilles heel,'” Bridenstine tells the Examiner.

But while the electric grid and Wall Street may be vulnerable to a space-based attack, creating an entirely new branch of the military isn’t the right response. For one thing, the Petnagon already puts considerable resources into space operations. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, we have 159 military satellites in orbit. China and Russia have just 75 and 35, respectively.

Indeed, the U.S. already has a kind of Space Force: the Air Force Space Command. And as Reason‘s Christian Britschgi recently noted, the Air Force currently spends about $8.5 billion a year on its space operations.

That’s not all. Without the Space Force, the Pentagon wastes about $125 billion a year on administrative inefficiencies. Adding to the alphabet soup of space agencies will probably just make that worse.

And though it’s important to protect America’s assets in space, adding another military branch will be an invitation to military creep. As Britschgi wrote:

Without a single branch dedicated to militarizing space, the current branches have to make trade offs between how much they prioritize space over other land, sea, and air operations. That’s ultimately a good thing, as it constrains the time and energy the government can put toward expanding the reach of an already overpowered, oversized military. A new Space Force, by contrast, would have every incentive to hype any potential space-related threats in the pursuit of more funding, more influence, and more power.

American taxpayers are already on the hook for a military that costs $700 billion a year. Let’s try lowering that figure instead of adding to it.

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To Understand America’s Neofeudal Economy, Start With Extortion

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Here is the result of America’s neofeudalism: soaring wealth and income inequality.

Let’s spin the time machine back to the late Middle Ages, at the height of feudalism, and imagine we’re trying to get a boatload of goods to the nearest city to sell. As we drift down the river, we’re constantly being stopped and charged a fee for transiting one small fiefdom after another. When we finally reach the city, there’s an entry fee for bringing our goods to market.

Note that none of these fees were payments for improvements to transport or for services rendered; they were simply extortion. This was the economic structure of feudalism: petty fiefdoms levied extortionate fees that funded the lifestyles of nobility.

This is why I have long called America’s economy neofeudal: we pay ever higher fees for services that are degrading, not improving. This is the essence of extortion: we don’t get any improvement in goods and services for the extra money we’re forced to pay.

Consider higher education: costs are soaring while the value of the “product”–a college diploma–declines. What extra value are students receiving for the doubling of tuition and fees? The short answer is “none.” College diplomas are in over-supply, and studies have found that a majority of students learn remarkably little of value in college.

As I explain in my book The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy, the solution is to accredit the student, not the institution. If the student learned very little, he/she doesn’t get credentialed.

Were students to have access to the best classroom lectures online (nearly free), and on-the-job apprenticeships in the workplace, (nearly free or perhaps even paid), learning would be significantly improved and costs reduced by 80% to 90%.

In this structure, there’s no need for costly campuses or administration; the entire structure of higher education could be largely automated with software, except for the workplace apprenticeships which focus on case studies and real-world projects that are creating value in the here and now.

Consider healthcare: has the quality of healthcare doubled along with costs?Are Americans significantly healthier as the costs of healthcare have tripled? The aggregate health of Americans has arguably declined, while the stresses placed on frontline care providers by the ever-heavier burdens of compliance and paperwork have increased.

What about the $200 hammers and $300 million F-35 aircraft of the defense industry? Once again, as costs have soared, the quality and effectiveness of the products being supplied has arguable declined.

How about state and local government services? Are they improving as taxes and junk fees rise? Once again, government services are often declining in quality as taxes and fees increase by leaps and bounds.

In sector after sector, the quality of the goods and services has declined while costs have soared. This is the acme of neofeudalism: insiders and the New Nobility are skimming fortunes as prices skyrocket and the quality of the goods and services provided plummet.

Look at the cost increases in higher education, healthcare and childcare and ask yourself if the quality of those services have risen in lockstep with price increases.

This is nothing but neofeudal extortion. The cartels raise prices and we’re forced to pay them, just as feudal commoners were forced to pay.

Here is the result of America’s neofeudalism: soaring wealth and income inequality. 

Insiders and the New Nobility are getting richer while debt-serfs are getting poorer.

*  *  *

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Pope Dismisses Explosive Testimony Of Abuse Cover-Up: I Will “Not Say One Word”

Speaking to reporters on a flight returning to Rome from an official visit to Dublin on Sunday, the Pope indicated he will not respond to explosive charges from a top Vatican official that the pontiff knowingly covered up widespread sexual abuse.

The Pope dismissed a bombshell document containing the charges which emerged Saturday night, saying simply that the allegations “speaks for itself” and that he would “not say one word” on the matter. 

According to Reuters, “The pontiff said journalists should read the document carefully and decide for themselves about its credibility”.

Papal press pool via Reuters

The extraordinary 11-page written testament, one which the NYT’s Ross Douthat called a “truly historic bombshell”, contains former Vatican ambassador to the US Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s detailed allegations concerning “who in the hierarchy knew what, and when,” about the crimes of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

McCarrick was stripped of his office last month by Pope Francis over claims he routinely sexually abused seminary students and an eleven-year old altar boy, something which one New York City priest told CBS News, “virtually everyone knew”. Viganò’s testimony implicates a host of high-ranking churchmen on up to the pope himself. 

The Pope responded to reporters accompanying him on Sunday: “I read that statement this morning. I read it and I will say sincerely that I must say this, to you (the reporter) and all of you who are interested: read the document carefully and judge it for yourselves.”

And further: “I will not say one word on this. I think the statement speaks for itself and you have sufficient journalistic capacity to reach your own conclusions,” Pope Francis said.

Meanwhile Vigano said that he told Pope Francis in 2013 about allegations of sexual abuse against a prominent priest — and that Francis took no action. Now 77-year old Archbishop Viganò is calling for Francis to step down.

It is extraordinary and somewhat unprecedented that the Pope should so quickly be on the defensive in front of reporters, the way a politician would; however, the allegations are coming from the top of the American hierarchy and arguably the single most powerful and in-the-know figure concerning the goings-on in the American church: the very man who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016.

Monsignor Carlo Maria Viganò (center) said now deposed Cardinal Theodore McCarrick regularly invited seminarians to his bed, and that it was widely known among church officials. 

Viganò made the allegations in a lengthy statement that concludes with a call for Francis’ resignation:

“In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example to Cardinals and Bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.”

The former Vatican official said Benedict had “imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis” and that Viganò personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013.

Also contained in the letter are accusations against a long list of current and past Vatican and U.S. Church officials charging that they too covered up case of the 88-year old former McCarrick.

Likely, the Pope will continue being under fire until he takes on some of the specific allegations. His official visit to Dublin, where he addressed Catholics at an outdoor mass and begged for the forgiveness of the laity for recent scandals facing the Church, was marred by protests as he passed by crowds. 

 

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“Big Deal Looking Good”: US, Mexico Agree To Nafta Pact

A Mexican official told CNBC on Monday that Nafta trade talks with the U.S. have wrapped up, and President Donald Trump has signed off on a bilateral agreement with Mexico to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement; an announcement is expected later on Monday, according to Bloomberg.

“A big deal looking good with Mexico!” President Donald Trump tweeted earlier on Monday.

As the Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo entered the Washington office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s office where negotiations are going, he told reporters that there is one bilateral difference left to iron out. He declined to identify the issue.

And while Mexican negotiations may effectively be over, there is no deal reached yet with Canada. As has been the case over a year of intense and sometimes fractious negotiations to update the decades-old Nafta, it’s not the end of the road. But optimism is running high of salvaging the pact that Trump has threatened to scrap, Bloomberg adds.

The Mexican official also told CNBC the U.S. and Mexico have “reached understanding on key issues,” adding that Canada will now “re-engage” in the negotiations. Canada has remained on the sidelines of trade talks recently while the U.S. aimed at first striking a deal with Mexico.

“Once the bilateral issues get resolved, Canada will be joining the talks to work on both bilateral issues and our trilateral issues,” Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, said on Friday. “And will be happy to do that, once the bilateral US-Mexico issues have been resolved.”

Significant breakthroughs between Mexico and the U.S. came during the past several days on automobiles and energy.  Officials had hoped to wrap up last week but that was before the distraction caused by the guilty plea entered Tuesday by President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the guilty verdict handed down against Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

* * *

Still, there are risks: as Bloomberg’s Benjamin Dow writes, with a long time to go until Canada’s sign-off – and Trump likely having to get a new deal through Congress – there are a few scenarios that could slow or alter a deal and hurt the MXN.

  • One is if Republicans lose control of the House in November, then are forced to try to pass a new tripartite deal with one half of Congress possibly hellbent on obstructionism. Another, “minibus” spending bills, involves shutting down the government, and involves border-wall funding and more money for immigration enforcement.
  • Another unknown is GOP leaders’ partnership with Trump. The elaborate packaging of bills was undertaken after the president said he wouldn’t sign another omnibus into law. None of the bills that leaders plan to send him in September address his top priority: money for the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.’

The friction that could come from U.S. and Mexican leadership over non-tariff disagreements makes the BBVA analysts’ call of 18.4 pesos per dollar sound like a best-case. For now, however, the Mexican peso has jumped 1% higher against the dollar at 18.7, but is modestly fading its gains.

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Wall Street Reacts To Musk’s Dramatic Flip-Flop

As we said last night, three weeks after Musk’s stunning “going private” announcement, the soap opera is finally over.

On Friday night the “funding secured” tragicomedy came to a halt after Musk announced the company would remain public after all following discussions with investors. And while shares initially tumbled as much as 5%, they pared earlier losses to almost unchanged amid an algo ramp, but have again reversed and may extend declines as investors try to sort out the confusion.

Below, courtesy of Bloomberg, are the hot takes of some of the company’s most notable sellside analysts.

Cowen, Jeffrey Osborne (Underperform, price target $200)

  • “The key question is whether investors will continue to support a CEO who may potentially be involved in market manipulation and/or securities fraud as well as a company under SEC investigation.”
  • “We see mounting obstacles for the company, notably shareholder lawsuits, SEC investigation, cash burn, competitive environment and spotty profits.”
  • “While investors in the past may have been willing to invest in the compelling story of saving the world provided by a visionary CEO, the recent episodes and his new focus on profitably lead us to believe that the stock is likely to begin to reflect the financial realities that the price has long been divorced from should it be unable to reach profitability in 2H18 as we are currently modeling.”

Jefferies, Philippe Houchois (Hold, price target $360)

  • “The only tangible results so far from that episode seem to be an SEC investigation, lawsuits and more damage to the standing of management and board.”
  • “Shares may be hit today as a result of more erratic corporate behavior at Tesla, However, we wonder if the ‘going private’ tweet has effectively put Tesla in play and may lead to additional discussions with other investors, mainly corporates, that value Tesla’s vision and can help bridge gaps in growth and execution skills.”
  • “Tesla needs new capital to fund midterm growth or risk a de-rating of its valuation multiples.”

RBC, Joseph Spak (Sector perform, price target $315)

  • “With a potential bid of $420/share out of the way, we’d like to say the stock will return to trading on fundamentals, but the truth is the stock trades on sentiment.”
  • “Bulls will likely be happy because they can participate in potential value creation. However, to us the bears have more ammo on the near-term sentiment move.”
  • “It has become clear to us that funding was not secured or there was not sufficient interest to take the company private at $420/share. And we think credibility has taken a hit.”
  • “While the stock may be volatile over the coming weeks, ultimately we think the story will come back to the Model 3 ramp – not just the units but the profitability.”

Baird, Ben Kallo (Outperform, price target $411)

  • “We expect shares to appreciate over the intermediate term as the focus shifts back to fundamentals, which we believe may be underappreciated. We are buyers on weakness as we expect shares to move higher ahead of third-quarter deliveries and results.”
  • “A potential SEC penalty will remain an overhang; while it is extremely difficult to predict the outcome of an investigation, historical settlements may demonstrate perceived risks could be overblown…. Additionally, we think any penalties will likely be borne by Musk.”
  • “Concerns about potential funding needs will return to the forefront, despite management’s confidence the company will not issue equity in 2018.”

Oppenheimer, Colin Rusch (Outperform)

  • “This removes a large distraction that had significant chance of failure and the potential to severely limit Tesla’s access to capital while attempting to execute on its ambitious product strategy.”
  • “It is premature to speculate on specifics, but do expect this situation will help set SEC precedent on public communication of corporate strategy.”
  • “We would not be surprised to see an incremental hire of a senior operationally focused executive.”

New Street Research, Pierre Ferragu (Buy, price target $530)

  • “The SEC will leverage the threat of barring Elon Musk from being an officer of a listed company in the negotiations and will be in a good position to get Elon Musk to accept a settlement including some forms of controls. We would view positively some controls imposed on Elon Musk’s communication.”
  • “We are confident Tesla will suffer very limited competitive pressure in the next 2-3 years, but we will have to convince investors and wait for news flow to prove us right.”

Loup Ventures, Gene Munster

  • “We expect class-action lawsuits against Musk around ‘funding secured’ could linger for a year.”
  • “We believe Tesla will be insulated from any claims given the company has made it clear that ‘go private’ is an Elon Musk initiative.”

Source: Bloomberg

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Is The Social Media Crackdown On Conservatives About To Get Even Worse?

Authored by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,

Is the social media crackdown on conservatives about to get even worse? 

On Friday, representatives from Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Snapchat and other major social media companies gathered to discuss “strategy” for the 2018 election.  Supposedly they were going to discuss how to combat the flow of “misinformation”, but we know what that means.  Every time the social media giants pledge to do more to crack down on “fake news”, more conservatives get censored.  In recent months we have witnessed the greatest purge of conservative voices in the history of the Internet, and as you will see below, even more prominent voices have been hit with bans in recent days.  Of course the social media companies are pledging that their censorship efforts are being implemented in an even-handed manner, but obviously all of their meddling has greatly enhanced the probability that Democrats will emerge victorious in November.

According to Breitbart, this gathering of social media executives was initiated by Facebook, and it was held at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco…

Facebook is reportedly meeting with multiple other Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe Friday to discuss how to prevent the spread of “misinformation” across their platforms ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

Business Insider reports that Silicon Valley tech giants including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, and Snap will be holding a meeting at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco Friday to discuss the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. According to emails obtained by BuzzFeed News, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher invited 12 representatives from the companies to the meeting.

But this isn’t the first time a gathering like this has taken place.

In fact, we now know that executives from many of the largest tech companies met with representatives from the deep state back in May…

In May, representatives from Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Oath, Snap and Twitter met with Christopher Krebs, an undersecretary at the US Department of Homeland Security, and Mike Burham from the FBI’s foreign influence taskforce.

Since that meeting, we have seen social media censorship get much, much worse.

Could it be possible that there is a connection?

And we have also just learned that Facebook will now be rating all users (that means you too) for “trustworthiness”…

The social media giant plans to assign users a reputation score that ranks them on a scale of from zero to one, according to the Washington Post.

It marks Facebook’s latest effort to stave off fake news, bot accounts and other misleading content on its site.

But the idea of a reputation score has already generated skepticism about how Facebook’s system will work, as well as criticism that it resembles China’s social credit rating system.

Yes, this is almost exactly like China’s new “social credit rating system”.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook actually got that idea from them.

We are seeing the rise of a tyrannical Big Brother technocracy, and it is getting worse with each passing month.  Just check out some of the big name conservatives that have been censored by social media in recent days…

-The Hagmann Report was just slapped with a 90 day ban by YouTube.

-Verity Baptist Church was just completely banned by YouTube.

-The David Horowitz Freedom Center just had the processing of their donations blocked by Visa and Mastercard.

-“Activist Mommy” Elizabeth Johnston was recently banned by Facebook.

In addition, Facebook’s censorship of PragerU has resulted in a drop of engagement of more than 99 percent…

Conservative non-profit group PragerU also recently appeared to be the latest victims of Facebook censorship, as many recent posts from the group’s Facebook paged suffered a 99.9999 percent drop in engagement based on Facebook’s own dashboard. The social media giant also pulled down two PragerU videos, which it labeled “hate speech.”

The social media giants seem determined to try to kill off the conservative movement in this country, and in my latest book I discuss how political correctness has gotten completely and utterly out of control in America.  These elitists don’t believe in free speech, because on some level they understand that their ideas would not win in a free and open marketplace of ideas.

In order to win, they must censor us.  And the more tyrannical they become, the more Americans will start turning against them.

Fortunately, there are signs that the tide is starting to turn.  Facebook’s web traffic in the U.S. is way, way down, and conservatives are beginning to abandon other repressive social media platforms as well.

The Internet is supposed to be a free and open forum where all ideas are freely discussed.  If we do not stand up now, we could lose control of the Internet forever, and we must not allow that to happen.

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Trump Blames Trade War for Breakdown of North Korea Nuclear Talks

President Donald Trump’s trade war has disrupted international supply chains, raised prices for the raw materials used by American manufacturers, caused some businesses to shut down or to lay off workers, and forced others to come to Washington to beg for their survival.

But now the tariffs are causing pain for someone who really matters: Donald Trump.

Trump tweeted Friday that, as a consequence of the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China, Chinese officials are no longer pressuring North Korea to shut down its nuclear weapons program.

Trump has tried to take most of the credit for the recent eased tensions between North Korea and the U.S., but there’s no mistaking the fact that China plays an important role in how the world deals with North Korea. China is North Korea’s main trading partner and its primary supplier of food and energy. As such, it can put a unique kind of pressure on Kim’s regime.

But with the White House seemingly determined to hit half (or maybe all) of Chinese imports with tariffs before the end of the year, the Chinese government has apparently stopped its backchannel efforts to get North Korea to denuclearize. Or at least that’s what Trump says:

Despite the flippant way he delivered the news, this is no small admission from Trump. Recall the amount of pomp and circumstance that surrounded the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore. There were even commemorative coins minted before any deal had been struck—and there was talk, not just among Trump’s right-wing media supporters but also from members of Congress, about how Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing North Korea to the table.

Since then? Well, the agreement seems to have been little more a flimsy, unenforceable framework. North Korea does not seem interested in full denuclearization—though they haven’t carried out any new tests since the June meeting either.

Getting North Korea to denuclearize, or even merely getting them to behave in a more stable way as one of the world’s accepted nuclear powers, will require sustained pressure and careful diplomatic maneuvering. The Trump administration does not seem to have the attention span for any of that, so outsourcing those efforts to China (and South Korea) makes a lot of practical sense. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Pyongyang next month to acknowledge the 70th anniversary of North Korea’s founding, The Washington Post reports.

If the trade war drives a wedge between the U.S. and China on the North Korea issue—as Trump suggests it has—then the trade war might very well cost Trump one of his few true achievements in office.

There’s a broader lesson here too. Trade makes the world more peaceful. Countries that do a lot of trading end up being invested in each others’ interests—a result of the fact that it is people within those countries doing the trading, not the governments themselves.

An important corollary to this fact is that countries which do not trade end up not having many friends. Like North Korea. Or Cuba, which America deliberately isolated for many years as a way to punish its leaders.

China and the U.S. have 800 billion reasons to work together to solve regional and global problems—especially problems that affect both countries, such as dangerous nuclear-armed dictators. But tariffs cause geopolitical dysfunction. Trump has no one but himself to blame for the collapse of North Korean diplomacy.

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Prison Strikes Continue, But Their Scope Is Hard to Read Amid Denials from Authorities: Reason Roundup

Prison reform can’t count on Congress. Federal efforts to reform literally any aspect of our bloated and cruel criminal justice system continue to fail, and state appetites for the issue started to slow as fentanyl deaths (and sex panic, and antifa/white nationalists, and any other excuse they could find not to reduce state power) started rising. But direct action and court battles continue to show signs of progress.

Monday marks day seven of a multi-state prison strike. Before things got started, “representatives for the strike said they anticipated demonstrations by inmates in as many as 17 states. But four days into the declared protests, they say they can confirm actions in only a handful of states,” notes The Marshall Project. These have taken place at prisons in California, Ohio, South Carolina, and Washington state.

Accurate information on the number of participating prisoners and prisons is hard to come by, however, and authorities at some institutions are accused of covering up inmate action and lying to the media about it.

“Officials in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, New York and South Carolina, where protest activity had either been reported or rumored, all denied on Sunday that anything was amiss at their facilities,” The New York Times said this morning. “Officials in Ohio, New Mexico and at the Federal Bureau of Prisons did not respond to requests for comment.”

The main thrust of the strike is against the barely-paid labor that prisoners do. “Work in prison is vital,” write former inmates Chandra Bozelko and Ryan Lo at USA Today. “It gives inmates rare privacy, glimpses of humanity. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get paid what their labor is worth.”

Prison labor has become the backbone of certain hard-to-staff industries, such as poultry processing. It is also a hotbed of cronyism and corruption that pits corporate profits and “criminal justice” against the rights and well-being of those incarcerated for everything from serious offenses to minor drug possession. The American Civil Liberties Union has accused Oklahoma courts of sending people to “an unpaid labor camp disguised as a rehabilitation center.” And all sorts of complaints have been lodged against Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery, which gets factory labor for free from systems in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Meanwhile, in non-strike prison news, a U.S. appeals court “has breathed life back into” a lawsuit against the jails of Cook County, Illinois, notes the Associated Press. Inmates at the Chicago-area jails had argued that limitations on the amount of reading material they could have—three books and/or magazines per cell—were unconstitutional. The “Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t rule on the constitutional question in its finding last week. It returned the case to the lower court that tossed it with instructions to reconsider the matter.”

And on Friday, Texas voted to cut the cost of inmate phone calls from 26 cents per minute to six cents per minute. The change is a result of negotiations that started in April.

FREE MARKETS

Montana is loosening up its liquor licensing laws. But while areas hurt by restrictive policies see improvement, the new system also sets up new barriers to entry. “The law gets rid of the old lottery system, in which bidders could acquire liquor licenses for as little as $400, in markets where the licenses are worth much more,” reports KTVQ.com. “Bidding opened last week for the first round of licenses, including an all-beverage license in Bozeman that has a minimum bid of $371,250. All-beverage licenses allow the holder to sell beer, wine and hard liquor.”

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Italy Vows To Veto EU Budget Over Migrant Clash

Europe’s migrant deal that was announced to much fanfare in late June, is now history.

At least that is the interpretation of Italy, which on Sunday announced it would start the process of opposing the EU’s next budget after Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio accused European member states of failing to follow through on the deal reached in June for redistributing the flood of migrants.

In a video message on his Facebook page, Di Maio said that “we will look at all measures in discussions regarding the European budget and will block what doesn’t work for us”, noting that “the other states are not doing what’s not convenient for them,” referring to the refusal of other countries to accept migrants who arrive in Italy by sea.

Luigi Di Maio

Italian officials have repeatedly clashed with the EU over migration, most recently over the future of 177 migrants on a coast guard vessel, the Diciotti, which docked in Sicily’s Catania port a week ago and was unloaded only over the weekend after Albania offered to accept 20 of the migrants and Ireland 20-25, while the rest would be housed by Italy’s Catholic Church “at zero cost” to the Italian taxpayer.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte “did well” to say on Saturday that the nation can’t follow EU budget rules as long as the issue remains unresolved, Di Maio said, quoted by Bloomberg. Migration is “just one of the battles” the government in Rome is ready to wage with the EU, he said in the video.

In a Monday interview with La Stampa, Di Maio raised the stakes when he warned that Italy is ready to “veto the budget and any dossiers where it’s possible” calculating that “between 2020 and 2027 there is 1.14 trillion in the balance.”

Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini – who was the first to attack the EU back in June during another standoff with a migrant ship – told Il Messaggero that there is no intention of leaving the EU. ““We’re there, but we want to re-discuss the costs of being there, given that services are ever more limited.”

Discussions about the bloc’s next long term budget running from 2021 through 2027 are still at an early stage and Italy wouldn’t be the only country objecting to the proposals of the European Commission. Disagreements on the so-called multiannual financial framework wouldn’t have any implications at this stage.

As for next year’s budget, Bloomberg notes that Italy alone can’t block it, as decisions are taken by an enhanced majority of the EU’s 28 member states. If Italy withholds monthly payments for the execution of this year’s budget, that would constitute an infringement of the bloc’s laws and result into legal action by the European Commission.

Meanwhile, representatives from EU member states which failed to reach a deal at a meeting Aug. 24 in Brussels called to discuss a common approach on migration. The Brussels meeting “was only the first step” and representatives discussed a mechanism for migrants disembarking and a fast solution for the Diciotti, EU Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos said in an interview with La Repubblica on Sunday. “Italian politicians must put an end to the game of accusations.”

“Attacking the EU means shooting yourself in the foot,” Avramopoulos added, apparently unable to grasp that Italy was happy to do just that, especially with growing support from “core” Europe”: Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called for a change to Europe’s policy of “unlimited hospitality” that has increased the number of migrants arriving, he said in an interview with Il Messaggero.

Echoing Trump, the Austrian said that Europe has a duty to save migrants but those who come illegally should be sent back to their home countries, he said.

Following the Italian threat, the EUR dipped modestly in early trading, while Italian 10Y yields initially slumped only to give reverse the entire move and trade up to 3.16%

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