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Much has been written recently about the rigged London “gold fixing” process, during which, as even Bloomberg recently covered, the price of gold is blatantly manipulated. One thing was, however, missing: a photo of the fixers in practice. Today, courtesy of German WiWo, we show just what said “fixing” looks like in real life every single day.
h/t @DrGideonGono
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/VUU-O6exOUU/story01.htm Tyler Durden
Much has been written recently about the rigged London “gold fixing” process, during which, as even Bloomberg recently covered, the price of gold is blatantly manipulated. One thing was, however, missing: a photo of the fixers in practice. Today, courtesy of German WiWo, we show just what said “fixing” looks like in real life every single day.
h/t @DrGideonGono
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/VUU-O6exOUU/story01.htm Tyler Durden
In
the London Review of Books–in a story that both the
Washington Post and the New Yorker could have
printed
but chose not to, the Post having told Hersh they
didn’t find the sourcing solid enough–journalist Seymour Hersh
lays out at great length his reasons for thinking the case against
the Assad regime for poison gas attacks is unproven.
Excerpts and summation: Hersh’s first point is the
administration knew that the al-Nusra front, a rebel group with Al
Qaeda ties, also had access to sarin.
Then he found various (anonymous) sources he says should be in a
position to know who doubt the administration’s assurance of
blame:
One high-level intelligence officer, in an email to a colleague,
called the administration’s assurances of Assad’s responsibility a
‘ruse’. The attack ‘was not the result of the current regime’, he
wrote. A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama
administration had altered the available information – in terms of
its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers
to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it
had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was
happening. The distortion, he said, reminded him of the 1964 Gulf
of Tonkin incident, when the Johnson administration reversed the
sequence of National Security Agency intercepts to justify one of
the early bombings of North Vietnam. The same official said there
was immense frustration inside the military and intelligence
bureaucracy: ‘The guys are throwing their hands in the air and
saying, “How can we help this guy” – Obama – “when he and his
cronies in the White House make up the intelligence as they go
along?”’The complaints focus on what Washington did not have: any
advance warning from the assumed source of the attack. The military
intelligence community has for years produced a highly classified
early morning intelligence summary, known as the Morning Report,
for the secretary of defence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff; a copy also goes to the national security adviser and the
director of national intelligence. The Morning Report includes no
political or economic information, but provides a summary of
important military events around the world, with all available
intelligence about them. A senior intelligence consultant told me
that some time after the attack he reviewed the reports for 20
August through 23 August. For two days – 20 and 21 August – there
was no mention of Syria. On 22 August the lead item in the Morning
Report dealt with Egypt; a subsequent item discussed an internal
change in the command structure of one of the rebel groups in
Syria. Nothing was noted about the use of nerve gas in Damascus
that day. It was not until 23 August that the use of sarin became a
dominant issue, although hundreds of photographs and videos of the
massacre had gone viral within hours on YouTube, Facebook and other
social media sites. At this point, the administration knew no more
than the public.
And Hersh argues that they probably should have known more than
the public if it was Assad, because of a supposedly very effective
“secret sensor system inside Syria, designed to provide early
warning of any change in status of the regime’s chemical weapons
arsenal” which allegedly worked last December to see a possible
sarin attack planned (or maybe just an exercise for one), which
triggered Obama’s first “red line” warning to Assad about using gas
weapons.
Hersh goes on to make much of the fact that the intelligence
later presented indicating possible Syrian official preparation for
a gas attack was not obtained and understood in real
time before the attack occured but merely
reconstructed later. (Given that he admits the U.S. lacks fully
efficient real time surveillance of all Assad regime communication,
this doesn’t seem such a slam dunk argument.)
The artillery rocket that supposedly delivered the sarin in the
August 21 attack near Damascus was said to be something only the
regime was known to use. But Hersh reports:
Theodore Postol, a professor of technology and national security
at MIT, reviewed the UN photos with a group of his colleagues and
concluded that the large calibre rocket was an improvised munition
that was very likely manufactured locally. He told me that it was
‘something you could produce in a modestly capable machine shop’.
The rocket in the photos, he added, fails to match the
specifications of a similar but smaller rocket known to be in the
Syrian arsenal. The New York Times, again relying on
data in the UN report, also analysed the flight path of two of the
spent rockets that were believed to have carried sarin, and
concluded that the angle of descent ‘pointed directly’ to their
being fired from a Syrian army base more than nine kilometres from
the landing zone.Postol, who has served as the scientific adviser to the chief of
naval operations in the Pentagon, said that the assertions in
the Times and elsewhere ‘were not based on
actual observations’. He concluded that the flight path analyses in
particular were, as he put it in an email, ‘totally nuts’ because a
thorough study demonstrated that the range of the improvised
rockets was ‘unlikely’ to be more than two kilometres. Postol and a
colleague, Richard M. Lloyd, published an analysis two weeks after
21 August in which they correctly assessed that the rockets
involved carried a far greater payload of sarin than previously
estimated. The Times reported on that analysis
at length, describing Postol and Lloyd as ‘leading weapons
experts’. The pair’s later study about the rockets’ flight paths
and range, which contradicted
previous Times reporting, was emailed to the
newspaper last week; it has so far gone unreported.
What Hersh paints as the administration’s reluctance to publicly
admit rebels also had access to poison gas could be troublesome
down the line, he thinks:
While the Syrian regime continues the process of eliminating its
chemical arsenal, the irony is that, after Assad’s stockpile of
precursor agents is destroyed, al-Nusra and its Islamist allies
could end up as the only faction inside Syria with access to the
ingredients that can create sarin, a strategic weapon that would be
unlike any other in the war zone. There may be more to
negotiate.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/09/journalist-seymour-hersh-thinks-the-evid
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Drumroll please….
As
advertised, there’s a brand new TV show in the universe,
anchored by Reason.tv contributor Kennedy, co-hosted by
Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch and
occasional Reason contributor Kmele Foster. It’s
called The Independents, will approach politics and
culture from an unorthodox spirit and point of view familiar to
readers of this website, and you can find it on a Fox Business
Network channel near you.
The show will air Mondays, Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Fridays for
1 hour between 9 and 10 pm. (Thursdays in that time slot is
reserved for the one and only Stossel,
who a little birdie tells me may be a participant in this evening’s
live broadcast.)
We will have an open thread later for heckling and/or fashion
critiques, but for now please sign up early and often for The
Independents on various social media platforms:
* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IndependentsFBN
* Twitter: @IndependentsFBN (we’ll
be reading out Tweets during the broadcast)
* Instagram: independentsFBN
This show couldn’t have happened without John Stossel, and
it also couldn’t have happened without you, the readers and
supporters of Reason. So thank you for that, and won’t you please
donate to
Reason to make more good stuff possible?
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/09/set-your-dvrs-to-omg-the-independents-de
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The number of employees across the firms of the broad-based Russell 2000 equity index has collapsed by more than half from its peak. The price of that index, in the same period, has risen 137%. Can you spot when the index ‘price’ disconnected from economic reality?
No seasonal adjustments; no surveys; no bullshit… Just Jobs -50% from peak… great for stocks
Be careful what you wish for Mrs Yellen…
Of course, we are sure the chart will be dismissed as meaningless for some “demographic” or “cyclical” reason and we should not worry, just BTFATH, of course.
Chart: Bloomberg
h/t Guenter Leitold
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/7_6kgzeztmY/story01.htm Tyler Durden
Authored by Mohamed El-Erian, originally posted at Project Syndicate,
The United States’ reputation for sound economic policymaking took a beating in 2013. Some of this was warranted; some of it was not. And now a related distorted narrative – one that in 2014 could needlessly undermine policies that are key to improving America’s economic recovery – is gaining traction.
The 2008 global financial crisis left the US economy mired in a low-level equilibrium, characterized by sluggish job creation, persistently high long-term and youth unemployment, and growing inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity. Many Americans started 2013 with high hopes that congressional leaders would overcome, even if only partly, the polarization and political dysfunction that had slowed recovery.
Expectations of less political turbulence were enhanced at the start of 2013 by a bipartisan agreement that avoided the so-called fiscal cliff (though at the last minute and with much rancor) and a deal reached later in January to raise the debt ceiling (albeit temporarily). With expectations of less political brinkmanship and lower policy uncertainty ahead, consensus projections foresaw faster, more inclusive economic growth.
In turn, faster growth was expected to revitalize the labor market, counteract worsening income inequality, mollify concerns about debt and deficit levels, and enable the Federal Reserve to start normalizing monetary policy in an orderly fashion. It would also facilitate a return by Congress to more normal economic governance – whether passing an annual budget, something not accomplished in four years, or finally taking steps to enhance rather than impede growth and job creation.
But optimism foundered over the course of 2013, and frustration soared.
Growth has again fallen short of expectations. With another year of uneven job creation, the problems associated with long-term and youth unemployment have become more deeply embedded in the economy’s structure. Inequalities remain too high, and continue to grow. Congressional paralysis has reached levels unparalleled in recent history. And, again, lawmakers have not enacted an annual budget.
This is not to say that there has been no economic or financial progress in 2013. After all, economic growth, while unnecessarily held below potential by Congress (and vulnerable to decline if Congress is not careful), has again outpaced that of Europe. The budget deficit has fallen markedly, while companies and households, too, have continued to strengthen their balance sheets. Many segments of the equities market have bounced back strongly, with price indexes hitting record highs. And Americans are on the verge of obtaining much better access to health care.
What is frustrating is that the country could have – and should have – done a lot better. Recognizing this, Americans are not hesitant to blame a Congress that seems more eager to manufacture problems than to enable the economy to reach its considerable potential.
Rather than building on some of the fledgling bipartisanship from earlier in the year, Congress decided to produce a mid-year government-financing drama. Even immigration reform – a bipartisan pro-growth issue with considerable support from much of American society – has languished unnecessarily. More broadly, Congress took no significant action to avoid headwinds that impose a drag on growth and discourage companies and individuals from investing in their future.
According to a survey based on data from the Office of the Clerk of the US House of Representatives, the current 113th Congress has delivered the lowest legislative activity “since at least 1947, when the data collection began.” And Americans know it. According to Gallop, the 9% approval rating for Congress is the lowest level in the survey’s 39-year history.
Partisan polarization in Congress has also undermined the executive branch, unduly blocking government appointments – including routine and essentially uncontroversial ones – and placing unwarranted obstacles in the way of implementing even the most sensible and seemingly bipartisan legislative proposals. The resulting sense of political drift and dysfunction has been exacerbated by the poor rollout of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) – a massive, avoidable distraction that has been allowed to cast doubt on this landmark initiative.
Yes, 2013 was not a good year for public-sector decision-making, especially given that most of the slippages were “own goals.” In the process, the US damaged the reputation for effective economic management that it had earned during the global financial crisis, when bold and timely measures prevented a period of reckless private risk-taking and financial leverage from ending in Great Depression II. The Congress-imposed government shutdown and near-default in October were particularly harmful to the country’s global standing.
As a result, the popular narrative is shifting to the danger of “government failure.” More and more Americans are being led to forget how, just a few years ago, a united US government reacted decisively to “market failures” and thus helped to avoid a global economic meltdown that would have devastated millions of lives and undermined future generations’ prospects. Now, as the pendulum swings back, it risks overshooting the optimal combination of private and public activity and ending up at a simplistic view of government as the problem and the private sector as the solution. If this occurs, the outlook for faster, more inclusive growth would be weakened further.
Government has a long pro-growth to-do list heading into 2014. The top priorities include modernizing the country’s transport and energy infrastructure, reforming an underperforming education system, improving the labor market, bringing order to an overly-fragmented fiscal structure, enhancing the provision of public goods, and safeguarding America’s interests abroad.
It is tempting for politicians and analysts to overplay simple narratives that place the blame entirely on one side or the other. The truth is more nuanced and complex. America is in desperate need of a Congress that encourages, rather than impedes, better partnerships between the public and private sectors. Constantly pitting one side against the other may make for entertaining roundtables on cable television and energizing political rallies. But it comes at the cost of undermining an economy that could – and therefore should – be performing much better.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/VikFfaIa1Sc/story01.htm Tyler Durden
Authored by Mohamed El-Erian, originally posted at Project Syndicate,
The United States’ reputation for sound economic policymaking took a beating in 2013. Some of this was warranted; some of it was not. And now a related distorted narrative – one that in 2014 could needlessly undermine policies that are key to improving America’s economic recovery – is gaining traction.
The 2008 global financial crisis left the US economy mired in a low-level equilibrium, characterized by sluggish job creation, persistently high long-term and youth unemployment, and growing inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity. Many Americans started 2013 with high hopes that congressional leaders would overcome, even if only partly, the polarization and political dysfunction that had slowed recovery.
Expectations of less political turbulence were enhanced at the start of 2013 by a bipartisan agreement that avoided the so-called fiscal cliff (though at the last minute and with much rancor) and a deal reached later in January to raise the debt ceiling (albeit temporarily). With expectations of less political brinkmanship and lower policy uncertainty ahead, consensus projections foresaw faster, more inclusive economic growth.
In turn, faster growth was expected to revitalize the labor market, counteract worsening income inequality, mollify concerns about debt and deficit levels, and enable the Federal Reserve to start normalizing monetary policy in an orderly fashion. It would also facilitate a return by Congress to more normal economic governance – whether passing an annual budget, something not accomplished in four years, or finally taking steps to enhance rather than impede growth and job creation.
But optimism foundered over the course of 2013, and frustration soared.
Growth has again fallen short of expectations. With another year of uneven job creation, the problems associated with long-term and youth unemployment have become more deeply embedded in the economy’s structure. Inequalities remain too high, and continue to grow. Congressional paralysis has reached levels unparalleled in recent history. And, again, lawmakers have not enacted an annual budget.
This is not to say that there has been no economic or financial progress in 2013. After all, economic growth, while unnecessarily held below potential by Congress (and vulnerable to decline if Congress is not careful), has again outpaced that of Europe. The budget deficit has fallen markedly, while companies and households, too, have continued to strengthen their balance sheets. Many segments of the equities market have bounced back strongly, with price indexes hitting record highs. And Americans are on the verge of obtaining much better access to health care.
What is frustrating is that the country could have – and should have – done a lot better. Recognizing this, Americans are not hesitant to blame a Congress that seems more eager to manufacture problems than to enable the economy to reach its considerable potential.
Rather than building on some of the fledgling bipartisanship from earlier in the year, Congress decided to produce a mid-year government-financing drama. Even immigration reform – a bipartisan pro-growth issue with considerable support from much of American society – has languished unnecessarily. More broadly, Congress took no significant action to avoid headwinds that impose a drag on growth and discourage companies and individuals from investing in their future.
According to a survey based on data from the Office of the Clerk of the US House of Representatives, the current 113th Congress has delivered the lowest legislative activity “since at least 1947, when the data collection began.” And Americans know it. According to Gallop, the 9% approval rating for Congress is the lowest level in the survey’s 39-year history.
Partisan polarization in Congress has also undermined the executive branch, unduly blocking government appointments – including routine and essentially uncontroversial ones – and placing unwarranted obstacles in the way of implementing even the most sensible and seemingly bipartisan legislative proposals. The resulting sense of political drift and dysfunction has been exacerbated by the poor rollout of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) – a massive, avoidable distraction that has been allowed to cast doubt on this landmark initiative.
Yes, 2013 was not a good year for public-sector decision-making, especially given that most of the slippages were “own goals.” In the process, the US damaged the reputation for effective economic management that it had earned during the global financial crisis, when bold and timely measures prevented a period of reckless private risk-taking and financial leverage from ending in Great Depression II. The Congress-imposed government shutdown and near-default in October were particularly harmful to the country’s global standing.
As a result, the popular narrative is shifting to the danger of “government failure.” More and more Americans are being led to forget how, just a few years ago, a united US government reacted decisively to “market failures” and thus helped to avoid a global economic meltdown that would have devastated millions of lives and undermined future generations’ prospects. Now, as the pendulum swings back, it risks overshooting the optimal combination of private and public activity and ending up at a simplistic view of government as the problem and the private sector as the solution. If this occurs, the outlook for faster, more inclusive growth would be weakened further.
Government has a long pro-growth to-do list heading into 2014. The top priorities include modernizing the country’s transport and energy infrastructure, reforming an underperforming education system, improving the labor market, bringing order to an overly-fragmented fiscal structure, enhancing the provision of public goods, and safeguarding America’s interests abroad.
It is tempting for politicians and analysts to overplay simple narratives that place the blame entirely on one side or the other. The truth is more nuanced and complex. America is in desperate need of a Congress that encourages, rather than impedes, better partnerships between the public and private sectors. Constantly pitting one side against the other may make for entertaining roundtables on cable television and energizing political rallies. But it comes at the cost of undermining an economy that could – and therefore should – be performing much better.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/VikFfaIa1Sc/story01.htm Tyler Durden
One of the underreported stories from last week, noted here previously, was that quietly, on the day in which French unemployment soared to a new 16 year high, French president Hollande did what every true Keynesian in his position would do and dispatched troops to the Central African Republic due to a “duty to intervene” and stop the “alarming, frightening massacres” taking place there. There were no YouTube clips available to justify said massacres yet: we assume they are being produced currently. A few days later the fighting has begun with Reuters reporting that French troops fought gunmen in Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic, on Monday as they searched for weapons in an operation to disarm rival Muslim and Christian fighters responsible for hundreds of killings since last week. Shooting erupted near the airport in the morning after gunmen refused to hand over their weapons, and French forces later came under attack by former rebels in the city centre. France said it was prepared to use force if fighters rejected calls to disarm or return to barracks. Paris boosted its military presence to 1,600 troops at the weekend as waves of religious violence swept its former colony.
That’s not news. The news is that the US is once again getting involved in yet another foreign conflict. Also from Reuters:
Some additional detail from the WSJ:
The U.S. will airlift African Union forces to the Central African Republic as part of an effort to aid French troops who are in the country to put down rising violence, defense officials said.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel authorized the deployment of the U.S. transport planes and pilots Sunday night, responding to a request for assistance from France. The planes will be used to carry troops from Burundi to the Central African Republic, where France has deployed 1,600 troops to try to quell rising violence.
Fighting has increased in the Central African Republic since March when a rebel group seized power. The rebel leader, Michel Djotodia, named himself president.
Turmoil has escalated in recent days, claiming 400 lives and prompting the French intervention. On Monday, French soldiers began disarming fighters in the Central African Republic.
And yet something is different about the C.A.R. – drones. From IBTimes:
Drones were deployed over the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday, marking the first time the United Nations has used unmanned surveillance aircraft in its peacekeeping efforts. A fleet of five unarmed drones will help U.N. troops monitor the vast Central African country of 66 million people, which has been plagued by violent militias for decades.
“Such high-technology systems allow a better knowledge of what is happening on the ground, which allows a force to better do its job,” said Hervé Ladsous, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, according to the U.N. News Agency.
The new drone program marks another rare initiative for the U.N. It was originally approved by the Security Council in January, due in large part to the conflict in Goma. M23 surrendered last month, but ongoing peace talks in Uganda between the rebels and the Congolese government have reached an impasse over the wording of the final agreement.
Of course, someone must have benefited from the drone “surge.” Indeed, someone did.
The drones for the Congo fleet were purchased from the electronics firm Selex ES, a unit of the Italian industrial and defense company Finmeccanica SpA (BIT:FNC). Deployment was originally planned for August, but a complicated procurement process delayed the launch until this week. If the drones prove effective, the U.N. may consider launching similar initiatives in other countries where peacekeeping operations are under way.
In other words, look for the C.A.R./Congo region to get drastically “destabilized” in the coming weeks, especially with both French and the US forced on the ground, and with hundreds of drones in the air repeating the bang up “peace intervention” job most recently achieved in Afghanistan. Why? Simple – because China has now been actively expanding its sphere of influence in Africa as we have been reporting over the past two years. Indeed as the map below which we posted first over a year ago shows, the Central African Republic is the only place that China does not have a major documented presence yet.
So the US (and the west) do the only thing they can: find a pretext to land a military force in order to stake a claim on what they believe are their critical strategic interests before Chinese moneyed-interests decide to do the same.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/i0Z6v1ErkAU/story01.htm Tyler Durden
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that more than twelve
current and former Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD)
officials will be arrested following grand jury hearings into
whether officers hid FBI informant, Anthony Brown, from federal
handlers:
At least one witness testified that sheriff’s officials
moved the inmate and changed his name in an attempt to hide him
from federal agents, and that top officials in the
department played a role in the plan, according to another
source familiar with the grand jury testimony.Sheriff’s officials insist they were not hiding Brown from the
FBI but protecting him from other deputies.
Brown told the FBI the names of corrupt deputies and
incidences of excessive force inside the LASD Men’s Central Jail.
He was found out in August 2011 during a cell search when jail
deputies found the phone Brown used to communicate with the FBI.
From the LA Times in 2012:
Brown said FBI agents rushed into the jail to visit him
soon after they learned his cover had been blown. But as the
meeting began, Brown said, a sheriff’s investigator came in and
ended it. “This…visit is over,” the official said, according to
Brown.Brown said sheriff’s officials moved him, changed his name
several times and grilled him about what he knew and whether he
would testify in the federal investigation.“I didn’t know it then, but they were hiding me from the feds,”
said Brown, who is serving 423 years to life in prison for armed
robbery.
More details about the charges are expected after a press
conference at 1pm (Pacific) with officials from the U.S. Attorney’s
Office and the FBI.
For more on the LASD and misconduct within the
department, read and watch LA
County Sheriff’s Hassle Photographer, Trample Constitution, Get
Lauded by Bosses:
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/09/la-times-fbi-arrests-sheriffs-officials
via IFTTT
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that more than twelve
current and former Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD)
officials will be arrested following grand jury hearings into
whether officers hid FBI informant, Anthony Brown, from federal
handlers:
At least one witness testified that sheriff’s officials
moved the inmate and changed his name in an attempt to hide him
from federal agents, and that top officials in the
department played a role in the plan, according to another
source familiar with the grand jury testimony.Sheriff’s officials insist they were not hiding Brown from the
FBI but protecting him from other deputies.
Brown told the FBI the names of corrupt deputies and
incidences of excessive force inside the LASD Men’s Central Jail.
He was found out in August 2011 during a cell search when jail
deputies found the phone Brown used to communicate with the FBI.
From the LA Times in 2012:
Brown said FBI agents rushed into the jail to visit him
soon after they learned his cover had been blown. But as the
meeting began, Brown said, a sheriff’s investigator came in and
ended it. “This…visit is over,” the official said, according to
Brown.Brown said sheriff’s officials moved him, changed his name
several times and grilled him about what he knew and whether he
would testify in the federal investigation.“I didn’t know it then, but they were hiding me from the feds,”
said Brown, who is serving 423 years to life in prison for armed
robbery.
More details about the charges are expected after a press
conference at 1pm (Pacific) with officials from the U.S. Attorney’s
Office and the FBI.
For more on the LASD and misconduct within the
department, read and watch LA
County Sheriff’s Hassle Photographer, Trample Constitution, Get
Lauded by Bosses:
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/09/la-times-fbi-arrests-sheriffs-officials
via IFTTT