Month: December 2014

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Stunning Video Footage Of Chernobyl Devastation Captured By Drone

With the Fukushima disaster having disappeared from all media coverage in recent months (and with the plan to encapsulate the radioactive plant in an ice sarcophagus recently scrapped, Japan has still to reveal what its plans are for dealing with the disaster area), the world occasionally needs a reminder of the waste land that follow when nuclear power goes horribly wrong.

For that we go back to the original nuclear disaster, Chernobyl, and US photographer Phillip Grossman who, while having taken numerous pictures of the radioactive sarcophagus and its surroundings in the past, has produced his most amazing work yet courtesy of a camera-equipped drone. It allowed him to use a high powered camera and get a bird’s eye view of the surrounding landscape.

The stunning result is shown in the video below.

Some further details: the American, who has always had a fascination with nuclear power plants (and perhaps even disasters as he grew up 11 miles away from Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, which was the scene of the worst nuclear disaster on US soil) talks to RT about his artistic vision.

“I think you are destined to repeat history if you don’t learn from it. So part of what I am doing with the documentation is really show people what happened. Lives were destroyed, families were torn apart.”

Grossman had experience as a pilot, which gave him a head start in terms of the pictures he was looking to take. He knew he had to take into account the overgrowth of trees and shrubs, which have grown unhindered for almost 30 years. He also mentioned that he heard bears and other wildlife are returning to the region due to the lack of human activity.

“I tried to remove bias and that’s what I love about photography and film making is that a picture is worth a thousand words. I would rather the person watching would make up their own mind.”

The photographer was also given access to the control room at reactor number four, where the disaster on April 26, 1986 started. Time was of the essence given that the room was still highly radioactive following the accident. However, it was here that Grossman experienced one of his most poignant memories of the whole trip.

“We did manage to gain access to the control room and reactor No. 4. I was ecstatic that we were finally able to go. We were given very little time in there. I stood in there and was taking pictures and within about 30 seconds it dawned on me where I truly was.”

Grossman also tried to portray the size of the city of Pripyat, which housed the employees and the families of those who worked at Chernobyl. The population was around 50 thousand and it was a large modern city. The photographer said the the average age of the population was around 25-26, so there were a lot of children and elementary schools and a lot of mementos.

“Walking through those buildings and seeing the children’s toys on the floor. Seeing the children’s beds where they napped was the most striking (thing). I had to be reminded that there had not been a war here and it was a little bit more comforting to know that people weren’t murdered and killed there. This was a place of happiness for children and it’s no longer that way.”

The American photographer has spent 34 days in Chernobyl and Pripyat during his trips there and has amassed around 30 hours of material. He is current looking to see if any US television companies are interested in broadcasting a documentary about the disaster zone, which he wants to produce.

“We managed to find a village on the outskirts which was relatively untouched and we walked into some of the buildings and some of the homes just to see what was there. I know people left one of the buildings because the calendar says May 3.”

“I took pictures of some family photos lying on the floor. I don’t know how realistic it would be to find those people, but I would love to and that’s kind of why I want to get the word out about the project.”





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Watch: Eric Garner Protesters Shut Down West Side Highway

“Eric Garner Protesters Shut Down West Side Highway” is the
latest video from Reason TV.

Wartch above or click on the link below for video, full
text, supporting links, downloadable versions, and more Reason TV
clips. 

View this article.

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Shale Liquidations Begin? Sub-$50 Oil Appears In North Dakota

When ISIS dared to steal and sell oil at below market rates, they were dire pirates that needed to be destroyed (and anyone who dared to buy it was pariah). So when, as Bloomberg reports, crude sold at the wellhead in the Bakken shale region in North Dakota fell to $49.69 a barrel on Nov. 28 (according to the marketing arm of Plains All American Pipeline), you know there is an issue in the US Shale industry. As one analyst notes, “to a producer in Wyoming, if Brent’s $70 then I’m at $50, then I have to start asking does it economically make sense to keep drilling, they might start reallocating capital, you might see projects slowed or shut down.“

 

As Bloomberg reports,

Oil market analysts are debating if oil will fall to $50. In North Dakota, prices are already there.

 

…

 

The cheaper price for North Dakota crude underscores how geographic and logistical hurdles can amplify the stress that plunging futures prices have put on drillers in new shale plays that have helped push U.S. oil production to the highest level in 31 years. Other booming areas such as the Niobrara in Colorado and the Permian in Texas have also seen large discounts to Brent and U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate.

 

“You have gathering fees, trucking, terminaling, pipeline and rail fees,” Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston, said Dec. 2. “If you’re selling at the wellhead, you’re getting a very low number relative to WTI.”

Discounts are not that unusual due to location or quality…

Discounts for all crudes are based on two things, location and quality, according to John Auers, executive vice president at Dallas-based energy consulting firm Turner Mason & Co.

 

Most U.S. refiners are along the coasts, which gives them a choice between oil pumped from wells in the middle of the country or foreign crude that can be delivered to the plant on a tanker.

 

That means the producer has to charge less, to make up for whatever it costs to transport it to the plant. In the Eagle Ford, that just means a few dollars to get to a pipeline that can cheaply push it 100 miles or so to Corpus Christi, Texas.

 

It’s more complicated in places like North Dakota, Colorado or Wyoming, where there is limited pipeline capacity. Producers have to fill rail cars with crude and pay $10 to $15 a barrel for them to be pulled a thousand miles or more to the coasts.

But this massive discount signals something different as cash liquidity becomes crucial and every shale oil driller is pumping like crazy to get their revenues…

“To a producer in Wyoming, if Brent’s $70 then I’m at $50, then I have to start asking does it economically make sense to keep drilling,” Auers said yesterday. “They might start reallocating capital, you might see projects slowed or shut down.”

 

…

 

“Places that are just starting to build up are going to be hit the worst,” Larry said by phone yesterday. “They’re going to get hit the hardest because it’s harder to get the oil out. Not out of ground, but out of the area.”

*  *  *

So with every expert in financial media clinging to some hope that oil prices can’t go down any more surely right? The answer is yes… and have already broken below $50… something that may indicate not just transportation issues, but desparation for crucial liquidity needs.




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BOJ Scrambles To Bail Out ECB Gong Show, Sends USDJPY Over 120

Stocks are down… EU bonds are down… EURUSD is up, and Draghi is not providing his usual promises. Cue The Bank of Japan proxies buying USDJPY to ignite some momentum in risk assets… USDJPY just broke above 120 (for the first time since July 2007)… ran all the stops then tumbled back down…

This…

 

and Then this…

 

FYI – the USDJPY buying rescue plan started at the exact moment S&P futures touched unchanged on the week!!





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Eric Garner’s Murder Reveals the Ugly Core of Government and Law Enforcement

Eric GarnerMaybe you thought Michael Brown
was a less than sympathetic victim because he apparently tussled
with a cop before that cop unloaded his gun into him. Not that it
matters, since the deck was stached against an indictment of
Officer Darren Wilson. As Andrew Napolitano notes,
“The grand jury…was subjected to the type of evidence that only
trial juries hear, including a soliloquy from the cop himself and
all the exculpatory evidence the prosecutor could find.” The powers
that be didn’t take any chances in that case—they didn’t want one
of their enforcers seriously inconvenienced.

And they really didn’t want one of their strong-arm men
put out over the murder of Eric Garner. The grand jury in that case
declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in what seemed a
clear-cut case of over-the-top brutality. Even the Medical Examiner
ruled
Garner’s death a “homicide.”

Here we have Garner, a guy allegedly selling loosies—single
cigarettes—which are a perfectly legal product. Why is he
supposedly selling loosies? Because New York officials inflict on
their long-suffering subjects the highest cigarette tax in the
country at at
$4.35 per pack, plus another $1.50 levied in the city itself.
It’s not a popular tax, with smuggled smokes making up 60.9 percent
of the market. So the powers that be unleash the cops to enhance
revenue by tracking down shipments of smuggled cigarettes and, on
occasion, putting the occasional small-time street vendor in an
illegal chokehold.

Which is to say, Eric Garner was murdered for the purposes of
revenue enhancement.

And also, let’s be clear, because when you unleash armies of
thugs on the population to enforce every petty law, they’re soon
going to acquire an attitude. Eventually, telling a cop, “Please
just leave me alone,” as Garner told the cops rousting him, becomes
an unacceptable act of defiance. It’s interpreted as an invitation
to swarm a man suspected of selling handfuls of untaxed cigarettes
and wrestle him to the ground.

You want a society taxed and regulated toward your vision of
perfection? It’s going to need enforcers. Those enforcers are going
to interact on a daily basis wth people who don’t share that vision
of perfection, and who resent the constant enforcement attempts.
They’ll push back to greater or lesser extents. And the enforcers
will twist arms in return to frighten people into obedience. People
will be abused and some will die.

Some of the people defying the law will carve out a niche for
themselves. My great-grandfather ignored Prohibition in his
speakeasy. He kept cops who didn’t take the law too seriously happy
with drinks and payoffs. And he kept everybody happy by defying yet
another attempt by control freak officials and their busybody
constituents to perfect the world through force.

I didn’t turn as big a profit as my great-grandfather when I
sold grass. But I knew enough to keep a police dispatcher happy. He
returned the favor by tipping me off when I popped onto law
enforcement radar.

Corruption, then, becomes a lubricant to the system. Paying cops
off to “please just leave me alone,” is a better alternative to
watching armies of enforcers kill people in the streets over stupid
laws.

Those enforcers aren’t an equal problem for everybody. They
spare the people who pay them to look the other way. They give a
pass to friends and relations. But they often take a dislike to
individuals or whole groups that rub them the wrong way or cause
them extra grief. Poor minorities, in particular, are aways on the
short end of the stick when it comes to dealing with cops. When
they break petty laws, they don’t often turn enough profit to
grease police palms enough to be left alone, they don’t have the
political power to push back, and at least some of the enforcers
have a hard-on for them anyway.

Government, at its core, is force. The more it does to shape the
world around it, the more it needs enforcers to make sure
officials’ wills are done. “The law is the law,”
says New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, but it’s creatures
like him who make so much damned law. And then they send the likes
of Officer Daniel Pantaleo to make sure we comply. Or else they
might kill us.

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Eric Holder Is Right: The Cop Who Killed Eric Garner Should Face a Federal Civil Rights Investigation

Yesterday afternoon a Staten Island
grand jury failed to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the
killing of Eric Garner, the black Staten Island man who died as a
direct result of the chokehold employed by Officer Pantaleo. “Now
that the local investigation has concluded,” U.S. Attorney General
Eric Holder
declared in a statement last night, “I am here to announce that
the Justice Department will proceed with a federal civil rights
investigation into Mr. Garner’s death.”

Attorney General Holder is entirely correct to launch this
investigation. The
video evidence in the case plainly shows a white police officer
using excessive and ultimately lethal force against an unarmed,
nonthreatening black suspect. The grand jury’s failure to indict is
an embarrassment to the rule of law and a striking miscarriage of
justice. In effect, a black man who posed zero risk to either the
police or to the public was nonetheless handed a death sentence by
the NYPD for the alleged petty crime of selling untaxed loose
cigarettes. There’s no excuse for Officer Pantaleo’s shameful
treatment of Eric Garner.

Furthermore, Holder’s decision to launch a federal inquiry is
fully consistent with the original purposes of federal civil rights
legislation, which dates back to the Civil Rights Act of 1866. That
law was passed by the Republican-led 39th Congress in the wake of
the Civil War in response to the former Confederate states’
attempts to harass and oppress the recently freed slaves by
stripping them of their newfound liberty and property, denying them
the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, and failing–or
refusing–to provide them equal treatment under the law.

In other words, the whole point of federal civil rights law is
to provide a legal check against state-sanctioned injustice, such
as the egregious police misconduct that killed Eric Garner.
Attorney General Holder should be commended for putting federal law
to its intended purpose in this case.

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ECB Inflation Expectations Crash; Slashed By Half In Just 9 Months

Back in March the ECB predicted 2014 inflation would be 1.0%, with prices rising to 1.3% in 2015. Since then one can say that deflation has once again taken hold, and following two consecutive cuts to 2014 inflation expectations, moments ago Draghi just released the ECB’s latest set of inflation expectations. In a nutshell: in just 9 short months, the ECB’s current year inflation forecast has been cut in half, with 2015 inflation also down nearly 50%, from 1.3% to 0.7%.

 

Of course, now that deflation is apparently stimulative according to the global Keynesian think tank, because plunging oil prices are supposedly a “tax cut” equivalent and will “force consumers to spend more”, this is good news right?

Well, maybe not. Because while Europe’s troubled consumers will indeed have greater purchasing power, deflation is now rapidly becoming the norm in Europe, as can be seen in the following “worst case” inflation assumptions used in the ECB’s latest, October, stress test. Yes, the ECB did infact assume 1.0% inflation for 2014, and no deflation ever “because it simply just can’t happen.”

And remember: when it comes to inflation, the ECB couldn’t care less about the middle-class. All it cares about is inflating away those trillions in Non-Performing Loans plaguing Europe’s insolvent banks, which when all is said and done, the ECB, aka Europe’s “bad hedge fund” will have no choice but to monetize.




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Markets Slide As Draghi Kicks The Can

But, but, but all the clever talking heads said he had to do it now…

  • *DRAGHI SAYS ECB TO REASSESS CURRENT STIMULUS NEXT QUARTER
  • *DRAGHI SAYS ECB MAY NOT DECIDE ON NEW MEASURES IN JANUARY
  • *DRAGHI: DECISION TO CHANGE BALANCE SHEET LANGUAGE NOT UNANIMOUS

This is not what the market wanted to hear – Draghi kicking the can with no indication they are any closer to getting Zee Germans on board with direct monetization of European fiscal irresponsibility.

US Stocks and EURUSD reacted first

 

As S&P Futures are now unch on the week…

 

Gold moved early but has extended its gains for now…

 

and European bond spreads jumped higher…

 

And DAX Futures just lost 10,000

Charts: Bloomberg

*  *  *

This would appear to be the perfect BTFD opportunity because EVERYONE has cash on the sidelines and knows Draghi will do it eventually… right?




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