Month: February 2016

Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

I have heard it often said that there is no one right way to accomplish a goal. I agree. However, I would add that while there is no such thing as “one right way” to achieve an objective, this does not mean there aren’t numerous WRONG ways to achieve an objective.

Doing “something” is not always better than doing nothing if that “something” is based on terrible strategy. Unfortunately, there are people out there with otherwise good intentions, even in the liberty movement, that seem to think that taking action without planning is preferable to patience. They do not understand that there is such a thing as negative returns.

The reality is that action is easy. Patience and planning are difficult. Emotional reaction is simple. Quiet professionalism is complicated.

This is the dynamic that is plaguing the liberty movement today; the battle between our emotional drive to jump headlong into conflict with our progressively corrupt establishment, and the absolute necessity for intelligent strategy and proper timing.

The issue here is not “fighting.” Most of us know and accept the fact that a fight is coming whether we like it or not. I say by all means, let’s fight, but fighting is not enough. If we fight, we must fight TO WIN, and this requires fighting smart.

On the other side of the coin, the weak handed and weak hearted will argue that fighting in any respect is "useless" or "immoral" and will result in failure.  This is the pacifist camp, which never produces much in the way of practical solutions.  There are very useful and peaceful methods for non-participation and nullification, most of which I am happy to promote.  That said, non-participation is only part of the battle.  If you are dealing with a psychopathic adversary (which we are), ultimately that adversary will use overt violence to stop you from nullifying their authority.  If you are not willing to use active self defense against true evil based on some deluded Gandhi complex, then you and the historical memory of you will be erased.  It is perfectly possible for a person to fight in self defense while maintaining his core principles.

If you fight, then there is a chance.  If you do not fight, then failure is guaranteed.  The "odds" are irrelevant.  How you fight (fighting smart) is the only matter of importance.

Recently I have seen a growing contingent of people within the movement that seek a fight but question the concept of planning or waiting. They’ll argue that planning is somehow impractical, or that there will never be a perfect time for action. This way of thinking has only been inflated by the latest events in Burns, Oregon.

The Oregon standoff is a stunning example of how emotional action leads to failure and tragedy. Many will argue over the circumstances surrounding the death of Lavoy Finicum — did he reach into his jacket, or was he reacting to being shot? Were the police officers involved in fear for their lives, or were they out for blood? The majority of liberty activists will undoubtedly assume malicious intent on the part of the government due to their track record of murder and lies. I don’t blame them. That said, I would point out that while Finicum may be dead because of ill intent on the part of trigger happy cops, he was put in that position in the first place due to inadequate planning and leadership.

The argument that the FBI should have never been in Burns in the first place overlooks the fact that Bundy and team, strategically speaking, should not have been there either. They could have been in a far better position if only they had thought their conundrum through.

Oregon and the death of Finicum are not failures on the part of the liberty movement. They are failures on the part of Bundy and team, who refused to listen to scores of people with far more experience and knowledge in such situations; the same people who tried to help the occupiers adjust their tactics and offer them safer ground and safer footing. The failure in Oregon is what happens when amateurs, not just in training but in tactical philosophy, undertake a rebellion.

Some will argue that experienced tacticians within the movement (and there are many) refused to show up for the fight, and thus sentenced the occupiers to defeat. I would argue that the Oregon standoff was FUBAR from the very beginning. From its inception it was doomed. Half the movement saw it plain as day. For me, the end result was obvious.

A team of well-meaning but unorganized and untrained activists thrust themselves into a situation beyond their capabilities and under the potential influence of agents provocateur. There was no vetting for random strangers seeking to join their ranks; no direct goals and no clearly defined strategy, only vague demands and notions. No thought of planning one or two steps ahead, let alone five steps ahead. A circus atmosphere inspiring public ridicule rather than public respect. A complete lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation leading to a false sense of safety and comfort, or in some cases even hubris.

This is why most liberty tacticians had no interest in showing up to the Oregon standoff; not because they were fearful, not because they are “sunshine patriots,” not because they are waiting for a “perfect” moment that will never come to kick off a revolution. They did not show up because it was a scenario that could not be salvaged. It was a carnival. Period.

To compare events to the first American Revolution, I do not see the standoff and the shooting of Finicum as a Lexington Green moment (though it hasn’t fully ended yet). Rather, I see it as a Boston Massacre moment. The Boston Massacre was an absolute tragedy, but also not a cut-and-dry affair. John Adams, acting as legal defense for the British soldiers accused of initiating bloodshed, realized that the Sons Of Liberty were desperate to use the event politically to rally support for direct revolution, but also understood that the timing and the circumstances were utterly wrong. The Sons of Liberty wanted to hold up the Boston Massacre as a symbol of ALL the oppression the colonials suffered under the crown. Adams, though an avid champion of the cause, correctly treated it as a singular tragedy and not an opportunity for exploitation.

The colonials would eventually enter into revolution at Lexington and Concord; clearly defined defensive scenarios in which the militia obstructed the path of British soldiers sent to arrest leaders of the Sons of Liberty (Samuel Adams and John Hancock), as well as to confiscate firearms and black powder caches. The militia had a direct goal (to impede the British from reaching Adams and Hancock) and the British used clear and overt force against them, resulting in an immediate and violent justified response by other militias. This is one right way to start a rebellion.

So if Oregon represents an example of the wrong way to do things, what is a better way? I described alternative methods with a much greater chance of success in my article “Real Strategies For Removing Federal Presence From Western Lands,” but I would like to explore beyond specific tactics and discuss mindset — the overall philosophy behind a winning rebellion in our modern era.

Divided We Win, United We Fall

This might sound counter-intuitive; I’ll explain.

A movement should be united in its stance and its values in order to succeed and I believe the liberty movement is indeed united for the most part on these terms. However, when it comes to concrete action the more centralized our efforts the less we will achieve and the more likely we are to fail.

I find it interesting that whenever a call goes out to the movement to take action it usually involves concentrating large masses of us into a small area with no outlined plan or directives. With the exception of Bundy Ranch, which I believe was entirely organic in how it came about, most of these calls to arms are initiated by questionable personalities or people possibly under the influence of provocateurs who seek to march us all into a box, whether it be a bridge in Washington, D.C. or a scrub brush refuge in Oregon. In the face of a vastly superior opponent in terms of arms and technology, it seems to me that the establishment would prefer us all to be hyper-focused on only one battle space at one time, putting all our eggs in one basket and leaving us vulnerable.

Instead, a rebellion in this day and age must be asymmetric in nature; meaning smaller groups acting covertly on their own initiative everywhere rather than in only one place. Amassing in one small region might be useful under very specific conditions, but if you want to pose an actual threat to a large criminal system, you need hundreds of events, all of them far better planned than Oregon.

Organization Through Localism

If you cannot even secure your own family or your own neighborhood from potential threats, then why would you expect to be successful in projecting out to a whole other state and community and securing it instead? Local organization is more important than national organization or grand posturing on the national stage. If you can strengthen your own community while others do the same across the country, then the effects will be felt nationally by default.

Far more can be accomplished through localism than by rolling the dice on mass theatricality and Alamo-style tactics.

Communications Networking

Unity does not come best through concentrated action but through solid communications. The fact that most of the liberty movement has no coms networks outside of the mainstream grid is a sad state of affairs that will lead to our downfall. As far as my information shows, the Oregon occupiers had no ham radio communications and relied primarily on cell phones. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

When there is a national network of ham operators providing communications to the liberty movement, then and only then can we claim to have the means to organize effectively outside of our own communities. Do not assume for a second that you will have access to mainstream grid communications when you need them.

Prepare To Aid People Outside The Movement

The establishment would like nothing more than for the liberty movement to completely isolate itself from the general public. The more we refuse to interact with our communities the easier it will be to paint us as dangerous outsiders. The more we offer valuable services and training to a community, such as classes on emergency medical response, personal defense against active shooters, food storage and preparedness, etc., the more likely we will be seen as valuable assets to that community in the wake of a crisis.

I have been undertaking such efforts in my own community for the past couple of years and have met many excellent people who are of like mind but not necessarily “activists” in the traditional sense. If you discount efforts to improve your local situation and to build bridges, you do so at your own peril.

Focus On The True Culprits

Eventually, someone is going to have to bring the international banking elites to justice for their direct influence over government corruption and destructive economic policy. Making stands against the Bureau of Land Management and other questionable federal agencies might be a necessary part of this fight, but the fight will never end until the original perpetrators are removed at the root. Beware of any group or “leader” who calls you to action but ignores the money-elite; they are probably more interested in exploiting you than helping you.

Quiet Professionalism

Perhaps most important of all is the need for liberty activists to adopt an attitude of quiet professionalism. This means analyzing situations objectively. This means having one’s heart in the right place without being driven emotionally. This means attaining personal excellence in any field of knowledge that might help you to gain victory.

Winning this fight will require the extraordinary dedication of extraordinary individuals; anything less will result in disaster. Giving our all does not mean simply being willing to sacrifice our lives. That may be what happens, but this cannot be our only trump card. If you are not striving every day to master your own skills and initiative then you are not giving your all. If you are not organizing effectively at the local level because you assume no one will listen to you, then learn to communicate better and try again. If your only plan is to go out guns blazing, then you might as well stay home because you will do more harm for the movement than good.

Become a local pillar rather than a mere complainer. Seek to produce results rather than demanding others do it for you. When you act, act intelligently. Be steady in your resolve and do not let anger or panic rule your thinking. Be fair in your assessments, and above all, once again, if you fight, fight to win. Fighting merely in the name of fighting is a fool’s game.

If the movement had 10,000 individuals of this caliber victory would be assured against any odds.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/23MzY4b Tyler Durden

The weeks ago, when we showed “What The Death Of A Nation Looks Like: Venezuela Prepares For 720% Hyperinflation“, we said that after looking at a chart of Venezuela’s upcoming hyperinflation…

 

…  a hyperinflation in which the soaring stock market has failed to keep pace with the collapsing currency, thereby mocking all erroneous thought experiments that under hyperinflation being long the stock market is a sure hedge to currency destruction…

 

… we joked that it is unclear just where the country will find all the paper banknotes it needs for all its new currency.

After all, central-bank data shows Venezuela more than doubled the supply of 100-, 50- and 2-bolivar notes in 2015 as it doubled monetary liquidity including bank deposits. Supply has grown even as Venezuela has fewer U.S. dollars to support new bolivars, a result of falling oil prices.

This question, as morbidly amusing as it may have been to us if not the local population, became particularly poginant yesterday, when for the first time, one US Dollar could purchase more than 1000 Venezuela Bolivars on the black market.

 

And, as if on cue, the WSJ answered. As it turns out we were not the only ones wondering how the devastated “socialist paradise” gets its exponentially collapsing paper currency, which in just the past month has lost 17% of its value.

The answer: 36 Boeing 747s.

From the WSJ:

Millions of pounds of provisions, stuffed into three-dozen 747 cargo planes, arrived here from countries around the world in recent months to service Venezuela’s crippled economy.

 

But instead of food and medicine, the planes carried another resource that often runs scarce here: bills of Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar. 

 

The shipments were part of the import of at least five billion bank notes that President Nicolás Maduro’s administration authorized over the latter half of 2015 as the government boosts the supply of the country’s increasingly worthless currency, according to seven people familiar with the deals.

More planes are coming: in December, the central bank began secret negotiations to order 10 billion more bills, five of these people said, which would effectively double the amount of cash in circulation. That order alone is well above the eight billion notes the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank each print annually—dollars and euros that unlike bolivars are used world-wide.

This means that Venezuela’s hyperinflation, already tentatively estimated at 720%, will likely add on a few (hundred) zeroes by this time next year. It is also quite likely that Venezuela the country, as we know it now, will no longer exist because once any country is swept up in hyperinflationary rapids two things occur like clockwork: social uprisings and political coups.

But before it gets there, Venezuela’s president Maduro will be busy liquidating the nation’s roughly $12 billion in gold reserves, which his late predecessor fought hard in 2011 to repatriate back to Caracas. Sadly that gold was never meant to stay in Venezuela after all.

Meanwhile, life in Venezuela is disturbingly comparably to that under Weimar Germany, wheelbarrows of cash and all:

While use of credit cards and bank transfers is up, Venezuelans have to carry stacks of cash as many vendors try to avoid transaction fees. Dinner at a nice restaurant can cost a brick-size stack of bills. A cheese-stuffed corn cake—called an arepa—sells for nearly 1,000 bolivars, requiring 10 bills of the highest-denomination 100-bolivar bill, each worth less than 10 U.S. cents.

 

Rigid state price controls have only made matters worse, economists say, generating a thriving black market for just about every good, from car tires to baby diapers, in which cash is the preferred form of payment.

Adding insult to injury the very process of printing the almost instantly worthless currency costs Venezuela hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The bank-note buying spree is costing the cash-strapped leftist government hundreds of millions of dollars, said all seven of the people, who have been briefed on the deals Venezuela has entered with bank-note producers.”

But it gets even more ridiculous for the government where the largest bill in denomination is 100 Bolivars:

The high cost of the printing binge is an especially heavy burden as Venezuela reels from the oil-price collapse and 17 years of free-spending socialist rule that have left state finances in shambles.

 

Most countries around the world have outsourced bank-note printing to private companies that can provide sophisticated anticounterfeiting technologies like watermarks and security strips. What drives Venezuela’s orders is the sheer volume and urgency of its currency needs.

 

The central bank’s own printing presses in the industrial city of Maracay don’t have enough security paper and metal to print more than a small portion of the country’s bills, the people familiar with the matter said. Their difficulties stem from the same dollar shortages that have plagued Venezuela’s centralized economy, as the Maduro administration struggles to pay for imports of everything, including cancer medication, toilet paper and insect repellent to battle the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

 

That means Venezuela has to buy bolivars from abroad at any cost. “It’s easy money for a lot of these companies,” one of the people with details on the negotiations said.

Venezuela’s misery means a hefty pay day for those who end up printing its worthless currency, among them, the same company which printed Weimar’s own currency:

The huge order for 10 billion notes can’t be satisfied by a single firm, the people familiar with the deals said. So it has generated interest from some of the world’s largest commercial printers, each vying for a piece of the pie at a time when low profits in bank-note printing have pushed many of them to cut back on capacity.

 

According to the people familiar with the deals, the companies include the U.K.’s De La Rue, the Canadian Bank Note Co., France’s Oberthur Fiduciaire and a subsidiary of Munich-based Giesecke & Devrient, which printed currency in 1920s Weimar Germany, when citizens hauled wheelbarrows of cash to buy bread. More recently, the German technology company was the source of security paper for Zimbabwe when it was stricken in 2008 with a hyperinflation episode in which prices doubled daily.

Wait a minute, why not just print a single 100,000,000 Bolivar note instead of one million 100 bolivar bills? After all the savings on the printing, let along the air freight, to the already insolvent country will be tremendous and allow it to pretend it is not a failed nation for at least a few more days? It is here that the sheer brilliance of the rulers of this socialist paradise shines through:

Currency experts say the logistical challenges of importing and storing massive quantities of bank notes underscore an undeniable truth: Venezuela is spending a lot more than it needs because the government hasn’t printed a higher-denomination bank note—revealing a misplaced fear, analysts say, that doing so would implicitly acknowledge high inflation the government publicly denies.

 

“Big bills do not cause inflation. Big bills are the result of inflation,” said Owen W. Linzmayer, a San Francisco-based bank-note expert and author who catalogs world currencies. “Larger bills can actually save money for the central bank because instead of having to replace 10 deteriorated notes, you only need five or one,” he said.

 

The Venezuelan central bank’s latest orders have been exclusively only for 100- and 50-bolivar notes, according to the seven people familiar with the deals, because 20s, 10s, 5s and 2s are worth less than the production cost.

 

Mr. Maduro and his allies say galloping consumer prices reflect a capitalist conspiracy to destabilize the government.

Well, no, but at this point one may as well sit back and be amused by the idiocy of it all. But at least we will give Maduro one thing: he has done away with the pretense that when push comes to shove, the state and the central bank (and thus commercial banks) are two different things: “the president in late December changed a law to give himself full control over the central bank, stripping congressional oversight just as his political opponents took control of the National Assembly for the first time in 17 years.”

Finally, while the rest of the world is wrapped up in such deflationary monetary madness as negative interest rates, Venezuela is subject to monetary lunacy too, only of a far more familiar, hyperinflationary kinds:

A color photocopy of a 100-bolivar bill costs more than the note. In an image that went viral on social media, a diner is shown using a 2-bolivar note to hold a greasy fried turnover because it is cheaper than a napkin.

And before we close this latest chapter on our ongoing chronicle of Venezuela’s complete economic disintegration, we are delighted to find that Kyle Bass’s “nickel” idea has made its way even in this Latin American socialist paradise:

On a recent day, a 46-year-old slum-dweller named Mario walked the streets of a wealthy district of Caracas with a megaphone, calling on residents to sell him their coins, which he gathered into a rolling water cooler. The idea: to melt it down later.

 

“You can make an amazing ring,” said Mario, who wouldn’t give his last name but said he preferred to go by his nickname, Moneda, or “Coins.”

Now if only Venezuela had a way of exporting some of its hyperinflation to the rest of the world, drowning in “deflation” the result of a few hundred trillion in debt. Actually, fear not: ultimately hyperinflation is easy to achieve – Venezuela is a good example of this; what is difficult is to admit when the current system has failed and when importing 36 Jumbo Jets full of cash is the only solution.

With every passing day, the rest of the “Developed Word” gets one step closer to recreating Venezuela’s experience.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1nQPfk9 Tyler Durden

Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility. — Professor Neil Postman

If there are two spectacles that are almost guaranteed to render Americans passive viewers, incapable of doing little more than cheering on their respective teams, it’s football and politics – specifically, the Super Bowl and the quadrennial presidential election.

Both football and politics encourage zealous devotion among their followers, both create manufactured divisions that alienate one group of devotees from another, and both result in a strange sort of tunnel vision that leaves the viewer oblivious to anything else going on around them apart from the “big game.”

Both football and politics are televised, big-money, advertising-driven exercises in how to cultivate a nation of armchair enthusiasts who are content to sit, watch and be entertained, all the while convincing themselves that they are active contributors to the outcome. Even the season schedules are similar in football and politics: the weekly playoffs, the blow-by-blow recaps, the betting pools and speculation, the conferences, and then the final big championship game.

In the same way, both championship events are costly entertainment extravaganzas that feed the nation’s appetite for competition, consumerism and carnivalesque stunts. In both scenarios, cities bid for the privilege of hosting key athletic and political events. For example, San Francisco had to raise close to $50 million just to host the 50th Super Bowl, with its deluxe stadium, Super Bowl City, free fan village, interactive theme park, and free Alicia Keys concert, not including the additional $5 million cost to taxpayers for additional security. Likewise, it costs cities more than $60 million to host the national presidential nominating conventions for the Republicans and Democrats.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that there is anything wrong with enjoying the entertainment that is football or politics.

However, where we go wrong as a society is when we become armchair quarterbacks, so completely immersed in the Big Game or the Big Campaign that we are easily controlled by the powers-that-be—the megacorporations who run both shows—and oblivious to what is really going on around us.

For instance, while mainstream America has been fixated on the contenders for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and the White House, the militarized, warring surveillance state has been moving steadily forward. Armed drones, increased government surveillance and spying, SWAT team raids, police shootings of unarmed citizens, and the like continue to plague the country. None of these dangers have dissipated. They have merely disappeared from our televised news streams.

In this way, television is a “dream come true” for an authoritarian society.

Television isolates people so they are not joining together to govern themselves. As clinical psychologist Bruce Levine notes, viewing television puts one in a brain state that makes it difficult to think critically, and it quiets and subdues a population. And spending one’s free time isolated and watching TV interferes with our ability to translate our outrage over governmental injustice into activism, and thus makes it easier to accept an authority’s version of society and life.

Supposedly the reason why television—and increasingly movies—are so effective in subduing and pacifying us is that viewers are mesmerized by what TV-insiders call “technical events.” These, according to Levine, are “quick cuts, zoom-ins, zoom-outs, rolls, pans, animation, music, graphics, and voice-overs, all of which lure viewers to continue watching even though they have no interest in the content.” Such technical events, which many action films now incorporate, spellbind people to continue watching.

Televised entertainment, no matter what is being broadcast, has become the nation’s new drug high. Researchers found that “almost immediately after turning on the TV, subjects reported feeling more relaxed, and because this occurs so quickly and the tension returns so rapidly after the TV is turned off, people are conditioned to associate TV viewing with a lack of tension.”

Not surprisingly, the United States is one of the highest TV-viewing nations in the world.

Indeed, a Nielsen study reports that American screen viewing is at an all-time high. For example, the average American watches approximately 151 hours of television per month. That does not include the larger demographic of screen-watchers who watch their entertainment via their laptops, personal computers, cell phones, tablets and so on.

Historically, television has been used by those in authority to quiet citizen unrest and pacify disruptive people. In fact, television-viewing has also been a proven tactic for ensuring compliance in prisons. “Faced with severe overcrowding and limited budgets for rehabilitation and counseling, more and more prison officials are using TV to keep inmates quiet,” according to Newsweek. Joe Corpier, a convicted murderer, when interviewed said, “If there’s a good movie, it’s usually pretty quiet through the whole institution.”

In other words, television and other screen viewing not only helps to subdue people but, as Levine concludes, it also zombifies and pacifies us and subverts democracy.

Television viewing, no matter what we’re collectively watching—whether it’s American Idol, the presidential debates or the Super Bowl—is a group activity that immobilizes us and mesmerizes us with collective programming. In fact, research also shows that regardless of the programming, viewers’ brain waves slow down, thus transforming them into a more passive, nonresistant state.

As such, television watching today results in passive group compliance in much the same way that marching was used by past regimes to create group indoctrination. Political advisor Bertram Gross documents how Adolf Hitler employed marching as a technique to mobilize people in groups by immobilizing them. Hitler and his regime leaders discovered that when people gather in groups and do the same thing—such as marching or cheering at an entertainment or sporting event—they became passive, non-thinking non-individuals.

By replacing “marching” with electronic screen devices, we have the equivalent of Hitler’s method of population control. Gross writes:

As a technique of immobilizing people, marching requires organization and, apart from the outlay costs involved, organized groups are a potential danger. They might march to a different drum or in the wrong direction….TV is more effective. It captures many more people than would ever fill the streets by marching—and without interfering with automobile traffic.

Equally disturbing is a university study which indicates that we become less aware of our individual selves and moral identity in a group. The study’s findings strongly suggest that when we act in groups, we tend to consider our moral behavior less while moving in lockstep with the group. Thus, what the group believes or does, be it violence or inhumanity, does not seem to lessen the need to be a part of a group, whether it be a mob or political gathering.

So what does this have to do with the Super Bowl and the upcoming presidential election?

If fear-based TV programming—or programming that encourages rivalries and factions—makes people more afraid and distrustful of one another, then our current television lineup is exactly what is needed by an authoritarian society that depends on a “divide and conquer” strategy.

Moreover, according to Levine, authoritarian-based programming is more technically interesting to viewers than democracy-based programming. War and violence, for example, may be rather unpleasant in real life. However, peace and cooperation make for “boring television.”

What this means is that Super Bowl matches and presidential contests are merely more palatable, less bloody, manifestations of war suitable for television viewing audiences.

This also explains why television has become the medium of choice for charismatic politicians with a strong screen presence. They are essentially television performers—actors, if you will. Indeed, any successful candidate for political office—especially the President—must come off well on TV. Television has the lure of involvement. A politically adept president can actually make you believe you are involved in the office of the presidency.

The effective president, then, is essentially a television performer. As the renowned media analyst Marshall McLuhan recognized concerning television: “Potentially, it can transform the presidency into a monarchist dynasty.”

If what we see and what we are told through the entertainment industrial complex—which includes so-called “news” shows—is what those in power deem to be in their best interests, then endless screen viewing is not a great thing for a citizenry who believe they possess choice and freedom. Mind you, the majority of what Americans watch on television is provided through channels controlled by a corporate elite of six megacorporations with the ability to foster a particular viewpoint or pacify its viewers on a large scale.

Unfortunately for us, the direction of the future, then, may be towards a Brave New World scenario where the populace is constantly distracted by entertainment, hooked on prescription drugs and controlled by a technological elite.

Freedom, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, is an action word. It means turning off your screen devices—or at least greatly reducing your viewing time—and getting active to take to stave off the emerging authoritarian government.

Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and the countless science fiction writers and commentators have warned that we are in a race between getting actively involved in the world around us or facing disaster.

If we’re watching, we’re not doing.

As television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned in a 1958 speech:

We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1QgDD0g Tyler Durden

Late last month, we reported that Austria may cut social benefits for asylum seekers who fail to attend “special integration training courses” and more specifically, for refugees who don’t make an honest effort to learn German.

“Those who are not willing to learn German, who do not want to be part of the labor market, who are not ready to attend an integration course, will face social benefits cuts,” Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said in Davos.

The “integration courses” are an example of how, in the absence of a bloc-wide “solution” to the migrant crisis, EU nations are increasingly turning to country-by-country solutions, a situation that French economy minister Emmanuel Macron recently said marks “the beginning of the dismantling [of the euro] for sure.”

Those who have followed Europe’s bungled attempt to resettle millions of asylum seekers fleeing war in the Mid-East know that EU officials are having a hard time deciding just who it is that should learn to adapt.

On the one hand, various countries – including Austria and Germany – have published pictographs and cartoon strips which are designed to teach refugees societal norms. Randomly grabbing women’s behinds and beating small children feature prominently in almost all of the “guides.”

On the other hand, some officials have suggested that perhaps it is Europeans who need to adapt. Cologne mayor Henriette Reker for instance, drew universal condemnation for saying that it is German women’s responsibility to adopt a “code of conduct” that wards of would-be rapists and Bad Schlema mayor Jens Müller caused an uproar at a town hall meeting when he said that if schoolgirls wanted to avoid cat-calls from the windows of the city’s refugee home, they should take the long way to class.

In the same vein, one German computer science teacher says Arabic should be compulsory for all students through high school. Here’s Spiegel (translated):

Not only refugee children who come from the Middle East to Germany should learn in school, a new language but also German children. The calls of the president of the private Kühne Logistics University in Hamburg, Thomas Strothotte. “In this country should be added that the German children learn Arabic,” writes the computer science professor in a commentary for the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”.

 

German and Arabic should therefore be obligatory for all students until graduation.A German core competence “, access to the Arab world possible. We would therefore appreciate to be a country of immigration and a multilingual society” would like that.

And here’s Die Welt (translated):

The Hamburg computer science professor Thomas Strothotte calls for the introduction of Arabic as a language school in Germany. This would allow access to the Arab world, the president of the Hamburg Kühne Logistics University writes in “Die Zeit”.

 

German and Arabic should be mandatory for all students through high school.“We would appreciate it, to be a country of immigration and a multilingual society.”

 

It to use German and Arabic as equal languages ??of instruction is even more demanding, writes Strothotte. Thus the children would now prepare

for the profound transformation process in the Middle East.

 

By learning the Arabic language, the young generation of Germany as a great economic, cultural and political partner to accompany this transformation process.

To be sure, there are practical and intellectual benefits that accrue to those who speak multiple languages. That is, no one is going to argue that being bilingual wouldn’t be a good thing for German students.

The question is whether mandating that the second language be Arabic is a good idea – especially considering the palpable tension in Germany, which took in more than 1 million refugees in 2015.

Expect this to reinforce the notion – perpetuated by the likes of Hungary’s Viktor Orban – that Europe is becoming “Islamicized”. And expect that, in turn, to add fuel to the nationalistic fires burning across the bloc.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1R83goS Tyler Durden

Submitted by David Howden via The Mises Institute,

Last year was a tough one for investors. Gold was down 10 percent. The Dow Industrials fell 2.5 percent, and most bond indexes finished down by at least that much.

One institution that performed remarkably well in 2015 was the Federal Reserve. It just finished its most profitable year on record. The $100 billion in net income earned last year was a slight improvement over the previous year. That total was also roughly three times higher than the Fed’s income from 2007, the last year before it initiated its Quantitative Easing programs in the wake of the financial crisis.

Since the Fed does not exist to generate profits, some may be confused as to how it could have such a great year at doing so.

Here’s how it works. Every time the Fed expands the money supply it buys an asset. Typically the asset is a financial security, like a US Treasury bond, and the counterparties are typically large banks. Figure 1 gives a simplified look at the Fed’s balance sheet at the end of 2015 and how it evolved over the year:

Figure 1: Simplified Federal Reserve Balance Sheet (in millions of dollars)

Compared to previous years, 2015 was relatively uneventful at the Fed. Having completed the tapering of its Quantitative Easing programs in October 2014, the Fed’s asset holdings held constant over the year. This was in stark contrast to the previous six years, during which the Fed purchased $3.5 trillion of assets. The Fed earns interest on its assets but most of its liabilities are non-interest bearing, like the $1.4 trillion worth of Federal Reserve notes crumpled in people’s pockets or buried under our mattresses. The Fed does pay interest on Reserve Bank balances, but at the current rate of 0.5 percent, this figure was a drop in the bucket relative to its total income. (Almost all of the Fed’s assets earn interest, while it incurs an interest expense on less than half of its liabilities.

What Does the Fed Do With All That Income?

The question that arises is what the Fed does with its profits.

Each year, the Fed remits to the US Treasury its net income, and thus provides the federal government with an important source of funding. Figure 2 shows how this figure has evolved since 2001.

Figure 2: Treasury Interest and Fed Remittances (in billions of dollars)

A decade ago, back when the Fed was a smaller size, Fed remittances were fairly steady, in the neighborhood of $20 billion a year. This all changed after 2008 as the Fed’s Quantitative Easing programs increased the amount of interest-earning assets that would generate funds to transfer back to the Treasury. This year’s figure of $97.7 billion is more than four times the amount transferred just ten years ago, an annual growth rate of more than 16 percent. (At least something is growing quickly in this economy.)

Big Bucks for the US Treasury

For the US Treasury, Fed remittances are something of a free lunch. When someone buys a Treasury bond, the government must pay them interest. This applies to the Fed as well, but then at year-end the Fed remits the interest back to the Treasury.

The federal government paid out $223 billion in interest payments last year. The Fed remitted almost $100 billion back, leaving the net interest expense at around $125 billion. It’s not just historically low interest rates that are making it easier for the Treasury to borrow in a way that, if it were done by anyone else, would classify them as subprime. The Fed is also chipping in and helping out where it can.

Also shown in figure 2 is the percentage of the federal interest expense that is remitted back by the Fed. For 2015, this figure neared 45 percent. That figure is a good way to think about the free lunch that the Fed gives to the Treasury.

In more “normal” times (i.e., prior to 2008) around 10 to 15 percent of the Treasury’s interest payments were paid back to it by the Fed. This figure has grown to almost four times that amount over the past seven years and it doesn’t look likr this trend will abate anytime soon.

Implications for Fed “Independence”

As much as economists talk about the independence that the Fed holds from Congress, these remittances represent a strong link. In fact, since they enable federal spending they create a form of quasi-fiscal policy for the Fed to use, in addition to its more common monetary policy options.

Consider that since Treasury debt is almost never repaid in net terms (old issues are retired but replaced with new debt issuances), the true cost of financing the US government’s borrowing is not the gross amount of debt outstanding but the annual interest expense it faces. Viewed this way, nearly half of the Treasury’s borrowing was financed by the Fed last year. Absent these Fed remittances, Congress would need to look at either an alternative funding source (though I am not sure how many takers there are for the Fed’s $2.5 trillion Treasury holdings) or make some serious cuts.

How serious? NASA’s operating budget was roughly $18 billion last year, so a lack of Fed remittances would cause the Treasury to cut around five NASA-sized programs. Alternatively, the governments Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (previously known as “food stamps”) cost $70 billion in 2014. Without the Fed’s remittances, Congress would have to stop paying out all food stamp recipients plus it would be forced to defund almost two NASAs.

More important in many Americans’ hearts is their monthly social security check. In 2014, $830 billion of social security checks were mailed out. Without Fed remittances, retirees might see their monthly check cut by about 12 percent.

For those concerned with the burgeoning size of the federal government, putting a stop to Fed remittances would put a serious dent in public finances and force some serious thought as to what programs need to be cut.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1PE07Mu Tyler Durden

Excerpted from Stephanie Pomboy's MacroMavens.com,

Putting it all together, the chart below overlays the simplest barometers of economic and financial duress (gold/copper) and risk appetite (stocks/bonds). It would be hard to find better proof that the canary in the coalmine is singing and that his song is landing on ears deafened by 6 years of BTFD behavior than this.

If it isn’t already, this image should sit framed on the desks of Ben Bernanke, Mario Draghi and Haruhiko Kuroda as a shining testament to their success in training investors to buy risk on any and every sign of weakness. It is a success made all the more impressive by the fact that, unlike dogs, sentient human beings are supposed to be above this kind of psychological manipulation.

Of course, central banks can’t take ALL the credit. The institutional investor framework provided a major assist. The positive reinforcement central banks provided to be ‘long’ risk was matched in equal measure by eviscerating professional punishment for failing to do so. The penalty for refusing to BTFD, after all, wasn’t simply a loss in short-term performance, but quite often a loss of career. The unsurprisingly upshot of all this is that we sit here today with institutional investors their most disinclined to take risk off the table while those risks are already higher than they were on the eve of the financial crisis … and rising fast.

Should the portents offered by the charts herein begin to bear fruit, 2008 would begin to look more and more relevant. As harrowing as the similarities to that episode may be, the DIFFERENCES are what will really shake Wall Street to the core. One difference particularly. With global policy rates at, near, or in some cases BELOW 0% and QE already well in progress in the major global economies, there’s precious little monetary ammunition left to fight whatever economic and financial foe awaits. Of course, one might reasonably wonder why that matters if it hasn’t accomplished anything in the first place! ‘One’ might. But central bankers won’t. Convinced of their own omnipotence they will do the only thing left—print, print, print.

As global central banks take turns clanging that bell, the BTFD impulse will eventually be sublimated to concerns that all of this naked currency debasement is accomplishing nothing… save perhaps the destruction of the entire fiat money regime.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1PmipON Tyler Durden

 

 

 

By EconMatters

The Gold Market has had a nice run in 2016 so far, and may have considerable more upside to go before encountering serious resistance. This year has been the year of Fear in financial markets so far in 2016, and Gold has benefitted immensely as a result of the ‘scared rabbits’ effect by investors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Going into the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump was riding high.

The brazen billionaire was not only the clear frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, he had also managed to pull ahead of his closest rival, senator Ted Cruz, in Iowa for the first time since August.

Make no mistake, nine months ago the idea that Trump could be competitive in Iowa was laughable. But the only one laughing going into the caucus was Trump.

And then, something went wrong.

Perhaps it was the publicity stunt Trump pulled last Thursday when he skipped the final debate before the caucus in order to hold his own, competing event right up the street, or perhaps some voters lost their nerve at the last minute, but whatever the case, the man who “hates losers” lost.

Initially, Trump showed a rare bit of humility. “I’d like to congratulate Ted,” he said, before saying he was “just honored” to have been competitive.

Humble Trump quickly receded back into the blonde hair piece however, once Trump discovered that Cruz may have sent out “deceitful mailers.” “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday.

Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2016

Maybe so, but the latest national poll conducted by PPP shows that although Trump is still the frontrunner, he fell nine points after losing in Iowa. His lead over Ted Cruz in the national poll has narrowed to just 4 points.

“PPP’s newest national poll finds the race on the Republican side tightening considerably in the wake of Donald Trump’s surprise loss in Iowa on Monday night. Trump’s lead has fallen to just 4 points- he’s at 25% to 21% each for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and 11% for Ben Carson,” Public Policy Polling said on Thursday.

As PPP goes on to note Marco Rubio may be set to make a run at the top spot. “Rubio is the candidate with the real momentum in the race,” PPP remarks, adding that “he’s up 8 points from his 13% standing in a poll right before Christmas.” Here’s more:

Beyond that he’s seen a large spike in his favorability rating- it’s improved a net 28 points from +15 at 49/34 to +43 at 64/21. That ties him with Ben Carson as being the most broadly popular candidate on the Republican side.

 

Things also bode well for Rubio as the field gets smaller in the coming weeks. In a four candidate field he gets 32% to 31% for Trump, 23% for Cruz, and 8% for Bush. In a three candidate field he gets 34% to 33% for Trump and 25% for Cruz. And in head to heads he leads both Trump (52/40) and Cruz (46/40). As other candidates drop out of the race Rubio is the most likely destination of their supporters.

In other words, when this gets down to a three person race (and it will in fairly short order) Rubio will be ahead. If polls are to be believed.

PPP goes on to call the GOP race “very fluid,” as fully half of would-be voters say they’re open to changing their mind about the candidates between now and the ballot. 

Can Trump reclaim the momentum in New Hampshire? Will Marco Rubio prevail in the end as voters decide that when it comes right down to it, they’d rather go mainstream than go out on a political limb? Stay tuned to find out.

Full results below

PPP Release National 20416

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