Month: April 2016

Submitted by Clarice Palmer via TheAntiMedia.org,

As online publications have hailed the major protests overtaking the streets of Brazil at the outset of an apparent political revolution, few discuss the problems that have been brewing for decades in South America’s largest nation.

While Brazilians are angry and tired of their economic hardships, they are also incensed at the country’s history of corruption, which now includes a massive presidential scandal carried out by politicians and lobbyists during the current and previous administrations. This misconduct has given residents of all walks of life enough incentive to take their demands to the streets.

But are the politicians listening?

The History of Brazil is a History of Corruption

Local sociologists often tout Brazil’s corruption problem as a “genetic disposition” to crookedness. But late economist Ludwig von Mises disagreed. In Human Action, the famed economist claimed that corruption is simply a consequence of government’s heavy intervention in all public matters. “Corruption is a regular effect of interventionism,” he wrote — not the root of a country’s woes.

As Brazilian newspapers and talking heads tend to focus on corruption scandals as the root of the political and economic issues the country faces, they are, in fact, some of the consequences of heavy government intervention — not the foundation of the nation’s ongoing problems.

Between 1930 and 1945, the country was under the rule of the populist tyrant Getúlio Vargas, whose rise as a dictator was also tied to a series of corruption scandals, political persecution, and oppression. Nicknamed “the Father of the Poor,” Vargas and his administration used images of hope and harmony to sell the leader as the country’s grassroots hero.

But the individual behind the facade and popular image was the first of many political leaders to promise — though never deliver — peace and prosperity. Vargas also maintained an amicable relationship with Germany prior to World War II, prompting the United States to wonder whether Brazil would enter the Axis orbit. The Vargas administration even aided Nazi Germany by sending Jewish refugees back to their home country, such as the revolutionary militant, Olga Benário Prestes, a German Jew who ultimately died in a concentration camp.

 

Getúlio Vargas is particularly relevant because Brazil’s last president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” Da Silva, who held office between 2003 and 2011, is often remembered by many as the second coming of the 20th century dictator. Lula is currently implicated in the high-level scandals currently plaguing Brazil.

Long before Lula took office, however, the anti-communist “Red Scare” mindset — the culture of fear tied to communism that existed between 1919 the late 1950s in America — finally settled in Brazil. The country began to fear the possibility that communist agitators would take over the country. With the help of democratically-elected president, João Goulart (Brazilian Labour Party), the country’s military leaders took over, replaced Congress with the National Constituent Assembly, deposed opposition members, and drafted a new Constitutional Charter. The 1964 military coup lasted until 1985.

Once Brazilians had the chance to elect a new president, they put young Fernando Collor de Mello in power, a right-wing politician who froze thousands of Brazilian savings accounts and converted them into government bonds, inciting a wave of anger across the nation.

It was only when Collor was accused of having played a role in an influence-peddling scheme that many started paying attention.

Afraid of what Congress could do to his presidency, Collor allegedly paid $2 million for falsified documents, an act that, once discovered, prompted Congress to vote for his impeachment. Only three senators voted in Collor’s favor. Seventy-three voted for his removal.

Whether or not this was a sign of things to come, Brazil’s first democratically-elected president after the military rule became the first to be impeached.

As privatization policies were put in place by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in the 1990s, the country’s economy picked up steam. People suddenly believed they had a good, competent administration in place, despite issues with the ongoing drug war. The many years of privatization and inflation-taming measures, however, prompted younger Brazilians to become attached to the ideology behind progressive politics. Enter Lula.

In 2003, young Brazilians cheered the the election of the Workers Party’s Lula. After all, they believed a “man of the people” had been picked as the country’s president. He was the same man who would go on to become the country’s “lobbyist in chief.”

After Lula’s two terms, the Workers Party managed to get Dilma Rousseff elected. Her rise to the presidency was mostly due to her proximity to Lula. She has often referred to him as  “[her] president and leader.”

Unemployment, Poverty, Inflation, and High Taxes: Brazilians are Fed Up

Brazilians experienced an economic miracle in the 1990s. But as the Rousseff administration upped sales and consumption taxes while relying on inflation, the increase in the money supply. As the country hosted the World Cup in 2014, businesses and consumers began to suffer. The first ones to feel the consequences were the poor.

Currently, Brazilians pay about 36 percent in sales taxes on most goods and services — a regressive tax that ends up hurting the poor the most. Brazilians give up about 28 percent of their income yearly. With the increase in taxes on large net gains and the country’s protectionist policies, many believe investors will begin to flee the country.

Tension built up due to the economic difficulties consumers face only worsened when the country’s judiciary launched an investigation into Rousseff’s embezzlement and crony capitalist scheme, which has made global headlines.

“Car Wash” Corruption Scheme and Its Investigation: the Beginning of the End for Dilma Rousseff

The “car wash” investigation is the largest probe of its kind in Brazilian history.

Its name comes from the network of laundromats, gas stations, and currency exchange businesses participants in the scheme used to launder money.

From Brazilian writer Alice Salles at FreedomWorks.org:

“Trouble began to brew when authorities launched an investigation into a network of currency exchanging businesses connected to Alberto Youssef. He was accused of forging contracts and moving billions of Brazilian Reais domestically and abroad using front companies and foreign bank accounts.”

 

Once the investigations were deepened, authorities “learned that Youssef had business relationships with Paulo Roberto Costa, the former director of the state-controlled oil giant Petrobras, major contractors and their lobbyists, and other Petrobras servicers. On March 2014, both Costa and Youssef were arrested.” Once Costa agreed to take part in the investigations in August of 2014, “Brazilians learned that he and several other directors of Petrobras received bribes and passed them along to politicians for their campaigns.” In a few weeks time, the authorities convinced Youssef to join Costa, “and revelations about one of the largest embezzlement schemes in the history of the country started flooding the news.”

Soon enough, the authorities learned the names of contractors involved in the scheme, which happened to be the country’s two top construction companies: Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez. André Estevez, owner of Latin America’s largest investment bank, BTG, was also involved.

By March of 2015, authorities learned 53 politicians had participated in the scheme. Even José Dirceu, the former prime minister under President Lula, was “accused of receiving payments from Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez.” Lula’s close friend, the farmer José Carlos Bumlai, and Senator Delcídio Amaral of the Workers Party, known as PT, were arrested. The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) was also targeted, along with several other PMDB party leaders.

According to what the investigations have unearthed thus far, the embezzlement scheme benefitted political parties in charge of Petrobras’s leadership appointments.

Salles reported that “as federal judge Sérgio Moro showed signs he believed former president Lula had profited from the scheme, prosecutors from the state of São Paulo added insult to injury by accusing Lula of ‘hiding his ownership of a beach-front condominium.’” But the rumors about his future finally hit the news, and Rousseff decided to appoint her predecessor as her chief of staff. The Economist claimed Lula is a “canny political operator,” which may have helped Rousseff make the decision to bring him on board to boost her reputation. However, as Salles noted, “what the cabinet position means to Lula may have served as the sole incentive.”

As the country’s call for impeachment intensifies, a strong opposition movement in Congress is taking shape. The country’s top association of lawyers, Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, has also announced it will present an impeachment proposal to Congress, making matters worse for Rousseff.

The proposal claims the current president has “authorized … the country to delay its payments,” and it also accuses the president of unilaterally lifting tax obligations tied to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) during the 2014 World Cup. OAB attorneys also claim Rousseff may have “interfered with the ‘car wash’ probe, which includes her appointment of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as chief of staff.”

Unclear Future: Impeachment Alone is Not the Solution

As the “car wash” probe unveils that billions of taxpayer dollars have been tied to investments abroad that didn’t benefit Brazilians — and that members of most Brazilian political parties were involved — many of the county’s residents are showing signs of fatigue.

Impeaching President Rousseff may offer momentary relief to Brazilians under pressure, but unless a cultural change takes shape, the expulsion of Rousseff from Brasília, the nation’s capital, won’t make a difference.

According to activist Kim Kataguiri, a key figure in the anti-Rousseff protests, “the smokescreens used by the Brazilian government to disperse the population are finally gone.” He believes impeachment will come — no matter what. Even so, Rousseff says she has enough friends in Congress to avoid her downfall. Only time will tell whether Brazilians will find a way to restrict government’s interference in the country, helping to keep corrupt politicians from finding reasons to steal from the taxpayer.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1N0vRqv Tyler Durden

By EconMatters

The Oil Market focuses on some rather silly stuff at times, and the Production Freeze notion, is one such misdirection play. I would rather Bloomberg provide some market insight given their vast resources by reporting on how much Oil Iran is actually able to bring to market versus the rhetoric.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1q9U21n EconMatters

“Decoupled”…

 

 

Remember 2043.94 is YTD unchanged for S&P 500 cash.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1N0vSLb Tyler Durden

One of the truly remarkable things about Donald Trump’s run for the White House is the extent to which he has proven to be immune to criticism. 

In many ways, the GOP frontrunner is a living, breathing negative ad for himself. Whether you hate him or you love him, you hold your breath when he opens his mouth because you understand there’s a decent chance something absolutely off the wall is about to come spilling out and you’re never really sure whether this will be “the one” – the Trumpism that finally pushes too far beyond the sensibilities of even the most ardent supporters. 

Incredibly, Trump still hasn’t met his Waterloo. He’s called Mexicans drug dealing rapists. He suggested that John McCain is a loser for getting himself captured in ‘Nam. He’s theoretically banned the world’s fastest growing religion from North America. He’s promised to tax Chinese imports at 40%. He’s implied he’ll force Mexico to built a giant cage around itself to keep its people from escaping. And now he’s suggested that if abortion were illegal, he’d need to figure out the best way to punish women who break the law. 

But here’s the thing: it works.

Trump is onto something. Apparently, America’s blood is boiling and “The Donald” has tapped right into a vein.

Now, the downtrodden masses – i.e. an electorate that’s sick and tired of the entrenched political aristocracy inside the Beltway and utterly fed up with being told to “eat cake” by the legions of modern day Marie Antoinettes that flit around Capitol Hill and Mahogany Row with their thumbs glued to Blackberry scroll balls that went extinct on Main Street a half decade ago – are mainlining the Trump brand of political heroine. Millions of Americans are nationalists without even knowing it. They’re speaking out against EM mercantilism without the slightest conception of what that means. And most importantly, they’re prepared to bet two-and-a-half centuries of history on a campaign platform built on an appeal to one man’s ad hoc version of Realpolitik.

Would a Trump presidency usher in a new era of American prosperity? Almost certainly not. But note we said “almost.” A Clinton presidency will definitely not change anything. And neither would a Cruz presidency or a Kasich administration. In short, Americans know two things for sure at this point: 1) both Trump and Bernie Sanders would bring real (as opposed to Obama-brand) “change” to America; 2) Trump can win his party’s nomination, while Bernie can’t.

The takeaway: if you want real change, you vote Trump.

In short, by simply saying what a whole lot of people are thinking anyway, Trump has instilled his campaign with a degree of authenticity that’s impossible for other candidates to emulate and that makes him virtually unstoppable save a misstep or two (or three) when someone like Chris Matthews presses him on specifics.

What the billionaire’s detractors have failed to understand is that the only way to beat Trump is essentially to join him. That is, you have to show his support base that the establishment is prepared to address their concerns.

Simply insulting his intelligence and/or making a scene at his rallies will not only not work (there’s a fun double negative), it will invariably backfire, which brings us full circle to what we said at the outset: Trump. Is. Teflon.

Need proof? Take the 15-year-old girl who quite a few people probably thought was set to become the pepper-sprayed face of the “peaceful” Trump protester movement. What was initially billed as an indiscriminate attack on an underage girl who, according to some reports, was being “groped” taharrush gamea-style by a gang of roudy neo-Trump-Nazis, quickly morphed into a far different story wherein a belligerent teenager, unable to tolerate what she perceived as an afront to American democracy, punches an old man in the face and then is pepper sprayed. 

Now, authorities have recommended that someone file a disorderly conduct charge against the girl who insists that she “felt pressure on her breasts.”

“Clearly her punch was illegal,” police chief David Moore told reporters.

So once again, attempts to derail Trump have backfired in dramatic fashion. No longer is the headline “15-Year-Old Girl Pepper Sprayed By Trump Fanatics,” it is now “Police Recommend Charge Against Girl At Trump Rally.”  From the AP:

Investigators said Thursday that they’re recommending a disorderly conduct charge be filed against a 15-year-old girl who was pepper-sprayed after she punched a man at a rally for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in Wisconsin.

 

Video of the altercation shows a crowd of people in a parking lot outside the rally in Janesville on Tuesday. The girl can be seen holding an anti-Trump sign and arguing with a 59-year-old man.

 

The video shows the man turning away with his hands in the air. Seconds later, the girl punches him in the face. Another man wearing a red Trump hat then pepper-sprayed the girl and disappeared into the crowd.

 

The girl told police the first man groped her breast. But Chief David Moore told reporters during a news conference Thursday that additional video doesn’t show any evidence the man groped her and that 12 out of 13 witnesses said they didn’t see him do anything.

 

Moore said the man who was punched didn’t want to press assault charges against the girl, but investigators have recommended juvenile authorities charge her with disorderly conduct for what he called “an act of violence.” He said time passed between the alleged groping and the punching and the man and the girl were several feet apart when she threw the punch.

 

The chief said investigators won’t pursue charges of filing a false police report against the girl. He said she genuinely believes she felt pressure on her breast. However, he said, quarters were tight and people were brushing up against one another throughout the crowd.

 

“Clearly her punch was illegal,” he said.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1ZQY8r4 Tyler Durden

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll poll shows that 63% of Americans – 82% of Republicans and 53% of Democrats – believe torture of suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified to gather information.

While it would be nice to beat the crap out of some bad guys to get them spill the beans – and prevent more terrorism – the truth is that torture DECREASES the amount of information we'll get and actually INCREASES terrorism.

We've Known for Over 2,000 Years that Torture Produces FALSE Confessions

We've known since ancient Rome that torture doesn’t work:

• In 72 BC – 2,086 years ago – Cicero (the well-known Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist and consul) pointed out that torture creates conditions of fear and desperate hope in which “there is but little room left for truth”, i.e. that torture is an unreliable method of extracting truth.

• Later Roman leaders agreed:

As early as the third century A.D., the great Roman Jurist Ulpian noted that information obtained through torture was not to be trusted because some people are “so susceptible to pain that they will tell any lie rather than suffer it” (Peters, 1996). This warning about the unreliability of information extracted through the use of torture has echoed across the centuries.

• The former Attorney General of the United States (Ramsey Clark) notes about the Roman emperor Justinian … who lived in the 6th century:

Justinian condemned torture as untrustworthy, perilous, and deceptive.

• Lawrence Davidson – history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania – points out:

In 1764 Cesare Beccaria [an Italian criminologist, jurist, philosopher, and politician who had a profound effect on America’s Founding Fathers] published his groundbreaking work, On Crimes and Punishments. Beccaria had examined all the evidence available at that time and concluded that individuals under torture will tell their interrogators anything they want to hear, true or not, just to get the pain to stop.

• Napolean Bonaparte wrote in 1798:

The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know.

• And in 1836, British police magistrate and lawyer David Jardine documented that – for thousands of years – torture has led to false confessions.

Torture INTERFERES With Our Ability to Fight Terrorism, Obtain Intelligence Information and Protect Our National Security

But what about modern experts?

In fact, virtually all of the top interrogation experts – both conservatives and liberals (except for those trying to escape war crimes prosecution) – say that torture doesn’t work:

• The FBI interrogators who actually interviewed some of the 9/11 suspects say torture didn’t work

• Another FBI interrogator of 9/11 suspects said:

I was in the middle of this, and it’s not true that these [aggressive] techniques were effective

• A third former FBI interrogator — who interrogated Al Qaeda suspects — says categorically that torture does not help collect intelligence. On the other hand he says that torture actually turns people into terrorists

• Scores of high-level intelligence officers say: "Based on our lengthy experience in intelligence, we know that torture doesn’t 'work.'

• "Neuroscientists have found that torture physically and chemically interferes with the prisoner’s ability to tell the truth

• Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1 says:

“Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.”

• The C.I.A.’s 1963 interrogation manual stated:

Intense pain is quite likely to produce false confessions, concocted as a means of escaping from distress. A time-consuming delay results, while investigation is conducted and the admissions are proven untrue. During this respite the interrogatee can pull himself together. He may even use the time to think up new, more complex ‘admissions’ that take still longer to disprove.

• According to the Washington Post, the CIA’s top spy – Michael Sulick, head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service – said that the spy agency has seen no fall-off in intelligence since waterboarding was banned by the Obama administration. “I don’t think we’ve suffered at all from an intelligence standpoint.”

• The CIA’s own Inspector General wrote that waterboarding was not “efficacious” in producing information

• The head of the CIA said that the agency “has NOT concluded that it was the use of EITs [“Enhanced Interrogation Techniques aka torture] that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees”.

• A 30-year veteran of CIA’s operations directorate who rose to the most senior managerial ranks (Milton Bearden) says (as quoted by senior CIA agent Ray McGovern):

It is irresponsible for any administration not to tell a credible story that would convince critics at home and abroad that this torture has served some useful purpose.

 

***

 

The old hands overwhelmingly believe that torture doesn’t work ….

• A former high-level CIA officer (Philip Giraldi) states:

Many governments that have routinely tortured to obtain information have abandoned the practice when they discovered that other approaches actually worked better for extracting information. Israel prohibited torturing Palestinian terrorist suspects in 1999. Even the German Gestapo stopped torturing French resistance captives when it determined that treating prisoners well actually produced more and better intelligence.

• Another former high-level CIA official (Bob Baer) says:

And torture — I just don’t think it really works … you don’t get the truth. What happens when you torture people is, they figure out what you want to hear and they tell you.

• Michael Scheuer, formerly a senior CIA official in the Counter-Terrorism Center, says:

“I personally think that any information gotten through extreme methods of torture would probably be pretty useless because it would be someone telling you what you wanted to hear.”

• A retired C.I.A. officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002 (Glenn L. Carle) says:

[Coercive techniques] didn’t provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information…Everyone was deeply concerned and most felt it was un-American and did not work.”

• A former top Air Force interrogator who led the team that tracked down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has conducted hundreds of interrogations of high ranking Al Qaida members and supervising more than one thousand, and wrote a book called How to Break a Terrorist writes:

As the senior interrogator in Iraq for a task force charged with hunting down Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former Al Qaida leader and mass murderer, I listened time and time again to captured foreign fighters cite the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as their main reason for coming to Iraq to fight. Consider that 90 percent of the suicide bombers in Iraq are these foreign fighters and you can easily conclude that we have lost hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives because of our policy of torture and abuse. But that’s only the past. Somewhere in the world there are other young Muslims who have joined Al Qaida because we tortured and abused prisoners. These men will certainly carry out future attacks against Americans, either in Iraq, Afghanistan, or possibly even here. And that’s not to mention numerous other Muslims who support Al Qaida, either financially or in other ways, because they are outraged that the United States tortured and abused Muslim prisoners.

 

In addition, torture and abuse has made us less safe because detainees are less likely to cooperate during interrogations if they don’t trust us. I know from having conducted hundreds of interrogations of high ranking Al Qaida members and supervising more than one thousand, that when a captured Al Qaida member sees us live up to our stated principles they are more willing to negotiate and cooperate with us. When we torture or abuse them, it hardens their resolve and reaffirms why they picked up arms.

He also says:

[Torture is] extremely ineffective, and it’s counter-productive to what we’re trying to accomplish.When we torture somebody, it hardens their resolve … The information that you get is unreliable. … And even if you do get reliable information, you’re able to stop a terrorist attack, al Qaeda’s then going to use the fact that we torture people to recruit new members.

And he repeats:

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

And:

They don’t want to talk about the long term consequences that cost the lives of Americans…. The way the U.S. treated its prisoners “was al-Qaeda’s number-one recruiting tool and brought in thousands of foreign fighters who killed American soldiers.

• A declassified FBI e-mail dated May 10, 2004, regarding interrogation at Guantanamo states “[we] explained to [the Department of Defense], FBI has been successful for many years obtaining confessions via non-confrontational interviewing techniques.” (see also this)

• The FBI warned military interrogators in 2003 that enhanced interrogation techniques are “of questionable effectiveness” and cited a “lack of evidence of [enhanced techniques’] success.

• “When long-time FBI director Mueller was asked whether any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through “enhanced techniques”, he responded “I don’t believe that has been the case.”

• The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously found that torture doesn’t work, stating:

The administration’s policies concerning [torture] and the resulting controversies damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.

• The military agency which actually provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects warned the Pentagon in 2002 that those techniques would produce “unreliable information.”

• General Petraeus says that torture is unnecessary

• Retired 4-star General Barry McCaffrey – who Schwarzkopf called he hero of Desert Storm – agrees

• The number 2 terrorism expert for the State Department says torture doesn’t work, and just creates more terrorists.

• Former Navy Judge Advocate General Admiral John Hutson says:

Fundamentally, those kinds of techniques are ineffective. If the goal is to gain actionable intelligence, and it is, and if that’s important, and it is, then we have to use the techniques that are most effective. Torture is the technique of choice of the lazy, stupid and pseudo-tough.

He also says:

Another objection is that torture doesn’t work. All the literature and experts say that if we really want usable information, we should go exactly the opposite way and try to gain the trust and confidence of the prisoners.

• Army Colonel Stuart Herrington – a military intelligence specialist who interrogated generals under the command of Saddam Hussein and evaluated US detention operations at Guantánamo – notes that the process of obtaining information is hampered, not helped, by practices such as “slapping someone in the face and stripping them naked”. Herrington and other former US military interrogators say:

We know from experience that it is very difficult to elicit information from a detainee who has been abused. The abuse often only strengthens their resolve and makes it that much harder for an interrogator to find a way to elicit useful information.

• Major General Thomas Romig, former Army JAG, said:

If you torture somebody, they’ll tell you anything. I don’t know anybody that is good at interrogation, has done it a lot, that will say that that’s an effective means of getting information. … So I don’t think it’s effective.

• Brigadier General David R. Irvine, retired Army Reserve strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner interrogation and military law for 18 years with the Sixth Army Intelligence School, says torture doesn’t work

• The first head of the Department of Homeland Security – Tom Ridge – says we were wrong to torture

• The former British intelligence chairman says that waterboarding didn’t stop terror plots

• A spokesman for the National Security Council (Tommy Vietor) says:

The bottom line is this: If we had some kind of smoking-gun intelligence from waterboarding in 2003, we would have taken out Osama bin Laden in 2003.

• The Marines weren’t keen on torture, either

• As Vanity Fair reports:

In researching this article, I spoke to numerous counterterrorist officials from agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Their conclusion is unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts … Here, they say, far from exposing a deadly plot, all torture did was lead to more torture of his supposed accomplices while also providing some misleading “information” that boosted the administration’s argument for invading Iraq.

• An Army psychologist – Major Paul Burney, Army’s Behavior Science Consulting Team psychologist – said (page 78 & 83):

was stressed to me time and time again that psychological investigations have proven that harsh interrogations do not work. At best it will get you information that a prisoner thinks you want to hear to make the interrogation stop, but that information is strongly likely to be false.

 

***

 

Interrogation techniques that rely on physical or adverse consequences are likely to garner inaccurate information and create an increased level of resistance…There is no evidence that the level of fear or discomfort evoked by a given technique has any consistent correlation to the volume or quality of information obtained.

• An expert on resisting torture – Terrence Russell, DOD’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency manager for research and development and a specialist in torture – said (page 209):

History has shown us that physical pressures are not effective for compelling an individual to give information or to do something’ and are not effective for gaining accurate, actionable intelligence.

• A former CIA analyst notes:

During the Inquisition there were many confessed witches, and many others were named by those tortured as other witches. Unsurprisingly, when these new claimed witches were tortured, they also confessed. Confirmation of some statement made under torture, when that confirmation is extracted by another case of torture, is invalid information and cannot be trusted.

• Top American World War 2 interrogators got more information using chess or Ping-Pong instead of torture than those who use torture are getting today

• The head of Britain’s wartime interrogation center in London said:

“Violence is taboo. Not only does it produce answers to please, but it lowers the standard of information.”

• The national security adviser to Vice President George H.W. Bush (Donald P. Gregg) wrote:

During wartime service with the CIA in Vietnam from 1970 to 1972, I was in charge of intelligence operations in the 10 provinces surrounding Saigon. One of my tasks was to prevent rocket attacks on Saigon’s port.Keeping Saigon safe required human intelligence, most often from captured prisoners. I had a running debate about how North Vietnamese prisoners should be treated with the South Vietnamese colonel who conducted interrogations. This colonel routinely tortured prisoners, producing a flood of information, much of it totally false. I argued for better treatment and pressed for key prisoners to be turned over to the CIA, where humane interrogation methods were the rule – and more accurate intelligence was the result.

 

The colonel finally relented and turned over a battered prisoner to me, saying, “This man knows a lot, but he will not talk to me.”

We treated the prisoner’s wounds, reunited him with his family, and allowed him to make his first visit to Saigon. Surprised by the city’s affluence, he said he would tell us anything we asked. The result was a flood of actionable intelligence that allowed us to disrupt planned operations, including rocket attacks against Saigon.

 

Admittedly, it would be hard to make a story from nearly 40 years ago into a definitive case study. But there is a useful reminder here. The key to successful interrogation is for the interrogator – even as he controls the situation – to recognize a prisoner’s humanity, to understand his culture, background and language. Torture makes this impossible.

 

There’s a sad twist here. Cheney forgets that the Bush administration followed this approach with some success. A high-value prisoner subjected to patient interrogation by an Arabic-speaking FBI agent yielded highly useful information, including the final word on Iraq’s weapons programs.

 

His name was Saddam Hussein.

• Top interrogators got information from a high-level Al Qaeda suspects through building rapport, even if they hated the person they were interrogating by treating them as human

• Senator John McCain explains, based upon his own years of torture:

I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear — true or false — if he believes it will relieve his suffering. Often, information provided to stop the torture is deliberately misleading.

According to the experts, torture is unnecessary even to prevent “ticking time bombs” from exploding (see this, this and this). Indeed, a top expert says that torture would fail in a real ‘ticking time-bomb’ situation. (And, no … it did NOT help get Bin Laden).

Torture CREATES Terrorists and REDUCES U.S. National Security

In fact, torture reduces our national security:

• Torture by U.S. personnel led to the CREATION of ISIS

• The head of all U.S. intelligence said:

"The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world," [Director of National Intelligence Dennis] Blair said in the statement. "The damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

• A top counter-terrorism expert says torture increases the risk of terrorism (and see this).

• One of the top military interrogators said that torture by Americans of innocent Iraqis is the main reason that foreign fighters started fighting against Americans in Iraq in the first place (and see this).

• Former counter-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke says that America's indefinite detention without trial and abuse of prisoners is a leading Al Qaeda recruiting tool

• A former FBI interrogator — who interrogated Al Qaeda suspects — says categorically that torture actually turns people into terrorists

• A 30-year veteran of CIA’s operations directorate who rose to the most senior managerial ranks, says:

Torture creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terror than it could possibly neutralize.

• A former US Air Force interrogator said that torture just creates more terrorists

• A former U.S. interrogator and counterintelligence agent, and Afghanistan veteran said:

Torture puts our troops in danger, torture makes our troops less safe, torture creates terrorists. It’s used so widely as a propaganda tool now in Afghanistan. All too often, detainees have pamphlets on them, depicting what happened at Guantanamo.

• The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously stated:

"The administration’s policies concerning [torture] and the resulting controversies … strengthened the hand of our enemies."

• Two professors of political science have demonstrated that torture increases, rather than decreases, terrorism

• General Petraeus said that torture hurts our national security

• The reporter who broke Iran-Contra and other stories says that torture actually helped Al Qaeda, by giving false leads to the U.S. which diverted its military, intelligence and economic resources into wild goose chases

• Raw Story says that torture might have resulted in false terror alerts

• Hundreds of other experts have said the same things

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1VgbA6U George Washington

By Andrew Zeitlin of SouthBay Research

March NFP 215K: Retail stick-save as Signs of Weakness Pick Up

A broadening Industrial recession was offset by solid service payrolls, led by Retail. Taken at face value, the breadth of growth signals a steady-as-she-goes economy.

But there are reasons to doubt the figures, starting with Retail. In the BLS model, retail is hitting a major growth spurt unlike anything seen in a decade.  In the real economy, the Retail sector’s growth is slowing.

Also troubling is the continued contraction in temp worker payrolls. Sometimes that’s a sign of conversion of part-time workers to full-time workers, but that’s not what’s going on.   Even one-offs like Personal Laundry (+5K) and Landscaping (+12K) couldn’t push Private Payrolls above 200K

Industrial Recession Broadens

SouthBay View coming into March: Energy sector cuts at slower pace, Manufacturing Cuts at faster pace

Actual: Energy sector (-12K), Manufacturing (-29K) compared with (-8K) in February

Key point: Payrolls dropped in almost every manufacturing sector, and machinery led the way (-6K).  A strong sign that 2H Industrial production is poised to contract further as investments in factory production are dropping at a faster pace.

Retail Was Strongest Factor +48K: Dubious Achievement Award

BLS sees a Retail Renaissance

Despite a lackluster holiday sales season and massive big box store closures, despite major 1Q hiring companies like Home Depot reporting flat hiring plans, the BLS model reports 181K payrolls added in 1Q 2016. 

To put that into context:

• Best 1Q ever
• Better than the entire annual Retail payroll growth for 2014; 2/3s the level of 2015

Fewer stores than ever, more big-box store closings, weak sales.  And yet, most hiring ever.  Hmmmmm…..

This is shown in the chart below:

* * *

Elsewhere:

Employment Services Negative 2 months in a row
Demand for temp worker support continues to slump.  (-6K) in March

Healthcare remains Strong:  +44K

Leisure & Hospitality remains Strong 40K
As expected slight easing in the Restaurant payroll adds (from 37K in February to 26K in March)

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

When last we checked in on the 1MDB saga, Goldman was busy tying up a few loose ends.

Tim Leissner, the banker who built the firm’s Southeast Asia operation from the ground up and the man behind a series of questionable deals that funded what would eventually become Malaysian PM Najib Razak’s personal slush fund, was essentially forced out in January, after bank investigators uncovered what they said was an unauthorized reference letter.

Apparently, Leissner tried to secure an internship for the son of a possibly shady businessman tied to an Indonesian copper mine. The story is absurd on all kinds of levels, but rather than recount the entire thing for the umpteenth time, we’ll simply give you the Cliff’s Notes version courtesy of Bloomberg:

Last year he was in talks to provide financing for a group of investors, including Sudjiono Timan, who were seeking to buy a controlling interest in Newmont Mining Corp.’s copper operations in Indonesia, according to two people familiar with the deal who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information.

 

Timan, whose ties to the Newmont deal haven’t been previously reported, was convicted on corruption charges in 2004. Even though Indonesia’s Supreme Court reversed the conviction in 2013, before the Newmont deal took shape, Goldman Sachs told Leissner it wouldn’t move forward on the transaction as long as Timan was a sponsor, the people said. Timan withdrew as an investor but acted as an adviser to the remaining sponsors, according to the people. When the New York-based bank learned of Timan’s continuing involvement, it decided not to proceed, they said.

 

 

The deal committee reviewing the transaction opted against it, one of the people said, in part because the bank didn’t think Leissner provided enough information about Timan’s involvement. When Goldman examined Leissner’s messages after pulling out of the Newmont deal, it discovered he had used the firm’s letterhead to write a reference letter in violation of company rules, according to the person.

Frankly, that story is the worst kind of nonsense. Only a complete simpleton would believe that a man who at one time was one of the bank’s most revered and powerful executives (at least as it relates to the Squid’s overseas ops) was fired because he used the firm’s letterhead on a reference letter. Furthermore, the idea that Goldman Sachs is allergic to deals that have ties to corrupt individuals is laughable.

The real reason Leissner was let go is simple: he effectively helped to create 1MDB, which is now at the center of a global corruption probe being conducted by more regulators and investigatory bodies than you can count on both hands. Goldman wants nothing to do with it, or as little to do with it as possible, and that means getting rid of the man who started it all by floating two bond deals that financed what was supposed to be a development bank, but which turned into a checking account for Malaysia’s prime minister.

Anyway, it’s not just Goldman that’s involved. On Friday we learn that the DoJ has now asked Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan to explain their own dealings with 1MDB. “JPMorgan and Deutsche were not the target of the investigations at this stage, but had only been asked to provide details,” Reuters writes, before adding that “Singapore’s central bank has also asked financial institutions to provide details of any transactions linked to the Malaysian fund.”

“As part of its investigations into possible money-laundering and other offences in Singapore, (MAS) has been conducting a thorough review of various transactions as well as fund flows through our banking system,” the country’s monetary authority said in a statement. “MAS has requested a number of financial institutions to furnish information relating to the review.” Meanwhile, Luxembourg’s state prosecutor is also investigating 1MDB and you’ll never guess who’s under the microscope (ok, maybe you will): 

• EDMOND DE ROTHSCHILD BANK SAYS IT’S COOPERATING WITH LUXEMBOURG 1MDB PROBE

 Here’s a bit more from from Bloomberg on Deutsche and JPMorgan:

One bank received an instruction from the Justice Department not to destroy related documents dating back to 2009, the year 1MDB was created, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is confidential.

 

Deutsche Bank Malaysia and JPMorgan’s involvement with 1MDB can be traced back to 2009 when they facilitated fund transfers for the company, according to the person familiar with the matter. Deutsche was also hired as one of the advisers for an initial public offering of 1MDB’s power assets in mid-2014, which never materialized because of an unfavorable market. It also gave a $975 million loan to the company two years ago and 1MDB settled it in 2015.

 

Authorities from around the world — including in the U.S., Luxembourg, Switzerland and Singapore — are trying to piece together evidence to determine if some of the billions of dollars that 1MDB raised since 2009 were siphoned out of its coffers and into the personal accounts of politically connected individuals.

Allow us to save “authorities from around the world” some time: yes, “some of the billions” were indeed “siphoned” out of the fund and “into the personal accounts of politically connected individuals.” Politically connected individuals like Najib himself who, along with his controversial wife Rosmah Mansor (who is friends with Leissner’s spouse Kimora Lee), spend lavishly on all manner of luxury goods (if you ask him, Najib will tell you the $681 million that ended up in his bank account didn’t come from 1MDB but was in fact a “donation” from some very generous Arabs). 

Najib and Mansour, for instance, spent $130,625 on one trip to Chanel while vacationing in Honolulu in 2014.

Two days later, Najib played 18 holes at Kaneohe Klipper with President Obama. That, according to WSJ, is a true story.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1RRE7gU Tyler Durden

The FOMC may have cut its rate hike forecast from 4 to 2, following by an even more dovish speech by Janet Yellen, but Goldman is convinced the Fed is wrong. As a result, after looking at today’s payrolls report, its chief economist Jan Hatzius said that “we ultimately think the committee will move faster than the two-hike pace implied by the latest “dot plot”, despite the dovish signals from the March meeting and Chair Yellen’s remarks this week” and that “we continue to expect the FOMC to raise rates three times in 2016.”

This means rate hikes during all the upcoming FOMC meetings that have a conference: June, September and December.

Here is the full note:

Another Solid Employment Report

BOTTOM LINE: Nonfarm payroll employment rose by a solid +215k in March and the household survey’s measure of employment rose 246k. The unemployment rate rose to 5.0% due to a one-tenth increase in the participation rate. Average hours were unchanged while average hourly earnings rose 0.3%. We have made no changes to our Fed call, and continue to expect the FOMC to raise rates three times in 2016.

MAIN POINTS:

1. Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 215k in March (vs. +205k consensus), a slight deceleration from an upwardly revised +245k in March. Employment gains were relatively broad-based, led by solid gains in service sector jobs (+199k). Warmer than usual March weather may have provided a slight boost to sectors most sensitive to weather: construction (+37k) and leisure and hospitality (+40k) employment were both firm. The other goods-producing sectors of the economy were slightly softer, as manufacturing (-29k) and mining and logging (-12k) continued to shed jobs in March. Government employment rose 20k.

2. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% in March (vs. +0.2% consensus), raising the year-on-year growth rate to 2.3% from 2.2%. Aggregate weekly payrolls—the product of employment, average hourly earnings, and average weekly hours—rose 0.4% on the month as the average workweek held steady at 34.4 hours while average hourly earnings rose 0.3% (mom).

3. The household survey showed a gain in employment of 246k in March, following an increase of 530k in February. Despite the strong gain in employment, the unemployment rate rose to 5.0% (5.001% unrounded) due to a one-tenth increase in the labor force participation rate to 63.0%. The participation rate has now risen 0.6 percentage points since September. The U6 underemployment rate rose to 9.8% from 9.7% due to the entrance of new job seekers to the labor force.

4. We have made no changes to our Fed call, and continue to expect the FOMC to raise rates three times in 2016. The economy is close to full employment and growth continues to hold up well, financial conditions have eased substantially since earlier this year, and core inflation has firmed. Thus, we ultimately think the committee will move faster than the two-hike pace implied by the latest “dot plot”, despite the dovish signals from the March meeting and Chair Yellen’s remarks this week.

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