September 2016 – Page 5

Did Trump Support The Iraq War Or Not?

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

The way Lester Holt “corrected” Donald Trump at Monday’s debate (as he was clearly instructed to do) regarding the Iraq War, you’d think the answer to whether he supported it or not was clear-cut. The truth is, it may not be that simple.

Joe Concha (who has been doing some great work by the way), just wrote an excellent article at The Hill exploring the topic in detail. Here’s what he found:

Question: Did Donald Trump oppose or support the Iraq War?

Before answering, a quick note on why providing clarity around a relatively simple question: It’s rare that cooler heads can prevail in this media world we live in. Lines in the sand have never been drawn between blue and red media as vividly as they are now. And as a result, simple logic and lucidity is supplied less and less to drawing a verdict on whether a story is true or not.

Exhibit A today is the aforementioned question: Did Trump — as he insists — oppose the Iraq War?

At first, given that Trump wasn’t a politician in 2002 and therefore had no official vote on the war authorization (as is the case with Hillary Clinton‘s support of it), the press simply took him at his word on the matter with no evidence readily available to provide otherwise.

Except there was evidence, albeit flimsy at best, thanks to the dogged work of Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski and Nathan McDermott in unearthing a 2002 interview Trump did with Howard Stern.

Here’s what Trump said when asked by Stern during a typically long interview (Howard can go more than an hour without taking a break) if he was for going into Iraq.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Trump responded. “I wish the first time it was done correctly.”

So to review, Trump, a businessman at that time, didn’t broach the topic. There are no other public statements by him on the matter in 2002.

“Yeah, I guess so” isn’t what one would call someone absolutely advocating the invasion of another country.

Instead, a reasonable person listening could only conclude that Trump probably hadn’t given the matter even a passing thought and answered matter-of-factly. Because if Trump was so pro-Iraq War at the time, as he’s being portrayed of being by the media in 2016, one would think he — who seemingly shares every perspective that enters his head — would be mentioning it every chance he got in other interviews, which never happens.

Trump’s next interview occurred with Fox’s Neil Cavuto in February 2003, just weeks before the invasion occurred.

In the video, Cavuto asks Trump how much time President Bush should spend on the economy vs. Iraq.

“Well, I’m starting to think that people are much more focused now on the economy,” Trump said. “They’re getting a little bit tired of hearing ‘We’re going in, we’re not going in.’ Whatever happened to the days of Douglas MacArthur? Either do it or don’t do it.”

Trump continued: “Perhaps he shouldn’t be doing it yet. And perhaps we should be waiting for the United Nations.”

But during Monday night’s debate, Lester Holt followed the lead of many in the media who had come to a definitive conclusion on Trump’s (at first) apathetic-turned-ambiguous stance.

“The record shows it,” Lester Holt pushed back on Trump after the candidate challenged the moderator’s assertion that Trump absolutely was for the Iraq War. The record also shows Trump cautioning that the United Nations needs to be on board.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations at the time, Kofi Annan, said this when speaking on the invasion:

“I have indicated it was not in conformity with the U.N. Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal.”

So if following Trump logic in his interview with Cavuto, if the U.S. and its allies had waited for U.N. approval, the war likely never happens.

But here’s an important nugget few are speaking about: On March 26, 2003, just one week after the invasion began, Trump says at an Academy Awards after-party, “The war’s a mess,” according to The Washington Post. One day earlier, a Gallup poll showed public support for the war at 72 percent.

The “war’s a mess” quote is even included in Politifact’s verdict before coming to the conclusion that Trump is absolutely false in stating he opposed the war.

In the end, the solution here is simple: Politifact needs to change its “False” rating on Trump’s claim. That isn’t to say it should be not characterized as “True” or “Mostly True” either.

Instead, in a suggestion likely to send the usual suspects in our polarized media crazy, the rating of “Half True” needs to be applied here.

The Hill reached out to Politifact for comment but did not get a response.

As for media organizations (and this applies to almost every one), who keep insisting that Trump supported the Iraq War so definitively, not every situation lives in absolutes. Not every question has an absolute “yes” or “no” as a final verdict.

In the case of businessman Donald Trump circa 2002 and 2003, chalk up his perspective on the Iraq War before it started as the following:

— At first — months before it began to get any real traction in the American mindset — Trump’s thought process was one of ambivalence via having not given it almost any thought before being asked about it by Stern, which was nothing more than a quick tangent in an interview focusing on 20 other things.

— And then in January 2003, Trump’s public “stance” was one of caution-before-proceeding by stating a need to wait for the United Nations before rushing in. Note: There weren’t declarations around the threat of weapons of mass destruction, spreading democracy or the need to remove a brutal dictator. Trump never cites any of those common arguments for war even once, as Republicans and even some Democrats did.

In March of 2003, as the war just began, Trump declares “the war’s a mess.”

Bottom line: There’s was nothing to indicate Trump supported the war, as the so-called record showed.

He didn’t seem 100 percent against it either.

“On the fence” would be another apt way to describe it.

Cooler heads need to prevail here.

But “sanity,” “media,” and “this year’s election” are five words rarely seen in the same sentence anymore.

Meanwhile, we know for sure which candidate absolutely loves war and leaves a trail of death and destruction in her wake: Hillary Clinton.

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Ironic Headline Of The Day: Greece Says It’s “Safe” From Deutsche Bank Turmoil

“We now have the tools, which didn’t exist in the past, to tackle difficult situations,” Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras tells reporters in Athens, when asked about developments in European banking system. Phew…

Bloomberg reports that

“Greek banks not at risk from turmoil in European banks,” says Stournaras, who is also a member of the Governing Council of the ECB, after meeting with Greek PM Alexis Tsipras.

The Greek economy showing positive signs, Tsipras reassured that next bailout review will be concluded promptly.

Stournaras, Tsipras also discussed conditions for Greece’s inclusion in ECB’s QE program.

* * *

Safe…

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Chicago Tribune Becomes 6th and Largest Newspaper to Endorse Gary Johnson

The Chicago Tribune, which for more than a century was one of the Republican Party’s great kingmakers, has for the first time in its storied history endorsed a Libertarian for president, Gary Johnson.

In a 1,680-word editorial, the self-styled “World’s Greatest Newspaper,” whose only prior Democratic endorsements had been for Chicagoan Barack Obama, had harsh words for America’s two largest political tribes:

How could the Democratic and Republican parties stagger so far from this nation’s political mainstream? […]

This is the moment to look at the candidates on this year’s ballot. This is the moment to see this election as not so much about them as about the American people and where their country is heading. And this is the moment to rebuke the Republican and Democratic parties.

Though the paper clearly preferences Hillary Clinton in a two-candidate matchup (“Any American who lists their respective shortcomings should be more apoplectic about the litany under his name than the one under hers”), it nonetheless makes a compelling case against the Illinois native for her “up-to-the-present history of egregiously erasing the truth,” her corner-cutting ambition, and her policies. Excerpt:

Clinton’s vision of ever-expanding government is in such denial of our national debt crisis as to be fanciful. Rather than run as a practical-minded Democrat as in 2008, this year she lurched left, pandering to match the Free Stuff agenda of then-rival Bernie Sanders. She has positioned herself so far to the left on spending that her presidency would extend the political schism that has divided America for some 24 years. That is, since the middle of a relatively moderate Clinton presidency. Today’s Hillary Clinton, unlike yesteryear’s, renounces many of Bill Clinton’s priorities — freer trade, spending discipline, light regulation and private sector growth to generate jobs and tax revenues.

Hillary Clinton calls for a vast expansion of federal spending, supported by the kinds of tax hikes that were comically impossible even in the years when President Barack Obama’s fellow Democrats dominated both houses of Congress.

Somebody got the memo. ||| Reason So what about the Libertarians?

Gary Johnson of New Mexico and running mate William Weld of Massachusetts are agile, practical and, unlike the major-party candidates, experienced at managing governments. They offer an agenda that appeals not only to the Tribune’s principles but to those of the many Americans who say they are socially tolerant but fiscally responsible. […]

Theirs is small-L libertarianism, built on individual freedom and convinced that, at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, official Washington is clumsy, expensive and demonstrably unable to solve this nation’s problems. They speak of reunifying an America now balkanized into identity and economic groups — and of avoiding their opponents’ bullying behavior and sanctimonious lectures. Johnson and Weld are even-keeled — provided they aren’t discussing the injustice of trapping young black children in this nation’s worst-performing schools. On that and other galling injustices, they’re animated.

The paper dings Johnson for being “too reluctant to support what we view as necessary interventions overseas,” but concludes that “unless the United States tames a national debt that’s rapidly approaching $20 trillion-with-a-T, Americans face ever tighter constrictions on what this country can afford, at home or overseas.” Trump and Clinton are too “cowardly” to face up to this harsh truth. Kicker: “Every American who casts a vote for [Johnson] is standing for principles — and can be proud of that vote. Yes, proud of a candidate in 2016.”

The Tribune, which has urged several times previously for Johnson and Weld to be given a fair hearing at the presidential debates, thus becomes the sixth and largest American newspaper to endorse the Libertarian ticket, according to this running (and admittedly incomplete) list over at Wikipedia. The Detroit News threw its support behind Johnson earlier this week, writing that “[T]his is an endorsement of conscience, reflecting our confidence that Johnson would be a competent and capable president and an honorable one.”

So how many daily newspapers have endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump? As far as I can tell, zero. The Wikipedia page has the count at 13-6-0, Clinton over Johnson over Trump. Six of Clinton’s editorial-board backers had endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012; of those, none of the editorials even mention Gary Johnson. (Though I could not locate one of the editorials in question, from Florida’s Sun-Sentinel.)

In addition, USA Today this week issued an editorial page judgment on the presidential race for the first time in its history, urging readers to not vote for Trump. (Last month Tulsa World, a traditionally Republican-leaning page that endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012, opted for none of the above.)

If these early trend lines hold up, Donald Trump will be the least-endorsed major-party presidential nominee in at least post-war history, and I would guess ever. The fact that roughly two in five American voters seem poised to vote for a candidate that 0 of 20 newspaper editorial boards can stomach says a lot of potentially interesting things about both Trump and the distance between newsroom and main street values. It would be an embarrassing reveal indeed if all the combined might of the nation’s unsigned editorials fail to deliver the desired result on Election Day.

Previous endorsement-blogging here and here.

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Cash Funding Shortage Soars To Highest Since Financial Crisis In Repo

Two days ago we noted that as we approached the quarter end’s window dressing, when the financial system’s balance sheet most closely approaches what it would be like without Fed backstops if only for regulatory purposes, General Collateral – a closely followed indicator of dollar funding costs and thus of cash availability – spiked to the highest in 7 years, surging to 0.85% after opening the day at 0.68%.

We expected this number to keep rising as we neared the Sept 30 quarter end, and sure enough it did not disappoint: as SMRA points out, as of this morning, the overnight general collateral rate has soared to 1.25% – indicative of where funding would be had the Fed hiked not once but three times in 2016 – from an average of 0.89% yesterday. This is the highest that the GC rate has been since the financial crisis.

For those unfamiliar with GC repo, here is a quick primer from the ICMA:

General collateral or GC is the range of assets that are accepted as collateral by the majority of intermediaries in the repo market, at any particular moment, at the same or a very similar repo rate — the GC repo rate. In other words, the repo market as a whole is indifferent between general collateral securities. They are close substitutes for each other. GC assets are high quality and liquid, but none is subject to exceptional specific demand compared with very similar assets. The GC repo rate is therefore driven purely by the supply of and demand for cash (not by the supply of and demand for individual assets). In other words, GC repo can be said to be cash-driven. As such, the GC repo rate should be closely correlated to other money market rates, eg LIBOR, EURIBOR, etc, although trading at a spread representing the lower credit and liquidity risks in repo.

Said otherwise, a spike in GC repo is indicative of not only some major plumbing blockage in the repo market, but a funding shortage, the kind that we showed earlier today in Europe.

To be sure, the move was not unexpected: the GC rate had been rising for the majority of the week. Every quarter for over a year has seen a spike in GC, as money funds face increased regulations and need to streamline their balance sheets. Previous quarter ends saw sharp drops the following day, though the jump in GC at the end of Q2 took a couple weeks to drop down to more usual levels. However, with that in mind, one look at the chart below shows that while indeed previous quarter-end periods have seen a substantial pick up, there has never been a collateral shortage as bad as currently:

Bloomberg tried to away the outlier print, noting that “the latest spike in O/N GC repo to a post-financial crisis record high reflect impact of regulatory changes in market structure that have made quarter-end financing more expensive rather than any concerns around Deutsche Bank’s woes, analysts say” although we would not be so certain, especially when considering a chart we first presented previously showing the use on the ECB’s 7-day lending facility, confirming the dramatic USD shortage in Europe, which also has surged to the highest in years. Somehow we doubt this is related only to “regulatory changes” or quarter end.

For those who prefer the more conventional explanation that there is nothing ulterior in the biggest surge in the cost of cash, here are some further pointers from Bloomberg:

Basel capital rules drive banks to curtail the size of matched book repo before quarter-end. “The process of paring down balance sheet heading into the turn has become a month-long process, where sellers of dates that bridge quarter-end are extremely aggressive,” Jefferies economist Thomas Simons said in note.

“Constraints are leading to bizarre distortions’’ in the market; interdealer markets were trading 50+ bp higher than “anything else in the front-end.”

Banks act as an intermediary between money funds, which have cash to invest and clients looking to fund long positions; when banks cut the size of their repo book, spread between tri-party and GCF rates widens.

While European banks’ short-term funding costs are climbing amid Deutsche Bank’s financial woes, a re-visit of the 2008 levels is unlikely as excess liquidity is almost four times what it was then, Bloomberg strategist Richard Jones writes.

It sure is, and yet the GC is trading at a level that implies funding conditions are about 3 times tighter than where they should be based on the Fed’s interest rate.

Whatever the reason for the surge, keep track of this data series. While it should drop sharply on Monday, if the tightness of funding persists it will clearly suggest a far more serious issue is at hand.

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Poll: Active Military Members Have Had Quite Enough of Nation Building, Regime Change

15 years of war is enough. U.S. military forces have been “ground down by 15 years of combat, the longest period of continuous conflict in American history” and “The country is employing its military at a rate it cannot sustain,” the editors of Military Times write in an editorial published earlier this week.

Comparing today’s present state of the U.S. military to “the troubled ‘hollow force’ era that corrupted morale and eroded readiness in the years following Vietnam,” the editorial also cites its own polling data which indicate active military service-people have had quite enough of the interventions of choice launched and administered by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The same military survey recently conducted by Military Times and Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families which showed Gary Johnson and Donald Trump in a virtual tie for support among the nation’s military also revealed that 55 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose the “U.S. government’s continued involvement with nation building in the Middle East and North Africa.”

62 percent of those participating in the survey think the U.S. should be less involved with foreign aid and 51 percent think the U.S. should be less involved with “stability and state building.” 68 percent think the U.S. should be more involved with “homeland defense” and 62 percent want more done in the realm of “counter-terrorism.”

The Military Times editorial explains why support for the past generation of U.S. military interventionism is so unpopular with the military:

Beyond their break-neck operational tempo, military personnel have watched hard-fought gains evaporate in both theaters. Provinces and cities where American troops bled and died have fallen back into the clutches of brutal extremists whom the U.S. sought to displace in the name of peace, prosperity and democracy.

Helmand. Nangarhar. Kunduz.

Ramadi. Fallujah. Mosul.

The list goes on and on and these fights aren’t even over yet.

Adding that ongoing U.S. military operations aren’t just limited to Iraq and Afghanistan, but also include “conducting airstrikes in Libya, patrolling the South China Sea, training NATO allies along Russia’s borders,” the editorial argues that feeding “America’s war weary armed forces” with “vapid rhetoric” won’t boost morale or make them any better equipped to perform their necessary duties, but “clearly defining and articulating strategic purpose and objectives” before committing to a “military solution” could help the active armed forces be more inclined to believe in their mission.

It’s a statement that seems so obvious, you could imagine it doesn’t need to be said. But given the fact that one of the two people who will be the next Commander in Chief thinks he can treat service-people like his own personal toy soldiers, while the other has never met a military intervention she didn’t support, it’s as good a time as any to belabor the obvious.

Our military is tired and they need to stop fighting other people’s wars.

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Body-Worn Cop Cameras Reduce Citizen Complaints by 93 Percent

bodycam Police and citizens tend to behave a lot better when they know that their actions are being recorded on video. This insight is bolstered by a fascinating new study, “Contagious Accountability” in the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior. Researchers at Cambridge University persuaded seven different police departments in the U.K. and the U.S. to randomly assign 2,000 officers to don body-worn cameras (BWC) that recorded for their entire shifts. The experiment took place over a year and then the researchers compared the number complaints against officers from the preceding with those lodged during the year that cameras were being worn. The researchers report, “Across the seven experimental sites, 1,539 complaints were lodged against police officers in the 12 months preceding the study, or 1.20 complaints per officer. The number of complaints lodged against the police then dropped in the posttreatment period to 113, or 0.08 complaints per officer. This marks an overall reduction of 93% in the incidence of complaints.”

One model considered for how the presence of cameras might change behavior:

BWC + verbal warning → officer’s starting point for the interaction is cooler + suspect’s demeanor “cooler” → officers less likely to react aggressively → fewer complaints than without BWCs.

Cameras evidently deter both frivolous complaints and excessive police agression. In addition, the researchers found that cameras actually changed the behavior of officers more than that of citizens during encounters. Recall that officers were randomly assigned cameras at every shift and still complaints against police dropped even when individual officers were not wearing them. As the lead researcher Barak Ariel suggested to the BBC, this occurred “because good practice and changes in policing culture were becoming embedded across each force as it adapted to the use of cameras – a phenomenon he described as “contagious accountability.”

While it is clear that all police should wear cameras, it is critical that departments adopt transparent and accountable policies with regard to when video should be released to the public and for how long video should be retained.

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French Press “Confirm” Deutsche Bank Near Settlement With US Justice Department

Seemingly conforming the rumor, Agence France Press reports that Deutsche Bank is nearing a $5.4 billion settlement with the US Justice Department. Ths has catalyzed another leg higher in Deutsche Bank stock and lifted the whole market as it would appear that unconfirmed sources have ‘fixed’ the world’s most systemically dangerous bank (despite the fact that short-dated counterparty risk is soaring).

Here is the tweet…

#BREAKING Deutsche Bank near $5.4 bn US settlement over mortgage bonds: source

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 30, 2016

And the response in the stock…

We look forward to the 1605ET denial from The DOJ. Once again we remind readers that Monday is a bank holiday in Germany.

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Atlanta Fed Q3 GDP Estimate Tumbles To 2.4% From A High Of 3.8%

Just over a month ago, The Atlanta Fed surprised economic watchers when in early August it unveiled that its Q3 GDP tracker was predicting that the US economy would grow at a blistering annualized pace of 3.6% (and as high as 3.80%) a rather dramatic rebound from the "deplorable" 0.8% and 1.4% growth rates in Q1 and Q2, respectively.

Many expressed surprise at the underlying assumptions that would send US economic growth soaring in the second half: after all, it was a near record surge in consumer spending that boosted first half GDP – and kept it positive – as all other components, most notably Capex, tumbled into a non-consumer recession. Alas, the spending surge that boosted first half growth has now fizzled, as today's disappointing personal spending data confirmed, so it stood to reason that these overoptimistic estimates for GDP growth would ultimately be revised substantially lower.

Sure enough, moments ago in the latest revision to the Atlanta Fed forecast, the model has just slashed its formerly exuberant GDP growth estimate again, down to a paltry by comparison 2.4%, below last Friday's 2.9%, and down to the lowest in this particular series' lifetime.

This is what the Atlanta Fed said:

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2016 is 2.4 percent on September 30, down from 2.8 percent on September 28. The forecast of third-quarter real consumer spending growth declined from 3.0 percent to 2.7 percent after this morning's personal income and outlays report from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Following yesterday's GDP revision from the BEA and the Advance Economic Indicators release from the U.S. Census Bureau, the forecast of the contribution of inventory investment to third-quarter growth decreased from 0.60 percentage points to 0.26 percentage points and the forecast of the contribution from net exports increased from -0.13 percentage points to 0.13 percentage points.

But what was most notable about the Atlanta Fed's Q3 GDP estimate is how much higher it was compared to Wall Street's own forecasts. Well, no more.

Finally, one thing to note is that the Atlanta Fed assumes a substantial inventory build in the current quarter, one which would boost GDP by over 0.5%. Since the various ISM, PMI and regional Fed diffusion indices have failed to confirm such an inventory build. Absent this boost, Q3 GDP drops to 1.9%, and is then set to decline even more in Q4 according to the NY Fed. How that will impact the Fed's December rate hike "strategy", remains to be seen.

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Ballot Access: Another Way Dems and the GOP Screw Third Parties – New at Reason

“A multi-party system is normal,” says Richard Winger, publisher and editor of Ballot Access News. “You only have a two party system if there’s repression. It’s not natural.”

With both major parties offering up two of the most unpopular presidential candidates in modern history, many voters (and the media) are paying more attention to third party options such as Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

But while independent candidates are gaining in popularity, getting them on the ballot to vote for them can be a long and costly process.

“There’s so many ways in which the United States is near the bottom of democracy,” says Winger, an expert in election law and ballot access. “There’s been unbelievable hostility in the last few months to minor parties.”

View this article.

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Three reasons why the banking system is rigged against you

If there were ever any doubt about how completely RIGGED the banking system is against depositors, allow me to introduce the following:

Exhibit A: Governments are working to make banks LESS safe

Yesterday an unelected bureaucrat that no one has ever heard of made a stunning announcement that has sweeping implications for anyone with a bank account.

Dombrovskis is Europe’s top financial services official, so he controls bank regulations in the European Union.

He issued a stern warning to global bank regulators yesterday that he is prepared to reject any further plans they might have to tighten bank capital requirements.

This might sound rather dry, but it’s incredibly important.

“Bank capital” is the most critical component of any bank balance sheet.

Capital is like a bank’s rainy day fund; when things start to go bad, a bank’s capital provides a margin of safety to ensure that their depositors’ funds are safe.

Strong banks have ample capital and are able to withstand crises.

Weak banks with low levels of capital collapse. And that’s precisely what happened in 2008.

Most banks across the west had very low levels of capital. They had spent years making appallingly stupid ‘no money down’ loans with 0% teaser interest rates to borrowers with pitiful credit.

When that bubble burst, the banks lost billions of dollars. And it turned out that most of the banks at the time had razor thin levels of capital.

If you’re wondering why, the answer is quite simple: the less capital a bank maintains, the more money it can invest… so poorly capitalized banks tend to make more money.

Lehman Brothers was quite profitable.

But the bank infamously had capital worth just 3% of its total assets… meaning that if Lehman’s investments fell by just 3%, they would be wiped out.

Lehman’s investments fell by a lot more than 3%… so the bank’s capital was totally insufficient to weather the storm. The bank folded, and a huge crisis erupted.

Regulators vowed to never let that happen again.

And in the years since, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the primary global bank regulator, has been pushing banks to increase their capital levels higher.

European banks in particular still have pitiful balance sheets.

Their investment portfolios are stuffed full of negative-yielding bonds issued by bankrupt European governments.

And their capital levels are still so low with many of them that there are whispers of taxpayer funded bailouts, from Italy’s Monte dei Paschi to Germany’s global titan Deutsche Bank.

But despite these pitiful bank fundamentals, Dombrovskis is rejecting the Basel Committee’s latest push to make banks safer.

According to the Financial Times, Dombrovskis is specifically complaining that the Basel proposals might lead to a “significant” increase in the amount of capital that banks would maintain.

… so in other words, the head of European financial services thinks it’s a bad idea for banks to have an extra margin of safety.

Bank profits are being prioritized over depositor safety, even at a time when so many of the banks are seeking taxpayer-funded bailouts.

In the eyes of the bureaucracy, bank profits come before depositor safety… which makes it completely obvious how rigged the system is against you.

Exhibit B: The Volker Rule farce

In another effort to make banks safer, the US government passed the Volker Rule as part of their new post-crisis financial regulation.

The Volker Rule forces banks to sell their riskiest assets, i.e. the stuff they shouldn’t have been buying to begin with, especially with their depositors’ savings.

Problem is, those risky assets aren’t worth very much, and the banks are having a hard time finding a buyer willing to pay them 100 cents on the dollar.

So rather than take the loss, banks in the US keep requesting extension after extension.

They’ve already had six years to offload their assets. Now the deadline has been extended all the way to 2022.

Yet in the meantime, the banks get to continue holding those assets on their balance sheet at 100 cents on the dollar, even though they’re clearly not worth a fraction of that.

The whole thing is a giant scam designed to conceal obvious bank losses… a neat little arrangement between the political elite and banking elite.

Exhibit C: No one from Wells Fargo is going to jail

Wells Fargo is getting a very public slap on the wrist for falsifying customer bank accounts in its efforts to meet their sales goals.

And in addition to the embarrassment they’ll probably pay a series of steep damages, most of which will go to the government and class action lawyers.

But don’t hold your breath for any senior executives to be criminally indicted.

If you or I engaged in what Wells Fargo did, we’d already be turning big rocks into little rocks wearing a DayGlo orange jumpsuit.

There’s a word for what they did. It’s called fraud. And the people at the top were either part of the scam, or they were too stupid to recognize an obvious crime.

Once again, it’s proof of a system that’s totally rigged in favor of the banking elite… literally at your expense.

Modern banking is truly bizarre.

They’ve created a system whereby we entrust our hard-earned savings to institutions that never miss an opportunity to abuse that trust.

In making a deposit at a bank, we become merely an unsecured creditor.

And in exchange for taking on that counterparty risk they provide almost zero transparency in what they’re doing with the money.

Even still, they work in partnership with their friends in government (where a very swift revolving door exists) to legally conceal their true financial condition.

Your reward for all this risk? A whopping 0.1%, if you’re lucky.

Why take the chance?

Think about withdrawing at least a portion of your savings. Gold and physical cash are great alternatives.

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