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Sometimes It’s Better To Be Lucky Than Good

Posted with permission and written by John Rubino (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

 

 

 

In 2015 there was no way the UK would vote to leave the European Union, so Prime Minister David Cameron promised to call a “Brexit” referendum as a cost-free sop to his party’s right wing in the upcoming election. The Conservatives won big, and Cameron kept his promise to run the meaningless referendum. But against all odds and contrary to nearly every election-day poll, Brexit won, flushing Cameron out of politics, pulling the UK out of the EU, and handing a huge victory to a populist coalition led by the UK Independence Pary’s Nigel Farage.

 

In 2016 comedians and mainstream Democrats encouraged Donald Trump to run for president, convinced he would generate lots of good jokes and possibly damage the field of “legitimate” Republican presidential candidates. He did both, but to a far greater extent than his early boosters anticipated, placing the world’s most important government in the hands of a brand-new populist movement.

 

Also in 2016, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi convinced the legislature to shift some of its powers to the executive branch. But because he wanted a popular mandate for what might otherwise be perceived as executive overreach, Renzi called a referendum to ratify the changes and promised to quit if it failed. The referendum went down in flames, Renzi did indeed quit, and the populist Five Star Movement now has a real shot at taking power within the year.

 

These three events all have one thing in common: Catastrophically-overconfident establishments making (in retrospect) suicidal mistakes which opened the door for populist movements that would not otherwise have taken over their respective countries – at least not yet. Their self-inflicted wounds have changed the world.

 

Now we come to France’s Marine Le Pen, the anti-euro, anti-EU leader of the far-right National Front party. She’s popular, polling first among all presidential candidates heading into upcoming elections. But she’s been given no chance of actually winning the run-off that pits the top two candidates against each other in May. The expectation was that the entire rest of the right-left spectrum would cooperate to elect a mainstream candidate.

 

That candidate was expected to be François Fillon, a “Thatcherite” conservative who would impose a little free market vigor on the sclerotic French economy without otherwise upsetting the mainstream internationalist applecart.

 

Then this happened:

 

François Fillon faces fresh allegations over misuse of public funds

(Guardian) – The rightwing French presidential candidate François Fillon is facing fresh questions over alleged misuse of public funds, in the wake of claims that his wife was paid €500,000 over eight years for a fake job as a parliamentary assistant.

The French investigative website Mediapart and the Journal du Dimanche claimed that between 2005 and 2007 Fillon had pocketed money from a kitty of funds earmarked for paying assistants in the French senate.

Mediapart claimed he had “siphoned off” about €25,000 (£21,000) from funds earmarked for assistants in the French upper house.

Last week, state financial prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation into possible misuse of public funds to determine whether Fillon’s wife, Penelope, was paid a very generous salary from public funds for a job she allegedly didn’t carry out. Prosecutors are also investigating whether a high salary paid to her from a magazine owned by a billionaire friend of Fillon amounted to “misuse of company assets”.

The issue is potentially so damaging because Fillon’s austerity plan for France hangs on his own carefully crafted reputation for righteousness. It will be much harder for Fillon to convince a cash-strapped electorate of his controversial plans to slash 500,000 public-sector jobs and make state workers put in more hours for less pay if questions persist about his family’s privileged access to jobs paid for by their taxes.

 

Now the French election is up for grabs, with the real possibility of a runoff between Le Pen and a leftist who, well, here you go:

 

Meet the robot-taxing, marijuana-legalizing, Jeremy Corbyn of the French left

(Politico) – French left-wingers are fed up with being in power.

That appeared to be the message that 600,000 of them were sending Sunday when they made a little known former education minister the favorite to win the left’s presidential nomination.

Benoît Hamon, who spent the past two years as a Socialist backbencher fighting his own government, has little to no chance of winning the presidency in May. Then again, neither does the runner-up in Sunday’s vote, former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, according to the latest Ipsos poll.

Valls campaigned on a scrupulously realistic, some would say boring, platform of incremental change, always touting the possibility of a left-wing victory in May. By contrast, Hamon never suggested victory and drew accusations that he was deliberately campaigning not to win by pitching far-out ideas like taxing robots, legalizing marijuana and paying all French people a €750 living wage.

 

The upshot: Le Pen suddenly has a serious chance of running France in 2017 and beyond. The prospect of a Trump/Putin/Le Pen/Farage axis remaking the world is, um, intriguing. And it couldn’t have happened without the Establishment’s wholehearted if unwitting cooperation.

 

 

 

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Sometimes It’s Better To Be Lucky Than Good

Posted with permission and written by John Rubino (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

via http://ift.tt/2kH5Beg Sprott Money

In the first White House press conference since the controversial (to some) immigration executive orders issued by President Trump over the weekend, we suggest grabbing some popcorn…

Live Feed:

via http://ift.tt/2kjPhlM Tyler Durden

In an amusing twist on the “fiat vs digital” money debate, a former Federal Reserve employee who tried to fuse the two, was sentenced to 12 months’ probation and fined $5,000 for installing unauthorized software on a Fed server to connect with a bitcoin network, the Office of the Fed’s Inspector General said.

According to the WSJ, Nicholas Berthaume, who worked as a network systems communications analyst at the Fed board in Washington, installed software so he could connect to an online bitcoin network to earn bitcoins, i.e. bitcoin mining, the Fed’s inspector general said. The software was in place from about March 2012 to June 2014, according to a court document. It was not clear how many thousands of a bitcoin he managed to earn this way. 

“Berthaume installed unauthorized software on a Board server to connect to an online bitcoin network in order to earn bitcoins. Bitcoins are earned as compensation when users allow their systems’ computing power to be part of the structure that processes, verifies, and records bitcoin transactions.”

The IG said the investigation wasn’t able to determine how many bitcoins had been earned, owing to anonymity of the network. Actually, the reason why the probe was unable to determine what Berthaume’s profit was is that it was negligible as bitcoin mining leads to nominal gains at best, and is why massive bitcoin mining arrays set up in places like Iceland are barely breaking even above operating costs.

Berthaume also modified certain security safeguards so he could access the server from his home, the IG said. When investigators from the IG’s office confronted him about the software, he denied any knowledge of it, then later remotely deleted it, the IG said.

Berthaume was subsequently fired, the IG said, and struck a deal in October to plead guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one misdemeanor charge of unlawful use of government property, a charge that carried a fine of up to $100,000 and a year in jail. He received his sentence Friday.

The IG said the incident didn’t result in a loss of Fed information, but the central bank has implemented “security enhancements” as a result of the case. “This case demonstrates how my office will vigorously pursue Board employees who unlawfully abuse their positions and use government property for personal gain,” Fed IG Mark Bialek said.

Moral of the story, if employed by the Fed, it is much more lucrative to leak confidential data to Goldman – and not get caught – than trying to mine a fraction of a bitcoin every year and almost end up in prison for it.

via http://ift.tt/2kk3kYr Tyler Durden

A petition to ban President Donald Trump from visiting The UK has now received over one million signatures and the UK parliament has just agreed to immediately hold a three-hour debate on the decision.

Since we posted yesterday the signature count has risen from 400,000 to 1.4 million…

 

The petition's signatories are dominated by London counties…

As AP reports, MPs have been granted an emergency debate in the Commons to discuss Donald Trump's controversial travel ban.

The application from Labour's Ed Miliband was backed by Commons Speaker John Bercow after Tory MPs such as Nadhim Zahawi and Sarah Wollaston joined opposition MPs in supporting the move.

 

It follows Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's statement to the House after the new US president put in place a travel ban on refugees and citizens from several mainly-Muslim countries.

 

The debate will last for three hours and is expected to finish at around 9pm.

UK politicians are jumping on the bandwagon…

Watch this: @EmilyThornberry challenges Boris Johnson and Theresa May on their response to Trump’s #MuslimBan. RT if you're with us ? http://pic.twitter.com/beOCRDCzwB

— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) January 30, 2017

Jeremy Corbyn called for the visit to be postponed while Trump’s immigration ban was in place. He also questioned why May was so quick to invite the president given his controversial policies.

“Donald Trump should not be welcomed to Britain while he abuses our shared values with his shameful Muslim ban and attacks on refugees’ and women’s rights,” the Labour leader said.

 

“Theresa May would be failing the British people if she does not postpone the state visit and condemn Trump’s actions in the clearest terms. That’s what Britain expects and deserves.”

Theresa May was booed as she left for parliament…

For now, a spokesperson for Number 10 said on Sunday that Trump would still be invited to visit the UK later this year as planned.

London rallying against Trump's actions and Theresa May's inaction http://pic.twitter.com/s3um9R8Tmv

— J.D. Capelouto (@jdcapelouto) January 30, 2017

via http://ift.tt/2jOaP75 Tyler Durden

While Uber is dealing with fallout from its response to Trump’s Friday immigration order, when it tweeted it would pause surge pricing, which was taken as a form of “strike breaking,” whilst simultaneously profiting off the situation, and its actions were seen as seeking to grab market share from striking taxi drivers, leading to a #DeleteUber meme spreading across social networks, it has a more tangible problem in Argentina, where Buenos Aires prosecutor Martin Lapadi moments ago requested the arrest of local Uber executives, and ordered the shut down of the company’s mobile application.

As a reminder, Uber has been operating since mid-April without a permit or tax-identification number, which has led to numerous lawsuits by taxi unions. City officials have issued multiple injunctions attempting to bring its service to a halt. And credit card companies have been blocked from processing Uber payments on locally registered cards. The ride-hailing company even went as far as working with bitcoin startup Xapo to circumvent the credit card roadblock, one of its more pressing barriers to service in Argentina.

However, even that loophole now appears to be closed.  As Noticias reports, the arrest warrant targets Uber execs Diego Mariano Oliveira, general manager of UBER Argentina, and Mariano Otero, the local CEO of the company. The Argentine newspaper adds that arrest warrants are based on the fact that Uber executives never ceased their infringements but ignored judicial orders, continuing the company’s illegal activity.

More details, google translated:

According to the prosecutor, 9 months ago, company executives violated the imposed closure and continue to abuse public space. Both contraventions sanctioned in articles 73 and 83 of the Code Contravencional, and that cause a serious danger for the health and security of the people.

 

As a result of this request of the prosecutor Lapadú, the CEO, Mariano Javier Otero, and the Manager Diego Oliveira were present at the Office of the Attorney-in-Chief, who joined the defense attorney who, beyond the secret of the summary Which weighs on the case, had presented an exemption of prison for their defendants just the day after the request of the Prosecutor. The Prosecutor’s Office took their data in order to cite them for their corresponding investigation statement.

 

In addition, Lapadú requested the closure / preventive blockade of the website and the application UBER arranged on April 22, 2016, by the Criminal Court of Misdemeanor and Misdemeanor No. 16, extended to the entire national territory and Judge Maria Fernanda Botana did Place for the companies that give Internet services block the page and the application of UBER Argentina.

 

The block request was requested because during the investigation, the West Prosecutor’s Office was able to verify that there are risks to preserve evidence extremely important for the research. It could be known that the UBER firm has the ability to alter or remotely erase through its application the records of the partners of the company, and that situation represents a risk for the test, so the total block would allow a much more effective safeguard of that.

While in the U.S. Uber’s solution to the public backlash was to “donate” $3 million to a legal fund for impacted drivers, as well as provide legal assistance and compensate their lost wages, it is unclear if the company will undertake a similar approach in which the ridesharing firm unveils a $3 million “fund” to alleviate the burden on local prosecutors.

via http://ift.tt/2jLvGKv Tyler Durden

Everyone who is buying the market move since November 8^th is about to get destroyed.

The 4Q16 GDP and full 2016 GDP numbers confirm that the US is rapidly moving into recession.

For those who missed it, the US just posted the weakest GDP growth numbers since 2011… during an election year in which the Government was going everything possible to juice growth.

The details of the growth numbers were even worse. Stripped of various gimmicks, real GDP growth for 2016 was likely sub-1%.

We get additional indications of a turn in the economy from the following:

1)   Credit card company Capital One (COF) which reported a 30% INCREASE in Charge offs Year Over Year.

2)   Goldman Sachs has confirmed that US auto demand has peaked.

3)   The Insider Sell/Buy ratio hit 59 to 1 meaning insiders are dumping 59 shares for every 1 share they buy.

4)   Tax revenues are showing a marked collapse in taxes collected.

Put simply, it is evident from any of the “unmassaged” data that the US economy is turning.

Meanwhile, the financial media is abuzz with the notion that somehow US GDP growth of 5% is just around the corner based on the view that Trump can somehow conjure up growth within a month or two (impossible).

Anyone who is investing today based on the idea that an economic renaissance is just around the corner is going to lose a LOT of money.

That fantasy will soon come crashing down. The markets have completely misjudged the immediate impact of Donald Trump taking office.

If you’re looking to make sense of the REAL impact Trump’s Presidency will have on the markets, we’ve put together a Special Investment Report outlining this.

It’s titled How to Profit From the Trump Trade and in its 12 pages we detail three investment strategies that will produce outsized gains as a result of Trump’s economic policies.

To pick up a FREE copy, swing by

http://ift.tt/2ktrX6e

Best Regards

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

 

via http://ift.tt/2kMk87F Phoenix Capital Research

Submitted by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Here’s an interesting view in the Wall Street Journal that will ring a bell for many readers: Liberals Killed the Freedom of Movement.
 

By suppressing debate about Islam, nationalism and terror, the left set the stage for today’s backlash.

 

Politicians across the West are saying the same thing in what is shaping up to be the widest rollback of the freedom of movement in decades.

 

It’s not just right-wing nationalists like Marine Le Pen in France or Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Centrists get it, too. Some, like Angela Merkel, are still-reluctant restrictionists. Others, like Theresa May, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and French presidential aspirant François Fillon, are more forthright. All have wised up to the popular demand for drastically lower immigration rates.

 

The irony is that freedom of movement is unraveling because liberals won central debates—about Islamism, social cohesion and nationalism. Rather than give any ground, they accused opponents of being phobic and reactionary. Now liberals are reaping the rewards of those underhanded victories.

 

Liberals refused to acknowledge the link between Islamist ideology and terrorism. For eight years under President Obama, the U.S. government refused even to say “Islamism,” claiming ludicrously that U.S. service members were going to war against “violent extremism.” Voters could read and hear about jihadists offering up their actions to Allah before opening automatic fire on shoppers and blasphemous cartoonists.

 

The left also largely “won” the debate over Muslim integration. For too many liberals, every Islamist atrocity was cause to fret about an “Islamophobic” backlash. When a jihadist would go boom somewhere, pre-emptive hashtags expressing solidarity with threatened Muslims were never far behind.

 

But liberals don’t bother nearly as much about the pathologies in Muslim communities, and in Islamic civilization itself, that were producing so much carnage. Some would sooner abandon their own feminist and gay-rights orthodoxies than criticize what imams in Paris and London suburbs were telling their congregations.

 

liberal writers sneered at the Somali-born human-rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali as an “Enlightenment fundamentalist.” Brandeis disinvited her to speak on campus in 2014. The Southern Poverty Law Center last year branded her an “extremist,” along with the counterterror campaigner Maajid Nawaz.

 

Liberals thus empowered the most illiberal elements of Muslim communities while marginalizing reformers. Is it any wonder that many voters came to see Muslims as sources of danger and social incohesion?

 

Liberals, finally, “won” the debate over nationalism. In Europe especially and the U.S. to a lesser extent, they treated nationalism and the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage as relics of a dark past. For European Union leaders, the ideal political community was an ever-expanding set of legal procedures, commercial links and politically correct norms. Citizens could fill in the blanks with whatever cultural content they preferred—preferably “Europe” itself.

 

Judging by their breathless editorials and social-media outbursts, leading liberals still blame this reversal in political fortunes on a paroxysm of collective fear and hatred, the forces they’ve always sought to banish. Yet the main culprits for the popular revolt against liberalism are liberals themselves.

How Liberals Won the Debate

Liberals won the debate, at least in terms of response from president Obama, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Francois Holland, most of Hollywood, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton.

How?

Mainstream media went along, every step of the way.

Every Western mainstream media outlet backed Hillary. Every Western mainstream media outlet backed Obama when he was dropping bombs in seven countries while preaching “let them in”.

Liberals won the debate because they did not give a damn how their constituents felt. Look at the European nannycrats led by Jean-Claude Juncker who insists on “more Europe” and “more refugees” despite the wishes of their constituents.

Merkel won the debate in Germany. Once again media helped. The result was a backlash in Hungary, Austria, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

The liberal message in the UK now says that it was a mistake to hold a referendum. Instead, I suggest liberals should look at the reasons people wanted a referendum.

Liberals won the debate in Ukraine. The result was outright war coupled with inane tariffs on Russia.

Despite winning the debate, polls look like this.

Some people question that January 12 Quinnipiac Poll.

I don’t doubt the poll because it helps explain the election in the US. I suspect a similar poll would explain Brexit.

Winning the Debate, Losing the Election

We bomb the hell out of seven countries, giving refugees cause to want to leave. But instead of condemning the bombing, the liberal elite combined with Western media to welcome the refugees rather than condemn the bombing.

Liberals, with the full backing of mainstream media "won" the refugee debate.The price? Losing the election. https://t.co/4mPaYxaTWb

— Mike Mish Shedlock (@MishGEA) January 30, 2017

Congratulations are in order. Liberals, with the full and complete backing of mainstream media “won” the refugee debate.

 

The price for winning the debate was losing the election.

via http://ift.tt/2kMah1q Tyler Durden