It’s Not Just The Russians: Ex-CIA Chief Claims “More Than One Country Involved” In US Hacks

Following Trump's earlier Tweet, the following from current House intelligence chair and a former CIA chief seem very notable…

"I think the possibility that there’s more than one country involved is really there," warned former CIA Director James Woolsey during a recent CNN interview, suggesting that political hacks in the U.S. could be the work of more than one foreign country.

 

 

As The Hill reports, Woolsey, who endorsed President-elect Donald Trump, said:

"I don’t think people ought to say they know for sure there’s only one. I don’t think they’re likely to be proven correct. It shouldn’t be portrayed as one guilty party,"

 

“It’s much more complicated than that. This is not an organized operation that is hacking into a target. It’s more like a bunch of jackals at the carcass of an antelope.”

 

Woolsey suggested China and Iran could be behind cyber breaches in the U.S.

 

“Is it Russian? Probably some,” he said. "Is it Chinese and Iranian? Maybe. We may find out more from Mr. Trump coming up today.”

This follows Trump's comments on Sunday hinting he would reveal new information about alleged Russian hacking during a New Year’s Eve celebration at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.

“[I know] things that other people don’t know,” he said. "I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge. I think it’s unfair if they don’t know.”

Additionally, House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) says there is no evidence Russia assisted President-elect Donald Trump in winning the White House. (via The Hill)

"There’s no proof that we have from intelligence sources that I’ve seen that show that the Russians were directly trying to help Trump,” he said in a Washington Examiner interview published Tuesday.

 

 

“We have been screaming here in the House of Representatives for many years that the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans and other bad actors, every day, were attacking every imaginable place that you could think of, whether it be political parties, to the United States Congress, to the Department of Defense, to our intelligence agencies, to our financial institutions,” he said.

 

“Specifically, I’ve always said Russia was the most sophisticated actor in this arena,” Nunes added. "This is something that [Democratic presidential nominee] Hillary Clinton knew damn well when she got her private server, that the Russians could have the capability to get in there.”

 

“I know, every day, that the Russians likely have the capability to try to listen to my phone calls or read my emails and I just have to make the assumption that they do – or the Chinese or other bad actors.”

Trump has vehemently denied Russia helped him win the White House, and incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday said “zero evidence” exists for Moscow’s interference.

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China Warns May Dump Treasuries To Keep Yuan Stable, Prepares More Capital Controls

In China, announcing new (and ever more ineffective) capital controls has become a daily thing.

Last week, Beijing unveiled its latest set of capital controls according to which Chinese banks would be required to report all yuan-denominated cash transactions exceeding 50,000 yuan (around 7,100 US dollars) to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), down from the current level of 200,000 yuan. Cross-border transfers more than 200,000 yuan by individuals would also be subject to the report process.

Then, overnight, China’s currency regulator, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) added its own round of capital control limitations, when it announced it wanted to close loopholes exploited for purposes such as money laundering and illegally channeling money into overseas property. As a result, while the regulator kept existing quotas of $50,000 of foreign currency per person a year, citizens faced draconian new currency exchange disclosure requirements, requiring foreign currency buyers to indicate how they plan to use the money and when they plan to spend it. Additionally, mainlanders would be restricted from using the FX proceeds to buy overseas property, securities, life insurance or other investment-style insurance products. In fact, among the list of approved uses of funds are tourism, schooling, business travel and medical care. Which means any offshore asset purchases have been effectively limited.

What made the above capital controls especially amusing is that as Xinhua reported over the weekend, “the policy stoked worries that the government is trying to impose capital control in a disguised form.” And since the official admission of capital controls would only lead to even more panicked outflows, PBOC economist Ma Jun intervened, saying that the new cash transaction rules, i.e. capital controls, are “not capital control at all.

We leave it up to readers to decide what that means.

Then, fast forward two days when China, no longer bothering with euphemisms, admitted that it has “studied possible scenarios of yuan exchange rate and capital outflows in 2017 based on models, stress tests and field research, and is preparing contingency plans”, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Among the “contingency plans” are proposals recently suggested by such banana countries as Turkey and Venezuela, which include China’s government  asking state-owned enterprises to temporarily convert some foreign-currency holdings into yuan, said Bloomberg’s sources, who are clearly mostly interested in the market’s response to this particular Bloomberg-mediated trial balloon

Bloomberg adds that financial regulators have already encouraged some SOEs to sell FX under current account.

But most troubling is the admission that “China may further cut U.S. Treasury holdings in 2017 if needed to keep exchange rate stable; size of reduction depends on capital outflows and FX market intervention,” or in other words, the worst-case scenario which so many serious “economists” have said can not conceivably happen.

Well, China is now actively considering it, which means that should the Yuan continues to slide, Beijing is close to implementing it.

Not unexpectedly, as a result of this latest daily escalation in China’s capital controls, the offshore Yuan is now surging, and is back under 6.95, up nearly 200 pips on the session so far.

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Trump Treasury Nominee Mnuchin Declines To Answer Senator’s Questions, Was Accused Of “Widespread Misconduct”

The confirmation of former Goldman Sachs Partner Steven Munchin, who is Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, may have gotten just a little more problematic today, after Mnuchin declined to answer questions from Democratic senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio about his views on financial regulations, sanctions and his time as head of a bank accused of unfair foreclosure practices.

Brown, the top Democratic on the senate banking committee sent a letter on Dec. 21 asking Mnuchin to detail his position by Jan. 6 on issues that are under the committee’s purview, including fair lending laws and foreclosure-prevention programs. As Bloomberg reports, Mnuchin doesn’t plan to respond to the senator in writing, though several weeks ago he requested a meeting with Brown, who hasn’t yet accepted, according to Mnuchin’s spokeswoman Tara Bradshaw.

“Mnuchin will work with Senator Brown within the protocol of the finance committee – and will not be providing written answers in advance of a deadline yet to be established by the finance committee,” Bradshaw told Bloomberg on Tuesday in an e-mailed reply to questions.

Naturally, Brown was displeased by the very public snub by the former Goldmanite: “Senator Brown wants to have a substantive, productive conversation with Mr. Mnuchin, not just a quick handshake and hello,” according to an e-mailed comment from Brown’s office on Tuesday. Should Mnuchin, 54, further antagonize Brown, he may face daunting complications during his public hearing with the Senate Finance Committee members; he will also have to respond to follow-up questions in writing before they vote on his nomination. Brown also sits on that committee.

As Bloomberg notes, while Mnuchin can count on the support of the Republican majority in the Senate for confirmation, Democrats have signaled a tough fight. The former Goldman partner profited from the 2007-2008 housing market crash when he and a group of investors bought a failed mortgage lender that was later renamed OneWest Bank. It’s being investigated over allegations of unfair foreclosure practices.

Incidentally, it is Mnuchin’s actions at One West which are likely to be an incendiary topic during the confirmation hearing especially after today’s Intercept report, in which a leaked memo penned by the leaders of California’s state attorney general’s Consumer Law Section said they had “uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct” in a year-long investigation into Mnuchin’s One West Bank.

Some more details:

OneWest Bank, which Donald Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, ran from 2009 to 2015, repeatedly broke California’s foreclosure laws during that period, according to a previously undisclosed 2013 memo from top prosecutors in the state attorney general’s office.

 

The memo obtained by The Intercept alleges that OneWest rushed delinquent homeowners out of their homes by violating notice and waiting period statutes, illegally backdated key documents, and effectively gamed foreclosure auctions.

 

In the memo, the leaders of the state attorney general’s Consumer Law Section said they had “uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct” in a yearlong investigation. In a detailed 22-page request, they identified over a thousand legal violations in the small subsection of OneWest loans they were able to examine, and they recommended that Attorney General Kamala Harris file a civil enforcement action against the Pasadena-based bank. They even wrote up a sample legal complaint, seeking injunctive relief and millions of dollars in penalties.

 

But Harris’s office, without any explanation, declined to prosecute the case.

 

Mnuchin, the former CEO of OneWest, was already facing challenges in his upcoming Senate confirmation hearings on account of his bank’s ruthless foreclosure practices, ranging from locking out one homeowner during a Minneapolis blizzard to foreclosing on another over a 27-cent payment shortfall.

 

“After years peddling the kind of dangerous mortgage-backed securities that eventually blew up the economy, Mnuchin swooped in after the crash to take a second bite out of families by aggressively — and sometimes illegally — foreclosing on their homes,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement last month. Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, warned: “Given Mr. Mnuchin’s history of profiting off the victims of predatory lending, I look forward to asking him how his Treasury Department would work for Americans who are still waiting for the economic recovery to show up in their communities.” 

 

The consistent violations of California foreclosure processes outlined in the memo would indicate that Mnuchin’s bank didn’t merely act callously, but did so with blatant disregard for the law. 

 

Whether Mnuchin directed efforts to prevent scrutiny of his bank’s practices could be a focus of the confirmation hearings.

 

According to the memo, OneWest also obstructed the investigation by ordering third parties to refuse to comply with state subpoenas. The memo also raises questions about then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who was sworn in as a U.S. senator on Tuesday, and who will soon have to vote on Mnuchin’s appointment.

 

Why did her office close the case, deciding not to “conduct a full investigation of a national bank’s misconduct and provide a public accounting of what happened,” as her own investigators had urged?

Continue reading the full Intercept report here.

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If 2016 Wasn’t the Epocalypse, What the Heck Was it?

This article by David Haggithpublished first on The Great Recession Blog

Crude oil price predictions for summer 2016 are for heavy storms as we move into the Year of the Epocalypse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, 2016 wasn’t the predicted Epocalypse, but it sure was weird! Globally, it was a year of continued economic malaise and increasing financial risks. Most notably, though, it was a year of political upheaval that pitted voters in the UK, Italy and the US in civil wars at the ballot box. Here are a few of the otherworldly highlights that typified the troubles of 2016:

 

You may have thought it was your nation’s worst year or maybe even the world’s worst if you …

 

  • were a globalist and saw your world start to fly apart in Brexit and other pending exits or
  • if you were a European citizen who had to watch your streets lit on fire or your friends get raped and pillaged due to unimaginable immigration inflation
  • or a Hillarite and you watched your wretched bobble-head candidate faint from crisis to crisis, win the popular vote in spite of the endless scandals, and still lose the electoral vote to someone you regarded as a boisterous buffoon
  • or a Sanders supporter and you watched your candidate get a shiv in his back from his own party
  • or the president of the United States who saw his whole eight-year legacy game plan end in an incomplete pass to a player who left the field
  • or George Soros who couldn’t buy an election that year with all the money in the world, only to rant like a baby about how the world would end due to one man who trumped him at every turn
  • or anyone important in the Democratic Party who used email that year
  • or a member of the mainlining media, which saw its overrated reputation finally shredded because your networks endlessly retold fake news stories, hoping to spin them into golden truth by mere repetition
  • or a Trumpette who had to endure months of seeing your candidate endlessly lied about and who then faced the hatred of half of the US population when you won anyway because the electoral college does what it does
  • or a Trumpette who watched in bewilderment as your anti-establishment candidate backpedalled on nearly all your favorite issues and lined up the establishment’s Who’s Who for a cabinet and kissed up to the house speaker you couldn’t stand and backed away from putting crooked Hillary in jail because she’s “good people”
  • or if you just got weary of watching the liars call the liars “liars”
  • or an Israelite who saw the US pave the way for future UN actions against your nation with an unorthodox withholding of a veto
  • or a Venezuelan or Brazilian who watched your economy fall into abject ruin to where a bag of bread will cost you a bag of money (so you might as well eat your dough before you spend it)
  • or a Chicagoan who accidentally left home without your gun that year
  • or anyone who doesn’t like mushrooming wars in the Middle East as you watched the US president attempt to launch the world’s first cyberwar with the world’s other greatest nuclear power over alleged weapons of cyber destruction
  • or if you lived in Syria and had to watch the US empower its arch enemy ISIS to kill your children in order to oust a leader who never did anything good but never did much directly against the US either
  • or if you were CEO of one of the two oldest and largest banks in the world that weathered every storm in 150 years only to beg for money and your survival this year
  • or the CEO of an oil company or the head of any oily Arab state, dying under your own policies as you, ironically, kill off your own OPEC cartel
  • or a bond-fund manager.

 

Yes, it was annus horribilis for many, as Queen Elizabeth II said of the year when her palace burned and her princess daughter-in-law died and scandal plagued the family. 2016 wasn’t just a year of bad things; it was a year of freaky bad things; but it wasn’t the end of the world … so far.

If it wasn’t the actual Epocalypse, it must have been its antechamber. If it wasn’t the queen of all bad years, it was her joker. And its whirling dervish of abnormalities came foremost because it was the first year in the history of the world where globalists everywhere saw sweeping peasant revolts turn against seventy years of expanding unification under centralized control.

 

With that as backdrop, here is my second prediction for 2017:

 

This is the year the globalists dig in and fight back. They will fight to the death of any and all opponents before they will see seventy-plus years of globalizing work plowed under. That means conflict and economic turmoil will escalate all over the world in 2017. The fight is on.

Maybe the Epocalypse comes as an exponentially faster acceleration into global hellishness and not a sudden plunge over the abyss. Maybe its not Epocalypse Now, as I announced last year but Epocalypse Dawning in years of ever increasing aberration that are now the new norm.

 

See also my “2017 Stock Market Predictions

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Trump Reveals “Very Strange” Delay In Russian Intelligence Briefing

The tweet storm continues into the night as President-elect Trump reveals that the intelligence briefing he is supposed to receive on the alleged Russian hacking has now been delayed until Friday…

A few things jump out immediately:

First, we are sure opposition members will feel the need to comment on Trump’s revelation on the timing of the briefing (was it confidential?);

 

Second, the use of quotes around “intelligence” is a not so subtle stab at the current agencies (all 17 of them);

 

Third, calling the hacking “so-called” makes it clear Trump remains unconvinced, and that is reinforced by the comment that they need more time to build the case; and

 

Fourth, describing the delay as “very strange” seesm to strongly implies ‘CIA plot’.

We await the ‘shock’ from The White House at Trump’s tweet.

 

 

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Tucker Carlson Dismantles Smug University of Chicago Snowflake On Live TV

Happy New Year! I had to share this quick Tucker Carlson clip from the other night. His victim; Senior English Major Jake Bittle from the University of Chicago. Bittle, who also runs a retarded activist newspaper, took to social media to protest a UChicago campus visit by Trump’s new press secretary Sean Spicer – claiming that allowing free speech on campus would normalize the Trump administration. Bittle advocates projectile vomiting and “flipping cars” as an appropriate response.

Tucker artfully dismantles Bittle’s smug cockiness – the highlight being an awkward moment during the exchange in which Bittle melts down while failing to explain the Paris climate talks on which he so confidently opined just minutes earlier. Once the thin veneer of Bittle’s faux intellectualism crumbles, the dry mouthed stammering man-child fades into oblivion as a vanquished cuck.

 

Oh no, snowflake down!

“That’s not really debate. That’s something dumber, no?”

Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

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Circumvent The Euphemisms, It’s Time To Face Reality!

Submitted by NIRP Umbrella via Medium.com,

See ya 2016.

I thought I would write a quick note to reflect on this historic year in many respects. First, I would just like to thank all the supporters of NIRP Umbrella as it truly has taken a life of its own with the amount of attention it has received in these short 9 months. The ethos of NIRP Umbrella is to expose any intellectual who is using elite status to push a hidden agenda and unfortunately we live in a world where ‘Intellectual yet Idiots’ have arrived in clusters to create powerful headwinds for anyone that decides to challenge the intellectual status quo via asking why & question the very nature of centralized decision-making.

It’s been a fun year calling out Kenneth Rogoff 🙂

You see, the elites like any systematic process has evolved but unfortunately for the worse. Before I go any further I would like to make 1 firm point, I am not a cynical/pessimistic human however the instincts of ‘common sense’ has been somewhat eroded by the roots of what drives cognitive behavior via mainstream media, government officials, too big to fail banks & ‘The Committee To Destroy The World’ aka Central Banks. We are witnessing the rise of exponential political polarization, distrust in mainstream media, people flocking to alternatives currencies & people finally thinking Ph.D. economist are full of shit.

This very rise of individuality is certainly vindicated by observing the current state of the centralized rooted elite’s mechanisms on the masses.

Let’s start with the mainstream media, for the most part, these so-called pundits are disallowed to express personal beliefs without being censored or fired. There’s been plenty of examples of this in particular over this latest election cycle where I won’t fully distil it in a thorough examination on this post, but in short, because a select few challenged the mainstream consensus they were considered a ‘hazard’ which meant their voice had to be eliminated from the channel.

Mainstream media wants to stick with the pure click bait that has little substance on getting people to THINK because thinking is considered ‘dangerous’ in today’s world.

Knowledge is POWER! Once you get addicted to knowing more about things that have direct relevance to your life like the emergence of:

  • Socialism & Fascism
  • Financial Repression
  • Trickle Down Theory
  • Purchasing Power Decay & Wealth Inequality
  • A Broken Workforce
  • Students Drowning in Student Debt
  • Banking Solvency
  • Geopolitical Manners
  • Prodigality
  • Authoritarian Control via The Spying Economy

to name a few.

It will become hard to have the curiosity to monitor your favorite celebrities every move once you grasp the core areas that have the most importance to your life.

I understand there are different topics of interest but my argument is that these mainstream media outlets need to begin to strive for empowering people with knowledge of objective facts instead of the mere subjective emphasis. For example, financial pundits like to refer to Gold as a ‘barbarous relic’ this phrase has materialized into an echo chamber that has rippled throughout the mainstream media. It describes the type of rigor MOST journalists have; it’s the follow the leader type approach where that underlying quote derived from John Maynard Keynes was him addressing the FLAWED gold exchange standard that prevailed from 1922 to 1939 not GOLD in itself.

 

If the mainstream media doesn’t pivot very quickly, we could be looking back in retrospect just how we look at Kodak (valued at $28 billion in 1996) where exponential forces put a LINEAR company OUT of business. These exponential forces in media are coming from SOCIAL MEDIA where the power of 1 thought can reach millions of people, uncensored. NIRP Umbrella is a testament to this theory, 9 months ago I started this out of mere frustration but now on average I reach about 6 million people a month. Why? You tell me… but I think it’s because I stick with truths that not a lot of people want to talk about.

 

Before I move on to the next pillar that needs to be fixed to bring back ‘common sense’ from rooted corrosion, I would like to say one more thing about the mainstream media. This war on ‘fake news’ has 0 justification for the type of consumer CONFIDENCE headwinds they now face. It’s purely because of the top-down model of distributing information is BROKEN. It’s time to bring back decentralized orientated interpersonal relationship between writer & reader [-] the middlemen (editor) coupled with a broad range of diversity of thought and not some groupthink corporate mentality if these outlets want to restore confidence & survive.

Next, let’s move on to the government. Firstly, I would just like to state that I am incredibly grateful for the democratic society and for the most part the freedom of speech that we have in the west.

However, there has been some fierce progressions throughout governments around the world to have access & control on the citizens it manages like never before in history. These bureaucrats have decided to take a much more intrusive approach into our daily lives and for what reason? The rise of the regularity state via FBI, IRS, SEC, FINRA, NLRB, OSHA entirely govern our lives. This emergence of ‘regulation’ is coupled with a monstrous increase in debt which is smothering economic progress which in fact is putting us on the road to secular stagnation. Over the past decade hundred of thousands of pages have been added to federal regulations throughout the global economy due to anti-growth policies promoted by idiotic fiscal policymakers.

 

Listen, I am not a conspiracy theorist but it’s very EASY to connect the dotes with why bureaucrats are in a rush to regulate & oversee everything. They understand we are facing unprecedented wealth inequality, stagnate incomes, a legal tendering currency which fails to retain it’s value, students indebting themselves for a lifetime, a rise in worry about race relations, too big to fail banks to just name a few things we now face that have slowly got people to question the very people that govern them.

 

So where am I going with all of this? Loop back to under paragraph 2 and see the rise in political polarization chart that’s there. Over the course of the year, we saw the trump victory, Brexit which led to Cameron resigning, Italy’s failed referendum which led to renzi resigning is a direct reflection on this emergence of anti-establishment amongst the masses. The problem is, the establishment itself will not go down without a fight if the movement itself metastasizes to the very roots of governance. Money. Governments have begun to counteract the independent movement by embracing a fascist system to make sure things are as centralized as possible as turmoil starts to spill over into money which is only backed by CONFIDENCE. Hell, this system has been in place for a while now and citizens have been asleep at the wheel. Unfortunately, sleeping through this phenomena has been quite easy unlike socialism/nationalism where it’s easy to identify, fascism is a way to circumvent the public eye by allowing private companies/property to exist however if there is a direct threat to STATE POWER they affirm it will not be accepted. i.e:

  1. Hospitals & Health Insurers (Private Enterprise) = Prices, Products & Policies CONTROLLED by Obamacare.
  2. Private Internet Companies = Internet Access & Fees regulated by the Federal Communications Commission
  3. Banks = Regulated Under Dodd-Frank

This regulatory oligopoly is not by accident; it’s by design. The sad thing is that this is all governed by intellectual fallacies via central planners who are a group of people (for the most part) who have never held a real job that contributes to society. Never managed money or in other words ‘had skin in the game.’ They are a group of Ph.D. economist who thinks they can mathematically model the system around them. They will be to busy with value at risk methods or standard regression models to ever admit to saying they don’t have a clue what is happening. They fail to respect COMPLEXITY which always ends up biting these centralized groupthink groups in the ass.

But are you noticing a trend here? These idiots think that forced supervision & reassurance keeps psychology balanced by always being 1 step ahead. The sad part is that centralized supervision aspect of things is just getting warmed up… (cashless society emerging, biometrics etc.)

We will be writing much more in depth on these topics when NIRP Umbrella’s website is LIVE near the end of February. So stay tuned on that front. However, before I sign off you might be wondering why I labeled this little note with the word ‘Euphemisms’ in it. It’s because I am sick and tired of seeing esoteric jargon concealing truths from the layman. Words that hide truths are outright dangerous and deceiving.

So I thought I would throw a little list together of bullshit euphemisms which start off with basic terms to more advanced jargon that is meant to mislead. The purpose here is to portray how academics coin big words to fool for personal gain rather it’s for there personal agenda or simply because they don’t want you knowing what the hell there up too.

The George Carlins Euphemisms are from 1–17

NIRP Umbrella’s Euphemisms are from 17–40

1. Shell Shock became Battle Fatigue became Operational Exhaustion and now Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

2. Toilet Paper became Bathroom Tissue

3. Sneakers became Running Shoes

4. False Teeth became Dental Appliances

5. Medicine become Medication

6. Information become Directory Assistance

7. The Dump become The Landfill

8. Car Crashes became Automotive Accidents

9. Partly Cloudy became Partly Sunny

10. Motels became Motor Lodges

11. House Trailers became Mobile Homes

12. Used Cars became Previously Owned Transportation

13. Room Service became Guest Room Dining

14. Constipation became Occasional Irregularity

15. Poor People that lived in slumps became Economically Disadvantaged Occupied Substandard Housing in the Inner City’s

16. Broke became Negative Cash Flow Position

17. Fired became management curtail redundancies in the Human Resources department area

18. Reduction in Government Spending became Austerity

19. People Saving The Bank became Bail In

20. Taxpayers Saving The Banks became a Bailout

21. Company That Went Broke became Bankrupt

22. Greedy Banker became Bankster

23. One Hundreth of a percentage point became a Basis Point

24. When you think the price of something is going down became Bear

25. When policy makers lowers the value of their currency to make exports cheaper and implement protective barriers become Beggar Thy Neighbor

26. When you think the price of something is going up became Bull

27. Confiscation became CPI + Taxes

28. When multiple Countries devalue their currency to bolster exportsbecame Currency Wars

29. Missing Deadlines to Pay back Debt became Default

30. Reducing leverage became Deleveraging

31. Economy needs stimulus (lower interest rates) became Dove

32. Scared about inflation (raise interest rates) became Hawk

33. US dollars invested in banks outside the USA became Eurodollars

34. When a country/person puts everyone at risk (Postive or Negative) became Externalities

35. Fiat Money (John Law) became Monopoly Money then back to Fiat Money

36. Money became Gold

37. When a Central Banker bullshits everyone became Forward Guidance

38. All the goods and services produced in a country became GDP

39. Obsessed with gold became Gold Bug

40. When a company or the government doesn’t give bondholders all there money back became haircut

Could go on all day, the point is be on the look out for complex jargon because usually it’s because elites don’t want you to question what these words really mean.

via http://ift.tt/2iFZpF2 Tyler Durden

After Getting Almost Nothing Right In 2016, Here Are Byron Wien’s “Ten Surprises” For 2017

Having gotten virtually none of his “surprise” forecasts for 2016 right – among which that the S&P will decline (after it was supposed to rise by 15% in 2015 when it closed red for the year), the 10Y will not rise above 2.50%, Hillary Clinton will defeat Ted Cruz in the presidential election, Democrats will gain control of the Senate, Chinese growth drops below 5% as the country’s banks “get in trouble”, crude oil remains in the $30s, and global growth falls to 2% (he did correctly predict just one rate hike, and the continuation of the European refugee crisis), today Blackstone’s Byron Wien issued his list of Ten Surprises for the coming year for the 32nd time.  

Considering that Wien has been doing this since 1986, one would think he has gotten better at it, but alas no.

So after last year’s embarrassment, not surprisingly the 83 year old has flip-flopped back to optimistic, and in his latest set of forecasts for 2017 expects the S&P 500 to rally to 2,500 as corporate profits jump to $130 a share. Which is ironic because the “vice president of multi-asset investing at Blackstone Group” failed to see the 10%  rally in U.S. shares last year, instead expecting a down year.

For 2017, he anticipates that yields on 10-year Treasury notes will approach 4% as gross domestic product expands at a rate of 3%. He also expects German Chancellor Angela Merkel to lose her bid for re-election. The upbeat forecasts set Wien apart on a day when other legacy voices from a past generation voiced caution, among them Larry Summers who said investors are overlooking the risks of Donald Trump’s policies, while analysts at Eurasia Group said Trump could contribute to a level of global instability not seen since World War II.

Perhaps, but what we do know almost for certain is that assumping the opposite of Wien’s forecasts has a hit ratio well above 50%. Which means: S&P crashes, 10Y yields tumble, the US economy enters a recession, but at least Merkel will keep her job.

According to Byron, a “surprise” as an event that the average investor would only assign a one out of three chance of taking place but which Byron believes is “probable,” having a better than 50% likelihood of happening. We call it something you read one year from today and laugh.

Below is the list of Byron’s Ten Surprises for 2017:

  1. Still brooding about his loss of the popular vote, Donald Trump vows to win over those who oppose him by 2020.  He moves away from his more extreme positions on virtually all issues to the dismay of some right wing loyalists.  He insists, “The voters elected me, not some ideology.”  His unilateral actions throw policy staffers throughout the government into turmoil.  Virtually all of the treaties and agreements he vowed to tear up on his first day in office are modified, not trashed.  His wastebasket remains empty.
  2. The combination of tax cuts on corporations and individuals, more constructive trade agreements, dismantling regulation of financial and energy companies, and infrastructure tax incentives pushes the 2017 real growth rate above 3% for the U.S. economy.  Productivity improves for the first time since 2014.
  3. The Standard & Poor’s 500 operating earnings are $130 in 2017 and the index rises to 2500 as investors become convinced the U.S. economy is back on a long-term growth path.  Fears about a ballooning budget deficit are kept in the background.  Will dynamic scoring reducing the budget deficit actually kick in?
  4. Macro investors make a killing on currency fluctuations.  The Japanese yen goes to 130 against the dollar, stimulating exports there.  As Brexit moves closer, the British pound declines to 1.10 against the dollar, causing a surge in tourism and speculation in real estate.  The euro drops below par against the dollar.
  5. Increased economic growth, inflation moving toward 3%, and renewed demand for capital push interest rates higher across the board.  The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield approaches 4%.
  6. Populism spreads over Europe affecting the elections in France and Germany.  Angela Merkel loses the vote in October.  Across Europe the electorate questions the usefulness of the European Union and, by the end of the year, plans are actively discussed to close it down, abandon the euro and return to their national currencies.
  7. Reducing regulations in the energy industry leads to a surge in production in the United States. Iran and Iraq also step up their output.  The increased supply keeps the price of West Texas Intermediate below $60 for most of the year in spite of increased world demand.
  8. Donald Trump realizes he has been all wrong about China.  Its currency is overvalued, not undervalued, and depreciates to eight to the dollar.  Its economy flourishes on consumer spending on goods produced at home and greater exports.  Trump avoids punitive tariffs to prevent a trade war and develops a more cooperative relationship with the world’s second largest economy.
  9. Benefiting from stronger growth in China and the United States, real growth in Japan exceeds 2% for the first time in decades and its stock market leads other developed countries in appreciation for the year.
  10. The Middle East cools down.  Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, working with Vladimir Putin, finally negotiate a lasting ceasefire in Syria.  ISIS diminishes significantly as a Middle East threat.  Bashar al-Assad remains in power.

As for his 6 “Also rans”, Wein notes the following: “Every year there are always a few Surprises that do not make the Ten either because I do not think they are as relevant as those on the basic list or I am not comfortable with the idea that they are “probable.”

  1. Having grown weary of Washington after a year in the presidency, Donald Trump moves the White House to New York from April to December and to Palm Beach from January to March.  He makes day trips to the Capitol on Air Force One for legislative and diplomatic purposes.
  2. The Democratic Party is sharply divided on strategy, with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren arguing for a shift to the left and others wanting to remain in the center.  A lack of leadership gives rise to widespread speculation about sharp losses in the 2018 congressional elections.
  3. Donald Trump’s intimidation tactics prove effective in discouraging companies from moving some U.S. manufacturing abroad, but he fails to bring jobs back.  The wage differential is just too great.  This becomes his biggest first-year disappointment.
  4. Trump’s first major international confrontation comes, not unexpectedly, from North Korea.  Kim Jong-un threatens to set off a nuclear bomb in the mid-Pacific, calling it “a test.”  Trump’s advisors try to restrain his desire to punish the country severely.
  5. India comes back into the investment limelight.  Its economy grows at 7% and corporate profits for established companies are strong.  Its stock market leads other large emerging countries, along with China.
  6. Trump’s efforts to get out of the Iran deal fail.  The other countries signing the agreement believe Iran’s weapons-grade nuclear production has been restrained and force the U.S. to remain a participant.

Check back in one year for the laugh.

Source: Blackstone

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World’s Purest Silver Producer To Join Class Action Lawsuit Against Bullion Banks For Price Rigging

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

Though Wall Street regulators and the mega-banks they purport to regulate have long said that there exists no manipulation in markets and that anyone making claims to the contrary is nothing short of a conspiracy theorist, recent revelations suggest that even the most well known financial institutions on the planet have been actively involved in rigging asset prices. We need look no further for confirmation of this fact than Deutsche Bank, which last year admitted the precious metals market has been rigged all along and agreed to pay nearly $100 million in settlements resulting from their direct involvement in the manipulation of gold and silver prices.

Now that the cat is out of the bag and Deutsche Bank has agreed to turn over documents implicating other banks in related schemes, major mining companies are preparing lawsuits of their own. Straight-shooting First Majestic Silver CEO Keith Neumeyer, who in 2015 was the first mining company head to issue a public statement on the manipulation of precious metals prices by a small concentration of players, has said that the company’s legal team is closely monitoring the situation.

Citing loss of revenue, jobs and shareholder value Neumeyer said in an interview with SGT Report that his company will likely be preparing legal action against the bullion banks involved in the rigging of prices.

I have an intimate knowledge of what goes on on the trading floors… how front running occurs, how wash trading occurs, how spoofing occurs… I’ve been looking for an opportunity to step in… I’ve been very vocal… I’ve talked to many executives that are running other silver companies… When the Deutsche news came out I sent an email to the law firm that’s responsible for this lawsuit and I had a conference call with two lawyers… we spoke about this case… I can tell you that a couple of the CEO’s of some very prominent silver companies in the States have no interest in pursuing this… Other CEOs have said that they are interested in pursuing this with First Majestic.

 

We’re monitoring this. We’re going to follow it. We’re likely going to, at some point, add our name to the class action lawsuit. 

Watch the full interview detailing Neumeyer’s views on global cash bans, what silver prices may do once the manipulation comes to an end, how precious metals will be affected by the incoming Trump administration, current supply and demand fundamentals and an update on his latest projects including Silver One Resources:

Neumeyer and what appears to be a handful of other CEO’s in the industry are preparing to declare war on the banks that have been responsible for the price suppression schemes many knew to exist but couldn’t prove until now.

The problem was that the fox was left to guard the hen house, which of course led to an inevitable bloodbath:

It’s quite shocking to me… It’s very harmful to the shareholders…

 

…It is manipulation and it’s used frequently. There’s ways that the regulators can monitor it. They can see it happening. The exchanges know when false bids and offers get put into the system… Yet, the exchanges don’t step in because the exchanges are owned by the banks… and the banks are doing that kind of trading… It’s the self policing system, which doesn’t work because no one wants to police themselves because they’re all making too much money.

 

How does Bank of America or JP Morgan not have a losing day year-after-year of trading… it’s actually impossible… traders lose money… it happens all the time… yet they have not had a single losing day for at least a couple of years as far as I know.

As Neumeyer correctly highlights, it’s impossible for a trader or firm to have such a perfect record, unless of course they are working the system, which certainly appears to be the case based on the evidence.

Now that market manipulations have been proven at the highest levels of the bullion banking system, and with the pressure of lawsuits mounting, there is a distinct possibility that precious metals prices will be allowed to trade freely on the open market.

Such a development bodes well for precious metals investors, especially with Donald Trump set to take over the Presidency in a few short weeks. Neumeyer notes that several Trump appointees are gold-friendly, which could add further upside potential:

On a positive note regarding Trump, he’s got a couple of pro-gold individuals that he’s appointed to his inner circle and I’m looking forward to them starting to make some gold favored policies that will help us as a mining company and our investors as well.

Summing up, Neumeyer hints that precious metals could do very well in the years to come:

We’re in very uncertain times… the world is changing.

If history is any guide, global changes of this magnitude mean that the entrenched systems run by central banks and Deep State politics are set to be destabilized on a level we may have not witnessed in our lifetimes, which means assets like bitcoin, gold, and silver could become the safe havens of choice for investors.

 

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