Month: January 2017

US President Donald Trump made his first weekly address to the nation on Saturday, outlining the smorgasbord of actions he has taken in his first week…

As AP reports,

In it, Trump said he had met the leaders of some of the country's top manufacturing companies and labour unions and told them that he wanted to make things in America, using American workers.

 

He also said that he had signed orders to prepare for repealing and replacing Obamacare, and the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership so that the US could negotiate one-on-one deals that protected American workers.

 

Trump said he had signed an order to begin construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, following a renegotiation of terms requiring that pipelines installed in America be built with American steel and manufactured in the US.

 

He said he had also signed an order to immediately begin construction of the border wall with Mexico and to crack down on sanctuary cities.

 

Full Transcript:

"My fellow Americans, one week ago our administration assumed enormous responsibilities that you, the American people, have placed in us. There is much work to do in the days ahead but I wanted to give you an update on what we have accomplished already. In my first few days as your president, I have met with the leaders of some of our nation's top manufacturing companies and labour unions. My message was clear: we want to make things in America and we want to use American workers. Since my election, many companies have announced they are no longer moving jobs out of our country but are instead keeping and creating jobs right here in America. Every day, we are fulfilling the promise we made to the American people. Here are just a few of the executive actions I have taken in the last few days: An order to prepare for repealing and replacing Obamacare, it's about time; the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership so that we can negotiate one-on-one deals that protect American workers, that would have been a disastrous deal for our workers; an order to begin construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines following a renegotiation of terms with the requirement that pipelines installed in America be built with American steel and manufactured here; a directive to expedite permits for new infrastructure and new manufacturing plants; an order to immediately begin the border wall and to crack down on sanctuary cities, they are not safe, we have got to take care of that horrible situation. This administration has hit the ground running at a record pace, everybody's talking about it, we're doing it with speed and we're doing it with intelligence and we will never ever stop fighting on behalf of the American people. God bless you and God bless America."

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Trump’s sweeping, and immediately enforced ban on people seeking refuge in the United States and visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries which will last at least three months has caused what Reuters dubs “chaos, panic and anger” – as well as lawsuits – not only among travelers on Saturday – with some denied entry to the US and turned back from U.S.-bound flights – but also among US allies such as France and Germany. The bans affect travelers with passports from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and as the DHS confirmed on Saturday, extends to green card holders who are granted authorization to live and work in the United States.

Visitors barred, travellers returned. As the NYT reported on Saturday morning, refugees traveling into the U.S. on Friday night were already being detained at airports following the implementation of the executive order, which immediately closed US borders to refugees. Two Iraqi refugees detained at Kennedy Airport in New York have filed a writ of habeas corpus seeking to be released. They also filed a motion for class certification, to represent all refugees and immigrants being detained at ports of entry.

One of the Iraqis detained at Kennedy Airport, Khalid Darweesh, has worked for the U.S. government in Iraq for 10 years, according to the Times report. The other detainee Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi was arriving to the U.S. to join his wife, a U.S. contractor, and his young son. The men were on separate flights into the U.S.

Complaints about their detainment were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the International Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center, the National Immigration Law Center, Yale Law School’s Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization and the firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton. The two men had visas to enter the United States but were detained on Friday night at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, hours after Trump’s executive order, the lawsuit said.

At the same time, in Cairo, six Iraqi passengers and one Yemeni were barred from boarding an EgyptAir flight to New York on Saturday, sources at Cairo airport said. The passengers, arriving in transit to Cairo airport, were stopped and re-directed to flights headed for their home countries despite holding valid visas. The officials said the seven migrants, escorted by officials from the U.N. refugee agency, were stopped from boarding the plane after authorities at Cairo airport contacted their counterparts in JFK airport.

Others have also challenged the legality of Trump’s order, with immigration lawyers in New York suing to block the order, saying numerous people have already been unlawfully detained.

* * *

Arab fury. The executive order has prompted fury from Arab travelers in the Middle East and North Africa who said it was humiliating and discriminatory. It drew widespread criticism from U.S. Western allies including France and Germany, Arab American groups, human rights organizations.

“This is a stupid, terrible decision which will hurt the American people more than us or anybody else, because it shows that this President can’t manage people, politics or global relationships,” said Najeed Haidari, a Yemeni-American security manager for an oil company in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Meanwhile, there was confusion at the US border, with customs and border patrol agents at many airports unaware of the executive order early on in the evening, said Mana Yegani, an immigration lawyer in Houston, who works with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Yegani and her fellow lawyers worked through the night fielding calls from travelers with student and worker visas who were being denied entry into the United States and ordered on flights back to Muslim-majority countries on the list.

Green card holders were also being stopped and questioned for several hours. Officials also denied travelers with dual Canadian and Iranian citizenship from boarding planes in Canada that were headed the United States, she said. “These are people that are coming in legally. They have jobs here and they have vehicles here,” Yegani said.

Those with visas from Muslim-majority countries have gone through background checks with U.S. authorities, Yegani noted. “Just because Trump signed something at 6 p.m. yesterday, things are coming to a crashing halt,” she said. “It’s scary.”

* * *

The European outcry has been prompt: France, Germany and Luxembourg all voiced concern on Saturday over Trump’s executive action. France and Germany formed a united front Saturday in the face of President Donald Trump’s halt in the U.S. refugee program, with the German foreign minister noting that loving thy neighbor forms part of America’s Christian traditions. After meeting Saturday, the foreign ministers of both nations, Jean-Marc Ayrault and Germany’s Sigmar Gabriel, said they want to meet with Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state who is still awaiting confirmation.

Speaking at a joint news conference in Paris with his German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said many of Trump’s decisions worried the two U.S. allies, including new immigration restrictions. “This can only worry us, but there are many subjects that worry us,” Ayrault said, adding that he would soon invite his future American counterpart Rex Tillerson to Paris to explain Europe’s interests, values and vision of the world.  “Welcoming refugees who flee war and oppression is part of our duty,” Ayrault added.

“The United States is a country where Christian traditions have an important meaning. Loving your neighbor is a major Christian value, and that includes helping people,” said Germany’s Gabriel, who was on his first trip abroad since his nomination as foreign minister. “I think that is what unites us in the West, and I think that is what we want to make clear to the Americans.”

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said Trump’s order would have negative consequences. “The American president is dividing the Muslim world into good and evil with this,” Asselborn told the Tagesspiegel German newspaper. “The decision is also bad for Europe because it will increase the Muslim world’s mistrust and hatred of the West.”

* * *

Iran is livid. The country, whose inclusion in the banned list comes at a sensitive time for the Islamic Republic as Trump has opposed the 2015 nuclear deal that lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear program, has been quite vocal in its condemnation of the Trump decision. Cited by Al Jazeera, the Iranian foreign ministry has vowed to take reciprocal measures, while the Iranian government called the ban “an insult to the Muslim world.”

Iranian officials say they’ll reserve judgment on Trump until he rolls out policies. So the visa ban may be seen as “sending the first signal” as to how the new administration will treat Iran, according to Amir Handjani of the Atlantic Council based in Dubai. Quoted by Bloomberg, he added that it’s likely to be interpreted as a provocation and “a backdoor way” to pressure the Iranian government. The order “certainly doesn’t do anything to convince Iranians that the Trump administration has any interest in reducing tensions with Iran,” said Trita Parsi, author of the forthcoming book “Losing an Enemy – Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy,” and president of the National Iranian American Council. With Iran holding a presidential election in May, any spike in tensions between the foes could swing support behind hardline critics of President Hassan Rouhani. According to Parsi, hardliners will point to Iran’s compromise as part of the nuclear accord and “say ‘look what it generated: this extremely negative response against Iranian people’.”

* * *

As is the UN. As expected, the United Nations refugee agency and International Organization for Migration (IOM) called on the Trump administration on Saturday to continue offering asylum to people fleeing war and persecution, saying its resettlement programme was vital. “The needs of refugees and migrants worldwide have never been greater and the U.S. resettlement program is one of the most important in the world,” the two Geneva-based agencies said in a joint statement. IOM and UNHCR said they remained committed to working with the U.S. administration towards a shared goal of ensuring “safe and secure resettlement and immigration programmes”.

“We strongly believe that refugees should receive equal treatment for protection and assistance, and opportunities for resettlement, regardless of their religion, nationality or race,” they said. Resettlement places provided by every country for vulnerable refugees, some of whom require special medical treatment not available in their first country of asylum, are vital, the agencies said. More than 30 countries take part in the programme, which starts with vetting by the UNHCR. The agencies said they hope “the U.S. will continue its strong leadership role and long tradition of protecting those who are fleeing conflict and persecution”.

A host of U.S. federal government agencies are involved and extensive background checks are carried out, UNHCR spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci told a briefing. “I think it’s fair to say that refugees coming into the United States to be resettled are some of the most vetted individuals entering the United States,” she said.

Considering the feud taking place between Trump and the UN in the aftermath of the recent Israeli settlement vote, it is likely that if anything, the UN pressing Trump to unwind his decision will only make him more likely to stick with it.

* * *

Israel approves. While most have criticized Trump’s decision, an unexpected supporter emerged in the face of Israel PM Benjamin Natanyahu who tweeted “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”

President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea ????????????????

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 28, 2017

The tweet marked a rare public foray for the Israeli leader into a charged American domestic affair. The two leaders spoke earlier this week and Netanyahu is planning to visit Trump in the White House next month. After repeated clashes with President Obama, Netanyahu has high expectations for Trump, who has signaled he will take a kinder approach.

* * *

“He’s just getting started.” Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway reaffirmed the president’s decision in a Twitter post on Saturday. “@POTUS is a man of action and impact. Promises made, promises kept. Shock to the system. And he’s just getting started,” she tweeted. As someone asked, if this is Trump’s action so far, what will his crackdown be after the next terrorist attack:

wondering how much farther this might go after the next big terror attack

— Michael Crowley (@michaelcrowley) January 28, 2017

* * *

In summary, this is what has happened in kneejerk reaction to the Trump executive order so far:

• Border ban: Refugees travelling to the US when the order was signed were stopped and detained at airports, per the NYT.
• Return to point of origin: Some green card and visa holders were being blocked from boarding flights to the U.S. Friday night, according to AP. People who had already landed were sequestered at airports and told they have to return to their point of origin.
• Companies scramble: US corporations, most notably Google, have instructed employees traveling abroad with visas or green cards to return immediately.
• Lawsuits begin: National Immigration Law Center warned Trump in a tweet that a court challenge is coming.
• UN urges reconsideration: “The needs of refugees and migrants worldwide have never been greater and the U.S. resettlement program is one of the most important in the world” said the UN International Organization for Migration
• Allies angry: France and Germany formed a united front Saturday attacking Trump’s decision, according to AP.

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Submitted by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

Activists in California have just taken an integral step that could leave America with only 49 states in the near future. Yes California, a pro-secession organization, received approval Thursday to begin collecting signatures from residents to put “Calexit” on the ballot for a 2019 special election.

Yes California has been working toward secession for some time, but with President Donald Trump’s election last year, their efforts gained momentum as frustrated residents questioned their willingness to bow down to a president they don’t support. According to a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos this month, nearly one in three supports secession — a sharp uptick from a similar survey conducted in 2014. With secession becoming a viable alternative, it’s possible that support may continue to grow.

We'll just take our avocados and legal weed and go#CalExit #CalifrEXIT

— beea ???? (@LeasLame) November 9, 2016

The organization submitted their ballot proposal to California’s state government in November, and on Thursday, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla gave them the green light to begin collecting signatures. They need 585,407 people to sign their petition by July 25. If they succeed, the referendum will make it onto the 2018 ballot. If it passes, the state will hold a special election the following year. The Sacramento Bee reports:

“The proposed measure would strike language from the California Constitution defining the state as ‘an inseparable part of the United States of America, and the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land.’ If it passed, there would be a statewide special election in March 2019 to ask voters if they want California to become an independent country.”

Many Americans often joke about California leaving the union, highlighting how wildly different residents of the Golden State are from those of America’s heartland. Indeed, Yes California appears to agree.

“America already hates California, and America votes on emotions,” Marcus Ruiz Evans, one of the group’s founders, told the Los Angeles Times. “I think we’d have the votes today if we held it.”

In a recent post on their website announcing their progress, they wrote:

“In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children.”

It’s understandable why secession has become a proposed solution considering California has long struggled with many systemic problems. As Yes California points out:

“Although charity is part of our culture, when you consider that California’s infrastructure is falling apart, our public schools are ranked among the worst in the entire country, we have the highest number of homeless persons living without shelter and other basic necessities, poverty rates remain high, income inequality continues to expand, and we must often borrow money from the future to provide services for today, now is not the time for charity.”

Though Yes California points out practical reasons for secession, they also argue the underlying justification for their movement from a philosophical standpoint:

“However, this independence referendum is about more than California subsidizing other states of this country,” they write. “It is about the right to self-determination and the concept of voluntary association, both of which are supported by constitutional and international law.”

Further:

“It is about California taking its place in the world, standing as an equal among nations. We believe in two fundamental truths: (1) California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and (2) California could do more good as an independent country than it is able to do as just a U.S. state.”

California has the sixth largest economy in the world, bolstered by the film industry, Silicon Valley, agriculture, and the state’s biggest cash crop — cannabis — which voters legalized in November.

While the practical and philosophical reasons for secession are compelling, it’s doubtful many residents are looking beyond President Donald Trump. California leans heavily to the left, and Democrats hold a supermajority in both houses of the state legislature. California was largely responsible for Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory.

Further, though Yes California stresses the importance of voluntary association, it’s doubtful an independent California government would ask taxpayers what programs they’d like to fund. Ultimately, though California as a country would certainly be beneficial for decentralization and localization efforts, it would operate as a government and, as such, force Californians to participate.

Nevertheless, the movement reflects undeniable divisions within the United States, especially in the era of Donald Trump. Other states are also eyeing secession, including Texas, Washington, and Oregon.

As Anti-Media observed shortly after the election:

“People are rioting and protesting over Trump’s win throughout California but celebrating in Alabama, and against the backdrop of an ever-encroaching federal government, it appears these differences are growing difficult to reconcile.”

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With the world (apart from Israel) in uproar over President Trump’s decision to ban immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, Department of Homeland Security official Gillian Christensen just confirmed “[the order] will bar green card holders” also.

Green cards serve as proof of an individual’s permanent legal residence in the U.S.

As The Hill reports, Trump signed an executive action Friday halting the country’s Syrian refugee resettlement program for 120 days and barring people from certain Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the U.S. The administration says the halt in the resettlement program is designed to give it time to tighten the vetting process for refugees. The order also gives Christian refugees priority in the resettlement process.

“If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair, everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians,” Trump said in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network on Friday.

 

“And I thought it was very, very unfair,” he continued. “So we are going to help them.”

While most of the world is in uproar over Trumnp’s decisions to “build the wall” and “ban muslims”, Israel’s Prime Minister was supprtive…

President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea ????????????????

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 28, 2017

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The financial magazine which has made an art out of calling for big, round numbers in the Dow Jones Financial Index (as a reminder over 20% of the Dow’s surge since the election is due entirely to Goldman Sachs), most recently with its “get ready for Dow 20,000” call from just over a month ago, has done it again:

While there are still those – pretty much anyone who still cares about fundamentals – who are scratching their heads at Dow20K, according to Barrons “the Dow hitting 20,000 was no fluke. Today’s stock prices are well supported by solid prospects for corporate earnings and economic growth.” 

In fact, Dow 30,000 is just around the corner… well by 2025. All President Donald Trump has to do, according to Barron’s, is “avoid stumbling into a trade war—or a real war.” Some of the profound insight behind this forecast so reminiscent of the infamous “Dow 36,000” prediction which hit just around the time of the last market bubble.

Clearly, part of the propulsion behind stocks has been the Trump administration and its flurry of business-friendly edicts. If Trump can succeed in reducing regulation and lowering corporate taxes, stocks should surge further this year. An additional 5% or even 10% gain in 2017 wouldn’t be surprising. Our projection of 30,000 by 2025 is based on our analysis of historical data provided by Jeremy Schwartz, director of research at WisdomTree. This data, which looks at stock market returns for rolling five-year periods dating back to 1871, suggest stock market gains will fall below the market’s typical annual gain of 6% after inflation in the next five years before accelerating above the average in the years after that.

Then again, perhaps Dow 30,000, which would require China to inject in at least another $30 trillion in debt in the next decade without somehow hitting the Minsky moment tipping point, is not so certain: it all depends on whether Trump can avoid war, either literal of metaphorical:

“a few of the new administration’s policies pose a serious threat to the economy and stock market. The most evident one last week was the trade spat with Mexico, with the White House at one point floating the idea of a 20% border tax on Mexican goods entering the U.S. If Trump gambits like this were to trigger a trade war, the world economy would suffer. The Dow would have a hard time getting to 30,000 by 2025.”

Alternatively, one can make the argument that a trade, or real war, would guarantee hitting the Dow 30,000 that much quicker: after all, it would force the Fed to resume QE, monetizing not just bonds, but ETFs, equities, and everything else in capital markets in order to preserve confidence in the global financial system.

Ironically, in the same Barron’s edition, we also read a more nuanced take of what Dow 20,000 really means from Randall Forsyth who notes says that “while the Dow is the gauge that regular folks use to keep track of the stock market, a columnist in the Financial Times condescendingly called the attainment of the 20,000 mark last week “fake news.” The flaws in the price-weighted DJIA are known to anyone who cares about such things, but it was the best method available to Charles Dow before the turn of the 20th century. As a result of its modus operandi, David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff, observes that moves in Goldman Sachs Group (ticker: GS) have eight times the impact on the Dow as those in General Electric (GE).

So-called survivorship bias also has benefited the Dow. Since April 2004, Dave found that, if the eight companies that were replaced in the DJIA had been kept on, the blue chips would have been at just 12,885 now. That date, by the way, is the furthest back he could go to find former Dow companies that are still around. In the process, Apple (AAPL) was added in 2015, after a seven-for-one stock split that prevented the tech giant from having an outsize impact on the DJIA. While Rosenberg notes that tech stocks now account for a quarter of the Dow, up from 2% at the peak of the dot-com boom in 1999, the so-called FANG stocks— Facebook (FB), Amazon.com (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL)—wait to be admitted to the blue chips.

 

Not surprisingly, President Donald Trump was more than willing to take credit for the Dow’s hitting 20,000 five days into his administration (arguably more deserved than President Barack Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize months after taking office in 2009)—a reversal of his declaration that the market was in a “fat bubble” last September.

 

To a more dispassionate observer—in this case, Peter Berezin writing in the BCA Research Global Investment Strategy—the shift represented an evolution from undue pessimism about global growth to unbridled optimism.

And, as JPM has warned every single day in the past month, the next step in the market climbing the wall of optimism may be slippery:

The centerpiece of the Trump program—tax cuts and tax reform—can’t be enacted by executive order. That will take approval by Congress. However, the White House has widening rifts with GOP leaders, writes Greg Valliere, chief strategist at Horizon Investments and a four-decade Washington watcher: “Make no mistake—[House Speaker] Paul Ryan and [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell can’t stand Trump, and the feeling is mutual.”

While the Dow has been happy to stay above 20K for the time being, the next step may be determined by the Fed, which is meeting next week with the S&P over 200 points above where Janet Yellen warned sstocks are overvalued. As the Fed chair said in May 2015, “I would highlight that equity market valuations at this point generally are quite high,” Yellen said.

“There are potential dangers there” Yellen said.

And the main one is that Yellen decides to finally pull the rug from under Trump’s market honeymoon. As Forsyth writes, “the FOMC could signal its readiness to raise its fed-funds target at the March 14-15 meeting. The fed-funds futures market puts only a 34.6% probability on a March move, according to Bloomberg’s analysis, instead pricing in the next boost for June and another in September, but not in December. The shock for the markets would be if the central bank actually delivers the three rate increases that it has signaled.”

Trump was quick to take credit for Dow 20,000, and as long as stocks keep rising, nobody will complain or contest. But how will traders and politicians react after the first 5% or 10% correction, the first bear market, and soon thereafter, an economic collapse because without central banks injecting another $14 trillion in liquidity, real economic price discovery will finally happen. With Trump’s tendency to accelerate all timelines, we won’t have long to wait to find the answer.

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Pension Funds represent the retirement accounts for basically 99% of the working class.  Because they don’t have many choices, unlike Ultra High Net Worth Individuals.  Global Pension Assets stand at a staggering $35 Trillion according to Willis Towers Watson:

 

• At the end of 2015, total pension assets were estimated at USD 35.4 trillion, which represents a decrease of 0.5% compared to USD 35.6 trillion at the end of 2014
• Pension assets relative to GDP reached 80% in 2015, which represents a decrease of 4% from the 2014 ratio of 84%
• The largest pension markets are the US, UK and Japan with 62%, 9% and 8% of total pension assets in the study, respectively

 

USD 35.4 Trillion is a lot of assets, no matter how you look at it.  In any systemic analysis we often forget about such huge pools of capital.  Mostly, these assets are sitting in stocks and bonds, some real estate – all traditional.  They don’t invest in alternatives (because of regulatory rules, mostly).  

Well, recently Harvard Management Company, the unit that manages Harvard’s USD 35 Billion endowment, fired half of its staff:

In what may be the most stunning move in the asset management space in years, the WSJ reports that Harvard University’s endowment, which manages just shy of $36 billion, will undergo a “radical overhaul” in the way the world’s wealthiest school invests its money by outsourcing management of most of its assets and lay off roughly half the staff in the process.

According to the WSJ, about half of the 230 employees at Harvard Management Company will leave as part of a sweeping change by the university’s new endowment chief, N.P. “Narv” Narvekar. This means that the endowment will shut down its internal hedge funds and let go traders by the middle of the year. Additionally, the internal team in charge of direct real-estate investments is expected to spin out into an independent entity that Harvard is expected to invest with. Only management of Harvard’s natural resources portfolio and passively managed exchange-traded funds will remain in house.

Is this a sign of things to come?  Well, yeah – Pension Funds like Calpers for example have struggled in recent years… REALLY STRUGGLED.  “Struggled” is an understatement – they lost $30 Billion in 2015.

Many fund managers and traders often scratch their heads at how something can be possible, when there is an apparent sea of consistent strategies offering moderate, if not conservative, returns (like 20% per year.)

But such funds like Harvard and Calpers are rife with politics, and staffed with people that generally don’t understand markets.  Of course there are exceptions – but having a $30 Billion loss without any hedging in place – well, that’s really unprofessional, to say the least.

Of course, once again, who suffers?  It’s not going to be the Pension managers, or the hedge funds they ‘outsourced’ to manage the funds – it’s the beneficiaries – working people.  Retirement plans, pension plans – can blow up.  Or in the best case, as is the case now, they can dwindle down so poorly to the point that retirees get only a fraction of what they are expecting.

There’s really no solution to this problem, except for working people to stand up to their pension managers – which they do from time to time, but the Pension Funds are staffed with a political Chinese Wall of staffers with ‘quick answers’ to shut down their inquiries.  

With the renovations Trump is doing to the system of American Government – is the public pension system next?  Harvard’s move may be a sign of things to come.  And it needs reform, losing $30 Billion like Calpers is at best, shameful.  At worst, illegal.

For a great book to learn about how the markets REALLY work, checkout Splitting Pennies, or see some more great books on the markets here.

To learn how to trade and invest checkout Fortress Capital Trading Academy

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While it is unclear what sparked Donald Trump’s latest anger-filled tweetstorm, it is likely that the president read something in either the NYT or the WaPo which he violently disagreed with, and as a result on Saturday morning, Trump took to Twitter to attack two of the nation’s most prominent liberal newspaper, the New York Times and Washington Post, calling them “Fake News” and “Dishonest.” Furthermore, considering the abnormally high ratio of (so far uncorrected) spelling mistakes to words, Trump must have been particularly agitated.

“The failing @nytimes has been wrong about me from the very beginning. Said I would lose the primaries, then the general election. FAKE NEWS!” Trump tweeted just after 8 a.m. Eastern on Saturday.

“Thr coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost gas been so false and angry that the times actually apologized to its … dwindling subscribers and readers.They got me wrong right from the beginning and still have not changed course, and never will. DISHONEST,”

The failing @nytimes has been wrong about me from the very beginning. Said I would lose the primaries, then the general election. FAKE NEWS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2017

Thr coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost gas been so false and angry that the times actually apologized to its…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2017

…dwindling subscribers and readers.They got me wrong right from the beginning and still have not changed course, and never will. DISHONEST

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2017

Trump has frequently attacked the media as “dishonest”, and in recent weeks has singled out both the Times and Post before, as well as CNN, NBC News, Fox News, BuzzFeed and others. Last week, Trump advisor Steve Bannon told the NYT that “the media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile,” He added, demanding that the NYT quote him, “the media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”

“The elite media got it dead wrong, 100 percent dead wrong,” Bannon said of the election, calling it “a humiliating defeat that they will never wash away, that will always be there.”

Today’s tweets confirm that Trump not only agrees with Bannon’s assessment, but that the vendetta between the White House and the “elite media” isn’t going away any time soon.

Both the NYT and the WaPo have closely covered Trump’s Friday signing of an executive order suspending refugee entry into the U.S. and barring immigration from seven Muslim nations, and the critical tone may have prompted Trump’s latest angry outburst.

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