In what will undoubtedly be viewed as just another attempt to censor dissenting, conservative political views, Reddit has banned three major ‘alt-right’ subreddits, /r/altright, /r/rightyfriends and /r/alternativeright, this evening for allegedly breaching the company’s content policy restricting the sharing of personal, private information. The so-called ‘Alt-right’ group had roughly 16,000 followers and grew in popularity last summer along with the rise of Donald Trump’s political campaign.
While Reddit hasn’t yet issued a formal statement on the ban, the following comments were offered up to The Daily Beast:
“Reddit is the proud home to some of the most authentic conversations online,” a statement provided to The Daily Beast by the company read. “We strive to be a welcoming, open platform for all by trusting our users to maintain an environment that cultivates genuine conversation and adheres to our content policy.”
“We are very clear in our site terms of service that posting of personal information can get users banned from Reddit and we ask our communities not to post content that harasses or invites harassment. We have banned r/altright due to repeated violations of the terms of our content policy. There is no single solution to these issues and we are actively engaging with the Reddit community to improve everyone’s experience.”
A senior moderator of the atlright subreddit, who referred to himself as Bill Simpson, told The Daily Beast that the forum was “banned without notification or justification” and insisted that moderators “enforced stricter standards of behavior than reddit requires.”
“So much for leftist tolerance. Our moderator team enforced stricter standards of behavior than reddit requires, and our users were very prompt at reporting violations so we could ban violators and delete posts and comments that broke the rules,” he added.
Additionally, Simpson claimed that the subreddit was banned because of its recent “record monthly traffic.”
“It’s clear that Reddit banned us because we were becoming very popular and spreading inconvenient truths about who’s ruining our country and robbing our children of a future,” Simpson said.
The announcement of the ban came just days after Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian penned an open letter trashing Trump’s immigration ban, calling it “not only potentially unconstitutional, but deeply un-American.”
After two weeks abroad, I was looking forward to returning to the U.S. this weekend, but as I got off the plane at LAX on Sunday, I wasn’t sure what country I was coming back to.
President Trump’s recent executive order is not only potentially unconstitutional, but deeply un-American. We are a nation of immigrants, after all. In the tech world, we often talk about a startup’s “unfair advantage” that allows it to beat competitors. Welcoming immigrants and refugees has been our country’s unfair advantage, and coming from an immigrant family has been mine as an entrepreneur.
Of course, all of this comes after Reddit CEO, Steve Huffman, admitted two months ago to editing individual posts made by Trump supporters that were critical of him. Per the apology below, Huffman edited posts to redirect criticism away from him and onto the moderators of the “r/the_donald” thread.
Free speech is a wonderful thing, provided it conforms to the prevailing political views of Silicon Valley’s elitist tech billionaires.
For the record, I voted for Donald Trump. Not that I was in love with the guy. It was really a matter of default. On the Oklahoma state ballot, I had the choice of Hillary “Crimes Against Humanity + Here Comes World War III” Clinton, the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Mr. Trump. I chose Trump, a populist, sometimes demagogue and buffoon, but a real outsider who might shake the establishment up.
It is still early, but no one can say that the first two weeks of Trump’s administration have been boring or predictable. He loudly called the outgoing CIA director, John Brennan, a liar and said that the agency’s Russia dossier was all fake news. John F. Kennedy said just as much in private and paid the ultimate price for his honesty. Trump has apparently kept on his own private security services, since getting elected, to avoid the same fate as JFK.
President Trump canceled the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), which was bad for everybody involved, except the transnational corporations who bribed, extorted and blackmailed some Pac Rim countries into signing on. But even America’s corporate owned Senate and Congress were resisting. Why? Because a signatory country gives up its national sovereignty to a corporate picked “international arbitration commission”.
Under the TPP, any company can take any country’s laws to this “unbiased” group of corporate jocks and claim that they are an “infringement on trade”. Think GMOs, agricultural chemicals, cultural and religious laws, subsidies to promote national industries and infrastructure; media and internet regulations; medicine and social security; environmental, worker and civilian safety laws, taxation, and on and on. Once this unelected, corporate board rules against any and all national laws, then the signatory country’s legislature is required to abolish those law and regulations, in the name of “free trade”.
So, Mr. Trump, thank you cancelling this Orwellian, plutocratic, corporatocracy. I can assure you, Baba Beijing wants nothing to do with it. China’s leaders want to govern and help their people, not be tyrannized and humiliated by faceless transnational corporations.
I watched Trump’s inauguration day speech. I also watched Trump’s press conference, with small and medium sized business owners, and in both cases, I was amazed at the similarities between him and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945).
The first observation that really struck me is how much Trump genuinely cares about “the little guy”. It’s not phony. He really does want to help the people in America who have been disenfranchised from having a voice in their destiny, something that has been building up for quite a long time. FDR was just as sincere about helping all the millions of hungry, homeless and jobless Americans, during the Great Depression. The US had to wait eight years after the Great Financial Crash of 2008, also known as the Great Middle Class Gang Bang, for populist Trump to ride to the rescue.
Both presidents came from wealthy backgrounds, with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouths. FDR’s family made its fortune via the organized crime opium cartel in China, 1839-1949. Trump’s father was a big construction, slum lord and real estate tycoon in New York City. He was investigated on numerous occasions for illegal business practices. You don’t succeed in these Big Apple business sectors and not be in the good graces of the Mafia.
Using his patrician family’s name, FDR worked his way up to the top of the American political system, to eventually become president. Donald Trump used his father’s wealth and connections to work his way up the corporate and media ladder, to eventually occupy the White House.
Both men are “rich, fat and happy”, to use the expression, and do not have to make all the sacrifices and take all the risks to run the United States, but both have their principles, ideas and visions for the future (For simplicity, I will use the present tense to compare both presidents, even though they lived generations apart).
Both men want to put Americans back to work again and reignite the country’s industrial potential.
Both men are disgusted with the usurious, rapacious, private Federal Reserve banking system. FDR complained bitterly about the Fed in his private writings and only obliquely so, in public. Trump is more vocal and seems less intimidated by the elite banking families, Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie & Co., the real owners of the United States and Europe. JFK was circumventing the Fed, by having the Treasury Department mint “silver certificate” bills outside the purvey of the Fed banks, another reason he lived a very short life. With his purported private security forces keeping him safe from the CIA, maybe Trump feels just as safe from the agency’s historical deep state partners, the aforementioned oil bankers.
Both men have a strong vision for what ails the country. For FDR, it was the New Deal. For Trump, it is “Put Americans First”.
Both men are despised by the elites. Both men are proud of it too. FDR famously said he welcomed the hatred of Wall Street. Trump has repeatedly threatened and is starting to act on his promise to “drain the swamp in Washington”.
Both men take the choice of Supreme Court justices very seriously and both have a chance to really change the political leanings on the bench. For FDR, it was to make the Supreme Court more liberal. For Trump, it will be to make it more socially conservative. Both believe their choices will be for the betterment of the citizens.
Both men know how relate to their constituencies, the man and woman on the street, the little guy and gal, Joe and Jane Sixpack. FDR ruled the radio waves with his famous “fireside chats”, bucking up the populace to work hard, stay positive and look forward to better times. Trump is a brilliant manager of the media and does not hesitate to take his populist message to his base, via social media, such as Twitter and Facebook. As a result, both presidents’ voters love them and are not hesitant to let everybody know this fact.
Conversely, both presidents have a big chunk of the electorate who despise them. For Trump, it is the wealthy elites and liberals. For FDR, it was these same elites, but the other group was middle America’s conservative and Christian block. So in essence, FDR and Trump have kept the wrath and indignation of the ruling Princes of Power, but have switched sides on Main Street, making a very interesting dynamic, for sure.
Both men talk about keeping America safe from external enemies. FDR ended up getting the US into World War II, ostensibly to do just that. The jury is still out on how aggressive Trump will be in dropping bombs and drones on thousands of innocent Muslims across the planet, in the name of fighting “Islamic terrorism”.
As a result of getting into World War II, FDR greatly increased the size and technology of the US military. Trump says he too, wants to greatly expand the military budget, and make it “unbeatable”.
Both presidents believe in Keynesian deficit spending, to boost the economy. FDR greatly expanded government programs to help the downtrodden, as well as turn the US into a war economy, with World War II. Trump wants to spend lavishly on the military and dramatically lower business taxes, just like a country at war, while going into even deeper debt than the already official $20 trillion void Americans are on the hook for.
Both FDR and Trump want to work with Russia. Roosevelt and Soviet leader Josef Stalin had a good working relationship together. Trump is signaling his desire to work on the positive side of the ledger, with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In part due to his family’s historical role of “working” in China (in fact, selling illegal drugs), FDR had a fancy for this country. In his own way, he strived to make China a part of the postwar Western world order, but with all the historical colonialist, imperialist baggage in tow, he was doomed to fail. This is why a guy by the name of Mao Zedong came along with a better idea for his people. Trump has been all over the place with China, saying he wants to “cut a deal” with President Xi Jinping, while raising tariffs 45% across the board, but mixing in Taiwan and threatening to upturn the “One China Policy”, which if pushed to the extreme, could cause World War III. Here’s to hoping that Trump takes a fancy to the People’s Republic, like Roosevelt, but without all the “Great Game” imperial megalomania and cupidity.
These amazing corollaries between Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Donald Trump will surely grow, as Trump’s presidency takes root. It’s going to be an interesting next four to eight years, indeed. And dare I say, like my grandparents did during the 1930s, that it’s a time for hope?
One week ago, yields on the Japanese 10Y JGB tumbled when the BOJ relented, and succumbed to market demands to expand its debt monetization, when it increased the size of its daily bond purchase operation, or POMO in NY Fed parlance, in the 5-10 year zone from JPY410BN to JPY450BN, which sent yields tumbling as market participants assumed the BOJ would chase every uptick in yields with progressively greater bond purchases. The day before, on January 25, the BOJ upset market expectations as it held off on the purchase of JGBs with maturities of more 1-3 three years and 3-5 years. Two days later, however, it increased the purchase of JGBs with maturities in the 5-10 year zone by 40 billion yen from the previously known amount, to 450 billion yen.
The unexpected moves aroused speculation as to whether the BOJ is preparing to taper its quantitative easing program. With market participants split in their views on the BOJ’s stance on monetary easing, yields on JGBs fluctuated wildly.
Fast forward to Friday, when on the previous day the 10Y JGB blew out to 0.10%, the highest yield since the JGB unviled NIRP one year ago, and prompted a fresh round of speculation whether the BOJ would again increase the amount of debt it purchased. It did not, and as a result Japan’s 10-year yield surged as traders judged the central bank’s expanded bond purchases Friday to be insufficient to cap borrowing costs as global rates continued rising and steepening around the globe.
The yield rose as much as 4 bps to 0.15%, the highest since January of 2016. What is surprising is that the BOJ did increase purchases for bonds due in 5-to-10 years to 450 billion yen ($4 billion), from 410 billion yen planned for the first operation this month, according to a statement from the central bank. However, since 450 billion is what the BOJ did last week, the market was clearly hoping for even more.
“It’s not enough,” said Simon Pianfetti, a senior manager in the market solutions department at SMBC Trust Bank Ltd. in Tokyo and added that “the market will test the BOJ further.”
BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda faces the challenge of seeking to hold down borrowing costs just as accelerating inflation and an improving outlook for some of the world’s biggest economies push up bond yields globally. Kuroda on Tuesday recommitted to his yield-curve control strategy, while pledging to cap bond purchases at 80 trillion yen per year.
As a reminder, the BOJ has committed to “curve control”, meaning it needs to adjust its bond purchases to account for any divergence in the 10Y away from 0%, which means the higher the yield, the more the BOJ needs to purchase. Which is why on days like today, when the BOJ disappoints, the reaction can be so violent, and not only in bonds, but also in the Yen, which jumped by 40 pips since the BOJ’s disappointing announcement, and the USDJPY sliding from 112.95 to 112.55.
And sure enough, with the BOJ leaving markets on edge, skeptical analysts promptly emerged, wondering if the BOJ is finally throwing in the towel and is preparing to join the ECB in tapering its bond purchases next:
SMBC Trust Bank
The increase was not enough
The market will test the BOJ further
Nomura (Peter Dragicevich, FX strategist)
Market looks to have been looking for a broader spectrum of purchase increases to reaffirm BOJ’s commitment
Market continues to test BOJ’s resolve with 10-year yields up a couple more basis points
But as BOJ minutes from December policy meeting noted this morning, some board members have called for flexibility in meeting the target
BOJ has shown its willingness to contain rise in yields but seems to have failed to communicate well with markets
There were some expectations that BOJ would boost purchase amount more or may buy super-long-term bonds
With none of these expectations met, there is speculation BOJ isn’t serious about stopping rise in yields
The central bank may also be taking into account impact of its bond operations on the currency
Barclays (Naoya Oshikubo, rates strategist)
People expected BOJ to buy more, even in the zone of more than 10 years
The disappointing outcome accelerated the selloff in bonds
Should the 10Y yield continue to rise and fail to engender an appropriate response from the central bank, that would suggest that Kuroda is indeed tapering, and the time to aggressively sell the USDJPY has arrived.
As investors and traders, if we want to be good at what we do, we need to be objective. We can’t get emotional. We all know this, but – it’s not easy! Humans are emotional creatures and that’s why we trade algorithmic systems. We want to make money, and not have huge losses. The best methods that everyone agrees with – mostly – is the scientific method. This includes simple deductive logic and reasoning. “Belief” is not profitable in the markets. “Hope” is not a successful strategy. However, these themes pervade our culture, and especially our politics. Why? Because as we’ve explained in many previous articles, by using the other side of the brain, it’s possible for advertisements to affect consumers that wouldn’t work if only the rational side was applied to. This doesn’t work so well in markets.
Suddenly, markets became politicized. How’s that? The Trump Call – as some are calling it. It’s the opposite of the Bernanke Put. Trump is Tweeting and markets are moving. Something like this simply never existed before! For better or worse, Trump has a real time effect on markets that have already destabilized many models. So, many perceive this as to be ‘political’ when in fact, it’s not. Trump is an effect on the markets. We’re not talking about Trump. We’re talking about a phenomenon. The phenomenon itself, should be studied. Trump could be a robot for the sake of argument. It is irrelevant – what’s relevant, is how Trump is impacting the markets, which has put many investors in a state of confusion.
In FX, it’s important to understand politics deeply, especially in Emerging Markets. In FX, it’s important to understand the relationship the CIA has to client states, for example, insofar as it can impact the currency, or destroy it. Because politics can influence Fed policy, although in Western countries it is not admitted – in foreign markets, they advertise it. Especially in highly controlled regimes, dictatorships, they love to create hyperinflation as a means to acheive their domestic goals. This means, greatly devaluing the currency. Or, maybe they do it accidentally because of too much printing of their currency. Either way – politics drives FX. So FX traders have to be political experts, but not political. That means, being objective, and understanding how politics can influence FX. For a deeper understanding of this relationship checkout Splitting Pennies – Understanding Forex.For a broader political background of how the CIA operates overseas economically (for profit) see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
Stock traders, in the US at least – are not impacted by politics. They need only to watch conference calls, earnings reports, securities class action cases, and many other factors – but politics for equities and most US markets is largely irrelevant. So here’s the moment when America becomes confused about Trump’s impact on the markets. It’s important to think like an FX trader – and look at the phenomenon, and not the person. Objectively, how do we know that Trump is in the White House, and not in a bunker in Colorado? We don’t – there’s a number of technologies that exist most simply re-creating a studio of the Oval Office in any number of locations in the world or in a deep underground military base. Probably, he’s in the White House, but the point is – don’t be political when it comes to investing, don’t have beliefs – have evidence! Test hypothesis! Search FACTS!
Here’s a great resource, it’s called Rational Wiki – for the logical thinker. Here’s a list of Cognitive Biases, to be aware of. By reading about it, it will help us be more objective, and ultimately, better investors and better traders:
Decision-making and behavioral biases
Many of these biases are studied for how they affect belief formation and business decisions and scientific research.
Bandwagon effect — the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink, crowd psychology, herd behaviour, and manias.
Bias blind spot — the tendency not to compensate for one’s own cognitive biases.
Choice-supportive bias — the tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were.
Confirmation bias — the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.
Congruence bias — the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, in contrast to tests of possible alternative hypotheses.
Contrast effect — the enhancement or diminishment of a weight or other measurement when compared with recently observed contrasting object.
Déformation professionnelle — the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one’s own profession, forgetting any broader point of view.
Endowment effect — “the fact that people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it”.[2]
Exposure-suspicion bias — a knowledge of a subject’s disease in a medical study may influence the search for causes.
Extreme aversion — most people will go to great lengths to avoid extremes. People are more likely to choose an option if it is the intermediate choice.
Focusing effect — prediction bias occurring when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.
Framing — drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented.
Hyperbolic discounting — the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, the closer to the present both payoffs are.
Illusion of control — the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot.
Impact bias — the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.
Information bias — the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
Irrational escalation — the tendency to make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken.
Loss aversion — “the disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it”.[3] (see also sunk cost effects and Endowment effect).
Neglect of probability — the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.
Mere exposure effect — the tendency for people to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them.
Obsequiousness bias — the tendency to systematically alter responses in the direction they perceive desired by the investigator.
Omission bias — the tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).
Outcome bias — the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.
Planning fallacy — the tendency to underestimate task-completion times. Also formulated as Hofstadter’s Law: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.”
Post-purchase rationalization — the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.
Pseudocertainty effect — the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.
Reactance — the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.
Selective perception — the tendency for expectations to affect perception.
Status quo bias — the tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same (see also Loss aversion and Endowment effect).[4]
Survivorship bias — a form of selection bias focusing on what has survived to the present and ignoring what must have been lost.
Unacceptability bias — questions that may embarrass or invade privacy are refused or evaded.
Unit bias — the tendency to want to finish a given unit of a task or an item with strong effects on the consumption of food in particular
Von Restorff effect — the tendency for an item that “stands out like a sore thumb” to be more likely to be remembered than other items.
Zero-risk bias — the preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk. It is relevant e.g. to the allocation of public health resources and the debate about nuclear power.
Many of these biases are often studied for how they affect business and economic decisions and how they affect experimental research.
Ambiguity effect — the avoidance of options for which missing information makes the probability seem “unknown”.
Anchoring — the tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor,” on a past reference or on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.
Anthropic bias — the tendency for one’s evidence to be biased by observation selection effects.
Attentional bias — neglect of relevant data when making judgments of a correlation or association.
Availability heuristic — a biased prediction, due to the tendency to focus on the most salient and emotionally-charged outcome.
Clustering illusion — the tendency to see patterns where actually none exist.
Conjunction fallacy — the tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general ones.
Frequency illusion — the phenomenon in which people who just learn or notice something start seeing it everywhere. Also known as the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.[5]
Gambler’s fallacy — the tendency to assume that individual random events are influenced by previous random events. For example, “I’ve flipped heads with this coin five times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixth flip is much greater than heads.”
Hindsight bias — sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect: the inclination to see past events as being predictable, based on knowledge of later events.
Hostile media effect — the tendency to perceive news coverage as biased against your position on an issue.
Illusory correlation — beliefs that inaccurately suppose a relationship between a certain type of action and an effect.
Ludic fallacy — the analysis of chance related problems with the narrow frame of games. Ignoring the complexity of reality, and the non-gaussian distribution of many things.
Neglect of prior base rates effect — the tendency to fail to incorporate prior known probabilities which are pertinent to the decision at hand.
Observer-expectancy effect — when a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it (see also subject-expectancy effect).
Optimism bias — the systematic tendency to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions. Found to be linked to the “left inferior frontal gyrus” section of the brain, and disrupting this section of the brain removes the bias. Article summarising this finding
Positive outcome bias — a tendency in prediction to overestimate the probability of good things happening to them (see also wishful thinking, optimism bias and valence effect).
Primacy effect — the tendency to weigh initial events more than subsequent events.
Recency effect — the tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events (see also ‘peak-end rule’).
Reminiscence bump — the effect that people tend to recall more personal events from adolescence and early adulthood than from other lifetime periods.
Rosy retrospection — the tendency to rate past events more positively than they had actually rated them when the event occurred.
Subadditivity effect — the tendency to judge probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts.
Telescoping effect — the effect that recent events appear to have occurred more remotely and remote events appear to have occurred more recently.
Texas sharpshooter fallacy — the fallacy of selecting or adjusting a hypothesis after the data are collected, making it impossible to test the hypothesis fairly.
Most of these biases are labeled as attributional biases.
Actor-observer bias — the tendency for explanations for other individual’s behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation. This is coupled with the opposite tendency for the self in that one’s explanations for their own behaviors overemphasize their situation and underemphasize the influence of their personality. (see also fundamental attribution error).
Dunning-Kruger effect — “…when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, …they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine.”[6] (See also the Lake Wobegon effect, and overconfidence effect).
Egocentric bias — occurs when people claim more responsibility for themselves for the results of a joint action than an outside observer would.
Forer effect (aka Barnum Effect) — the tendency to give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. For example, horoscopes.
False consensus effect — the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.
Fundamental attribution error — the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior (see also actor-observer bias, group attribution error, positivity effect, and negativity effect).
Halo effect — the tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to “spill over” from one area of their personality to another in others’ perceptions of them (see also physical attractiveness stereotype).
Herd instinct — a common tendency to adopt the opinions and follow the behaviors of the majority to feel safer and to avoid conflict.
Illusion of asymmetric insight — people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers’ knowledge of them.
Illusion of transparency — people overestimate others’ ability to know them, and they also overestimate their ability to know others.
Ingroup bias — the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups.
Just-world phenomenon — the tendency for people to believe that the world is “just” and therefore people “get what they deserve.”
Lake Wobegon effect — the human tendency to report flattering beliefs about oneself and believe that one is above average (see also worse-than-average effect, and overconfidence effect).
Notational bias — a form of cultural bias in which a notation induces the appearance of a nonexistent natural law.
Outgroup homogeneity bias — individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups.
Projection bias — the tendency to unconsciously assume that others share the same or similar thoughts, beliefs, values, or positions.
Self-serving bias — the tendency to attribute successes to internal characteristics while blaming failures on outside forces. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests (see also group-serving bias).
Modesty bias — The tendency to blame failures on oneself while attributing successes to situational factors. Opposite of self-serving bias.
Self-fulfilling prophecy — the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or subconsciously) confirm our beliefs.
System justification — the tendency to defend and bolster the status quo, i.e. existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.
Trait ascription bias — the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while viewing others as much more predictable.
Ultimate attribution error — A sub-type of the fundamental attribution error above, the ultimate attribution error occurs when negative behavior in one’s own group is explained away as circumstantial, but negative behavior among outsiders is believed to be evidence of flaws in character.
Beneffectance — perceiving oneself as responsible for desirable outcomes but not responsible for undesirable ones. (Term coined by Greenwald (1980))
Consistency bias — incorrectly remembering one’s past attitudes and behaviour as resembling present attitudes and behaviour.
Cryptomnesia — a form of misattribution where a memory is mistaken for imagination.
Egocentric bias — recalling the past in a self-serving manner, e.g. remembering one’s exam grades as being better than they were, or remembering a caught fish as being bigger than it was
Confabulation or false memory — Remembering something that never actually happened.
Hindsight bias — filtering memory of past events through present knowledge, so that those events look more predictable than they actually were; also known as the ‘I-knew-it-all-along effect’.
India has been the world’s favorite country for the last three years. It is believed to have superseded China as the world’s fastest growing large economy. India is expected to grow at 7.5%. Compare that to the mere 6.3% growth that China has “fallen” to.
India’s quarterly annualized GDP growth rate since 2008, according to MOSPI (statistics ministry) – click to enlarge.
The IMF, the World Bank, and the international media have celebrated this event. Declining commodity prices and other problems in Russia, Brazil and South Africa have damaged the prospects of the BRICs (ex-India) and other emerging markets.
Commodity and currency markets have been very turbulent, and the Arab Spring has not only failed to keep up its pace, it has half-destroyed the Middle East, with fires raging in Syria, Turkey, Libya, etc. Migrant problems in Europe and the uncertain future of the US — as per the current narrative — leave India as the prime candidate to prop up global economic growth.
It seems to be deeply emotionally satisfying to finally see the world’s largest democracy supersede the “communist dictatorship” of China. India’s GDP has also just surpassed that of the UK, its former colonial master. The world is looking toward India as a beacon for the future of humanity. Again, that seems to be the narrative.
A WSJ video report on India as the world’s fastest-growing economy
Is India the World’s Next Superpower?
Everything cited above is plain wrong and falsifiable by using primary school mathematics. It is little but rationalization for what seems to be emotionally gratifying.
China’s GDP is USD 11.4 trillion (2016; IMF). India’s GDP is USD 2.25 trillion (2016; IMF). These economies are in no way comparable. The Chinese economy is more than 5 times larger. China’s GDP per capita stands at USD 8,260 and that of India at USD 1,718. China’s population (1.37 billion) and the population of India (1.34 billion) are comparable — but China is five times richer on a per capita basis.
China’s GDP growth rate has declined from its previous torrid pace – but what does this really mean by comparison? – click to enlarge.
Based on these figures, India will add USD 129 in economic output on a per capita basis if it grows at a pace of 7.5%. Similarly, if China grows by 6.3%, its output will increase by USD 520 per capita.
Those who say that India is home to the world’s largest economic growth have not even done primary school math on the situation. India actually needs to grow at more than 30% to outpace China in absolute terms per capita.
It helps to play around with the numbers cited above to understand how erroneous expectations have been. If one assumes that India continues to grow at a rate of 7.5%, and China at a rate of 6.3% from here on out, it will take 127 years before India’s per capita growth will actually begin to exceed China’s.
The problem is that many people confuse “rate of growth” with actual “growth.” They blithely assume that a higher growth rate means greater growth. They assume that a decline in the growth rate is a decline in growth. Perhaps people simply see what they want to see as a result of their ideological preferences.
China and India, history of real GDP expansion since 1980
In the early 1980s, India was richer on a per capita basis than China — India’s population was much smaller than China’s, but its GDP was of similar size.
If one pores over statements released by international institutions and media reports published over the past 36 years, it was consistently claimed that while India would be slow in getting to this point, it would eventually outpace China.
Not only did this not happen, but as demonstrated above, by now it looks as though it will be virtually impossible for India to outpace China. One should pause to reflect on why so many have been so consistently wrong about India.
The Sacred Cow of Democracy
One of the major reasons why the West, its institutions and the upper and middle classes prefer India over China is that India follows the western religion of democracy. They refuse to see that democracy tends not to work in poor countries (it is debatable whether it worked in the West).
One could well say that by the time democracy was introduced in the West, particularly in its present form in which everyone has the right to vote, the West had already reached its intellectual peak.
A painting purporting to show the assembly of ancient Athens. The city-state became democratic around 500 BC – it was the first known experiment in democracy. However, only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training had the right to vote. Slaves, freed slaves, children, women and foreigners residents were excluded.
The history of democracy’s achievements in the non-western world is particularly bad. Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia and most of South America are riddled with countries that embraced democracy and almost immediately took a turn for the worse. In fact, I cannot think of a single country in these regions that improved after adopting democracy. Nepal, East Timor, and PNG are vivid recent examples.
Non-western countries which have performed better in terms of economic growth and social indexes improved during time periods in which they were for all practical purposes not democratic. To name a few: Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore, British and now Chinese Hong Kong, Park Chung-hee’s South Korea, Pinochet’s Chile, and Chiang’s Taiwan.
In India democracy never worked, but who need facts when emotions need to be satisfied? If Africa were a country, India would be worse off in terms of virtually every economic and social index on per capita basis. As a proportion of India’s population, the country’s people are among the world’s poorest, most diseased, wretched and malnourished.
48% of Indians don’t even have access to toilets. Similar percentages of India’s population live without electricity, water and other basic amenities. To put this number into perspective again: at a per capita GDP of USD 1,718, India is poorer than Sudan, the Republic of Congo, Laos, Papua New Guinea and many other countries not exactly known for their great wealth.
It is often claimed that India has the largest English speaking population outside the western world. This was true in the past, but it is likely no longer true. China has brought in a large number of native speakers from Canada, the UK and the US to teach English to its students. It seems very likely that there are now more English speakers in China than there are in India – and they speak better English.
Population growth and demographics of India incl. projection
India certainly appears to be in an advantageous position in terms of demographics. While China’s society is aging and the number of young people is declining, more than 50% of Indians are below the age of 29. Alas, this is likely to turn into a liability, as the vast majority of them are unskilled and incapable of participating in the modern economy.
There is a net increase of 12 million Indians joining the workforce every year, but India continues to exhibit job-less growth. While their expectations are increasing — for they all watch American TV — they lack wealth-generating capabilities. As a result, crime is on the rise.
India’s institutions are often highlighted as the reason for the country’s superiority over China or other non-democratic systems. The reality is that in the last 70 years, Indians have systematically destroyed the institutions left by the British. Today’s judiciary, legislature and executive are not comparable.
Today none of these institutions are run for the benefit of the country’s citizens. They operate for the glorification of the State, in which citizens are mere cogs. These institutions have mutated on account of India’s underlying tribalism totalitarian tendencies.
Unless one is a criminal, one doesn’t visit a police station in India. The tyranny of the police, up to and including killing innocent people in fake encounters, has a long history. Court cases can drag on for decades. Regulations and laws are mere pieces of paper, with decisions sold to the largest bidder.
It is virtually impossible to get anything done in India without a bribe. Worse, people must grovel and humiliate themselves in front of public servants to get what is rightfully theirs.
Readers will do themselves a service by challenging themselves to find out whether democracy really has any connection with improved governance, stronger institutions of liberty, or faster economic growth.
India’s Problems Have Deep Roots
India is an extremely irrational, superstitious, and tribal country. The concept of reason is mainly conspicuous by its absence in much of India. India was long associated with Britain and has imported western institutions, ways of living, technology, etc., over the last 200-300 years, but has failed to import the concept of reason.
The same could be said for Africa, the Middle East, rest of South Asia and most of South America. But we will stick with India here. Without the concept of reason, people can have no understanding of the rule of law, of fairness, or simply of what is right or wrong.
They can only think in terms of might is right, street-smartness and political connections. Such a society cannot have any understanding of the principles of the ten commandments, or have respect for the individual and liberty.
Assimilating the concept of reason hasn’t happened in the last 200-300 years. In Europe it took about 2,000 years after it was discovered by Greco-Roman philosophers. Could it take another millennium or more before India’s society will be able to assimilate the concept of reason?
In the last three decades, India’s economy has grown, but most of this growth can be attributed to significantly improved access to the western world and its technology through the new medium of internet and cheap telephony. The low-hanging fruit from this have been plucked and India is starting to show signs of stagnation.
While India grew economically, government grew at an even faster rate. People and corporations took on debt faster than they could repay it. They imported the lifestyle and a generous helping of consumerism from the West, mostly its entertainment aspects. Reason fell by the wayside.
All evidence indicates that Indians were actually disincentivized from developing critical thinking, creativity and reasoning skills. Why bother when one could become rich without them?
Indian manufacturing plants or offices, including those in the private sector are chaotic, wasteful and incapable of planning and following a system as a result. Labor costs appear cheap, but India’s chaos ensures low productivity.
Given a chance, Indian companies prefer to move their factories to China. Indian cities and villages are packed with Chinese good, even very basic ones. The way Indians drive mirrors how Indian manufacturing and service industries operate:
Indian motorists in action
What Will India’s Future be Like?
It shouldn’t be too difficult to abandon the idea that India will be the next China. India’s much-celebrated growth of 7.5% is too low to make any real impact on the world economy. But even this is under massive threat, once considers the country’s institutional and cultural problems.
As mentioned earlier, the low-hanging fruit from importing western technology have been plucked by now. India has failed to cultivate critical thinking and hence the ability to develop its own technology.
India has been a massive beneficiary of the fall in oil price, as oil is by far its biggest import. This was a one-off gain, a benefit for growth that will trail off again. Indian exports are already showing signs of strain and are falling, partly losing out to other countries which continue to improve their competitiveness, such as China and the Philippines.
Growth in Indian exports has turned negative in early 2015 – click to enlarge.
Members of India’s middle class have become remarkably arrogant, thinking that there must be something special about them that made them so much richer, but they were merely lucky beneficiaries of western technology. This arrogance has boosted nationalism, which is spreading like wildfire.
In a society lacking in rationality, nationalism is not perceived to be about human values but is a mere geographical, tribal concept. Hindutava (Hindu-nationalism) has been on the rise. The BJP, the party representing this ideology, has come to power two and half years ago, with Narendra Modi as the prime minister.
Under Modi’s reign, as the institutions which the British left continue to get destroyed, liberties are falling, taxes are going up without any improvements in public service, and the regulatory burden has increased significantly. The country is getting increasingly centralized as well, and brought under Modi’s command. He believes he has to do more of all these things to ensure India remains on a path to growth. This is a recipe for disaster.
On 8th November 2016, Modi announced a ban on banknotes affecting 86% of the monetary value of currency in circulation. This has been another example of his dictatorial policies, as the decision was not even discussed by his own cabinet. Even the central bank did not know about the ban until the very last moment.
Readers should reflect on the fact that Modi took a decision crippling the economy by robbing it of its life-blood, depriving people of the medium of exchange they needed for performing transactions, without worrying in the least about checks and balances.
Conclusion
It should be easy to see that India is not the next China. There is no point in holding out much hope for India. Rather, it is ever easier to conclude that it is on the way to becoming the next banana republic, similar to neighboring countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar or Nepal.
Intellectuals should engage in some self-reflection on why they have been consistently wrong about India. It is China that exhibits continued economic and social growth. China keeps coming out with innovative products. In China’s book shops one can find Chinese translations of many of the best foreign books. I’m worried that India could rapidly become a backwater by comparison.
The House continued to dismantle Obama’s legacy one item at a time, when on Thursday it struck down regulations that blocked gun ownership by some who have been deemed mentally impaired by the Social Security Administration.
The House voted 235-180 along party lines Thursday to repeal an Obama-era rule requiring the Social Security Administration to send records of some beneficiaries to the federal firearms background check system after they’ve been deemed mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs. The database is used to determine eligibility for buying a firearm.
The rule, when implemented, would affect about 75,000 recipients of disability insurance and supplemental insurance income who require a representative to manage their benefits because of a disabling mental disorder, ranging from anxiety to schizophrenia. It applies to those between age 18 and full retirement age. Critics said the rule stripped Second Amendment rights from people who are not dangerously mentally ill, such as those who have eating disorders or mental disorders that prevent them from managing their own finances.
“This is a slap in the face for those in the disabled community because it paints all those who suffer from mental disorders with the same broad brush,” said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. “It assumes that simply because an individual suffers from a mental condition, that individual is unfit to exercise his or her Second Amendment rights.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called the Social Security regulation “reckless, overly broad and an affront to the Second Amendment rights of people with disabilities.” He introduced an identical resolution to reverse it in the Senate on Thursday with 25 Republican co-sponsors, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
“Whenever the government acts to limit the fundamental constitutional rights of citizens, it must do so carefully, lawfully and in a way that doesn’t unduly impact law-abiding Americans,” Grassley said in a statement.
The rule, which took effect Jan. 18 and sets a December compliance date, requires the agency to notify individuals of their possible prohibition from possessing or receiving firearms and their rights to appeal.
The National Rifle Association opposed the rule. While the group says it supports keeping guns away from the mentally ill, it said the determination about who is mentally ill should be left to the courts. “The Obama administration’s last minute, back-door gun grab would have stripped law-abiding Americans of their Second Amendment rights without due process,” said Chris Cox, the NRA’s top lobbyist.
Supporters of the rule said the step was necessary to keep guns away from people with mental disorders like schizophrenia and severe anxiety. Democrats agreed the government must not stigmatize those with disabilities but said this rule affects a small group with severe, long-term mental disorders preventing them from doing any work. Passage of the resolution puts others at risk, they said.
“These are not just people having a bad day,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif. “These are not people simply suffering from depression or anxiety. These are people with a severe mental illness who can’t hold any kind of job or make any decisions about their affairs. So the law says very clearly they shouldn’t have a firearm.”
According to The Hill, Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) accused Republicans of weakening the background check system. “The House charged ahead with an extreme, hastily written, one-sided measure that would make the American people less safe,” she said. The Social Security Administration rule would have reported the disability recipients with severe mental disorders to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. House Republicans turned to the Congressional Review Act to overturn the regulation. The law allows lawmakers to roll back rules they disapprove of. Critically for Republicans, the resolutions cannot be filibustered in the Senate.
The regulation is among a host that Republicans aim to repeal under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to dismiss an outgoing administration’s recently enacted regulations. It requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate.
Earlier Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said House efforts to block five Obama regulations by the end of this week are “just the start.” The House has also voted to overturn a rule to protect streams from coal mining debris, a rule requiring federal contractors to disclose labor and worker safety violations, and another rule requiring oil, gas and minerals companies to disclose payments to foreign governments. “In the weeks ahead, we will act on more resolutions to deliver relief from excessive regulations,” Ryan said. “When you think about the fact that the Obama administration was issuing major regulations at a rate of one every three days, this is real sea change.”
Appeals Court Overturns Dismissal in JP Morgan Silver Rigging Case
US Appeals Court overturns Dismissal in Silver Rigging Case against JPMorgan.
The Appeals court rejected Judge Engelmeyer’s claim that the plaintiffs did not prove JPMorgan made “uneconomic bids” in the silver forward’s markets.
New discovery may win the case against JPMorgan
Summary
Via Soren K. and MarketSlant | The New York 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that District Court Judge Engelmayer was in error when he dismissed the Silver price rigging lawsuits against JP Morgan. The appellate court felt that Engelmayer’s dismissal reasons amounted to “impermissible fact finding” and placed too high of a bar in concluding that plaintiffs had not adequately plead their case.
This reversal of the June, 2016 dismissal means the case will go back to the district court for further litigation. This also means the plaintiffs will ask for and receive more discovery. This can win the case for them.
The Lawsuit Was Dismissed in June,2016: JPMorgan Chase & Co had won the dismissal of three private antitrust lawsuits, including from hedge fund manager Daniel Shak, accusing the largest U.S. bank of rigging a market for silver futures contracts traded on COMEX.The lawsuits accused JPMorgan of having in late 2010 and early 2011 placed artificial bids onto the trading floor, harangued employees at metals market COMEX to obtain prices it wanted, and made misrepresentations to a committee that set settlement prices. Our report from June 30th, here.
Why it Was Dismissed in June: U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan, however, said the plaintiffs, who also included traders Mark Grumet and Thomas Wacker, did not show that JPMorgan made "uneconomic" bids, or intended to rig the market at counterparties' expense. He also questioned the plaintiffs' use of Silver Indicative Forward Mid Rates ("SIFO") as a benchmark for determining proper levels for the spreads in their lawsuits.
In fact on April 21st, 2016 JP Morgan urged the judge quash the litigation. JPMorgan insisted allegations that the bank monopolized the market were too vague to support antitrust claims. They urged the judge to raise the bar for the plaintiffs' burden of proof.
The Appeals Court Overturns the Dismissal Yesterday: The appellate court held that the plaintiffs did in fact submitted evidence that did in fact reach a level warranting further investigation. Therefore, the case should not have been dismissed.
In quoting the law, the 3 judges stated:
A plaintiff need only allege enough facts ‘to raise a right to relief above the speculative level,’ and ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’
They stated that Judge Enlgemayer’s requirements for such specifics were too high to reach, describing the proof bar being raised to “a level of detail not required to withstand a motion to dismiss”
In essence what Judge Engelmeyer asked of the plaintiffs was impossible to ascertain in those proceedings.
Specifically: “Fact-specific questions cannot be resolved on the pleadings.”
Can JP Morgan Monopolize Silver? Yes
The appellate court noted that the plaintiffs' allegation of JP Morgan’s ability to control silver futures prices with reference to a particular market was proven correct. Thus,
"The District Court did not err in concluding that the Plaintiffs plausibly alleged a relevant market.”
This means that the plaintiffs showed plausibility that JP Morgan could control the far end of the Silver futures term structure via non-competitive bids.To traders, that means the JPM client who had to sell back month was faded way too low. [EDIT- And when one looks at the term structure from then, it is obvious that no true physical demand was in evidence based on the spot contango.- Vince Lanci]
Did JP Morgan Monopolize Silver? To be Determined
The Appeals court did not say they believed JP Morgan exercised such ability to monopolize the Silver market. But the statement that they noted the power to do so was proven in the first hearing is significant in that it agrees with the District court’s findings.
Now What?
The appellate court says the plaintiffs made a sufficient enough case for further investigation into a monopoly claim
The findings of the appellate court will accompany the case file
Judge Engelmeyer’s decision is removed and the case is remanded for further litigation and discovery
MarketSlant's Analysis post the decision in June, 2016
SIFO IS KEY
Given the (lawsuits') failure both to explain why SIFO should track silver futures spreads, and to concretely plead that it did so consistently, a mere general correlation between these two is not sufficient to make SIFO a reliable benchmark such that deviations from it support a claim of irrational pricing animated by anticompetitive aims," Engelmayer wrote.
Analysis: a poor job was done explaining the role of SIFO in spread pricing.
SIFO represents the spread between expirations of FORWARD physical contracts in silver. The futures spread markets are derivative of the SIFO spreads. SIFO represents the cost-of-carry for physical silver and is used in determining lease/borrow rates over periods of time. These are in-turn extrapolated and the dominant factor in determining futures spreads on COMEX. Comex spreads are a direct function of SIFO. Without SIFO there are no spreads. And since SIFO was a much bigger market than the Comex spread market. The pricing mechanism was not fully transaparent. It was in the hands of a few dominant cartel-like players, as it had been for 30 years.
Analysis: The demand was fabricated
The market was only partially backwardated. Spot was below the next 6 expirations. Translation: there was no massive demand for immediate delivery. There was only demand in months where the last remaining floor traders who took risk trading their own money had positions. JPM's own book was likely short and had to get liquidity to cover their own positions. We knew Shak from our floor days, and were trading spreads off floor when this happened. They should not have lost this case. Comex traders do not trade spot. Spot was under the backwardation. Smoking gun? No, but damning circumstantial evidence in the least.
Bottom Line on the Trade
What most likely really happened then was a silver miner had to hedge forward and cover up front. JPM likely had this client cornered and faded their back month bids. The miner, having no where else he could go, hit them OTC, when they were much better bid on the floor. The floor locals were un over. Meanwhile no otehr Bullion dealer was involved on either end of the trade. ifthis is true, think about the lock down JPM had with that client. Once SIFO and COMEX spreads are proven to be linked, the case will be made.
Blythe Did a Mini Buffet to a Client
How come in 1997 when Warren Buffet, who actually stood for delivery, the market did not rally until AFTER the spreads backwardated all the way to spot? Yet in 2011, the market had rallied already, and all of a sudden spreads (literally overnight during asian and london hours) went into backwardation? In a real market, the spread activity predicts the physical demand before the flat price does. You see the spot price start to act squirrelly to the front month future in the EFP. There are exceptions to this. But it is rare.
This trader also remembers that in 1997, Buffet was asked by the Govt to defer his request for delivery a year. He happily complied by selling spot and rolling out to a 1 year future. Payout? He netted an ROR of 40% due to negative carry without selling. Effectively he lent the producers their silver back to them ($7.40) at a premium of approximately 40% higher than his cost ($4.50). So Blythe did a "mini" Buffet, that's all.
Why wasn't that opportunity afforded SHAK and other locals? Does that have to be answered beyond this: In Mr. Buffet's case "the integrity of the market was at stake"( Hunt Brother's anyone?). The whole Silver mining industry was in jeopardy. (TBTF). But in Shak v.JPM only locals got burned. I'm sure each one of my arguments for manipulation can be taken apart by some lawyer or expert. But that is what they do. Facts against them? Argue the Law. Law against them? Argue the facts. Both against them? Use ad hominum attacks to shoot the messenger.
Happy Groundhog day! Instead of writing about yet another macro economic topic, I am going to break with tradition, and just present what I think could be the best looking chart in the whole world.
Without further ado, I present Cotton:
And in case you think you might have missed the move, scale back and have a look at the longer term picture:
I know just enough about the fundamentals of various “soft commodities” to get myself into some serious trouble. I won’t insult you with any sort of attempt to explain the recent price action. I don’t have a clue, but it sure seems bullish.
Yet I remind you that for too long, many of these “soft commodities” have been overlooked. Decades of persistent disinflation will do that.
But what if the trend has finally turned? What if the next great bull market will not be in stocks, or bonds, but “soft commodities?” Remember, nothing offers better opportunities than “Shit no one trades”.
Sometimes you need to find new territory. Spread your wings. Trade different stuff. Venture to the other side of the road… Much like this other Canadian groundhog did almost a decade ago at a different F1 race.
Last night, domestic terrorists on the UC Berkeley campus successfully barred conservative gay Jew Milo Yinnopoulos from expressing his opinion, after Antifa-incited riots closed down a speaking engagement. CNN – by the way, is in full propaganda damage control mode over this. Check out the CNN app notification popup:
And an article on Milo:
Are you kidding me?
As fires raged and Trump supporters were assaulted with shovels and pepper spray by masked anarchists, the mayor of Berkeley, CA, Jesse Arreguin, allegedly ordered SWAT and campus police to stand down.
Here’s a picture from a redditor claiming to be 100 officers hanging out in the student union building while the violence was occurring (post):
A comment in the thread:
In comes the cavalry?
According to Mike Cernovich, Trump’s FBI is investigating:
Meanwhile, the rabid left is calling for a military coup.
You’re being ridiculous Sarah – and you’re a moron if you think the military isn’t with Trump.
By the way:
U.S. Code 2385:
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
Following the violent anti-free-speech protests in Berkeley, California last night – sparked by cal’s special snowflakes hurt feelings at the potential words that would come out of Milo Yiannopoulos’ mouth during a sold-out event – it appears America’s curiousity has been piqued.
Sales of Milo’s book have increased 12,740% overnight sending it rocketing from 642nd to 5th ranked best-seller on Amazon.
So despite all the best efforts of the liberal intelligentsia to shut down his ‘free-speech’ last night – hurting the feelings of 600 conservatives who were looking forward to the event – we suspect a lot more than 600 Americans are now about to get a crash course in how Milo thinks.