Month: April 2017

European Union leaders have unanimously agreed the negotiating guidelines for Brexit talks with UK will be "firm and fair," and will begin on June 8th after the UK general election. As The BBC reports, EU officials said leaders burst into applause as the negotiating stance was waved through, with the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, proudly proclaiming: "we are ready… we are together."

"Unity in action," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Twitter as he announced the 27 EU governments – UK PM Theresa May was not present – rubber-stamped the negotiating strategy in less than 15 minutes at a summit in Brussels.

Policy makers arrived declaring that they were united in their approach to Brexit and that Britain wouldn’t be allowed to be better off outside the bloc than inside it. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government was told it will have to agree to pay a financial settlement and resolve the rights of citizens before the EU allows discussions to turn to a future trade deal.

French President Francois Hollande said there would inevitably be "a price and a cost for the UK – it's the choice that was made".

"We must not be punitive, but at the same time it's clear that Europe knows how to defend its interests, and that Britain the UK will have a less good position tomorrow outside the EU than today in the EU."

Which is very ironic given AFP reported German Chancellor Merkel earlier commented: "no one is allied against Britain."

The UK response was quick – Brexit Secretary David Davis emailed that:

“There is no doubt that these negotiations are the most complex the U.K. has faced in our lifetimes. They will be tough and, at times even confrontational,”

And, as Bloomberg reports, to Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader of May’s Conservative Party who campaigned for Brexit, Europe’s approach is nothing more than posturing anyway:

"People go: ‘Oh look they are showing resolve and their strength.’ Well, what would you expect?" he told Bloomberg.

 

“They are about to head in to a negotiation. You know, I have been in business. You always start in your firm position."

So what happens next?

Brexit timetable:

• 29 April – EU leaders (excluding the UK) meet in Brussels to adopt Brexit negotiating guidelines
• 7 May – French voters decide between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen as their next president
• 8 June – UK parliamentary election – Brexit talks to start soon after the vote
• 24 September – German parliamentary election, with Mrs Merkel seeking a fourth term
• 29 March 2019 – Deadline for ending talks on UK exit terms (any extension requires agreement of all member states)
• May or June 2019 – European Parliament election (without UK)
• Ratification – Any Brexit deal requires ratification by all EU's national parliaments and European Parliament

Of course, this whole charade raises a crucial question – as MishTalk's Mike Shedlock asks "Brexit Negotiations – Why Bother?"

I keep asking the same question on Brexit and keep coming up with the same answer: Why bother? There is absolutely no reason the UK should start a negotiation given the repeated EU demands. Once again, on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel repeated the EU’s “not reversible” position.

…

I have read many articles in the Financial Times and on Eurointelligence expressing optimism on these talks. I fail to see why. Sure, we have been through countless 11th-hour deals with Greece. But the UK is not Greece.

In regards to NAFTA, a reader on my blog commented the other day “You would be surprised at how often parties could have reached a win-win agreement only to part ways fighting instead.”

I responded “I agree with you fully. A critical Brexit opportunity is coming up and I expect it to fail. There is an easy win-win compromise but the desire to punish the UK and set rules in the name of solidarity is too great.”

The EU’s first position is the UK has more to lose. The EU’s second position is that the time factor is on the EU’s side. Both are Fantasyland positions.

This is not a divorce where a one-sided judge sets alimony. This is a treaty that can be canceled at any time by walking away. Unless and until Theresa May lets it be known she will walk away, the EU has the upper hand.

The proper response from UK prime minister Theresa May is to inform the EU there will be no discussion as long as the EU insists on a divorce bill negotiated first.

Only by walking away – showing a willingness to let time expire – does the UK have a chance at reasonable negotiations. Even then, I am not sure what the chance is because the “EU’s desire to punish the UK and set rules in the name of solidarity” likely exceeds the desire to walk away with a win-win situation.

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Less than a year after former president Dilma Rouseff was impeached and ousted for corruption, Brazil’s economy continues to deteriorate at an alarming pace, and on Friday Brazilian police tear-gassed demonstrators and rioters burned buses in the violent conclusion of a general strike – the first in 21 years – that shut down transport, schools and banks in protest against the government’s austerity reforms.

A demonstrator takes part in a protest against Brazils proposed reform

As Reuters reports, what started off as a peaceful protest by several thousand people in central Rio in the afternoon turned violent, with small groups smashing bank windows, erecting barricades and setting fires, including torching at least eight buses.

Buses burn during clashes between demonstrators and riot police in Brazil

The police responded with barrages of rubber bullets and tear gas, which covered Rio in a suffocating fog that reached all the way to the top floors of local office buildings.

Tram lines blocked in centre of Rio de Janeiro. #BrasilEmgreve #Rio http://pic.twitter.com/PzlhZGqrbE

— Dude (@jaraparilla) April 28, 2017

PM dispersa ato diante da residencia de Temer http://pic.twitter.com/C1hrQ8AaZz

— Carlos Latuff (@LatuffCartoons) April 28, 2017

Similar disturbances were observed in Sao Paulo, the country’s economic powerhouse, where a crowd attempted to march to the private residence of President Michel Temer and clashed with police, who also fired rubber bullets and stun grenades. Protesters hurled rocks, set fires, smashed street lamps and threw concrete blocks into the center of the avenue.

Rio de Janeiro: Na rua Primeiro de Março, um grupo de manifestantes ateia fogo em cadeiras e tapumes. #grevegeral #BrasilemGreve (@erickdau) http://pic.twitter.com/cH71h7ICVK

— The Intercept Brasil (@TheInterceptBr) April 28, 2017

While earlier in the day, Brazil reported that labor market deteriorated further in March, with the unemployment rate surging to 13.7%, resulting in a record 14.2 million unemployed workers and up from 11.1mn a year ago…

… what prompted the ugly scenes, associated more frequently with Brazil’s imploding neighbor Venezuela, were protests at the government’s proposed reforms, especially a steep cut to the generous pension system.

Rio de Janeiro: Policiais do Batalhão de Choque atiram bombas contra os manifestantes na Av. Rio Branco. #grevegeral #BrasilemGreve http://pic.twitter.com/NfFzSjdvy5

— The Intercept Brasil (@TheInterceptBr) April 28, 2017

The protests came at the close of a day in which unions and leftwing groups managed to paralyze much of Brazil. The metro systems in Sao Paulo, the capital Brasilia and Belo Horizonte, another major city, were shut down. Curitiba, where Brazil’s huge “Operation Car Wash” anti-corruption investigation is based, was left without bus services, as was the big northeastern city of Recife, local media reported according to AFP.

According to the Forca Sindical union, at least 40 million people had responded to the call for a 24-hour nationwide strike which started after midnight on Friday, ahead of a long weekend with Labor Day on Monday. The strike had the greatest effect in heavily unionized parts of the economy, including transportation, banks, schools, the post office and some hospital staff. The metallurgical workers’ union said 60,000 members downed their tools.

The strike had a large impact on auto production in Sao Paulo, which concentrates the bulk of the industry in Brazil. General Motors, Ford Motor, Toyota and Daimler all halted production, according to company officials, unions and market analysts. Union officials said most workers at state-run oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro, known as Petrobras, joined the strike, but the company said the stoppage had no significant impact on output. Iron ore miner Vale SA said the strike did not affect its operations.

Although a spokesman for the National Civil Aviation Agency told AFP that operations at the airports are functioning normally, there were multiple reports of delayed and canceled flights.

“We can’t keep quiet anymore with a government that isn’t legitimate, which wasn’t elected to dismantle the rights of workers,” said Ricardo Jacques, a striking bank employee in Sao Paulo.

Assuring that things will get worse before (if) they get better, Temer’s center-right government has said that reforms are needed to save Latin America’s biggest economy from further damage after more than two years of deep recession. Temer criticized the “unfortunate and serious incidents” during the protests and the curtailing of “freedom of movement for citizens.”

Members of Brazil’s Movimento dos Sem-Teto (Roofless Movement) throw
wooden tables onto a burning barricade

Deeply unpopular President Temer also said Brazil’s economy faces a meltdown without severe fiscal discipline and belt tightening, and while he may be right, he also may not be around long enough to supervise the outcome of his just as unpopular reforms. As noted previously, his most controversial measure has been to curb pension costs by raising the retirement age to 65 for men and 62 for women, up from the current 60 and 55. The government is also pushing for a liberalization of labor laws and has succeeded in getting Congress to pass a 20-year freeze on spending increases.

Meanwhile, as we expected when discussing the Rouseff impeachment, the popular mood is fast turning against her replacement, Temer, whose days in charge may now be numbered.

As Reuters adds, Friday’s strikes were one of the biggest protests to hit the Temer administration since he took over from impeached president Dilma Rousseff last August.

Adding fuel to the fire, Rouseff’s predecessor and mentor, the former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, praised the strike, Valor Economico website said.

 

“This is a clear demonstration that people are determined to paralyze (the country) in protest against the government’s stripping away of their rights,” the site quoted him as saying.

Still, not all Brazilians agree. Marcelo Faisal, a landscape architect travelling from Sao Paulo to Rio, said “reforms need to take place” and that the general strike did not live up to the hype.

“They didn’t succeed in getting people to adhere to the strike, so they burned tires to block some points here and there, which just causes some disruption,” he said. The economy, for years reliant on China’s insatiable commodity appetite, shrank 3.8% in 2015 and is expected to have contracted a further 3.5 percent in 2016, the most painful recession on record; many have called it a depression.

#Brazil: Main access road to Guarulhos Airport is blocked by protesters in #SãoPaulo. #strike #BrasilEmGreve #GreveGeral ???? @MidiaNINJA http://pic.twitter.com/YfPfZ4UlVk

— ubique (@PersonalEscrito) April 28, 2017

And as the economic collapse accelerates, the political situation remains in turmoil as the economic depression is dovetailing with the country’s worst corruption crisis in history. The infamous “Car Wash” probe has uncovered a massive network of embezzlement and bribery at the heart of Brazil’s economic and political elite.

Having already taken down the previous regime, it threatens to do the same to the current government.

In a stark example of how the revolution eats its own, last month the former speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who drove the successful impeachment of former President Rousseff and who was forced from his position as speaker in July and was arrested in October on accusations he received millions in bribes from the purchase of an oil field in Benin by state-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for corruption, making him the highest-profile political conviction yet in the “Operation Car Wash” scandal.

Former speaker of Brazil’s Lower House of Congress, Eduardo Cunha (C),
is escorted by federal police officers

Meanwhile, eight of Temer’s ministers – or nearly a third – are under investigation and the president himself has been accused of chairing a meeting in which his PMDB party negotiated a $40 million bribe from the Odebrecht engineering conglomerate. Temer and his allies deny any wrongdoing. Lula and a host of other leftist figures are also targets of anti-corruption prosecutors.

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Authored by Alice Salles via TheAntiMedia.org,

The month of April is a nightmare for anyone with a conscience, as we only have until “tax day” – which usually falls on April 15 – to give the taxman what he says he deserves. So if you pay taxes to Uncle Sam and you’re also aware you’re paying for mass murder in the Middle East and in U.S. streets due to the drug war, you should also feel sick to your stomach as you write that check.

To a restaurant customer, this may have served as enough incentive to remind his server that taxation is always immoral — but he didn’t stop there.

Last week, a customer at a Missouri restaurant gave the waitress a “personal gift” instead of a tip, writing the now popular line “Taxation is theft” in the tip section of the receipt.

In a second note, the fiscally conscious customer added:

“This is not a tip. This is a personal gift and not subject to federal or state income taxes.”

With major progressive news outlets like ATTN: reporting on this story, left-leaning reporters started to debate wages in the food and service industries, discussing the fact that tips end up being factored as wages, meaning they are always taxable.

But as that discussion developed, reporters were quick to realize that when personal gifts are in the mix, the taxman can’t take part of those earnings away. After all, a gift would have to exceed $13,000 to be subject to taxation, meaning that even if the customer had spent hundreds, the “personal gift” would not amount to anything close to the requirements stipulated by the IRS.

With that, ladies and gentlemen, it becomes easier to not only tip with class, but also with substance, giving your waiter a lesson on what’s moral and how to legally go around the rules to make sure they enjoy their full tip — not just the percentage deemed to be fit by the federal government.

As this story becomes part of the popular movement ignited by libertarians, expect to see more progressive news outlets becoming familiarized with the actual concept of taxation. What’s left for us to find out is if they are going to change their tune and start attacking people like this customer when the two-party pendulum swings once again and a fully Democratic slate takes over Washington.

Are they going to remain consistent in discussing taxation from the point of view of the worker, or are they going to side with the leech?

Only time will tell.

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Two months we first suggested that OPEC may be fabricating data about its production cuts – and certainly overstating the “success” of its Vienna production cut deal – by looking at the rising Chinese oil imports, and by extension, rising oil deliveries by OPEC nations.

As JPMorgan wrote back in February, while IEA estimated the OPEC crude oil production fell by 1mbd to 32.06mbd in January, suggesting an initial compliance of 90% with the output agreement reached end 2016, the latest oil supply details released by China customs today suggest a reduction of supplies was not yet seen by China, the world’s largest oil importer.

In fact, quite the contrary: crude oil shipments from the 11 OPEC nations committed to a 1.2mbd output cut increased by 28% yoy, and more importantly, rose 4% from December 2016 – in a time when production was supposed to be declining – to 4.6mbd in January, accounting for 57% of China’s total oil imports.

Fast forward two months when Reuters analyst Clyde Russell looks at the same data and asks whether “it is time to call the crude oil output cuts by OPEC and its allies a failure?”

Echoing what we cautioned two months ago, Russell said that “certainly there is an increasing disconnect between the rhetoric of OPEC and other producers cutting output on the one hand and the reality of a well-supplied crude oil market and mixed signals on the level of global inventories on the other.”

The paradox: on one hand, OPEC and non-OPEC producer nations, including Russia, have been touting the high compliance with the agreement to reduce output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) from January to June. Having failed to boost the price of crude sustainably above $50, OPEC is now set to prolong the deal for another six months, with the announcement expected at a meeting scheduled for May 25. Needless to say, Russell is skeptical that merely extending what (N)OPEC tried before for another six months, will succeed.

When the deal took effect from Jan. 1, Brent traded in a narrow range for two months, before falling sharply in early March, but the support level of $50 held, with only a brief foray to an intraday low of $49.71 on March 22.

 

But Brent is once again testing the bottom of the post-agreement range, dropping to as low as $51.42 a barrel on Monday, as scepticism mounts over the ultimate effectiveness of the OPEC measures.

And it is here that Russell notes that more important for determining the longer-term price outlook is to look at the amount of oil available and the levels of inventories, something we have been skeptical about since the Vienna summit, and certainly since our February article.

The math is simple: for OPEC and its allies to achieve their aim of sustainable higher prices, both global supplies and inventories have to be reduced, the so-called market re-balancing. Yet “it’s here that the main evidence of the failure of the OPEC agreement is to be found.”

As the charts below demonstrate, oil shipments by tanker around the globe were at a record high in April, according to vessel-tracking data compiled by Thomson Reuters Supply Chain and Commodity forecasts. As of last week, the data shows that an average 50.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude is being shipped in April, up from the previous record 46.1 million bpd in January. While the data excludes crude moved by pipelines, it’s extremely unlikely that pipeline supplies have been cut by more than seaborne cargoes have increased.

Worse, the data also show that Saudi Arabia, which undertook to make the largest output cut among those producers party to the November deal, is actually increasing tanker shipments in recent months, to levels well above those that prevailed late last year.

In short, OPEC may be producing less – if only believes the OPEC-sourced data – but actual global deliveries of oil have never been higher!

And here are the four charts in question which prompted Russell to declare the OPEC deal a failure.

Some more details: Saudis are expected to ship 8.29 million bpd in April, up from 7.94 million bpd in March, 7.73 million bpd in February and 7.83 million bpd in January. Furthermore, Chinese customs data released last week showed that the world’s biggest crude importer received higher supplies from Saudi Arabia, Russia, Angola, Iran and Iraq in March than it did the previous month.

Repeating virtually verbatim what we said two months ago, Reuters then goes on to say that “the Chinese numbers don’t exactly fit in with the narrative of successful output cuts, rather they show the opposite.”

For those confused, what the above means is that a picture that emerges in which there is a gaping difference between reducing output and actually cutting supplies. As a result, while it is likely the case that OPEC and its allies have been in high compliance with their agreed output cuts, but this hasn’t necessarily translated into significantly lower shipments of crude oil.

Then there is, of course, the shale wildcard: US producers outside the agreement have been increasing production and shipments. The plentiful supply of oil can be seen in global inventories, with the International Energy Agency saying recently that inventories in industrialised countries were still 10 percent above their five-year average.”

There is some good news for oil bulls: “barrels stored in less visible places, such as in developing nations and in floating storage, do appear to be drawing down, but there is a question mark over whether this is happening fast enough to provide a basis for higher oil prices in future months. But for OPEC and its allies to achieve lasting success, they will actually have to reduce the amount of crude being shipped.”

So far, not only has that not happened, but the Vienna deal participants have been aggressively boosting deliveries in behind the scenes attempts to capture market share from each other.

In a separate report from Bloomberg, according to the head of research at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia – the world’s biggest crude exporter – has been rapidly losing market share to Iraq and Iran as a result of OPEC’s agreement to curb supplies to bolster prices,  “If you’re talking about winners, you can count Iran and Iraq,” Christof Ruehl said Wednesday at a conference in Dubai.

OPEC agreed to production limits for most of its members at a meeting in November and brought 11 other nations on board with the deal in December. Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest producer, agreed to cut output by 486,000 barrels a day while Iraq said it would cut 210,000 barrels a day. Iran was permitted to increase output by 90,000 barrels a day, according to the OPEC accord.

Ironically, US shale production has increased by almost exactly the amount that Saudi production has declined by, suggesting that Saudi Arabia is losing market share not only to Iraq and Iran, but also to US oil producers.

Saudi Arabia knew it would lose share because Iran’s production was on the rebound, said Robin Mills, founder of Dubai-based consultant Qamar Energy. “The Saudis agreed to production cuts at a time when Iranian production was at a high.”

 

The struggle over market share is most pronounced in Asia, according to Mills and Edward Bell, commodities analyst at Dubai-based lender Emirates NBD PJSC. Iran and Iraq increased crude sales to China last month, while Saudi Arabia slipped behind Russia and Angola as the largest suppliers to the nation, data released Tuesday by the General Administration of Customs show.

 

“The Saudis are losing out because other countries are able to squeeze out more production,” Bell of Emirates NBD said. Saudi Arabia is cutting crude pricing to Asia to hold on to its share, Bell said. The kingdom will likely release its official crude pricing for June next week, with most other regional producers following.

The bottom line, according to Russell, is that it doesn’t matter how much you talk about reducing output or drawing down producer inventories, what ultimately matters for the price is the amount of crude that buyers can access. And right now, the data on crude flows indicates that the OPEC deal is failing, even as Saudi Arabia is facing increasing market share losses, which will sooner or later prompt the kingdom to aggressive undercut its competition once prices fail to rebound materially, sending the price of crude tumbling once again, as OPEC goes back to square one in a world where the real question market is not the future of supply, but what happens to demand.

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After a mangled deployment of Trump’s aircraft carrier “armada” during which miscommunication between the White House and the Pentagon meant the USS Carl Vinson would arrive off the North Korea coast weeks after what Trump had initially suggested, on Saturday Japan’s public broadcaster NHK aired footage of the U.S. aircraft carrier sailing off the coast of Nagasaki prefecture in southern Japan, hours after the latest failed ballistic missile test by North Korea..

NHK said it shot the footage Saturday morning from a helicopter. Nagasaki is in Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. On Friday, the Vinson conducted joint training with two Japanese destroyers and two Japanese F-15 fighter jets in waters further south off the Japanese island of Okinawa.

The USS Carl Vinson is heading north toward the Korean peninsula over rising concerns the Kim regime may conduct another nuclear test, one day after Pyongyang provoked not only the US but also China and Russia with its latest failed missile test.

Since Nagasaki is just a few hundred kilometers away from the Korean coast, and less 800 km from Pyongyang (by air), it will likely reach its destination off the Korean coast during the next few hours.

Meanwhile, according to AP, shortly after receiving notice that North Korea had conducted another missile launch, one of Tokyo’s major subways systems said it had shut down all lines for 10 minutes early Saturday. Tokyo Metro official Hiroshi Takizawa said service was halted on all nine lines at 6:07 a.m. It resumed at 6:17 a.m. after it was clear there was no threat to Japan; the temporary suspension affected 13,000 passengers.  Takizawa says it was the first time service had been stopped in response to a missile launch. Train service is generally suspended in Japan immediately after large earthquakes. Tokyo Metro decided earlier this month to stop for missile launch warnings as well.

Earlier on Satirday, Japan protested the latest missile launch by North Korea: Abe spokesman Yoshihide Suga said that a ballistic missile firing would be a flagrant “violation of U.N. security council resolutions.” He added that Japan “cannot accept repeated provocation by North Korea” and had “lodged a strong protest against North Korea.” Japan has become increasingly concerned in recent weeks about the possibility of a North Korean missile attack targeting Japan or U.S. forces stationed in Japan.

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With one week to go until the runoff round in the French presidential elections, Marine Le Pen – materially lagging her rival Macron according to daily polls – on Saturday chose defeated first-round candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan as her prime minister, in a last-minute attempt to court his voters and help her defeat her opponent.

“As President of the Republic I will name Nicolas Dupont-Aignan Prime Minister, supported by a presidential majority and united by the national interest,” she told a news conference in Paris at which the two politicians sat together.

“We will form a government of national unity that brings together people chosen for their competence and their love of France,” Le Pen told a Paris news conference, sitting side-by-side with her choice for premier.

According to Reuters, Dupont-Aignan is a nationalist whose protectionist economic policies are close to those of the National Front’s Le Pen and who, like her, is urging a reduction in the powers of EU institutions. In the first round, Dupont-Aignan received 4.7%, or roughly 1.7 million votes, and on Friday announced that he was backing Le Pen for the decisive May 7 second round.

Macron quickly denounced the alliance of Marine Le Pen with Dupont-Aignan a “trick,” to boost Le Pen’s credibility and address Dupont-Aignan’s financing issues, according to Agence France-Presse.  The alliance “seems to be a party trick destined to address Marine Le Pen’s credibility issues, as she has no team around her, and Mr. Dupont-Aignan’s financing issues. It’s no more than that and it’s not serious.”

The latest polls on Friday showed Macron winning the French presidential runoff with 59-60 percent of votes, but the momentum has been with Le Pen, who has clawed back about five percentage points over the past week.

Macron and Le Pen between them accounted for only 45 percent of the first round vote, and the battle is now on for the remainder.

As Reuters adds, the presidential contest has blown apart traditional party loyalties. Voters now have a choice between a resurgent right, once a pariah in French politics, and a man whose political movement is less than a year old and who has never held elected office. It sets Macron’s enthusiasm for the EU and call for pro-business reforms to boost growth against Le Pen’s desire for France to close its borders to immigrants, unwind EU institutions and restrict imports to protect jobs.

“The May 7 election is about a European choice,” said outgoing President Francois Hollande, under whom Macron served as economy minister from 2014 to 2016 before turning his back on the Socialist government to prepare his own presidential bid.

 

Meanwhile, Dupont-Aignan, who stood in the election for his party ‘Stand up France’ said he had signed an agreement on the future government with Le Pen that took into account some “modifications” of her program. Dupont-Aignan is less hardline than Le Pen in some areas such as reintroduction of the death penalty, and in 2013 he said on twitter that his party “cannot align ourselves with the extreme right”. However he is seen as having hardened his position on immigration since.

Macron was on a campaign trip in central France where on Friday night he called politicians who do not back him “morally weak.” On Saturday, he said the alliance between Dupont-Aignan and Le Pen clarified the choice on offer to voters.

Commenting on the Le Pen alliance with Dupont-Aignan, Bruno Jeanbart, deputy-CEO of polling organization OpinionWay told Bloomberg the potential gain of additional votes from the rallying of conservative politician Nicolas Dupont-Aignan for French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen will be limited.

“The impact is limited” from Dupont-Aignan rallying Le Pen’s campaign. Le Pen can hope to gain one to two additional percentage points “and even that is doubtful” as part of those who voted for Dupont-Aignan in the first round had initially planned to vote for Republican’s candidate Francois Fillon but were disappointed by him. He added that “Dupont-Aignan won less than 5% of the votes in the first round and it’s far from enough to help (Le Pen) catch up with Macron”, which is an odd evaluation for an impartial polling organization to be making.

“The question is not who is going to win the second round, but Macron’s and Le Pen’s scores” and “by how much Macron is going to win”, which again prompts questions into the objectivity of OpinionWay, whose virtually every single poll in the past 2 weeks has at most strayed from a 60-40 breakdown for the two candidates by 1 point, prompting even the Economist to ask if the “French pollsters are cheating.”

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Does the following description remind anyone of a current small-handed
US politician?

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Symptoms

By Mayo Clinic Staff

(November 2014)

 

If you have narcissistic personality
disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often
monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as
inferior. You may feel a sense of entitlement — and when you don’t receive
special treatment, you may become impatient or angry. You may insist on having
“the best” of everything — for instance, the best car, athletic club
or medical care.

At the same time, you have trouble
handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have secret
feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation. To feel better,
you may react with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to
make yourself appear superior. Or you may feel depressed and moody because you
fall short of perfection.

Many experts use the criteria in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), published by the
American Psychiatric Association, to diagnose mental conditions. This manual is
also used by insurance companies to reimburse for treatment.

DSM-5 criteria for narcissistic
personality disorder include these features:

• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without
  achievements that warrant it
• Exaggerating your achievements and talents
• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power,
  brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
• Believing that you are superior and can only be
  understood by or associate with equally special people
• Requiring constant admiration
• Having a sense of entitlement
• Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance
  with your expectations
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want
• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the
  needs and feelings of others
• Being envious of others and believing others envy you
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

Although some features of narcissistic
personality disorder may seem like having confidence, it’s not the same.
Narcissistic personality disorder crosses the border of healthy confidence into
thinking so highly of yourself that you put yourself on a pedestal and value
yourself more than you value others.

Risk Factors

Narcissistic personality disorder is
rare. During childhood and teen years, children may show traits of narcissism,
but this may simply be typical of their age and doesn’t mean they’ll go on to
develop narcissistic personality disorder.

Narcissistic personality disorder
affects more males than females, and it often begins in the teens or early
adulthood.

Although the cause of narcissistic
personality disorder isn’t known, some researchers think that in biologically
vulnerable children, parenting styles that overemphasize the child’s
specialness and criticize fears and failures may be partially responsible. The
child may hide low self-esteem by developing a superficial sense of perfection
and behavior that shows a need for constant admiration.”

 

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They’re playing your song, Donny Boo Boo!

 

Article 4, 25th Amendment….it’s time.

 

 

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