Month: March 2018

The chart below shows the Citi Economic Surprise Index for the US, compared against the broader G10 index, and the Europe index.

The outperformance of US positive data surprises is stark… highlighting the dramatically non-synchornized nature of global growth.

CitiFX senior trader Andrew Grosso warned that we need to pay attention to the short-term on the US data front (with next week’s payrolls, AHE and ISM all on the agenda). He expects that the time between April and July will be pivotal for the economy in terms of data suggesting the USD could outperform in the short-term.

However, the correlation between EURUSD and the spread between EU and US economic surprises, suggests EUR strength in the short-term.

 

However, the relative ‘strength’ of US economic data surprises has been driven by ‘survey’ data (think ‘hope’), while all but labor are now weaker than before Trump was elected…

 

Or to simplify that chart…’Hard’ data is back at pre-Trump levels and now ‘soft’ survey data is crashing back to reality too…

 

And as economic data surprises disappoint, so US economic growth expectations have collapsed…

 

So the question heading into Q2 is – can ‘soft’ survey-based hope keep the economic data aggregates positive enough? Or is the reflexive relationship between stocks (now falling) and expectations (now falling) gathering enough pace to spoil the party?

And what happens if The Fed backs away from its rate-hiking plan?

via RSS https://ift.tt/2E7cz4w Tyler Durden

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

In a new meeting with reporters, Defense Secretary James Mattis has offered new details about US involvement in the Saudi invasion of Yemen, providing specifics about what the US is doing that contradict long-standing claims of a very limited, non-combat involvement.

Mattis now admits the US is “doing the planning” in Yemen strikes, and has shown the Saudis how the concept of a no-strike zone is supposed to work, and engaged in a maturing process of “battlefield management” intended to see Saudi strikes killing fewer civilians.

Mattis also tried to spin the already established US involvement in mid-air refueling as beneficial for civilians being bombed. He warned Saudi bombers would make “rash or hasty decisions” if they had to worry about running out of fuel before bombing a place, and might take less time to avoid hitting civilian targets.

Obviously all of these US efforts to avoid hitting civilian targets in Yemen aren’t working, as Saudi airstrikes are still killing a shocking number of innocent bystanders. The comments are more noteworthy than just another half-hearted attempted to spin US involvement in the war as innocuous, however.

That’s because the Senate just debated measure on the Yemen War, with Mattis and other top Pentagon officials defending their involvement as limited. Throughout this, officials have long presented the civilian toll as something distinct from their own involvement in the conflict, and suggested that the US has nothing to do with targeting.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2GqRXXe Tyler Durden

In what the Defense Ministry of Russia has dubbed “command and staff exercises,” three missile armies of Russia’s Strategic Missile Force – comprising of more than 10,000 troops have been ordered to go on the “highest combat alert,” amid an unprecedented political assault via the United States and the European Union to expel countless Russian diplomats.

On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry of Russia announced: 

Military units and missile units will be checked for all components of combat readiness, alert duty, moral and psychological state of personnel, counteracting terrorism, and control exercises will be conducted on combat training subjects.

In March 2018, command-and-staff exercises (KSU) are conducted in the formations of the Vladimir, Orenburg and Omsk missile armies. During the exercises, the units and units to be checked (rocket regiments, technical missile bases, support and protection units (battalions of combat and logistical support, security and reconnaissance) will work out measures to bring to the highest levels of combat readiness, to solve the problems of withdrawal to combat patrolling routes missile regiments, work out joint tasks of engineering support, radiation, chemical and biological protection.

According to TASS Russian News Agency, about “10,000 troops and 1,000 pieces of combat hardware” will be involved in the exercises. TASS notes, the drill is being conducted at the end of the “winter training period,” which could indicate Russia is preparing for springtime conflict…

“The purpose of the exercise is to assess the coherence of the units and divisions of command and control, the practical actions and skills of the command and military personnel in the preparation and execution of measures to bring combat readiness, and the development of standards in any conditions and time of day,” the statement added.

On Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense described one of the “large-scale exercises” currently underway in the Sverdlovsk Region:

“For the first time, large-scale exercises of the Strategic Missile Forces will use more than 10 newest models of weapons and military equipment that will demonstrate their capabilities.

More than 3,000 servicemen and 300 weapons and military equipment are involved in the exercise.

In the course of this, the divisions of the missile division will be brought to the highest levels of combat readiness, the PGRK “Yars” will go on the routes of combat patrolling, for detection and destruction of the explosive devices on the route of the column, the newest machines of remote de-mining “Leaf”, modern stations “ARS-14KM “Will create artificial clouds (artificial veil) to cover the units, the combat calculations of the complexes after the march will deploy independent launchers in the field positions and organize combat duty. Also, the rocket launchers will work out the issues of camouflage of mobile ground-based missile systems using engineering support vehicles and MIOM camouflage, calculations of Typhoon-M combat anti-sabotage vehicles will ensure the protection and defense of missile systems.”

The announcement of the Russian missile drill comes days after at least 23 countries have expelled over 130 Russian diplomats over the nerve agent attack in the United Kingdom.

On Wednesday, we reported that Russia warned the West the risks of a “hot war,” after a Western anti-Russian campaign surged to the point of no return. Here is what was said:

Lyudmila Vorobieva, Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia, said the situation was “absolutely absurd.”Except that, rather than a “Cold War”, Vorobieva said the confrontation could lead to an “ice war” – apparently referring to a full-scale military conflict between Russia and the West.

“What is worse than an ice war. It’s a hot war.”

She added that a conflict of that magnitude would be “fatal for our planet” given the stockpiles of nuclear weapons held by both sides. “Do we want that? Well, I can tell you from Russia’s side definitely we don’t want that because if we take into account the number of nuclear weapons accumulated by the country – this kind of development would be fatal for our planet.”

Already, the New Cold War between Washington and Moscow is more dangerous than the last – and the Western political-elite/media seem not to care. As the West reprimands Russia for the nerve agent attack in the United Kingdom with zero evidence released to the public for examination; we must recognize that the Western political-elite/media pose a severe threat for humanity, as their dreams of nuclear war with Russia could soon become a reality.

And add to this that President Trump has reportedly challenged Putin to a new arms race.

The world is preparing for war, are you?

via RSS https://ift.tt/2Gow0rJ Tyler Durden

Authored by Rob Slane via TheBlogMire.com,

To my knowledge, none of the questions I wrote in my previous piece – 30 questions That Journalists Should be Asking About the Skripal Case – has been answered satisfactorily, at least not in the public domain.

Yet despite the fact that these legitimate questions have not yet been answered, and many important facts surrounding the case are still unknown, the case has given rise to a serious international crisis, with the extraordinary expulsion of Russian diplomats across many EU countries and particularly the United States on March 26th.

This is a moment to stop and pause.

A man and his daughter were poisoned in the City of Salisbury on 4th March. Yet despite the fact that investigators do not yet appear to know how they were poisoned, when they were poisoned, or where they were poisoned, a number of Western nations have used the incident as a pretext for the co-ordinated expulsion of diplomats on a scale not witnessed even during the height of the Cold War. These are clearly very abnormal and very dangerous times.

I pointed out in my previous piece that it is not my intention to advance some sort of conspiracy theory on this blog. It remains the case that I simply don’t have any holistic theory — “conspiracy” or otherwise — for who carried this out, and I continue to retain an open mind. But since the Government of my country has rushed to judgement without many of the facts of the case being established, and since this has led to the biggest deterioration in relations between nuclear-armed nations since the Cuban Missile Crisis, it seems to me that it is more important than ever to keep asking questions in the hope that answers will come.

And so, for what it’s worth, here are 20 more important questions that I think that journalists ought to be asking regarding this case:

1. Have the police yet identified any suspects in the case?

2. If so, is there any evidence connecting them to the Russian Government?

3. If not, how is it possible to determine culpability, as the British Government has done?

4. In her statement to the House of Commons on 12th March 2018, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May stated the following:

“It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as ‘Novichok’. Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down” [my emphasis added].

In the judgement at the High Court on 22nd March on whether to allow blood samples to be taken from Sergei and Yulia Skripal for examination by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), evidence submitted by Porton Down to the court (Section 17 i) stated the following:

“Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound. The samples tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent” [my emphasis added].

So the Prime Minister said that Porton Down had positively identified the substance as a Novichok nerve agent. The statement from Porton Down says that their tests indicated that it was a Novichok agent or closely related agent. Are these two statements saying exactly the same thing?

5. Why were the phrases “related compound” and “closely related agent” added to the statement given by Porton Down, and is this an indication that the scientists were not 100% sure that the substance was a “Novichok” nerve agent?

6. Why were these phrases left out of the Prime Minister’s statement to the House of Commons?

7. Why did the Prime Minister choose to use the word “Novichok” in her speech, rather than the wordFoliant, which is the actual name of the programme initiated by the Soviet Union when attempting to develop a new class of chemical weapons in the 1970s and 1980s?

8. When asked in an interview with Deutsche Welle how scientists at Porton Down had found out so quickly that the nerve agent was of the “Novichok” class of chemical weapons, the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, was asked whether Porton Down possesses samples of it. Here is how he replied:

“They do. And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said there’s no doubt” [My emphasis].

If Mr Johnson’s statement is correct, and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down has samples of “Novichok” in its possession, where did they come from?

9. Were they produced at Porton Down?

10. How long have they had them?

11. Why has the DSTL not registered possession of these substances with the OPCW, which it is legally obliged to do under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)?

12. Does this admission by Mr Johnson not indicate that “Novichoks” can be made in any advanced chemical weapons facility, as indeed they were under the auspices of the OPCW in Iran in 2016?

13. If so, how can the Government be sure that the substance used to poison Mr Skripal and his daughter was made in or produced by Russia?

14. In her statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday 14th March, the British Prime Minister stated that there were only two plausible explanations for poisoning of Mr Skripal and his daughter:

“Either this was a direct act by the Russian State against our country. Or conceivably, the Russian government could have lost control of a military-grade nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”

Other than the actual substance used, is there any hard evidence that led the Government to conclude these as being the only two plausible scenarios?

15. On March 26th, a number of countries expelled Russian diplomats in an apparent response to the incident in Salisbury. Yet at this time, the OPCW had not yet investigated the case, nor analysed blood samples. Why was the clearly co-ordinated decision to expel diplomats taken before the OPCW’s investigation had concluded?

16. Has this not put huge pressure on the OPCW to come up with “the right” conclusion?

17. It is reckoned that the OPCW’s investigation into the substance used will take at least three weeks to complete, whereas it took Porton Down less than a week to analyse it. What accounts for this difference?

18. Will the OPCW be using the samples of “Novichok” that Boris Johnson says are held at Porton Down to compare with the blood samples of Mr Skripal and his daughter?

19. If not, on what basis will this comparison be made, since the first known synthesis of a “Novichok” was made by Iran in 2016?

20. If the OPCW discovers that the substance is indeed a “Novichok”, will this be sufficient evidence with which to establish who carried out the attack on the Skripals or — given that other countries clearly have the capability to produce such substances — would more evidence be needed?

via RSS https://ift.tt/2E6PKxP Tyler Durden

Authored by Tom Luongo,

How do you know when a politician is lying?

Their lips move and words come out.

How do you know when the United States is at a disadvantage in a geopolitical quagmire?

Our diplomats and Presidents want to ‘open up talks.’

Multiple times in the past four years the U.S. has used negotiating ceasefires in Syria and Ukraine to rearm and regroup those we’re backing or get our opposition (the Syrian Arab Army, the Russians) to let their guard down and then attack within 24 hours.

We’ve used the U.N. Security Council as a bludgeon to brazenly lie about on the ground facts in Syria to attempt to save our pet jihadists in places like Aleppo and now eastern Ghouta.

And in each of these instances the Russian counterparts have documented the U.S.’s mendacity, patiently building up an international file of such incidents for future use.  As I’ve pointed out so many times, the Russians rightly feel we are “Not Agreement Capable” either from a short-term or long-term perspective.

Winning Looks like Losing

So, why do I think the U.S. is in a losing position right now, despite the pronouncements from President Trump and his most ardent supporters that he’s winning on everything?

Because on the two most important issues of 2018, Korean denuclearization and strategic arms control, Trump is ready to sit down and talk.  And we have not been willing to do that on either of these issues at the Head of State level for most of this century, if not longer.

I wrote recently that the Neoconservative cabal in D.C. is in its final push for war with Russia.  The catalyst, for me, was President Putin’s state of the union address on March 1st where he unveiled new weapons that conjured up images from the finale of Dr. Strangelove.

I said, and still believe …

The neocons are cornered.  All of their major pushes to destroy Russia and Iran and control central Asia are collapsing.  The EU is fast approaching a political crisis.  The U.K. is still a loyal subject but the White House has a cancer at its center, Donald Trump. The window has nearly closed on regime change in Russia.  In effect, it’s now or never.

And the clock started the moment Putin unveiled these weapons.  It’s not that the military and intelligence services in the U.S. didn’t know about these systems.  They did.

The embarrassing part is that for fifteen years (or more) the neocons, through their mouthpieces like John Bolton, have argued that war with Iran and Russia was the right course of action precisely because it was winnable at minimal cost to the U.S.

They peddled the lie that the Russians couldn’t defend themselves against us while our military commanders, especially one James Mattis, argued otherwise and from a position of knowledge, not ideological fervor.

In Korea it is the Koreans themselves that are pushing for reunification.  The election of President Moon Jae-in is a testament to that. And the rapidity with which the situation has gone from full throated U.S. push for war and regime change to, “Hey, let’s talk about this,” has been stunning.

It means that some underlying fact has changed which precludes the U.S. from taking the neocon approach of further encirclement and destabilization of Russia and China.

Trump is now willing, against the advice of his inner council, to talk with Vladimir Putin about arms control.  Why?  The Russians have weapons that we cannot and will not be able to counter for a decade, if not longer.

We may have or will soon have weapon systems of parallel aggressive capabilities, but counter systems, like missile defense and electronic warfare, no.  In fact, the Russians are most likely ahead of us in both of those areas as well.

So, now that the neocon push for war has been outed as the worst kind of malicious fever dream the only thing left to do is push this moment to its crisis point and trap Trump and Putin in a stand-off that most likely ends in tears.

MOAR Escalation!

Remember, not two weeks ago U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley failed to advance a total ceasefire in eastern Ghouta to save our ISIS/Al-Qaeda pet Salafist head-choppers there before they were wiped out.  The resolution went nowhere because you can only go to that well so many times before it doesn’t work anymore.

The hysteria surrounding the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal is being used cynically to force Europe back into the fold of the U.S.’s ambitions to destroy Russia.

Every time Haley goes to the security council with another worthless ceasefire she is building the case for Russia’s removal from the U.N. Security Council. Or, at least, that’s the thinking.  But, if that happens, then the U.N. is finished.

Meanwhile, as I pointed out earlier, the Russians keep making the case that it is the U.S. that negotiates in bad faith, treats allies like lepers and abuses its status to push for ends orthogonal to their interests.

And that brings me to Germany and the Nordstream 2 pipeline, Russia’s next weapon in its war with the U.S.  U.S. lawmakers are apoplectic that this pipeline is getting built.  Just this morning Germany issued the permits to allow its construction over the most strenuous objections from the U.S.

More sanctions are being threatened, assets frozen.  More pressure will be placed on Denmark to not issue the permit.  But Nordstream can be re-routed around Danish waters if need be for a small cost.  So, with Germany’s permit Nordstream 2 is, for all practical intents, a go.

Lastly, China’s yuan-denominated oil futures contract (which is convertible to gold, FYI) began trading on Sunday evening and the initial volume was impressive to say the least.  With China becoming the world’s largest importer of oil and the need for an oil futures benchmark in something other than light sweet crude, the challenge posed by this contract to the pricing of oil to the current petrodollar system is real.

And this will play into any and all trade negotiations between Trump and Jinping over the next year.  The goal of this contract is not only to remove unnecessary friction from oil pricing but also to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to un-peg the Riyal from the U.S. dollar and accept Yuan as payment for the significant amount of oil they sell China.

You will know in the next few months just how much this new weapon is forcing change by how willing the U.S. is willing to cut deals on trade.

We’re approaching the crescendo of Trump’s ‘Crazy Ivan’ ploy to exert maximum leverage in a number of areas including foreign policy and trade.  I believe the neoconservatives are worried he will not cut acceptable deals in the end, because they know his hand is poor.

Therefore, the big bluff he’s trying to execute will be called.  This is why they are pushing for war so badly.  And this is why he’s willing to go along with them, they are handing him leverage that he understands.

Unfortunately, Putin doesn’t bluff.  And for a bully like Trump, losing is not an option.  Lying our way into war is a time-honored U.S. Presidential tradition.  Is this time different?  The world hopes so.

*  *  *

Support analysis  like this and more by signing up for my Patreon here.  Gain access to exclusive commentary like the Gold Goats ‘n Guns Investment Newsletter or the private community I maintain on Slack and the Private Blog.  

via RSS https://ift.tt/2GlSZUb Tyler Durden

When it comes to obeying laws protecting personal information, Americans have less faith in Facebook than other tech companies.

That’s according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, Facebook has been engulfed in a storm of criticism after it emerged that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica harvested and exploited the personal information of 50 million of its users. The firm is trying to restore its badly tarnished image with CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently issuing a public apology. Judging by the findings of the poll, the social network certainly has serious work to do in order to restore confidence in its user base.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The research found that only 41 percent of Americans trust Facebook to obey U.S. privacy laws, far less than other tech companies known to gather user data.

66 percent of respondents said they trust Amazon, 62 percent trust Google and 60 percent trust Microsoft. Apple and Yahoo! were also ahead of Facebook in the trust stakes. The evaporation of trust among its users wasn’t the only headache for Facebook in recent days.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said it is investigating the firm to determine if it had “failed” to protect the privacy of its users. According to former FTC officials, the social network could be penalized severely if it is found to have violated or failed to comply with the consent decree it agreed in 2011. Fines could amount to $40,000 per violation and theoretically, this could all add up to $2 trillion.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2GlRS6X Tyler Durden

Via Middle East Eye,

A US judge in New York on Wednesday rejected Saudi Arabia’s request to dismiss lawsuits accusing it of helping in the 9/11 attacks.

The cases are based on the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (Jasta), a 2016 law that provides an exemption to the legal principle of sovereign immunity, allowing families of the victims to take foreign governments to court.

The families point to the fact that the majority of the hijackers were Saudi citizens, and claim that Saudi officials and institutions “aided and abetted” the attackers in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks, according to court documents.

US District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said the plaintiffs’ allegations “narrowly articulate a reasonable basis” for him to assert jurisdiction under Jasta.

Still, Daniels dismissed claims against two Saudi banks and a Saudi construction company for allegedly providing material support to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden to carry out the attacks, saying he lacked jurisdiction.

The Saudi government has long denied involvement in the attacks in which hijacked planes crashed into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon outside Washington, DC and a Pennsylvania field. Almost 3,000 people died. 

Riyadh and its Gulf allies had strongly opposed Jasta, which was initially vetoed by then-President Barack Obama. The US Senate overturned the veto by overwhelmingly adopting the legislation.

Critics of the law say it is politically motivated and an infringement on the sovereignty of foreign nations.

Wednesday’s ruling comes during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the US. President Donald Trump heaped praise on the Saudi royal during a meeting at the White House last week. 

Jim Kreindler, a lawyer for about 850 victims’ families in the case against the Saudi government, said his clients are watching bin Salman’s visit to Washington carefully.

He added that they are “aware of the many US-Saudi issues at play,” including the possible listing of Saudi state oil giant Aramco on the New York Stock Exchange, a potential nuclear deal and further arms sales.

“It remains to be seen whether he is going to take a step in accepting Saudi accountability for 9/11,” Kreindler told MEE earlier this month.

Kreindler told Reuters on Wednesday he is “delighted” that the judge dismissed Saudi Arabia’s motion.

“We have been pressing to proceed with the case and conduct discovery from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, so that the full story can come to light, and expose the Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks,” he added.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2pRvWtw Tyler Durden

Housing, as we’ve pointed out in the past, is perhaps the most reliable bellwether of widening economic inequality in the US. And in its latest quarterly report on housing affordability in the US, ATTOM discovered that median-priced homes aren’t affordable to average wage earners in an astounding 68% of US housing markets.

In its report, the company calculated affordability by incorporating the amount of income needed to make monthly home payments – including mortgage payments, property tax payments and insurance – on a median-priced home, assuming a 3% down payment and a 28% maximum “front-end” debt-to-income ratio.

That required income was then compared with the median home price.

The 304 counties where a median-priced home in the first quarter was not affordable for average wage earners included Los Angeles County, California; Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona; San Diego County, California; Orange County, California; and Miami-Dade County, Florida. Meanwhile, the 142 counties (32 percent of the 446 counties analyzed in the report) where a median-priced home in the first quarter was still affordable for average wage earners included Cook County (Chicago), Illinois; Harris County (Houston), Texas; Dallas County, Texas; Wayne County (Detroit), Michigan; and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania.

Already, the “hottest” housing markets are seeing an exodus of working- and middle-class individuals who can no longer afford to pay the high rents – let along afford to set aside enough money for a down payment.

Eight of the top 10 counties with the highest median home prices in Q1 2018 posted negative net migration in 2017: Kings County (Brooklyn), New York (25,484 net migration decrease); Santa Clara County (San Jose), California (5,559 net migration decrease); New York County (Manhattan), New York (3,762 net migration decrease); Orange County, California (3,750 net migration decrease); and San Mateo, Marin, Napa and Santa Cruz counties in Northern California.

Furthermore, ATTOM’s data found that this problem is getting worse, not better, with 41% of housing markets less affordable than their historical average during the first quarter. That’s up from 35% the quarter before.

Meanwhile, a staggering 73% of markets posted worsening affordability compared with a year ago, including Los Angeles, Cook County (home to Chicago), Maricopa County (Phoenix) and Kings County (Brooklyn).

The counties where the average wage earner would need to spend the highest share of their income to buy a median-priced home are Baltimore, Bibb County (Macon, Georgia) and Wayne County (Detroit).

Continuing with the trend of home prices rising more than twice as quickly as wages, home-price appreciation outpaced wage growth in 83% of housing markets.

When Fed Chairman Jerome Powell warned last month that “valuations are still elevated across a range of asset classes” and that he fears “signs of rising non-financial leverage” it’s possible that he was still understating the problem.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2pPS1Zi Tyler Durden