Month: April 2018

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Steemit.com,

The crowning achievement in hypocrisy must go to those staunch Republicans and Democrats of the Midwest and West who were given land by our government when they came here as immigrants from Europe. They were given education through the land grant colleges. They were provided with agricultural agents to keep them abreast of forming trends. They were granted low interest loans to aid in the mechanization of their farms, and now that they have succeeded in becoming successful, they are paid not to farm. And these are the same people that now say to black people, whose ancestors were brought to this country in chains and who were emancipated in 1863 without being given land to cultivate or bread to eat, that they must pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. What they truly advocate is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr

“I gotta get rid of this stuff. Man, I don’t know what I’m gonna do with it. The more money you make, the more free shit they give you. It makes no sense.”

~ Adam Sandler, Funny People (2009)

A GoFundMe for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired two weeks ago by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has raised over $400,000 in less than a day.

Another way to say that would be that a former officer from the US intelligence community, who is married to a successful physician and will surely receive a book deal worth millions of dollars, just had a charity drive which in less than a day raised an amount of money it would take the average American years to earn.

Meanwhile, an impoverished American recently died because his GoFundMe failed to raise enough money for his insulin and an FBI whistleblower was just arrested for trying to bring transparency to the Bureau’s secret domestic surveillance practices while banks receive massive bailouts, global fossil fuel subsidies total trillions of dollars, and Amazon paid zero federal taxes last year despite earning billions.

Even leaving aside the reasons for McCabe’s firing and the shady dealings he was accused of, this is a very solid illustration of everything that is sick about the United States of America.

In America you have socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

You have government secrecy for the powerful and surveillance for the powerless.

You have charity for wealthy establishment lackeys and rugged individualism for ordinary human beings.

Those at the top are uplifted even further, while those on the bottom are stomped through the floor.

Julian Assange is currently under siege in the Ecuadorian embassy, deprived of mobility, sunlight and healthcare, and now internet, phone calls and visitors, all because he dared to bring some transparency to the powerful. Meanwhile the intelligence and defense agencies who serve as the armed goon squad of the wealthy and the powerful are able to kill, destroy and pillage from behind the opaque walls of near-total government secrecy in the name of “national security”. And instead of defending the single defenseless man who speaks truth to power, mainstream media reporters around the world are spitting on him in near-unanimity because he hurts power’s feelings.

This is how we end up with John Bolton, people. This is the “kiss-up, kick-down” pathway to success that elevates bloodthirsty psychopaths like John Bolton, the worst of the worst, the ones willing to do the most killing on behalf of the powerful and the most stomping on the powerless to get to the top. This has become the unquestioned pathway in every sphere of public life. We have a situation now where the highest echelons of power are not the wisest among us, but the wiliest.

The fourth estate is full of everyday people who at one point presumably believed they were there to bring truth to power, stomping on the silvery head of one who does, while sucking up to the very power that he regularly embarrasses with his leak drops.

Speaking as an Australian, it sickens me to see my fellow Australians slip down this slope. Like many Australians, I was brought up to champion the underdog, cheer on the little Aussie battler, go into bat for the vulnerable and chop down tall poppies. My Australia wasn’t one that delighted in leaving one of our own to wither and die under siege in a “small camp” while making a parade of brown-nosing the establishment. It wasn’t a place where you used your gifts to help the powerful and hurt the vulnerable. It was the kind of place that created a man like Julian Assange, one that believed in constantly choosing the highest interest over self-interest. It wasn’t one where you used your gifts with the pen to turn a hero into someone everyone could feel okay about abandoning.

To all who work in the media:

…your selfish obsession with choosing your career over telling the truth when it counts, with choosing not to know rather than to dig and find out something you’d rather not know, with choosing getting along with your mates rather than standing up for what you know is right, that tiny little seemingly innocuous preference you have is what is driving our whole species towards extinction. That’s your copy of the mind virus that is killing us all. You are in a position of power and you are using it to kill us.

When you choose to masturbate some old mens’ desire for a final war with Russia rather than present the case for peace, you are killing us all. When you choose to roundly condemn a man for bringing truth to power rather than helping him do so, you are killing us all. When you choose to help Andrew bloody McCabe instead of the poor and the powerless, you are killing us all. Every time you suck up to power to get ahead a little, you are killing us all.

Do better, humans. Do the opposite of John Bolton, who kisses up to power and kicks down at the powerless.

Punch up at the most powerful, and to the powerless, extend a helping hand. Lift up the Julian Assanges and pull down the John Boltons. Give privacy to the people, not to power. Give bailouts to human beings, not banks. Give subsidies to the poor, not to the plutocrats. Give money to people who need it, not to Andrew McCabe.

*  *  *

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Authored by Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheTollOnline.com,

Like the weather when a storm approaches, or as the seasons turn, or waves pounding on a shoreline, any deviations are measured and compared by speed and intensity.  The same can be said for headlines:  Omnibus, discouraged Deplorables, rumors of war, prospects of peace, economic bubbles, fluctuating markets, and political intrigue.  Round and round it goes; when it ends, nobody knows. It’s a time of transition; and when traveling over mountaintops, through valleys, and on rough seas, no one has all of the answers.

Even when looking at maps.

The books, “Generations” (1992) and “The Fourth Turning“ (1997), were written by the historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. These recent explorers identified recorded cycles of history and categorized them across multiple cultures and eras.  In both books, historical timelines were analyzed and populations were correlated to specific life-cycles labeled as generational types.  Strauss and Howe additionally addressed the concept of time in the context of both circular and linear perspectives and defined what is called a “saeculum” as a “long human life” measuring roughly 80 to 90 years.  Every saeculum is comprised of four turnings, each lasting around 20 years.

Just as there are four seasons consisting of spring, summer, fall and winter, there are also four phases of a human life represented in childhood, young adulthood, middle age and elderhood.  As each phase of human life represents approximately 20 years, so is each generational archetype identified within the historical cycles, or turnings, as follows.

The generations experience each turning according their life stage; and the Seasons (i.e. order of Turnings # 1 -4) are identified by each generation as they reach middle-age.  Amazingly, history shows a consistent pattern in how the generations both cause and affect historical events.  The patterns develop based upon how each generation interacts with the other and documented consistencies are delineated by the authors.

In America, since the end of the late sixteenth-century, there have been four full “cycles” (i.e. saeculums) as follows:

1.) Colonial Cycle

2.) Revolutionary Cycle

3.) Civil War Cycle

4.) World War Cycle

In every Fourth-Turning, or Crisis period, within all of the above saeculums, American society experienced great upheavals and war.   Moreover, like progressively burgeoning tsunamis rising and crashing upon the sands of time, each consecutive American Fourth-Turning Crisis was more devastating than the last.

America’s last crisis occurred during the years of 1929 through 1945; a turbulent transition period whereby the nation experienced a financial crash, a great depression and a world war.

Now it’s our turn.  Time’s up.  According to Neil Howe, this current Fourth Turning began in September 2008 and is projected to last until around 2030.

All we can do ride it out the best we can. Trying to individually affect a Fourth Turning would be like lassoing the wind or reversing an ocean’s tide.  It can’t be done.  With this in mind, it is best for us prepare and adapt by battening down our hatches and adjusting our sails.

Whether we are climbing mountains, descending into valleys, or being tossed about on stormy seas, know that the Presidency of Donald J. Trump is a storm.  By accident or design, he has shaken the foundations of geopolitics in ways few could have forecasted less than two years ago.

Although I am first and foremost a Better-than-Hillaryite, I was always cautiously optimistic about Trump. This does not make me a Trumpster, per se. I’ve called him the Oompah Loompah Man, a Reality TV Star, the Orange One, etc., and I’ve previously written about him as the manifestation of one of the following three possibilities:

1.) The Real Thing

2.) Serving the agenda of the global financial elite unwittingly

3.) Controlled opposition as a Judas Goat or Trojan Horse

Time reveals everything; and people are known by their actions, not by their words.  The same can be said for events.

Much has transpired in American politics over the past year and a lot of it has been good for Trump voters. Yet, in his recent Omnibus signing speech, Trump acted like a man in a hurry, with more important things on his mind. Obviously, his signature on that steaming pile of shit pissed off a lot of former Deplorables, including one of his most avid advocates, Ann Coulter.

What was Trump thinking?  He signed his name while sounding like Br’er’ Rabbit pleading not to be thrown into the brier-patch.  Trump wanted the military funded.  And now it appears he desires to build The Wall, as a priority of national security, using the defense budget.

Did Br’er Rabbit Trump, outsmart the Establishment’s Tar-Baby?  Or do the globalists have photos of Stormy Daniels spanking him in his underwear?  Could it be the swamp is too muckedand the mountains too high for a lone, art-of-the-deal making, 6-level-chess playing, billionaire wizard and his staff?

What’s going on?

Transitions.

Appearances are not always what they seem and Occam’s Razor, at times, loses its edge.  But, if past history is any guide, it may not be wise to underestimate Trump; even if paying for the $1.3 trillion Omnibus Bill will be like America’s children climbing Mt. Everest in bare feet.

Multiple forces have been aligned against Trump from the moment he first rode down his escalator in 2015 to announce his candidacy for president.  And now, every day, he’s still here driving all of my sworn enemies batshit crazy, one Tweet at a time.

The famous underworld attorney extraordinaire, Roy Cohn, in a 1984 interview claimed Trump was the closest thing to a genius he had ever met in his life.  Thirty-two years after that statement by Cohn, Trump became President of the United States while being outspent two to one, against a rabidly hostile media, in opposition to colluding officials in the United States’ FBI, DoJ, and State Department; plus, with zero support from all Democrats and a significant percentage of Republicans.

Transitions, indeed. Tightrope walking is more like it.

Today, Trump stands high up on the mountain in the middle of a political blizzard.  He is surrounded by the gale force winds of a phony Russian election hacking narrative, a sinister special council investigation, and allegations ranging from obstruction of justice to being spanked by porn star with a Forbes magazine.

I couldn’t make that shit up if I tried.

Now, according to a report in Politico (hardly a conservative publication), a majority of Americans believe the Deep State manipulates U.S. policies:

The majority of the country believes a group of unelected government and military officials secretly manipulate national policy, according to a Monmouth Poll released Monday.

Of the 803 adults polled, 27 percent said they believe the unelected group known as the deep state definitely exists. An additional 47 percent said it probably exists. Sixteen percent said it probably does not exist and 5 percent said they believe it definitely does not exist.

Although most people may consider the Deep State as the “administrative state”, or the “establishment”, one wonders how many of the sheeple would have been half-awakened if not for Trump. I say “half-awakened” because most know nothing of the round table groups as referred to by the historian, Carroll Quigley, or the secret societies as referenced by former president John F. Kennedy.  This means the majority of Americans remain naïve, controlled, and at the whim of True Power.

But what about Trump?

Our president is either who he professes to be, or he is not. You either trust him, or you don’t. It could be he is playing the power game the best he can and prioritizing actualities that we can’t see for purposes we don’t know; or he’s puppet, or imbecilic sell-out leading us down to a dead-end on the primrose path.

Call me quixotic, but I remain cautiously hopeful.  I remain so in spite of the warhawk John Bolton, Trump’s new war cabinet, and his latest hardliner stance with Russia.  Why?  Well, similar to the way I rejected solipsism in college for fear of being too lonely, I now refuse to despair over Trump’s personality swings because I enjoy the view.

Is he controlled opposition? Or controlled demolition?

Either way, I have nothing to lose and nowhere else I’d rather be at this time.  There’s not one damn thing I can do to prevent Russian bombs so I will , instead, wait patiently for the imminent Inspector General’s report; which is said to contain some pure TNT.

What a panoramic scene that will be.

Will the revelations of Michael Horwitz’s report turn the tide for Trump and make America great again? Hope springs eternal.  Or, it could be the global elite will trick Trump into cannonading the Cossacks in order to conclude any conversations on corruption in our country.  Who knows? The elite bankers could also crash the economy, like Kondratieff and Elliot Grand Supercycle waves, on history’s rocky shore; leaving Trump in a rumpled heap right next to the bleached white bones of Herbert Hoover.

The winter of this Fourth Turning’s discontent will undoubtedly deliver war and economic turmoil; and not necessarily in that order.  But what will ensue?  Constitutional Law or tyranny?

Time reveals all things; and, what happens after the release of the Inspector General’s report will be very telling.  Why? Because transitions are roads to revelations.

So keep going, watch, and see.

On the way, however, look for any false flags and know this:  Tyranny wants you controlled or dead; it is, in fact, right behind you, and up just ahead.  It also really, really, really wants your guns.  If you don’t believe me, just look behind to see how fast we’ve traveled from Parkland, Florida to a full repeal of the Second Amendment.

Winter is here.  A chill is in the air.

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China’s Alibaba wasn’t the first company to create a car vending machine – that honor belongs to a Singaporean entrepreneur who transformed Singapore’s Autobahn building into what appears to be a giant PEZ dispenser stocked with luxury cars.

But after months of planning, Alibaba’s T-Mall (in partnership with Ford) has opened the country’s first car vending machine in the city of Guangzhou. Plans are already in motion for a second vending machine to be opened in Beijing, and the company is already planning its third machine in Hangzhou.

Customers can test drive the vending machine’s inventory – and if they have the cash on hand to put down a deposit, they can drive away in their new car (assuming they can convince their local Communist Party officials to issue them a license plate).

Booking test drives and other tasks can be handled via the Tmall (also known as Taobao) mobile app. According to the company, customers can pick up their cars in 10 minutes, according to the Irish Times.

The vending machine is “an important part of Alibaba’s new retail strategy:

Gu Wanguo, general manager of vehicles at Tmall Auto, said the auto vending machine is an important step in Alibaba’s New Retail strategy. “By leveraging Alibaba’s data intelligence and technologies, the auto vending machine and super drive test services can enable auto brand owners and distributors better serve their customers.” Gu added.

“Consumers can use the internet to access more accurate, convenient services and get a deeper understanding into particular vehicles. In the meantime, we are opening our car vending machine’s infrastructure to the entire industry to leverage and enable their distributors, in hopes of helping upgrade the automotive sector as a whole.”

Sign up is done via mobile, and once they have chosen a vehicle, the buyer then takes a selfie to ensure they are the only person who can take the car from the machine, put down a deposit electronically and schedule a pick-up time, all from within the app. They then use that selfie to identify themselves and the car they have chosen is delivered to the ground floor of the car vending machine for their test drive to begin.

If they don’t like the car they initially chose they can try another, up to a limit of two. If they decide to make the purchase after the test drive, they can visit any of Ford’s 4S showrooms to pay the remaining balance after paying the deposit on Tmall.

Discounts and other incentives will also be provided to potential buyers based on consumer insights derived from user activity and history with the Alibaba group ecosystem.

Alibaba published a video demonstrating how customers interact with the vending machine:

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Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia,

So maybe there could be some hope for the next generation after all.

About 75 students at Rockledge High School in central Florida walked out of class in support of the Second Amendment on Friday. The students say they felt “silenced” last week when students walked out in support of gun control.

Fox News:

“I’m pro-Second Amendment,” Rockledge junior and protest organizer Anna Delaney told the station. “I wouldn’t mind deeper background checks, of course, but the Second Amendment will not be infringed upon.”

Many Rockledge students walked out of class March 14 as part of the National School Walkout that was held in support of the Parkland school shooting victims and to protest gun violence and call for new gun control measures. They stood on the football field and formed a huge heart.

About 75 students participated in Friday’s walkout at Rockledge, Florida Today reported. The protest lasted 20 minutes.

They walked onto the schools track carrying the American flag and signs that said “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” and “I support the right to bear arms,” the paper reported. Some wore Trump “Make America Great Again” hats and camouflage clothing.

“We were built on certain rights and that was one of the original rights, that we should have the right to bear arms,” sophomore Chloe Deaton told the group. She helped Delaney organize the walkout.

Zachary Schneider, a junior, was quoted by the paper as saying, “It’s all over the news right now that all students hate guns. I wanted to show that not all students feel that way.”

Rockledge principal Vickie Hickey said the school treated the Second Amendment walkout exactly like it treated the walkout that took place two weeks ago, the paper reported.

She said both events were completely student-driven.

Forgive me if I smell fear from school authorities who knew if they objected to the second protest, the wrath of God would descend upon them.

Regardless, what I found interesting is that, apparently, the pro-Second Amendment kids didn’t know what the consequences would be and walked out anyway. Unlike the kids who walked out for gun control knowing that nothing would happen to them, the pro-gun crowd must have felt some trepidation given the attitude of their teachers and classmates.

Bravo to them for standing up for a (currently) unpopular position.

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Submitted by Shant Movsesian and Rajan Dhall MSTA FXDailyterminal.com

Over the past week or so, the USD has been showing a little more resilience against the persistent selling, which in fairness seems to have little behind it as intra day traders push the greenback around in established ranges.  Once we hit the extremes, it is a different story, and the DXY is back testing 90.00 again with a view to challenging stronger levels from 90.40, with the sub 89.00 move last Monday proving short lived. 

While the FOMC rate hike last month was priced in, the overreaction to the lack of a material movement in the dot plot from 3 to 4 rate hikes this year was reversed pretty quickly, and also highlighted the short term opportunism in the market at present.  That said, the median dots have actually moved higher, but at this stage and with the data at hand, the market consensus remains at 3 for this year, which in itself should see some adjustment higher in the USD given median forecasts were for 2 hikes in the very early part of this year.   We have however, seen correlations with rate differentials breaking down with currencies, but this could improve if next week’s data out of the US can help longer end rates retain better levels in the face of the steepening rate path which should see the Fed Funds rate at 2.0% (at least) but the end of the year.   At this point it is also worth noting the USD/JPY move away from the sub 105.00 lows seen last week, with the benchmark 10yr Note relinquishing support at the 2.80% mark.  Technically, 3.0% was a strong obstacle, but with recent volatility returning to the equity markets, fixed income was set to benefit to some degree, so this is more to do with the risk relationship between the JPY and stocks, with the cross rates also holding up to a larger degree.

Consequently, we are looking for greater re-evaluation of the EUR and GBP against the USD in coming weeks, where we see the overstretch clearly having run its course, as we highlighted in our EUR outlook last week.   Some are pointing to widening USD funding spreads (LIBOR/OIS) as a source of recent USD strength, but this relationship has been anything but consistent when looking at 3m USD LIBOR vs OIS over bot the the short and longer term horizon, and we put much of this year’s USD weakness down to the heavy selling of US Treasuries out of Japan – to the tune of $22.5bln over Dec-Jan according to recent TICS data.  

USD strength(ening) should also see some impact on the commodity markets, but at the present time, and due more to the US-China trade spat, is only having noticeable influence on industrial metals to the chagrin of the AUD.  Here we have seen better performance in the USD over recent weeks, so its seems the weightings in the USD index are more reflective of more recent weakness – a departure from the overstated view that EUR gains are significantly down to a lack of confidence in the USD.  

Off the back of a (seemingly) revolving door at the White House, impulsive policy decisions and limited restraint in public spending, which naturally exacerbates the view/perception on the budget deficit, any material appreciation in the USD seems hard to envisage, and to that end, the best we can expect is a staggered recovery or as we continue to see more as a correction.  Even so, with a little more relative (or comparative) sense of perspective, the domestic data argues for further adjustment against the EUR, CHF and the CHF, while we can also see gains vs the SEK and NZD, but less so the AUD (as already alluded to) and the CAD.  

Once markets return to full strength after the Easter break, we will have received the Mar ISM manufacturing PMI data, with the non manufacturing index due midweek – both serving as a taster to the main event at the end of the week which is the Mar payrolls report.  Earnings growth is expected to fluctuate inside the 0.1-0.3% range, but if we see the unemployment rate slipping towards 4.0%, if not a little lower, it should ease the conscience of the Fed to keep the normalisation path on track, if not a touch steeper.  Irrespective of this, our (long awaited) view is that whether we get 3 or 4 rate hikes, the USD valuations look out of kilter based on current econometrics (relatively speaking).  Sentiment can outstretch these differentials for so long, and it now looks as though the greenback has a little more fight in its belly.  

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It has been nearly two weeks since the City of Atlanta’s municipal government was hit with a crippling ransomware attack that wiped millions of government files and left the city’s police and first responders relying on paper record-keeping.

So far, the city has made almost no progress in recovering its files. Police still don’t have access to vital databases and investigative files. The town’s auditor says the city’s books have been destroyed, aside from whatever’s left in the paper record. And top city officials are scrambling through a holiday weekend to piece together bits of city projects from personal computers and email addresses that weren’t affected by the hack. Almost every government department was affected by the hack – though fortunately 10 of the 18 machines in the city auditor’s office somehow avoided the hack.

“Our data management teams are working diligently to restore normal operations and functionalities to these systems and hope to be back online in the very near future,” said Carlos Campos, a spokesman for the Atlanta PD. Campos said that some officers have returned to filing digital reports.

City officials (with an assist from the FBI) are trying to work through the hack. But if they don’t find a way to recover at least some of the corrupted files soon, officials might be forced to pay the $51,000 ransom that the hackers are demanding (the FBI typically discourages the victims of these attacks from paying the fine).

The version of the ransomware virus affecting Atlanta (it’s a virus called SamSam) inserted cheeky messages into the corrupted files, with the corrupted documents displaying filenames like “imsorry” and “weapologize”.

The city’s courts and its water department have been hobbled by the hack, Reuters said.

In recent years, ransomware attacks have become exponentially more sophisticated. Whereas once they would target individual computers, hackers have in recent years staged global attacks like “WannaCry” and “Petya” a year ago. They’ve rendered hospitals incapable of accepting patients and forced first responders to operate without access to computers.

And in another worrisome sign, city officials haven’t disclosed the extent to which the hackers affected the city’s backed-up files. Perhaps this is why city officials have refused to comment on whether they’re considering paying the ransom – though, according to Reuters, they haven’t paid it yet. 

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who took office in January, has declined to say if the city paid the ransom ahead of a March 28 deadline mentioned in an extortion note whose image was released by a local television station.

Municipal governments are particularly vulnerable to ransomware attacks because their computer networks typically comprise a patchwork of different systems with varying levels of security.

Ironically, the city completed a cybersecurity audit in January, and was in the process of implementing its recommendations when the attackers struck.

Mark Weatherford, a former senior DHS cyber official, told Reuters that hackers typically walk away when the ransom isn’t paid.

He added that the situation could’ve been resolved quickly if the city just paid the ransom.

“The longer it goes, the worse it gets,” he said.

“This could turn out to be really bad if they never get their data back.”

Atlanta has nearly half a million residents – but 6 million people live in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

 

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Regime change advocates, neocon beltway hawks, and all the usual armchair warrior zero-skin-in-the-game think tank interventionistas are in continued meltdown mode after Trump confirmed plans to withdraw American forces – some 2000+ troops and personnel – from Syria. On Friday the president told senior White House aides that US forces will be exiting Syria after public comments made earlier.

In statements carried by Reuters, Trump said, “Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon, very soon, we’re coming out. We’re going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be.” As we noted last week, the timing of Trump’s dramatic Syria turn corresponded with news of an American soldier killed in Manbij in northern Syria (killed likely by an IED alongside a British coalition soldier overnight last Thursday).

Perhaps to be expected, the weekend editorials and cable news pundit shows reacted in disbelief and horror – with charges of “chaos” at the Trump White House over Syria policy, and claims that “ISIS will come back” if America leaves. Nevermind the fact that Trump himself while on the campaign trail in 2016 stated in public speeches and in a tweet (and linking to a declassified intelligence memo) that US support to jihadists in Syria under President Obama is precisely what fueled the rise of ISIS in the first place. 

CNN, for example, painted a picture of mass revolt among the ranks of military officers and career State Department officials, asserting that, “Any decision by Trump to pull out of Syria would also go against the current military assessment, a fact that left some national security officials concerned about the impact of a withdrawal, another senior administration official told CNN.”

No, there’s no “chaos” when it comes to Syria policy at the White House – Trump is doing exactly what he pledged to do while previously on the campaign trail, and he’s further continuing what he started when he nixed the CIA’s regime change program last summer.

CNN has been running this chyron for days. It’s intended to suggest that presidents should never question the national security state apparatchiks who demand a permanent US military president in the Middle East, and that America’s invasion of Syria is just. pic.twitter.com/c7fRNYNBzZ

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 1, 2018

But it’s funny and very telling how brazenly honest interventionistas and deep state bureaucrats suddenly become in their motives whenever Trump speaks truth on Syria. Consider prominent Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, who the day after Trump’s announcement of leaving Syria lamented while quoting a pro-regime change activist, “We took the oil. We’ve got to keep the oil.”

That’s right, the mask of pseudo-humanitarian high-minded noble ideals comes off (the Josh Rogins of the world care nothing about actual Syrians), and we learn that it’s actually all about…

Oil! Oil! Oil! Iran! Iran! Iran!

https://twitter.com/joshrogin/status/979856522753789953

Trump doesn’t seem to care about U.S. national security interests in Syria. So somebody tell him by pulling out, he is giving Iran all the oil https://t.co/ZvqHoga4Ed

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) March 30, 2018

Map source: WINEP

No more pretense and the slick language of R2P military intervention for the sake saving civilians in Syria… Rogin’s op-ed is aptly titled, In Syria, we ‘took the oil.’ Now Trump wants to give it to Iran. 

Rogin, like other interventionistas, has no more cards to play, thus we find these straightforward admissions in his column:

Perhaps he would back off his urge to cut and run if he knew that the United States and its partners control almost all of the oil. And if the United States leaves, that oil will likely fall into the hands of Iran…

Control over oil is the only influence we have in Syria today…

“We have this 30 percent slice of Syria, which is probably where 90 percent of the pre-war oil production took place,” said David Adesnik, director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “This is leverage.”

Astoundingly, these words are still being published 15 years after the myriad lies of the Iraq invasion …no shame, no regrets. And a host of other mainstream journalists in New York and DC greeted Rogin’s column as “refreshing” and respectable “essential reading” (as if it’s not the same pro-regime-change script which has dominated talking points for years).

Meanwhile, a well-known Syrian-American Middle East analyst and actual expert on Syria effortlessly shreds Rogin’s supposed “realist” points with ease (Rogin likes to think of himself as a foreign policy ‘realist‘ …he’s no such thing):

Whenever one thinks Syria analysis has hit bottom, nonsense like comes along to remind us otherwise. Josh Rogin’s piece makes a set of outrageous observations that has become a mainstay of Syria’s war coverage over the years. Let’s establish the facts first.

Iran’s expansion that Josh Rogin wants to “counter” did not start with Syrian war but started in the aftermath of the ill-advised Iraq invasion that opened the pandora box which we are still dealing with today (Birth of ISIS is another). Interventionists have a short memory.

Syria’s alliance with Iran did not start with the Syrian war. It was cemented after Damascus decided to side with Iran during its war with Saddam’s Iraq in early 80’s. At start of Syrian war, Tehran decided to pay back the favor and came to Assad’s aid when no one did.

What Josh Rogin still can’t comprehend is that countering Iran is positively correlated with ending the Syrian war and not by adding more fuel to it. Iran’s influence grows when Damascus is threatened and not the other way around.

Syria is not Saudi Arabia. Even before the war, it’s oil production was mere 150K barrels a day. This is a drop in the ocean when it comes the regional oil producers. Asking Trump to grab the oil shows total lack of understanding of scale or strategic importance.

Indeed, by grabbing what little oil Syria has all you are doing is giving Iran and other allies of Syria more leverage. The more Syria can stand on its feet the less it needs those allies like Iran that you want to counter.

Whenever one thinks Syria analysis has hit bottom, nonsense like 👇comes along to remind us otherwise. @joshrogin piece makes a set of outrageous observations that has become a mainstay of Syria’s war coverage over the years. Let’s establish the facts first ===> https://t.co/zPib3Kk2pV

— EHSANI2 (@EHSANI22) March 31, 2018

So it’s not only his conclusions, but every assumption of Rogin and his ilk concerning the Middle East is simply dead wrong. But at the very least these moments serve to remind us of what morally corrupt failures the Washington class of inverventionistas have been, and that it’s certainly not their own skin in the game when they argue for “taking action” whether in Syria or other parts of the world (the establishment political and pundit class is all too willing to send the sons of others to die in foreign quagmires with dubious aims).

Finally, it should be noted that Josh Rogin published his piece the same day Master Sgt. Jonathan J. Dunbar died in Syria (identified by the Department of Defense on Saturday). Rogin is ultimately arguing that more Americans must stay in harm’s way for “control over oil… the only influence we have in Syria today.”

* * *

With that, we’ll leave off with the following excerpted wisdom from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Skin in the Game:

“What you had historically is warmongers were warriors. And he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword… Now suddenly–and that’s only recent–we developed all these weapons and technologies and stuff like that, so you can have people cause wars and not be exposed. And not only that, but as was Bill Kristol… he’s a prime example.

The people who caused the war in Iraq… absolutely no cost to them. Or a cost that’s very small, very tiny reputational cost… And then after they cause a war in Iraq–and of course we have a disaster–they will intervene again… in Libya and of course in Syria.

What happens with these people is that given that there is no skin in the game, there’s no learning… In the real world, these people should be dead, because basically, if you cause a disaster… so many of them would be… pruned out that way instead of letting others die.”

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In recent weeks, the flattening yield curve have prompted investment strategists to declare that what looked to be the beginning of a secular bear market in bonds was, in reality, another false alarm. Indeed, all it took was a brief correction in equity markets for Bank of America’s Ritesh Samadhiya to puke all over the bank’s bullish economic consensus and declare that the greatest risk to asset markets is that nominal global growth slows a lot more than consensus believes.

But during his latest interview with MacroVoices, Julian Brigden of Macro Intelligence Two Partners reminded readers why the bear case for both bonds and equities – a nightmare scenario that would hammer popular risk-parity funds that are, ironically, intended to weather periods of market turbulence based on the notion that stocks and bonds can’t sell off at the same time. 

Brigden, who advised clients to close out of a short Treasury trade just before the 10-year bounced off 3%, said he believes the long term case for a bear market in bonds remains intact as the US government tries to inflate away its enormous debt pile.

According to Brigden’s modeling, a break above the 3.25% level on the 10-year yield would slice through its 100-month moving average – something that hasn’t occurred since the mid-1980s.

Brigden believes that a break above this level in nominal yields (while real yields remain anchored thanks to a runup in inflation) will lead to chaos in both bond and equity markets. Disinflation has kept yields tamped down for years. But as it returns and forces the Fed to hike interest rates more quickly – just as the ECB and other central banks are withdrawing their own stimulus – these inflated asset prices will plunge back to Earth.

The Fed thought QE was the reason Treasury yields sank, Brigden said, but they were wrong…

…The real reason, he said, was the combination of disinflation and foreign central banks pushing yield-seeking investors into US markets.

What actually lowered Treasury yields through almost all the period of QE was falling inflation. It was disinflation. And I use that term because I’m not a big believer in deflation. Deflation is falling aggregate demand and falling prices. What we had was falling inflation. So it’s disinflation. And that’s really what lowered yields. What’s been interesting, though, is, since the end of 2015, inflation has actually been rising, relatively significantly in the US. It’s gone up a whole 2%. But yields (real yields) have fallen. Why? Because other central banks have come in. And they have – because of the nuances of their policies (particularly NIRP, and particularly regulatory requirements that require European investors to be fully invested and match assets with liabilities) – you’ve had this tsunami of cash that’s come out of Japan and Europe and suppressed our Treasury yields.

And if you look on this slide here, you’ll see. Back then we had this incredible period of low inflation. Incredibly stable. Six years where inflation basically oscillated around 1.3. You had a Fed that thought they could run it a little hot because they believed in the Phillips curve (unlike this lot that don’t believe in the Phillips Curve) and you did. You heated the economy quickly with a bunch of spending. Well, you’ve overcooked the goose.

And I’m not even showing in this slide the ‘70s. I’m not interested. But, in those five years, where inflation goes from 1.6 to the upper 3s, then back down again as they aggressively try to heat again, and it then breaks out again and goes up to almost 6.

Treasury investors lost 36% of their money in real price terms. 36%. A third. And you never got it back. Never got it back. So I do think the analogy is relatively similar.

Moving on to equities, Brigden says that faced with the threat of an overheating economy, the Fed is going to keep hiking until the market breaks – sending stocks spiraling lower. Brigden says we could be on the verge of a 20% correction.

And while over  the next ten years, fine, I’m okay. When it comes to equities, I think, certainly, if we’re in an inflationary environment they’ll outperform fixed income. They’re in for a bit of a shock, I fear.

I fear we’re on the cusp of a 20-percenter. It could be potentially worse. And I do feel, personally, that we’ve put the highs in. I’ve said either the market has to collapse under its own weight, for whatever reason (higher vol, trade talks, whatever), and then the Fed backs off.

Or, faced with the inflation picture, the Fed is just going to keep hiking until they eventually crack the market. It won’t be intentional. It’s never intentional. But it’s what always happens. So I fear that the highs are in.

And just as markets are breaking from the strain of Fed-induced tighter financial conditions, the Trump administration’s policies will result in dollars piling back into the US from foreign markets – a scenario that could undermine the currency’s long-term value and, ultimately, its status as a reserve currency.

Before it begins the next leg of its secular downtrend, the greenback will be squeezed higher, triggering a punishing selloff across risk assets.

But, when it happens – and we know this Erik – when the dollar rallies at the same time as you get risk-off, it turns things really vicious, really quickly. And, given this massive hole created by a low current account deficit, with the whole world depending on the hot money flows, in a world where you can click and bring that money home, it could be really vicious.

I think – let’s be honest. Up until now we’ve had loose fiscal, relatively loose monetary. Right? It’s only changed in the last couple of months. And arguably even since Powell has come in. We’ve had central banks that have – and I think, big picture, they still want to – the expression we like to use is “run it hot.” They want to boil bond investors slowly. They want to run nominal GDP hot.

This is how we eviscerate the value of the debt in what are aging and very indebted societies. So, yeah, loose fiscal, loose monetary is disastrous for a currency. Things are changing a little. As I said, I think the Fed will be forced, relatively, to become more hawkish. But, bigger picture, what I’m talking about is an episodic, final, nasty, destructive dollar rally. I think it’s a dollar rally that ends up resetting the system. I think after the dollar has rallied and destroyed a lot of things, more people will abandon it. You’ll see more use of the renminbi. We are in a cyclical, I think, decline of the dollar.

…

You get bond pressure and rate pressure and equity problems, and then the dollar. And the dollar comes in and is just the final napalm run into the risk-off move, and then we’ll kick off again.

Listen to the entire interview below:

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China’s nine-ton school bus-sized space station is set to impact the earth at any moment. The Tiangong-1 is currently orbiting at an altitude of 87 miles –  approximately 30 miles lower than it was during our Thursday update.

According to China’s CGTN, impact is imminent. 

China’s #Tiangong1 space station expected to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere between 8:11 a.m. and 9:33 a.m. BJT (0011GMT-0133GMT), according to China Manned Space Engineering Office pic.twitter.com/p3TkVwDcsf

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) April 2, 2018

You can track its progress at the following websites:

• N2YO.com
• Stuff in Space (select TIANGONG 1)

Or by clicking on the picture below:

***

As we reported earlier, With China’s Tiangong-1 space station (translated as “Heavenly Palace”) full of highly toxic chemicals such as hydrazine, set to crash into the earth at a still unknown location some time today, Michigan isn’t taking any chances.

As a reminder, several weeks ago Aerospace.org predicted that while the list of possible crash sites includes locations in Northern China, South America, Southern Africa, Northern Spain and the United States, lower Michigan in particular is among the regions with the highest probability of a direct hit.

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Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

A bull market requiem:

Following the financial crisis the world needed coordinated structural solutions (and those would be hard requiring tough choices). Instead what the world got was coordinated central bank intervention which shrunk the middle class, made the rich richer and provided the rest with the illusion that things were getting better as pro forma unemployment rates shrunk and housing prices rose again and stock markets jumped from record to record. In the meantime politicians (of both parties) used the easy money illusion to do precisely nothing on the structural front. Instead they added debt and more debt and recent tax cuts just added to the combination of both: Wealth inequality and debt.

The data is very clear. Things are better for the few:

The greatest bull market ever (?) and 90% of income earners have less net worth than before the financial crisis? Given what it took on the intervention and debt fronts this is intellectual bankruptcy. Policy makers have failed the larger population. Full stop.

Income growth? Forget it:

Debt? A disaster zone with no end in sight:

And only getting worse. Much, much worse. Here’s the CBO projecting the coming explosion in debt which doesn’t even presume a coming recession:

This is what policy makers have produced ahead of the next recession:

Unfathomable. Since 2007:
The US government more than doubled the debt ($8.8T to $20.5T) & is now accelerating deficits
The Fed expanded its balance sheet to $4.5T and is now reducing.
And 90% of income earners have less net worth than before.
This is a structural disaster.

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) March 28, 2018

The construct was ready to fall apart in early 2016. Earnings recession they called it. Bullshit. It was a recession in the making and central bankers knew it and hence we saw the cumulative insanity of over $5 trillion in additional intervention between 2016 and now. People forget: In this short period we witnessed the most aggressive global central bank intervention ever:

And this just the ECB and BOJ. Not to even mention the absurdity of the SNB of tiny Switzerland piling in tens of billions of dollars to buy US techs stocks directly becoming an enormous all long hedge fund in the process.

Add the tax cut nonsense and you had the perfect storm in artificial liquidity and retail fell for it and jumped on the “optimism” train.

Boom. And it all fell apart after January.

Profit growth? Where?

All we’ve had is a recovery following the “earnings recession” which in turn followed over $5 trillion in global intervention. In fact we saw corporate profits actually shrink in Q4 of 2017 printing fewer profits than Q4 of 2014, yet market multiples are higher to the tune of nearly 25%. Multiple expansion at its finest.

Yes we will see a jump in 2018 numbers due to tax cuts and the picture will look even better on an EPS growth basis due to record buybacks. But none of this is related to the underlying fundamental picture. It’s all the result of artificial intervention which is what this “fiscal tax cut stimulus” is. Artificial and purely debt financed with massive deficits. A wealth transfer from the federal balance sheet to the balance sheets of corporations.

Since 2009 central banks and governments have bought the illusion of organic growth with easy money and debt, addressed none of the structural issues, and now they are adding more debt and most families have nothing or little to show for it but more consumer debt and all are praying we will not get inflation or it’s all over as the cost of carry to service the debt would increase dramatically as it is already happening during this early stage of rate hikes:

What, precisely, is the buying outlook for stocks from here? More stimulus? Please. All these markets have ever done is run from one stimulus freak show to the next and now they have nothing, but perhaps still ride the benefit wave of the current artificial stimulus train.

All of which tells me that markets either have topped or will top in 2018 and then we will enter a multi year bear market as the hangover comes when the business cycle ends and the next recession will unveil the truth behind these narratives and that is: Technology has been the greatest deflationary force the world has ever seen and continues to be so and, as a result, growth can only be financed with debt as the larger demographic picture leaves retirement and entitlement structures non financed, unable to meet future obligations. The unwind will challenge all our exiting notions of financial systems, markets and the economy.

2016 was marked by massive QE intervention and a retreat by the Fed to hike 4 times as they had promised in December 2015. 2017 was marked by not only continued record intervention, but also the promise of tax cuts. After tax cuts were passed what did we see? Retail piling in with record ETF inflows while the ECB cut QE in half. The result: A blow-off topping move and then the first initial retreat.

The blow-off topping move in January required a correction as markets were vastly disconnected technically and historically overbought and I kept pointing it out in the run-up:

So you think markets were oversold in 2008 with a weekly RSI of 20?
Welcome to 2018: $DJIA weekly RSI now 91.93. pic.twitter.com/JnVWsHFtb6

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) January 22, 2018

We’ve now witnessed a first correction and an explosion in previously artificially compressed volatility. April tends to have positive seasonality and if the lessons of previous tops have taught anything it’s this: Tops are processes and there will be plenty of trade opportunities in both directions and perhaps even new highs, although the impetus for those is technically somewhat suspect now.

But the main fact remains and I’ve been pointing it out for a long time: There is ZERO evidence that markets can advance without artificial stimulus in place or another free money carrot dangling in front of them.

Here’s how Europe is doing on half the QE run rate since January 2018: A lower high in January and then down:

Japan? A peak at the beginning of the year and now a close below its 200MA during the first quarter:

I’ll post some technical charts on US markets in the near future, but for now we can observe bearish patterns have taken hold and have played out during the first quarter of 2018. Here’s the $DJIA and the $NDX:

And global markets, as an aggregate, have fallen below their monthly 5EMA and broken their trend with volatility having broken out of its compression pattern:

Markets may rally on coming glowing tax cut related earnings reports all they wish. But these are not rallies born out of organic economic growth or a glowing improving fundamental picture. Know these are likely the final gyrations of artificial liquidity drenched markets undergoing a topping process.

It’s not different this time. It’s worse, much, much worse. After all, we will enter the next recession with the highest debt loads ever, including the corporate sector:

And the awakening to this reality is slowly dawning on market participants as 2019 will have no new artificial stimulus to look forward to. Instead the glorious artificially induced 2018 earnings numbers have to compare to organic incremental growth only. And this is something markets haven’t had to do on their own since 2008.

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