Month: May 2019

Is California’s Watered-Down Rent Control Bill Still Problematic?

California’s rent control advocates scored a partial victory yesterday. A bill capping rent increases statewide survived a crucial vote, but only after its author made a number of major concessions.

On Wednesday, the California Assembly approved AB 1482 by a 43-31 vote. The original version of the bill would have capped statewide rent increases at 5 percent plus inflation on buildings older than 10 years. The law would sunset, or expire, after 10 years.

California’s developers and landlords—who spent millions fending off a rent control ballot measure in 2018—opposed the bill.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the state’s Realtors association circulated memos in the state legislature last week demanding a number of changes, including shrinking the number of years the bill would be in effect.

Yesterday, Assemblyman David Chiu (D–San Francisco), the bill’s chief sponsor, agreed to increase the cap on allowable rent increases to 7 percent per year plus inflation, as well as have the bill sunset within three years, rather than 10.

“We have millions of Californians that are one rent increase away from being forced out of their homes for decades,” said Chiu to the Times. “They are our neighbors. They are our co-workers. They are our brothers and sisters. They are our grandmothers.”

The amended version of Chiu’s bill is roughly in line with Oregon’s first-in-the-nation rent control law. Passed in late February, that bill caps rent increases at 7 percent plus inflation for buildings 15 years and older.

Both AB 1482 and Oregon’s rent control law allow landlords to raise rents as much as they wish after an incumbent tenant moves out.

To prevent landlords from just evicting tenants in order to get around rental price caps, Oregon’s rent control bill also banned no-cause evictions. Landlords in the state generally have to show a government-approved reason before asking a tenant to leave.

Chiu’s bill does not ban no-cause evictions. Rather, it prevents landlords from kicking tenants out solely to avoid his bill’s price ceilings. In order to prove that they’re not doing that, landlords need only provide tenants with a written reason (other than wanting to increase the rent) for asking them to leave. Those non-rent reasons are not defined in the bill.

A separate pending bill, AB 1481, would ban no-cause evictions, and faces a Friday deadline for passing the Assembly.

Chiu’s bill now heads to the California Senate, where it faces an uncertain future. It’s unclear whether the concessions made will be enough to mollify opponents. Such a watered-down measure, meanwhile, can’t be expected to attract enthusiastic support from tenant advocates.

Oregon’s rent control bill received only lukewarm support from tenants, who considered it a decidedly compromised half-measure.

Tenants Together, a California coalition of local tenant organizations, spent most of its efforts yesterday supporting an ultimately failed Senate bill that would have made forming tenant associations easier.

According to the Times, Michael Weinstein of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)—the primary funder of the “yes” side on the state’s 2018 rent control ballot initiative—deemed AB 1482’s provisions too weak even before they were amended. His organization is looking to put yet another rent control initiative on the 2020 ballot.

Economists generally take a dim view of rent control given its potential for reducing the construction of new housing. Capping how much developers can charge for new units reduces their incentive to build those units in the first place.

Empirical studies have found that rent control benefits tenants in price-controlled units, but also leads to a reduction in the overall supply of rental housing, as landlords are incentivized to take their properties off the market.

Rather than cap prices, free marketers generally favor lifting restrictions on building new housing supply.

A bill that would have done just that, by lifting statewide restrictions on building fourplexes and apartment buildings near transit, stalled in the California Senate earlier this month.

With efforts at goosing new supply paused for the moment, bills like Chui’s may prove more attractive. They may also make things worse.

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2XoPCEk
via IFTTT

Malaysia Proposes Common Asian Currency Pegged To Gold

For years, gold bulls had speculated that China has been quietly piling up physical gold, awaiting the moment to unveil a gold-backed currency, either after the dollar’s reserve status falters or before.

Today, the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took one large step in that direction when he proposed the launch of an Asian version of the euro: a common trading currency for East Asia that, unlike the euro, would be pegged to gold, describing the existing currency trading in the region as manipulative (perhaps in reference to China’s currency setting framework).

According to the Malaysian PM, the proposed common currency could be used to settle imports and exports, but would not be used for domestic transactions.

“In the Far East, if you want to come together, we should start with a common trading currency, not to be used locally but for the purpose of settling of trade,” he said at the Nikkei Future of Asia conference in Tokyo. “The currency that we propose should be based on gold because gold is much more stable.”

He said under the current foreign exchange system, local currencies were affected by external factors and were manipulated. He did not elaborate on how they were manipulated, and whether his complaint was against the dollar or the yuan. That said, Mahathir has long been a critic of currency trading, and according to Reuters, he once accused George Soros of betting against Asian currencies.

Incidentally, during the Asian financial crisis two decades ago, Mahathir pegged the ringgit currency at 3.8 to the dollar and imposed capital controls. That peg was scrapped in 2005.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration said that no major trading partner met the criteria required to be placed on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of its currency manipulators, it named Malaysia among nine countries that required close scrutiny. In response, Malaysia’s central bank said on Wednesday its intervention in currency markets was limited to managing excessive volatility.

While it is unclear if the Malaysian PM’s proposal is serious or just jawboning, should the Asian nation truly push for a currency alternative that evades the dollar, then many of the narrative gaps in the Zoolander script will finally become self-explanatory.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2YXTWLc Tyler Durden

Goldman Says Trump Will Win In 2020, Unless…

There is a reason why Trump is so transfixed on the state of the economy:  according to an analysis by Goldman, when it comes to politics, “it’s the economy, stupid”, and specifically the seasonally-adjusted economy, i.e., GDP.

What Goldman means by that is that Trump’s re-election chances will depend on two things: the president’s net approval rating on one hand, and the two-year average GDP growth through the third quarter of election year (in this case Q3 2020). And as the chart below shows, with Trump having one of the worst net approval ratings of all time, below even that of Jimmy Carter, what Trump does have going for him is the solid – for now – economy, thanks to a trailing two-year GDP which will be around 2.6% next September.

As a result, Goldman claims that according to economic growth forecasts, Trump will-be re-elected…

… unless GDP (any by implication, the market) crashes in the upcoming 16 months, sliding below 2.00%.

There is another reason why Goldman believes Trump will be re-elected: according to the bank’s economist Alec Phillips, incumbent presidents carry a 5 to 6 percentage-point edge over rival candidates in the popular vote. “The advantage of first term incumbency and the relatively strong economic performance ahead of the presidential election suggest that President Trump is more likely to win a second term than the eventual Democratic candidate is to defeat him,” said Phillips.

In some more good news for Trump, who is obsessed with the current level of the S&P. Well, if Goldman is right, he doesn’t have to be. Historically, Goldman has found that variables such as employment and income are better indicators of an election result than market-based forces such as equity or oil prices.

Which is why instead of focusing so much on pushing the S&P higher, which only affects a relatively small group of potential voters, Trump should be far more careful what impact his policies (and tweets) will have on the broader economy, which after an impressive 3.1% jump in the first quarter, is expected to slump to just above 0% in the second.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HLlw8H Tyler Durden

Barclays Is Tired Of Taking The Tesla “Blue Pill”, Slaps It With $150 Price Target

Better late than never. 

After last week’s onslaught of sell side downgrades of Tesla, Barclays joined the party, and on Thursday it slapped the second lowest street $150 price target on the company (Vertical Group’s Gordon Johnson has the lowest at $54) and highlighted a scenario that could see shares go as low as $133. 

Analyst Brian Johnson said that the automaker could be relegated to the status of becoming just a “niche luxury carmaker”, an angle that many Tesla skeptics have insisted would have been a better path for Tesla from the get go.

Barclays predicts that there isn’t much left of the blissfully ignorant illusionary view on Tesla, stating that the company’s “blue pill” call option value now appears far out of the money. Barclays also predicts that it could be time for the rest of the market to embrace the harsh realities and brutal truths of the dying Tesla narrative. Johnson’s note suggests that recent price action, “even in the face of a successful fund raise” indicated that market participants are starting to take the “red pill”. 

As a result, Barclays lowered its target on the company to $150 from $192, saying that – despite Elon Musk’s recently leaked email claiming “great” demand – that demand for the Model 3 has stagnated in the U.S. 

“The company lacks a path to significant profitability from its auto business and its solar storage installations have declined sequentially over the past two quarters,” Johnson said. Like Morgan Stanley last week, Barclays said that there was “no excitement” around the brand anymore, observing that the CEO’s pivot to robotaxis fell on deaf ears. 

Johnson did try to recant some of the bull case that has been successful, but he then turned around to note why all of these points did not justify the company’s current valuation. He says that Barclay’s looks at four “articles of faith”, that Tesla bulls take to be gospel, with an eye of skepticism. 

He also pointed out comparable EVs that will be coming to market and challenging Tesla, along with their price points and range. 

Johnson blasted the company’s Autonomy Day, stating that it made the company’s “lead” in Autonomous “even less credible”. 


The onslaught continued, interspersed with the occasional silver lining of optimism, like this: “We expect more investors to gravitate back to Tesla’s near-term fundamentals of demand, profitability and cash generation.” Well, maybe optimism for the shorts. He also said his “niche carmaker” model would price the company’s shares around $133. 

Recall, last week started with Wedbush proclaiming that Tesla faced a “Kilimanjaro-like uphill climb” to hit its profitability goals for the second half of the year. Analyst Dan Ives also slashed his price target from $275 to $230 and called the company‘s current state of affairs a “code red situation”.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas then picked up the bearish baton with a midweek call with investors in which he  said “supply exceeds demand, they’re burning cash, nobody cares about the Model Y, they raised capital near lows” and there’s been “no strategic buy-in”. 

He then said: “Tesla’s is not seen as a growth story, it’s seen as a distressed credit and restructuring story.” 

This came after Jonas’ note last Tuesday, which saw the investment bank lower its “bear case” target to on the company to just $10 per share.

Later in the week, longtime Tesla bull Gene Munster capitulated and issued a stern warning that he believed Tesla will miss its 2019 delivery target range. Munster cited shrinking sales in China and the ongoing trade war as the reason for his increasingly bearish commentary. Munster cut his estimate for Tesla’s full year global car sales by about 10%, to 310,000 vehicles, versus the 360,000 vehicle target that the company put out back in March.

Citigroup and Robert W. Baird & Co. analysts also slashed their target prices last week. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Xhbstp Tyler Durden

When Will The FBI Place Informants In Bernie Sanders’ 2020 Campaign?

If the 2016 US election taught us anything, it’s that the FBI feels it’s necessary to send people to spy on the campaigns of candidates who might have ties to Russia. We’ve also learned that the agency’s bar for launching a massive counterintelligence investigation is incredibly low – spending what President Trump says was $40 million to probe flimsy rumors that Russia has ‘dirt’ on another candidate.

Which brings us to Bernie Sanders – who honeymooned in the USSR and campaigned for the Marxist party during the Reagan era. And while that may have put him in great company with former Obama intel chiefs James Comey and John Brennan, there’s just no way to know if Sanders is a 77-year-old manchurian Red Dawn candidate, ready to strike at the heart of Democracy. 

Adding to the possibility of Putin Puppetry was special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusion that 13 Russian ‘trolls’ he indicted were instructed “to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.” In other words – when Bernie was a contender, Russia wanted him to win. 

Meanwhile, Bernie and his wife Jane were placed under FBI investigation for bank fraud in 2017 related to a $10 million loan Jane took out for her very ill-fated Burlington College fiasco, though we’re unsure if their home, office and hotel room were raided like Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s. Politico reported that prosecutors were also investigating allegations that Sen. Sanders’ office inappropriately urged the bank to approve the loan.

And while a top Sanders adviser told CNN in November that the Vermont US Attorney’s Office notified Jane that charges would not be filed, how do we know for sure that Russians weren’t involved? 

Which begs the question – when is the FBI going to investigate, raid, and send informants into the Sanders campaign? He might after all be a Kremlin agent, right?

(h/t Andrew Wilkow)

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2W4017c Tyler Durden

Unlike President Donald Trump, Justin Amash Actually Fights Against FISA Surveillance Abuse

The first time the libertarian-leaning Rep. Justin Amash (R–Mich.) got attention here at Reason was when he was first running for Congress in 2010. Amash was then serving in the state legislature, and Katherine Mangu-Ward took note of his record of explaining each of his votes on Facebook. He continued that practive after he took his seat in Washington, particularly on what might be seen as “controversial” votes or votes where he bucked the majority.

Amash’s generally fearless transparency has made it easy for voters to track his libertarian record. It also helps explain why his Twitter-thread ruminations that President Donald Trump should potentially face impeachment hearings are so detailed and thorough.

Because Amash has been so transparent, we also know how thorough he has been in fighting for Americans’ right to be protected from unwarranted federal surveillance, and how this has put him at odds with intelligence officers, with the leaders of both major political parties, and with both Barack Obama’s and Donald Trump’s administrations.

Bizarrely, some who are upset that Amash won’t support Trump are now attempting to attack him for being weak on surveillance issues. This is absolutely baffling for anybody who knows that Amash has regularly tried to use his position as a lawmaker to scale back the government’s powers in both the PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments (FISA) to secretly snoop on American citizens.

At Amash’s town hall on Monday, one upset woman identified herself as a former Amash volunteer, claimed to have voted for him in every election since 2010, and said she’d recently changed her position on him. She was obviously very upset at Amash for his position on impeaching Trump. After expressing her anger for a few minutes, she asked him, “Why did you say nothing about the FISA abuses? If you care about the constitution so much, why didn’t you say anything about the yearlong violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of Trump and his entire transition team?” This apparently prompted Amash to laugh off-camera, and that made her even angrier, because she took it to mean that he doesn’t care about the issue. She then insisted that he “didn’t speak about it once.”

Nor was this just one woman at one town hall meeting. This has emerged as a talking point among the president’s defenders, with Trump’s campaign manager tweeting out this doozy yesterday:

For somebody who claims to have been an Amash supporter up until these past two years, the lady at the town hall seemed awfully unfamiliar with his record.

Amash responded to the woman by recounting his record on the issue and telling her that Trumpist invocations of FISA abuse are “just an excuse” to try to grab onto anything that might defend Trump from accusations of misconduct. As people who are familiar with Amash’s reputation know, Trump and the White House has actively and loudly fought the congressman’s efforts to restrain the FBI’s and NSA’s authority to snoop on Americans. (This whole exchange can be watched on the video posted here, starting at about one hour, 16 minutes in.)

Amash explained to the crowd that when Section 702 of the FISA amendments was up for renewal under Trump, Amash offered up an amendment to try to stop its use against Americans. Section 702 is intended to allow the federal government to spy on foreign targets overseas without having to get a warrant, overseen by the secretive FISA court. But Section 702’s authorities have habitually been applied to secretly surveil Americans as well, for crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism or national security.

Despite all of Trump’s complaints about surveillance, despite all his claims that the government had illegally spied on him, the White House threatened a veto. Trump ultimately signed a law that expanded the government’s ability to spy on Americans.

Right now, even as we hear these claims that Amash doesn’t care about FISA abuse, he’s trying to pass legislation that will permanently end the authority for the National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI to collect and access the telephone records of American citizens without getting warrants. This is the program originally exposed by Edward Snowden. Amash, joined by the likes of Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), has been fighting to stop this collection for years, since well before Trump was even a candidate.

But sources within White House say the Trump administration wants to keep these authorities intact, even as the NSA itself is now recommending an end to these practices.

It’s brazen how much Trump and those in his orbit care only about the Fourth Amendment and FISA to the extent that it can be used to protect Trump. None of these people, including Trump, give one single damn about restraining government surveillance.

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2wtcGGa
via IFTTT

Buchanan: Is The Liberal Hour Ending In The West?

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Hillary Clinton called them “the deplorables.”

Barack Obama called them losers who “cling” to their Bibles, bigotries and guns.

To President Jean-Claude Juncker of the European Commission, they are “these populist, nationalists, stupid nationalists… in love with their own countries.”

Well, “stupid” they may be, and, yes, they do love their countries, but last week they gave Juncker a thrashing, as they shook up the West and the world.

Elections in the world’s largest electoral blocs — the 28-nation EU, and an India of 1.3 billion people — showed that the tide of nationalism continues to rise and spread across Europe and Asia.

In India, the Hindu Nationalist BJP party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a smashing victory. So strong was Modi’s showing that he rushed to reassure non-Hindus, especially India’s 200 million Muslims, that they remain equal citizens. But in India the Hindu hour is at hand.

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, formed just months ago, ran first in Britain with 31%. No other party came close. Labor won 14% and Prime Minister Theresa May’s Tories ran 5th with 9%, a historic humiliation.

In the French elections, Emmanuel Macron’s party lost to the National Rally of Marine Le Pen, whom he had defeated 2-1 in the last presidential election.

Matteo Salvini’s populist-nationalist League, with 34%, ran first in Italy in a showing that could lead to national elections that could make him prime minister.

The nationalist Law and Justice Party in Poland and the populist Fidesz Party of Viktor Orban in Hungary were easily victorious.

In Germany, however, the conservative-socialist coalition of Angela Merkel bled support. Both the CDU and SPD lost strength in defeats that could shake the Berlin government.

What do these elections tell us?

If the Conservatives wish to remain in power in Parliament, they will have to leave the European Union and, if necessary, crash out without a divorce settlement with Brussels.

The Tories cannot defy the will of their own majority on the most critical issue in 50 years — a nationalist demand to be free of Brussels — and still survive as Britain’s first party.

Whoever wins the Tory competition to succeed May will almost surely become the prime minister who leads Britain out of the EU.

Nor is that such a tragedy.

The first Brexit, after all, was in 1776, when the 13 colonies of North America severed all ties to the British crown and set out alone on the path to independence. It did not turn out all that badly.

Last week’s election also saw major gains for the Green parties across Europe. Laser-focused on climate change, these parties will be entering coalitions to provide center-left and center-right regimes the necessary votes to create parliamentary majorities.

The environment is now likely to rival Third World immigration as an issue in all elections in Europe.

While nationalist and populists control a fourth of the seats in the EU Parliament, they are isolated. They may have the power to block or veto EU actions by Brussels, but they cannot impose their own agenda.

Yet even larger lessons emerge from these two elections.

Liberalism appears to be losing its appeal. A majority in the world’s largest democracy, India, consciously used their democratic right to vote — to advance sectarian and nationalist ends.

Why is liberalism fading away, and nationalism ascendant?

The former is an idea that appeals to the intellect; the latter, rooted in love of family, faith, tribe and nation, is of the heart. In its potency to motivate men, liberalism is to nationalism what near beer is to Bombay gin.

To be a proud Pole, Hungarian, Italian or Scotsman has a greater grip on men’s love, loyalty and allegiance than to be a citizen of Europe.

“Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong,” said Bismarck. Europe is but “a geographical expression.”

Identity politics, people identifying themselves by their ethnicity, nationality, race, culture and faith, appears to be the world’s future.

Even leftists are bowing to the new reality.

“Identity politics is exactly who we are and it’s exactly how we won,” says Stacy Abrams, the African American Democrat who almost won the Georgia governor’s race. “By centering communities in Georgia, we… increased voter participation, we brought new folks to the process.”

The Democratic Party is now a coalition easily identifiable by race, ethnicity, ideology and gender — African American, Hispanic, Asian, LGBTQ, feminist and Green.

Our Founding Fathers believed we Americans were a new people, a separate, unique, identifiable people, a band of brothers, who had risked their lives and shed their blood. Liberals believe we are held together by abstract ideas and ideals, such as democracy, equality and diversity.

But did Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Calhoun, Clay, Jackson, Sam Houston, Tyler and Polk really believe in equality and diversity as they drove Indians, French, British, Spanish and Mexicans out of this land to create a continentwide nation of their own?

Or was Manifest Destiny really all about us, and not them?

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Xgv7ts Tyler Durden

Unlike President Donald Trump, Justin Amash Actually Fights Against FISA Surveillance Abuse

The first time the libertarian-leaning Rep. Justin Amash (R–Mich.) got attention here at Reason was when he was first running for Congress in 2010. Amash was then serving in the state legislature, and Katherine Mangu-Ward took note of his record of explaining each of his votes on Facebook. He continued that practive after he took his seat in Washington, particularly on what might be seen as “controversial” votes or votes where he bucked the majority.

Amash’s generally fearless transparency has made it easy for voters to track his libertarian record. It also helps explain why his Twitter-thread ruminations that President Donald Trump should potentially face impeachment hearings are so detailed and thorough.

Because Amash has been so transparent, we also know how thorough he has been in fighting for Americans’ right to be protected from unwarranted federal surveillance, and how this has put him at odds with intelligence officers, with the leaders of both major political parties, and with both Barack Obama’s and Donald Trump’s administrations.

Bizarrely, some who are upset that Amash won’t support Trump are now attempting to attack him for being weak on surveillance issues. This is absolutely baffling for anybody who knows that Amash has regularly tried to use his position as a lawmaker to scale back the government’s powers in both the PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments (FISA) to secretly snoop on American citizens.

At Amash’s town hall on Monday, one upset woman identified herself as a former Amash volunteer, claimed to have voted for him in every election since 2010, and said she’d recently changed her position on him. She was obviously very upset at Amash for his position on impeaching Trump. After expressing her anger for a few minutes, she asked him, “Why did you say nothing about the FISA abuses? If you care about the constitution so much, why didn’t you say anything about the yearlong violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of Trump and his entire transition team?” This apparently prompted Amash to laugh off-camera, and that made her even angrier, because she took it to mean that he doesn’t care about the issue. She then insisted that he “didn’t speak about it once.”

Nor was this just one woman at one town hall meeting. This has emerged as a talking point among the president’s defenders, with Trump’s campaign manager tweeting out this doozy yesterday:

For somebody who claims to have been an Amash supporter up until these past two years, the lady at the town hall seemed awfully unfamiliar with his record.

Amash responded to the woman by recounting his record on the issue and telling her that Trumpist invocations of FISA abuse are “just an excuse” to try to grab onto anything that might defend Trump from accusations of misconduct. As people who are familiar with Amash’s reputation know, Trump and the White House has actively and loudly fought the congressman’s efforts to restrain the FBI’s and NSA’s authority to snoop on Americans. (This whole exchange can be watched on the video posted here, starting at about one hour, 16 minutes in.)

Amash explained to the crowd that when Section 702 of the FISA amendments was up for renewal under Trump, Amash offered up an amendment to try to stop its use against Americans. Section 702 is intended to allow the federal government to spy on foreign targets overseas without having to get a warrant, overseen by the secretive FISA court. But Section 702’s authorities have habitually been applied to secretly surveil Americans as well, for crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism or national security.

Despite all of Trump’s complaints about surveillance, despite all his claims that the government had illegally spied on him, the White House threatened a veto. Trump ultimately signed a law that expanded the government’s ability to spy on Americans.

Right now, even as we hear these claims that Amash doesn’t care about FISA abuse, he’s trying to pass legislation that will permanently end the authority for the National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI to collect and access the telephone records of American citizens without getting warrants. This is the program originally exposed by Edward Snowden. Amash, joined by the likes of Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), has been fighting to stop this collection for years, since well before Trump was even a candidate.

But sources within White House say the Trump administration wants to keep these authorities intact, even as the NSA itself is now recommending an end to these practices.

It’s brazen how much Trump and those in his orbit care only about the Fourth Amendment and FISA to the extent that it can be used to protect Trump. None of these people, including Trump, give one single damn about restraining government surveillance.

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2wtcGGa
via IFTTT

Chinese Man Behind Viral “Trade War” Song Debuts Hymn Praising Huawei 

Last week we reported that the Sino-American trade war now has a song, titled “Trade War,” had gone viral on the largest Chinese social media platforms. Now, the man behind “Trade war,” has written two more nationalistic songs praising Huawei and its “ironman” founder Ren Zhengfei.

Zhao Liangtian’s original anti-American anthem begins with a chorus singing: “Trade war! Trade war! Not afraid of the outrageous challenge! Not afraid of the outrageous challenge! A trade war is happening over the Pacific Ocean!”

The song also included lyrics such as: “if the perpetrator wants to fight, we will beat him out of his wits.“

The song, set to a tune of an anti-Japanese song from the 1960s, reveals the tsunami of anti-US sentiment spreading across the country. Liangtian told Bloomberg earlier this month: “Since the trade war broke out, I felt the urge to do something.”

According to the Shanghai Morning Post, Liangtian has been searching for collaborators to help him compose more songs since the trade war began early last year. Besides “Trade War,” he has also been working on two more songs, one called The Song of Ren Zhengfei, and the other called Our Name is Huawei.

Liangtian said after his first video went viral, a music teacher from Shandong province contacted him, wanting to provide his expertise in the producing of future songs.

Also, five other people have written lyrics to accompany his song for Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, which they read:

“The ironman/ Shouldering heavy burdens/ Marching on a tough entrepreneurial journey/ The road to success is long and dangerous.”

“Sleep on brushwood and taste gall/ Never say never/ Never surrender/ Fighting with the headwind and giant waves/ For a rich and strong motherland.”

Besides being a member of the Poetry Association of China, Liangtian works as a civil servant at the culture, broadcast, news and tourism bureau of Yan Ting County in Sichuan province.

In a recent interview with mainland media outlets, Zhengfei said: “One can’t be deemed patriotic simply for using Huawei products, or the other way round. Huawei is a commercial business. If you like [the product] then use it. Do not politicize it.”

Despite the popularity of Liangtian’s nationalistic songs on Chinese social media platforms, no one from Huawei has contacted him.

In encouraging anti-US sentiment, in mid-May China aired anti-American war films from the Maoist era.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government has been leery of attacking President Trump directly, fearful that the vilification of the self-proclaimed ‘tariff man’ will only deepen the trade war.

China’s leaders seem to be fueling anti-American nationalist sentiments across the country, which has recently led one company to prohibit all employees from the use of iPhones, driving in American automobiles, eating at American fast food restaurants, using American household products, and even traveling to the U.S.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wwNui0 Tyler Durden

Cryptos Crash After Bitcoin Spikes Above $9,000

Bitcoin spiked above $9,000 this morning for the first time since May 2018, but no sooner had it crossed that Maginot Line that a major sell program swept across the entire crypto space…

Which seemed to trigger an immediate avalanche of sell orders…

Despite today’s volatile moves, Bloomberg reports that crypto proponents are taking encouragement from a string of recent headlines showing greater interest in the space from mainstream firms.

“Easier to spend means a greater use case,” said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at trading platform eToro in Tel Aviv. Greenspan said the overall customer base could reach “critical mass, and the technology goes from underground to mainstream.”

Bulls are betting the run could continue as more institutions start to build out their own cryptocurrencies or launch projects using the underlying blockchain technology.

“It takes two to tango. The more merchants that accept crypto encourages more people to adopt it and use it,” said David Tawil, president of crypto hedge fund ProChain Capital. “That’s major.”

However, Talil warns:

“This is still the thawing out from the crypto winter that was,” said Tawil. “There still may be another pullback before we get to fundamentals truly taking over and speculators and frauds being expunged.”

But the YTD prints are still impressive…

Tracking 2017’s performance most closely for now…

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HL9JXZ Tyler Durden