Category: zerohedge

Authored by Dilbert Creator Scott Adams via Dilbert.com,

Trump has pulled ahead of Clinton nationally in both the new FOX poll and the Rasmussen Poll. And Trump passed Clinton in favorability according to the newest national poll on that topic. The Megyn Kelly interview (including the hyping of it ahead of time) marked Trump’s third-act turn.

By the way, Anderson Cooper of CNN said last night that CNN finds the FOX polling to be reliable and transparent, in case you wondered.

Meanwhile, Clinton is losing one primary after another to a dehydrated dandelion in her own party. That doesn’t bode well for the coming cage fight with Godzilla.

And Godzilla hasn’t even started to punch hard. He’s still looking at the opposition research and humming. So that’s coming.

Clinton is planning to appear on Ellen with the all-female cast of the new Ghostbusters movie. That’s what overplaying the woman card looks like. One wag on Twitter put it this way:

@ScottAdamsSays

Hillary: Women Women Women Women Women
Trump: America America America America America

— ?T?R?U?M?P? (@screenwriter) May 19, 2016

 The New York Times did its best to make Trump look like a sexist , but they only succeeded in destroyed their own credibility when their star witness outed them for making up stuff.

Clinton surrogate Ed Rendel said something that was probably harmless in person, and in the proper context, but taken out of context by outragists it sounded like he was saying Clinton supporters are mostly ugly women. That didn’t help.

Clinton’s team continues to churn out anti-Trump hit pieces that ask you to imagine President Trump in office. By November, voters will think Trump has been running the country for a year and it looked a lot like the Obama administration. That’s called “graduated exposure” and it’s a well-understood psychological phenomenon. The Democrats are working overtime to make Trump feel less scary while believing they are doing the opposite.

Now imagine Clinton and Trump selecting VPs. If Clinton picks a woman, she overplays the woman card to destruction. If she selects a beta male, it will seem cringeworthy to the sexist public. If she selects an alpha male it will annoy her base without gaining a single vote. Clinton loses on every path.

Meanwhile, Trump can pick a man or a woman and it will look natural. No VP will overshadow Trump’s energy. All he needs is a running mate that is competent and a little bit interesting.

Trump announced his list of potential Supreme Court Justices. Republicans seemed to like the list, which makes Trump seem more mainstream even if you don’t like the names on the list.

A jet on the way from France to Egypt has disappeared, and terrorism is the assumed reason. That plays to Trump’s strength, as does every act of terror everywhere.

Trump has gone a few weeks without creating any new provocations on the scale of his 2015 self. The longer he proves he can moderate his behavior to fit the situation – as he did in the Megyn Kelly interview – the more people trust that he isn’t crazy.

Trump’s insults are now understood to be more than random hate. They are weapons-grade persuasion that have been engineered and then A-B tested at rallies. The “Crooked Hillary” harpoon is already doing its damage. If history is our guide, the nickname will bleed her out before November.

Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, knows how to win. The Clinton campaign doesn’t show the same level of talent, at least in terms of persuasion. Clinton’s logo (the big H) looks like a hospital sign. And their “Love Trumps Hate” slogan is two-thirds “Love Trump.” Any trained persuader knows people put more cognitive weight on the first part of sentences. 

I’m teeming with confirmation bias, but from my kitchen counter, I don’t see how it can go any direction but a Trump landslide from here.

I’ll remind readers that I have disavowed all of the candidates. My political views don’t line up with any of them. My interest is in Trump’s persuasion skills.

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What do financing your retirement as well as finding affordable healthcare and the possibility of losing your job all have in common with each other? Easy, at least for an American, these days. Those are the top three worries that we wake up to in this country and that 60% of people believe are very much more than just nightmares gone wrong. They could become reality and it would seem that women are more concerned in particular. It’s healthcare that is on everyone’s lips and it’s been like that for years. Americans have become downright insecure since the economic crisis and despite any progress in employment figures or in the Gross Domestic Product of the country, it’s still a major worry that people perceive every day. How to pay for your healthcare in a country where it’s the most expensive in the world? Even if you’re on a middle-income figure and have insurance, you’re still likely to be sitting their wondering and perusing over how to deal with health bills if they have already arrived in your mailbox, or even worse worrying about the unknown and how you’re going to handle them if (or rather when) they get posted to you.

The country remains roughly divided amongst those that are pro-Affordable Care Act and those that think that President Obama got it all wrong by passing that law making an attempt to provide affordable healthcare in the country that spends more money than any other in the world in that sector of activity. There are more and more Republicans that are voicing their opinions to get that law ditched just as soon as Obama closes the little white door in the big Oval Office and does a runner somewhere off to the sun, probably. It’s not surprising that people are genuinely worried in the USA about how they can pay for their healthcare and that of their family.

A survey that was carried out by the Institute for Communitarian Policy Study (George Washington University) shows that “the majority of Americans have a widespread sense of economic insecurity” today.

·         62% of women are worried in the USA about their healthcare expenses.

·         47% of men are also worried about how they are going to pay for the healthcare costs either for themselves or for their families.

·         It’s obvious that healthcare is a major concern for Americans these days.

·         Today, healthcare spending stands at 17.5% of GDP in the USA.

·         Between 2014 and 2015, healthcare expenses grew at a far greater percentage rate than over the past twelve years according to official statistics.

·         The average rate of growth in healthcare expenditure in the USA stood at roughly 3.7% per annum between 2008 and 2013.

·         2013 was even a historical year with growth in expenditure that stood at a measly (by comparison) figure of just 2.9%.

·         But in 2014, that figure jumped to 5.3% per year.

·         While the number of people with public health insurance increased from 12.9% in 2000 to just below 24% in 2013, there was a radical drop from 71.8% to 61% for private health insurance in the country.

·         The recession can be largely blamed for those figures related to public and private health insurance, with the loss in employment leading to private health insurance being forfeited and enrolment for some into public health-insurance schemes.

·         But, what’s the cause of the increase since 2014 in the average expense growth for healthcare in this country? It’s due to the Affordable Healthcare Act and new and highly expensive drugs that have been launched onto the market.

·         Hospitals account for 32% of all expenditure in healthcare today in the USA.

·         That figure increased by 0.6% from 2013 and 2014.

·         Doctors make up 20% of expenditure in healthcare in the country.

·         Doctors’ expenses increased by 2.1% from 2013 to 2014.

 

But, is the USA alone in the cost of its healthcare system in the world and what are the other places where you would have to fork out and dig deep until you got enough money to find treatment?

Isn’t it a sorry state of affairs that you have to think about how much you have in the bank before you can actually get treatment? Or is it the old Malthusian idea that we have to get rid of the poor because they will simply eat away at the resources of the rich? Just remember though that there is always someone that is richer than you are. That means you will always be the poor man to someone else, won’t you?

But, where would it cost you a bomb to get treatment these days? Here’s the list. Getting treated in any hospital by any doctor in any of these countries would certainly cost us less than in the USA. Have a think about it.

What’s included in the healthcare costs? Anything from medical procedures to pharmaceutical products and prescriptions as well as administration and staff.

1.United States

Health expenditure in this country per capita stands at $8,713. Life expectancy stands at 78.8 years (the only top-ten country that doesn’t even reach 80 years for life expectancy) and the obesity rate is 35.3%. The USA has more money than most countries in this world and it spends more money than any other on healthcare. Yet, there are still people that don’t have cover and there is no greater return on investment here than anywhere else. In fact, it’s worse. The USA has roughly 2.5 doctors per 1,000 residents, which is one of the lowest and worst in the top-ten list. Not only does it cost us more to see the doctor, but we have to wait more to get one who’s available.

2.Switzerland

Switzerland has a per capita expenditure of $6,325 and that amounts to 11.1% of GDP for this country. The obesity rate is just 10.3% and life expectancy stands at 82.9 years. 81% of the Swiss believe that they are in better health with their universal healthcare. At least, the results are better. The Swiss live longer. The country even has more nurses than any other country in the world (17 per 1,000 people of the population) and they have 4 doctors per 1,000 residents.

3.Norway

Norway has health expenditure (per capita) that stands at $5,862 and that represents 8.9% of its GDP. Life expectancy stands at 81.8 years ad obesity is 10% of the total population. As with many countries in the western world, universal healthcare is the order of the day here. There is also the same number of nurses (17) and doctors (4) per 1,000 residents as for Switzerland in this country.

4.Netherlands

Healthcare expenditure here stands at $5,131 per capita and that’s 11.1% of GDP. Life expectancy stands at 81.4 years and obesity is just over 11%. Only 1% of residents have no health insurance in this country. Across the board in all OECD countries, people over the age of 65 believe that they are in good health at a rate of 43.4%. But, in the Netherlands, that figure is much higher at 60%.

5.Sweden

Health expenditure here stands at $4,904 per person in the country (11% of GDP). Life expectancy is at 82 years of age and obesity stands at 11.7% of the population. Swedes also go to the doctor’s far less than any other country in the world (2.9 times per year) and this is because they state that they are in excellent health at a rate of 81% for all residents.

6.Germany

Health expenditure here stands at $4,819 per capita and works out to 11% of GDP (and that’s with 25% of its population being over 65). Almost the entire country has medical healthcare cover either through public or private means (by comparison in the USA only 89% of the country is covered).

7.Denmark

Life expectancy here stands at 80.4 years and they spend $4,553 per person in the country (10.4% of GDP). Its growing ageing population will likely see that percentage of healthcare expenditure increase in the coming years (those over the age of 65 will amount to nearly one quarter of the population in the next thirty years).

8.Austria

Almost the entire country has health insurance here with $4,553 being spent per person (10.1% of GDP). There is a life expectancy of 81.2 years here.

9.Luxembourg

Life expectancy here stands at 81.9%, but obesity is at 22.7%. Per-capita expenditure on healthcare stands at $4,371 ($762 coming from the private sector, per resident).

10.Canada

Canada has a life-expectancy rate of 81.5 years of age. It spends $4,351 per capita on healthcare and that works out to 10.2% of GDP. The average percentage for expenditure as a percentage of GDP in the OECD stands at 8.9%.

The more you spend should be synonymous with greater returns on investment for people in the USA. That means that Americans should be the fittest people on this planet. They’re definitely not! What happened and where did it all go wrong?

People are living longer and that necessarily means that we need to think about healthcare of the future. What direction do we want to take and can we continue living in the country with the most expensive healthcare system in the world? Are we still prepared to work all of our lives and not have enough money to get regular check-ups or pay for operations? Focusing on fear will just keep us in the past rather than progressing towards something better and new. The Dutch writer Corrie ten Boom once said “Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” There’s no point carrying yesterday’s worries around with us today, but that can only happen as long as the cost of healthcare comes down in this country. After all, who’s it making rich? Certainly not the people who work in that sector and certainly not the people who use it to be looked after and treated.

Yet, there are plenty of innovative ways of reducing health costs and thus enabling us to get rid of that worry and fear of healthcare available to us.

What would you do to make healthcare better?

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After Turkish President Recep Erdogan pressured Angela Merkel to cave and allow charges to be brought against German comedian Jan Böhmermann for being mean to him in a video poem, the Spectator decided to hold a contest to see who could come up with the most offensive poem against Erdogan.

It turns out that the winner of the competition is none other than former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who will be awarded £1,000 for his efforts.

Journalist Douglas Murray, the man who came up with the idea, wrote that he is glad that a British political leader has shown that in Britain at least, no foreign potentate is needed to tell anyone what they may think or say. And of course the obligatory shots at Merkel's handling of the situation is addressed as well.

For myself, I think it a wonderful thing that a British political leader has shown that Britain will not bow before the putative Caliph in Ankara. Erdogan may imprison his opponents in Turkey. Chancellor Merkel may imprison Erdogan’s critics in Germany. But in Britain we still live and breathe free. We need no foreign potentate to tell us what we may think or say. And we need no judge (especially no German judge) to instruct us over what we may find funny.

Without further ado, here is the winning poem:

There was a young fellow from Ankara

Who was a terrific wankerer

Till he sowed his wild oats

With the help of a goat

But he didn’t even stop to thankera.

Imagine how many criminal complaints Erdogan has filed with the UK government since learning of this contest, and especially after reading the winning poem…

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Submitted by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,

After seeming so “dovish” last month in the bland, edited April policy statement, the FOMC meeting minutes reveal supposedly a different vibe. Yesterday’s release has to this point given “markets” more to assume that a second hike will be coming in June. The statement itself leaves little doubt about what is actually dictating their (irrelevant) policy gestures.

Many participants noted that downside risks emanating from developments abroad, while reduced, still warranted close monitoring. For these reasons, participants generally saw maintaining the target range for the federal funds rate at ¼ to ½ percent at this meeting and continuing to assess developments carefully as consistent with setting policy in a data-dependent manner and as leaving open the possibility of an increase in the federal funds rate at the June FOMC meeting.

Global turmoil, global turmoil, global turmoil. Since we are in the midst of a pause, rate hikes are predictably back on. Given this framework, we can judge FOMC leanings from China. Here is a handy guide for US Monetary Policy As Derived From Chinese Liquidity Policy Due to London and Tokyo Bank Policy:

If it weren’t for all this random but somehow regular global noise, the FOMC would still be just as confused but at least no one would care as much – only Dummies.

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Taking a page from Mario Draghi's economic savior play-book, it appears President Obama's meeting with Janet Yellen was not wasted as he seems to have found the blueprints of his own 'bazooka' and bubble-blowing machine. Perhaps the realization that Trump's success is based on Obama's fiction-peddling, the president has been forced to do "whatever it takes" …

 

Source: WhiteHouse.gov

…because the only way Democrats beat Trump (given Hillary's losing position among the wealthy, white, and educated) is if there is a new bubble blown that briefly distracts everyone…

Obama was allegedly disappointed that none of the young inventors offered cash-carrying-drones.

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The Affordable Care Act, affectionately called Obamacare, has been stacking up wins lately.

 

Over just the last few months we’ve shown the stunning developments that have taken place in the insurance industry as a result of Obamacare. Namely that insurance companies have begun a mass exodus from Obamacare markets because it is simply not profitable, and for those businesses that choose to remain, they have been forced to significantly increase premiums. Most recently, patients who purchases plans on the exchange have been getting turned down by doctors and hospitals who say they do not take Obamacare.

The impact on small business is something else we’ve discussed, most recently when a small business owner admitted to Hillary Clinton in a town hall event that her premiums had gone up $500 a month, which in turn made it difficult to cover the cost of insurance for her family, let alone think about offering it to her employees.

Lawmakers are well aware of their policy error, and on Wednesday yet another small business owner testified in front of the Senate committee on small business and entrepreneurship to explain what he has experienced as a result of congress rushing to get Obamacare passed.

Tom Kunkel, president and CEO of Maryland-based Full House Marketing and Print explained that he once hoped that Obamacare would have a favorable benefit to his business.

“From a small business perspective, the ACA could have been a huge relief and benefit. I was reimbursing employees for their premiums, because this offered me as a small business a way to compete with larger companies who provided employer-sponsored health insurance plans.”

He later got a dose of reality when he was notified by his accountant of IRS Notice 2013-54, which prevents businesses from assisting employees with their individual market health insurance.

“I was stunned. Mid-year, I had to tell my employees I could no longer reimburse them for health care and that they were essentially on their own. I had several employees who could not afford their premiums without my contribution.“

 

“One of my employees has cancer, and was not able to get his prescription refilled for over three weeks because of the new plan.”

He concluded by telling lawmakers that Obamacare has impacted his company’s ability to operate profitably, and is leading to less hiring, more expenses, and businesses will sometimes have to close their doors because of it.

“IRS Notice 2013-54 has essentially taken us back to the situation before the Affordable Care Act where a small business can not afford to offer health benefits to its employees. I feel the burden of many new initiatives as they affect my company’s ability to operate profitably and to hire and retain employees. Many of these initiatives often have unforeseen consequences and cause small businesses additional expenses and burdens that can lead to less hiring, more expenses, and sometimes lead to businesses closing their doors.“

We can’t say we’re surprised at any of the testimony, because as is always the case, the more the central planners get involved, the more unintended consequences occur, hurting the very individuals they are intending to help.

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Even the best and the brightest within the United States are now contradicting each other on what happened to EgyptAir Flight MS804.

Earlier today, reports came out that US Intel saw evidence of an explosion, meaning a terrorist attack had taken down the flight.

Scoop: NBC News reporting that US intel sees evidence of explosion on Egypt Air MS804

— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) May 19, 2016

Now, however, FBI Director Jim Comey has contradicted US intel reports, saying that there is "No evidence" of a terrorist attack.

Which Reuters is now confirming as well.

BREAKING: U.S. sees no sign of explosion aboard EgyptAir flight in review of imagery: officials

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) May 19, 2016

What truly took place is of course yet to be determined, but watching intelligence agencies contradict each other in the mad dash to comment without knowing all of the facts never gets old.

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Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

 

Any way you slice it, the Democratic National Convention coming up in Philadelphia in late July promise to be tumultuous.

Though Hillary Clinton and the party insiders long ago expected the 2016 primary to be a formality (which conspicuously few hopefuls in the race), the grassroots voters are feverishly demanding Bernie, and vehemently against the establishment candidate who is widely known for her duplicity and dishonesty.

As California Senator Diane Feinstein makes clear in this short and sweet video below, the establishment fears the riots and backlash that could come from a contested, or at least highly protested, convention as Sen. Sanders vows to continue the fight ‘until the last ballot is cast.’

Instead, she and other figures inside the Democratic party are trying to nudge Sanders into dropping in order to save face and avoid damaging the party’s share in the duopoly of political power.

 

But regardless of whether Sanders pushes through until convention or not, there will be lots of angry people who remain unsatisfied with another Clinton and more of the same. Tensions have been especially high since the controversial events in Nevada last week, as CNN notes:

The public outpouring of anger began last weekend at the Nevada Democratic Party convention, where Sanders supporters who said Hillary Clinton’s backers had subverted party rules shouted down pro-Clinton speakers and sent threatening messages to state party Chairwoman Roberta Lange after posting her phone number and address on social media.

 

That led Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and other top party leaders to demand an apology and publicly ruminate on the possibility of violence at the Democratic National Convention in July as they prepare for a general election battle with Donald Trump.

Commentators and politicos have also speculated on potential violence unfolding at the Republican National Convention, though that was largely before most of the GOP began to come to terms with Trump as the nominee.

Clearly, the broiling political anger, which has been heating up for years, is one of the major scenarios that riot police and other members of law enforcement have been training for for years. As Paul Joseph Watson reported:

Police advised by FEMA officials how to conduct “mass arrests”

 

The Department of Homeland Security oversaw a first of its kind three day training exercise in Texas this week during which police officers from fifteen different departments took part in drills on how to deal with riots and conduct mass arrests.

Although the threat of riots is real enough (it happened back in 1968 largely because the Democrats forced unlikable establishment tool Hubert Humphrey as the nominee), it also gives a pretext for larger security budgets, more riot gear and other tools and a rationale for forceful treatment of peaceful protesters exercising their rights.

The American people are angry. There are many reasons, and the shamefully rigged elections have been one of the major outlets for their outrage.

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As we explain in our book Splitting Pennies – the world is not as we think!  Every day, our money is worth less and less, and markets become more cumbersome, regulated, and overall disfunctional (except for an elite group of billionaires that can front run orders due to advanced computer-aided execution because of ‘order types’).  We explained in an article about America’s Big Red Forex Button, now we need to elaborate on the ‘nuclear option’ – considering that leading generals are saying more and more that war with Russia is ‘plausible’ if not ‘likely’.  Military politics in today’s world is a complicated mix of government politics, geopoliti#mce_temp_url#cs, and traditional statecraft.  It’s based on REAL geopolitics, meaning – not what you see on TV, but what goes in to build an energy pipeline, such as has been launched in Southern Europe.  This same politics is what goes into Forex.  Forex is a private market, the participants are 90% private banks, and it’s not regulated.  There’s no exchange.  It’s literally – a globalist capitialist free for all.  The rules are determined by the participants.  It’s all privatized – no government intervention.  HOWEVER.  The big linchpin is that FOREX markets operate at the licensure of the US Government.  The Fed, is a private bank.  But – the Federal Reserve Act was enacted by Congress, creating the Fed.  All these conspiracy nuts talking about the Fed is private blah blah blah 13 families, they missed the boat.  These people cherry pick facts that suit their pre determined beliefs, whatever they may be (The planet is run by Lizards – my personal favorite).  The point here, the Fed is the most powerful institution in the world, arguably.  Because of their powers, not their connections, not their clients, not their skills.  The Fed can tommorrow, set the benchmark rate to 10%, the world would explode – contracts would default, loans called in, companies bankrupt, the US Dollar would rise by huge a amount – it would be an 8.0 earthquake on the economic Richter scale.  And it’s not so far fetched, after all, Paul Volcker did it.  They can do it – and they can do even more.  The Fed can do things, that could literally put an end to the economic system on the planet.  They have all these powers, both legally and physically (meaning that, if the Fed acts electronically – it has the systems to do it, regardless of the legality).

But – the Fed derives its powers from the US Government.

The Fed isn’t a GSE, it’s in a unique situation.  To use the Military analogy, the CIA outsources an untold number of it’s functions, sometimes reported as high as 70% – 80%:

Among the many revelations in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the use of torture by the CIA is this crucial detail: The CIA delegated much of its “enhanced interrogation” to others.The report discloses that in 2008, 85 percent of the workforce in the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Group was made up of contractors. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan, who was at the center of the Sept. 11 investigations, told FRONTLINE that he believes that the CIA’s most troubling interrogation practices can be traced to the agency’s decision to hand over key responsibilities to these outsiders.“They hired people from outside,” said Soufan, who testified to Congress in 2009 about what he saw as the many flaws in the CIA’s procedures. “We hire the best and the brightest to work for the government, and then we outsourced to people who we have no clue who they are.”

This is, in fact, how government works.  The US Government has become the world’s largest business enterprise.  Defense was once a need – now it’s a business.  Every aspect of life from healthcare to managing your retirement has been commoditized and securitized for your consuming pleasure.

The ones who hold the big stick, it’s really the US Government, not the Fed, not the banks.  Because they have the ultimate power – the power to bomb.  Don’t take it lightly, and don’t misunderstand.  The fact that DC enjoys this power is not a critique or some kind of implication that “America is Evil” or some such nonsense.  Simply that, in REAL geopolitical terms, this is the reality of the world’s economy since World War 2.  All other explanations, like “Gunboat Diplomacy” are good metaphors, but the real power is derived from a small suitcase that POTUS carries that can eliminate a continent or the entire planet Earth.  

Is the Petro Dollar system coming to an end?  Yes, but it will be replaced by a new system – the NUCLEAR DOLLAR.  This is why one reason that the only real threat to the USD as a global reserve currency is Russia – not the EU, Africa, or Asia.  But as George Friedman explains in his latest book, the power which controls the trade routes in the Atlantic and Pacific, controls the world.  The United States is uniquely positioned on both coasts, with natural geologic advantages.  This, combined with the largest economy in the world, and Nukes, means that for the forseeable future, the United States will remain the world’s superpower.  This article is a must read for any Forex trader, would-be analyst, or conspiracy nut: 

The other part of the world that could produce a rival to the United States is Eurasia. Eurasia is a region of extremely varied geography, and it is the most likely birthplace of an American competitor that would be continental in scope. Geography, however, makes it extremely difficult for such a power (or a coalition of such powers) to arise. In fact, the southern sub-regions of Eurasia cannot contribute to such formation. The Ganges River Basin is the most agriculturally productive in the world, but the Ganges is not navigable. The combination of fertile lands and non-navigable waterways makes the region crushingly overpopulated and poor.

Things like Oil pipelines, can change this.  It’s why the politics is so complicated, and why the US has such an aggressive foreign policy promoting the use of US-involved contractors, or US-ally client states.

So while the Fed is a private institution, and Forex is run by private banks (for profit corporations) – it does so because governments authorize them to do so.  States provide banking charters.  States can take away banking charters.  If the US Government wanted to, it could mint its own money, create its own currency, and be its own banker.  Many economists and leading analysts have suggested this as sound monetary policy.  But to understand the FOREX system we have today, and how the Fed operates, one must understand government thinking, as explained in our previous article:

The government approaches work in an entirely different way than in private enterprise.  Healthcare.gov – the world’s first billion dollar website, is another great example.  Now imagine the task the Department of Defense is given; protect America from external threats.  Their first step, to identify threats.  In the military, this is done by agencies such as the CIA and the NRO.  Actually if the CIA operated according to its public mission, it would be an analyst agency not much different than those seen on Wall St. – providing information to their DOD bosses who act on it.  Since 911, the potential for financial terrorism has been considered a national security issue.  It’s in the laws, it’s in the regulations, it’s serious.  What if the Saudis flood the market with US Dollars?  What if the Chinese dump treasuries crashing the US Dollar?  What if hackers take control of the NYSE and flood the market with sell orders, causing a crash?  These are all extremely improbably events, so rare there is a higher chance of a giant meteor striking Manhatten this year.  The probability is so low it’s difficult to calculate.  But just like the false threat of Russian’s launching nukes, billions of dollars have been spent building a Big Red Button to press in case it happens.  It’s because government workers have one thing in mind; protect themselves.  Avoid a potential disaster.  The last thing any government worker wants is to be in charge of security on a day like 911, even if the threat is financial.  Although the debate rages about TARP and government actions during the weekend of the Bear Stearns collapse – the financial system was saved.  They pressed the button.  But this wasn’t the Forex button.

The Fed is a method of outsourcing.  Government doesn’t really DO anything, except collect taxes, make laws, and delegate powers.  Things like USPS and Healthcare.gov are anomalies.  

The US Government maintains the ultimate currency Nuclear option:  Destroy the US Dollar.  The power to destroy, is real power.  They can do it – just like they can create a new currency.  If you think this is irrational or impractical, see hundreds of references where they’ve done this in the past 100 years, including but not limited to issuing Military Payment Certificates (MPCs) during times of war, and has been often accused of counterfeiting US Dollars.  There’s no better ‘slush fund’ to finance a ‘black budget’ than REAL currency printed off the books, that no one knows exists.  And why not, it doesn’t cost much to print, and as an ‘anonymous’ Congressman admits in a recent release, they’re just a sinkhole of leeches:

More details are being released about the anonymous expose of Washington D.C. corruption and largesse that confirms why Americans hate their national government and have rallied to anti-establishment presidential candidates like Donald Trump. As NYPost reports, the 65-page manifesto called ‘The Confessions of Congressman X’ is based on years of transcribed private discussions, which the congressman last November gave editor Robert Atkinson, says more time is spent fundraising than reading bills and calls Washington a “sinkhole of leeches,” where money ‘corrupts’ and House members are “puppets” to lobbyists who bankroll their campaigns.

Recapping the FOREX NUCLEAR OPTIONS that USA has:

• USA can revoke the powers of the Fed, and create their own government run central bank
• USA can make null and void, use of the US Dollar as “Legal Tender” – to be replaced by a new currency, something electronically, centrally controlled
• USA can freeze all incoming and outgoing Foreign Currency transactions (which are processed by the Fed)

This is all possible, and much more.  These are operating powers.  Does it imply that anything like this will ever happen?  Probably not.  But investors should understand the reason WHY NOT.  Because if someone is holding a gun to your head while you work, it’s not likely that you’re going to throw stones at him.  The French tried that, and Nixon pressed the button.  And finally, they didn’t get their Gold that they wanted.  They just got more worthless US Dollars.  

Learn how to turn your worthless US Dollars into more, less-worthless US Dollars – read Splitting Pennies, and Open an Account.

via http://ift.tt/1U2Vqtp globalintelhub

The writing on the wall for Theranos has been clear for months, but it was only last night that the endgame started in earnest when the WSJ reported that the company itself effectively admitted its technology was a fraud, when it said it would restate and void two years of blood test results, and admitted that “some patients have received erroneous results that might have thrown off health decisions made with their doctors,” a sufficient admission for an endless barrage of civil and criminal lawsuits.

And nowhere is the endgame more visible than in the following LinkedIn posting as of 13 hours ago, which confirms that none other than Elizabeth Holmes own executive assistant has resigned and the company is trying to find a replacement for “executive assistant to the CEO.”

To those desperate enough to apply for the position, our condolences: there is a great than 50% chance the company, which describes itself as follows:

Our mission is to make actionable health information accessible to people everywhere in the world at the time it matters, enabling early detection and intervention of disease, and empowering individuals with information to live the lives they want to live.

 

At Theranos, we’re working to shape the future of lab testing. Now, for the first time, our high-complexity CLIA-certified laboratory can perform your tests quickly and accurately on samples as small as a single drop.

… will not be around long enough to make even one salary payment.

via http://ift.tt/1U2VaL4 Tyler Durden