Via Free Market Shooter,

On Sunday, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a report on the surge of murders and violence in Chicago.  When describing the increase in violence as a “surge”, 60 Minutes is certainly not exaggerating; this year’s homicide total in Chicago is up by 56% from last year, and up almost 75% from 2013.

However, CBS is certainly exaggerating when it compares Chicago to a “war zone” – in Afghanistan, for example, US forces have averaged 300+ murders per 100,000 since the 2001 invasion.  With a 2016 homicide rate of ~29 per 100,000, Chicago’s homicide rate hasn’t reached the 1992 peak of ~32 per 100,000.  Can anyone recall CBS comparing Chicago to a “war zone” in the 1990s?

60 Minutes centered its coverage on a drop in stops and arrests by police, with a focus on blaming the police for creating a crime-filled environment, with scarce mention of the perpetrators behind the increase in violent crime.  They also mentioned low police morale, new policies on racial profiling and police reporting, gang members posting video of confrontations with police, and “fear of becoming the next viral video” in their piece.  What was conveniently left out of the entire report?

Any mention whatsoever of Black Lives Matter, or any of the other nationwide protests against police that are primarily driven by race.  Of course, these protests almost always occur when the “victim” is black, regardless of whether or not the perpetrator in question was wrongfully shot or not.

Its not as though 60 Minutes didn’t have ample opportunity to mention BLM in their report.  Featured in the piece was an interview with former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.  60 Minutes made sure to discuss how McCarthy was dismissed following the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video and the subsequent protests.  However, the same day that CBS aired its report, McCarthy blamed nationwide protests for creating a “political atmosphere of anti-police sentiment.”

“So what’s happening, and this is ironic, is that a movement with the goal of saving black lives at this point is getting black lives taken, because 80 percent of our murder victims here in Chicago are male blacks,” McCarthy said. “Less than half of 1 percent of all the shootings in this city involve police officers shooting civilians.”

McCarthy directly cited BLM as responsible for creating an atmosphere of fear in police departments the same day this report was released, yet none of this was in the report on 60 Minutes.  Since McCarthy has been singing the same tune since he was dismissed, it is reasonable to believe that CBS deliberately edited any mention of nationwide protests or BLM from the portions of their interview with McCarthy that they chose to air.

The closest CBS came to mentioning BLM was their commentary regarding Officer Veronica Murillo.  Remember that bit about becoming the “next viral video”?  Below is the 60 Minutes commentary on Murillo:

Officer Veronica Murillo says it was the fear of becoming the next viral video that kept her from pulling her gun as she struggled with this suspect. He knocked her down and bashed her head into the pavement. She suffered neurological damage that has endangered her career.

Absent from this was any mention of nationwide news coverage or protests, which was what drove Murillo to fear use of deadly force.  Months ago, ZeroHedge filled in their readers to the actual reaction to the incident:

Many people have attributed the rise in Chicago violence to the co-called “Ferguson Effect” in which criminals lash out against what they view as a “de-legitamized” police force while the police retreat from actually enforcing the law out of fear of inciting the next major riot.  In fact, below is the perfect example of a female police officer in Chicago that was recently hospitalized after being “severely beaten” by a violent criminal.  In subsequent interviews, the female cop said she was afraid to use lethal force primarily because of the national backlash she may have faced as a result.  The encounter happened on Chicago’s violent West Side when cops responded to a car accident.  The attacker, apparently under the influence of drugs, launched a brutal attack against responding officers that resulted in three cops being hospitalized.  Per ABC:

 

“She thought she was going to die. She knew that she should shoot this guy, but she chose not to, because she didn’t want her family or the department to have to go through the scrutiny the next day on national news,” Supt. Johnson said.

 

“It is terrible. It is total disregard for law enforcement. They put their lives forward every day for us and to see somebody do this, to pummel the police officer is terrible. It is a terrible thing,” business owner Louie Rainone said.

60 Minutes included commentary from Flora White, mother of a Chicago murder victim.  She blamed the police for pulling back patrols, stating that they weren’t doing their job.  They also interviewed pastor Michael Pfleger, who participated in a protest wearing a Colin Kaepernick jersey.  Of course, Kaepernick is an NFL quarterback who supports BLM, which inspired his national anthem protest.  It is also worth noting that Kaepernick waited until a backup quarterback took his job to begin his national anthem protest.  It should come as no surprise that Pfleger implied that police were failing to do their job, though he not seem to understand why:

Michael Pfleger: I’ve never seen there to be a combination of anger, distrust, and a feeling like communities have been abandoned.

 

Shame on us that our children are afraid to go out of their house of being shot and killed. When is the tipping point, do we all say, enough?

Even current Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, also featured in the 60 Minutes report, has begun following in predecessor McCarthy’s footsteps, and now ascribes part of the blame of officers’ unwillingness to engage on the streets to anti-police sentiment.

At a press conference on Sunday, Superintendent Eddie Johnson said “anti-police sentiment” and a negligent criminal justice system were in part to blame. “In many instances, the individuals who chose to pull the trigger are repeat gun offenders emboldened by the national climate against law enforcement and willing to test the limits of our criminal justice system,” Johnson said…

Obviously there was no mention of Johnson’s blame of anti-police sentiment deriving from nationwide protests.  Yet another chance to mention BLM and national protests that 60 Minutes chose to omit.  More convenient editing?

The majority of the 60 Minutes report focuses on police and how they have changed doing their job, without any mention of the primary reason why: a national anti-police atmosphere which has hamstrung police and led them to fear doing their job to the best of their ability.  Nowhere is this more pertinent than Chicago, a large city with a massive gang and criminal element centered in a few bad neighborhoods.

If there is ever to be any meaningful police reform, race should not be the focus.  Reforming our for-profit criminal justice system is a great place to start instead.  The majority of police activity is profit-based, not crime-based – just think about the number of cops writing speeding tickets who could instead be solving crimes.  Making profound changes to an overmilitarized police force is necessary, as countless people of all races are illegally surveilled, wrongfully arrested, have their personal property seized, sometimes in unnecessary SWAT raids, and all of this police conduct is totally tolerated by the MSM.  Real reform in the war on drugs, which is driving a large amount of this activity, needs to be done for any other reforms to be effective.  Holding police accountable for their mistakes is but one piece of a much larger puzzle to solve regarding police reform. 

At least 60 Minutes finally got something correct this time around in their reporting.  They did not blame gun laws as the problem for Chicago’s violence.  That is quite a turnabout, given the program’s history in blaming gun laws for all gun violence in the USA.  I’d say its a positive development, but I won’t hold my breath expecting CBS to all of a sudden turn away from its MSM narratives and the “news” they peddle to the masses.

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The dollar's slump this morning may be the start of a much larger correction, according to Bloomberg's Mark Cudmore.

It's worth paying attention to the inability of both the dollar and U.S. yields to make the most of strong U.S. data this week.

And also to the strong euro-zone PMIs and higher-than- estimated inflation prints that have boosted the euro.

The main takeaway from the Fed minutes was that many of the policy makers’ forecasts for rate hikes are dependent on fiscal stimulus. That introduces some dovish-surprise risk.

Suddenly it seems more relevant that plenty of FX technicals were warning of the potential for a dollar-correction. On Tuesday, Cable made a double-low at the 61.8% Fibo- retracement from the flash-crash low. 21-DMAs were breaking in many dollar crosses. And then the post-election USD/JPY upward trendline was shattered this morning.

Now the PBOC is successfully squeezing yuan-shorts, which will further hit the broad dollar index.

My colleague Vincent Cignarella outlined five ways the dollar rally may end if Trump policy fails….

1. The repatriation of $2.5t. This is meant to spur corporate investment at home, but in 2004 a similar tax holiday on overseas profits saw companies mostly pay dividends, repurchase shares and cut jobs to trim costs.
2. Tariffs or destination taxes. These could raise the cost of imported goods and potentially slow the economy and derail the dollar unless Congress in tandem cuts personal taxes to increase disposable income.
3. Trade pact renegotiation. This could push inflation closer to or above the Federal Reserve’s target, prompting the central bank to bring forward rate hikes. That monetary tightening without concurrent fiscal stimulus might drag on growth and the dollar.
4. Infrastructure spending. Total U.S. debt is approaching $20t and Congressional leaders may fight widening the budget deficit. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called the level of U.S. debt “dangerous.”
5. Household income. U.S. real average earnings had been on a slide since the end of 2015 and linked to the decline of the dollar up until the election, when the correlation broke down on hopes of Trump’s fiscal stimulus.

My suspicion is that it may already be finished…

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Hold your real assets outside of the banking system in one of many private international facilities  –>    http://ift.tt/2cyFwvQ;

42 Years of Fractional Reserve Alchemy

Posted with permission and written by Craig Hemke (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

It has now been 42 years since The Global Bankers successfully alchemized gold through the advent of futures trading, so we begin the new year by looking back at how we got into this position in the first place.

To that end, let’s start 2017 by going back to 1974.

Over the past few years, you’ve often heard me reference the HISTORY and FACT of gold price suppression and manipulation. Whenever it comes up in an interview or presentation, it often goes like this:

• After Bretton Woods, the US tried to go it alone in managing the price of gold to $35/ounce. By the late 1950s, this caused a mini-crisis when US gold reserves fell by a third as countries around the world exchanged their dollars for gold. There were hearings on Capitol Hill and decisions were made to change the way that $35 gold would be managed.
• This led to the formation of The London Gold Pool in 1961. No longer would the US go it alone in providing physical metal at the $35/ounce price. Seven other countries were recruited to the effort in order to lessen the burden and drawdown of US reserves. This effort to manage the $35 price worked for nearly seven years until global gold demand finally overwhelmed the Gold Pool and the effort collapsed in 1968.
• The US was suddenly on its own again and demand for gold in exchange for dollars soon grew to such an extreme that President Nixon was forced to cancel the dollar’s convertibility into gold on August 15, 1971. This is the “closing of the gold window” that you’ve heard so much about.

A new movement to allow private gold ownership in the US soon began…recall that FDR had outlawed private gold ownership in 1933…and on January 1, 1975, US citizens were finally allowed to once again own and hold physical gold.

But something very important happened the day before, on December 31, 1974. On that date, the Commodity Exchange Inc., also known as The Comex, began trading gold futures contracts and, as you’ll see below, it was through these gold derivative contracts that the global bankers and governments finally perfected alchemy…a pursuit which had foiled and baffled scientists for centuries.

You may recall that a few years back, Wikileaks unveiled a whole assortment of previously-classified US government cables and transmissions. Wikileaks documented them all together and posted them to their website under the category of “Public Library of US Diplomacy”. From the site, please read through this cable from December 10, 1974:

• http://ift.tt/2hQMETP

The entire document lays bare the intention behind the manufacture of gold derivatives to replace physical metal. However, in case you missed it, here’s the key paragraph:

And there you have it. Laid bare for all to see. The “Dealers’ expectations” of 1974 are manifest in 2017. The futures market is “of significant proportion” and physical trading is “miniscule by comparison”. Price suppression, manipulation and volatility has “negated long-term hoarding” of gold by US citizens and very few even consider gold as money at all with the vast majority seeing it only as a commodity or a “hedge”.

However, the fraud of the Banker’s alchemy will one day come to an end as confidence in fiat currency collapses and physical demand for real money overwhelms this fractional reserve system. Will/can this occur in 2017? It’s certainly possible as negative interest rates and currency devaluations lead to all sorts of unexpected consequences. But the timing hardly matters when the end result is a foregone conclusion. No system built upon a foundation of deceit and fraud can stand the test of time, and the Banker’s fractional reserve alchemy is no different. It will one day collapse. Of that you can be certain.

(A major h/t to James Henry Anderson for reposting the Wikileak page to Twitter on January 1.)

Please email with any questions about this article or precious metals HERE

42 Years of Fractional Reserve Alchemy

Posted with permission and written by Craig Hemke (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

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Last February, when Kyle Bass announced the upcoming launch of a dedicated fund to short the Yuan, as part of a bigger macro short unveiled in his report on “The $34 Trillion Experiment: China’s Banking System and the World’s Largest Macro Imbalance”, many were skeptical if not outright mocked the Hayman Capital investor. However, one year later, it is those who invested alongside Bass that are laughing, because as Bass writes in his latest letter to investors, “I am pleased to share that the Hayman Capital Master Fund, LP’s estimated net performance for the calendar year of 2016 was +24.83%.” Putting this in a longer context, those who have invested with Hayman since the fund’s inception in 2006, this represents an inception-to-date return of +436.75% and an annualized return of +16.70%.

Not bad.

So where is Bass now? As he unveiled in his letter, he is sticking with Asia, which he will cover with a brand new Asia-focused fund, his third, “designed to provide investors with nuanced access to perhaps one of the largest imbalances in financial markets history.” Bass expects “the next few years to be the best years for macro investing since the late 1990s.”

Bass explains the reason for his shift back to macro investing, which began 2016, as follows: “we reorganized our portfolio to invest in the macro themes that began to reveal themselves early in the year. Exploiting our reflationary view, we invested in global interest rate markets, currencies, and commodities across the world.”

As the above returns confirm, Bass was clearly successful last year and is why he plans to continue doing more of the same in the current year:

As we enter 2017, we believe enormous macro imbalances are just beginning to unwind. As central bank monetary policies have become impotent, these imbalances will likely continue to unfold in what we believe to be a much more predictable manner. Over the past several years, economic gravity has been pulling one way and central banks have been using aggressive monetary policy to pull the other. Investing in macro, while this phenomenon has existed, has been difficult to say the least. From here- on, we expect to encounter significant changes in global fiscal policies along with a continuation of the upward movement of general price levels for consumers and producers alike. This type of environment plays into our strengths at Hayman. 

Bass believes that government policy changes “will likely act as accelerants to the underlying imbalances which have been accumulating for the past eight years (and in some cases, the last three decades), which is a polite way of saying a mean reversion to a state prior to the unprecedented central bank intervention over the past 7 years.”

In terms of his outlook, Bass notes that “Unlike establishment prognosticators, we hold a nuanced view of the world that contemplates higher global inflation, tepid real economic growth, and severe imbalances in select Asian financial systems and currency markets.”

In other words, it’s all about Asia, again.

And it is likely Asia which he envisions when as he further writes, “global markets are at the beginning of a tectonic shift from deflationary expectations to reflationary expectations.”

Bass then gives his investors a rhetorical question: “What happens to economies at maximum leverage when interest rates begin to rise?” 

Just guessing here but, either bad things, or the central banks reengage to prevent even a modest, 10% selloff?

Whatever the right answer, Bass says that “reconciling the potent strengths of the world’s largest economies with their inherent weaknesses has revealed various investable anomalies. The enormity of the apparent disequilibrium is breathtaking, making today a tremendous time to invest. Over the past 18 months, we have focused on a particular set of asymmetries, which we are now seeking to exploit.”

However, what we found most notable about Bass’ relatively short letter is the following admissions:

One opportunity in particular has the greatest risk-reward profile we have ever encountered in our decade of being a fiduciary. As investors of ours, you are positioned to take advantage of one of the world’s greatest macro imbalances.

He did not disclose what the opportunity was, but left readers on the following optimistic note: “We expect the next few years to be the best years for macro investing since the late 1990s.”

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Following API's larger than expected crude draw (and huge product builds), DOE reports massive builds in Distillates (+10mm – biggest sine Jan 2015) and Gasoline (+8.3mm – biggest since Jan 2016) and another big build in Cushing inventories. Crude inventories drew down 7.05mm barrels – confirming API's data. US crude production also picked up and WTI prices tumbled.

API

• Crude -7.431mm (-2mm exp)- biggest draw since Sept 2016
• Cushing +482k (+900k exp)
• Gasoline +4.25mm (+1mm exp)- most since Jan 2016
• Distillates +5.244mm (-800k exp) – most since Jan 2016

DOE

• Crude -7.051mm (-2mm exp) 
• Cushing +1.074mm (+200k exp)
• Gasoline +8.307mm (+1mm exp) – most since Jan 2015
• Distillates +10.051mm (-800k exp) – most since Jan 2016

Total crude stockpiles remain over 35% above the five-year seasonal norm.Cushing jumps to the highest level since May with the sixth gain in seven weeks.

US Crude production continues to generally follow the lagged trend of the rising rig count…

Bloomberg notes that U.S. production has been trending higher since September, with the Energy Information Administration sharply increasing its weekly estimates in November and again December. Newly released monthly data for October shows the EIA underestimated output significantly (weekly figures pointed to 8.5 million barrels a day, while the monthly data was of 8.8 million barrels a day).

WTI tagged $54 this morning – higher post-API data –

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Following the disgusting images broadcast live on Facebook of a teen white male being kidnapped, cut, and abused by several African-American youths yelling "F*** Donald Trump," Chicago Police confirm the four people, who are all 18, were taken into custody but have not been formally charged.

The video has since been removed from YouTube but this is a clip:

MORE VIDEO FOUND

Blacks kidnap and torture white Trump supporter. http://pic.twitter.com/aNrQuULeRk

— James J. Vinson (NT) (@JamesJVinson) January 5, 2017

As Reuters reports, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters the video that surfaced on Tuesday showing the attack was "sickening."

"It makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that," Johnson said.

 

Police said the young man was tied, gagged and beaten.

 

The superintendent added that the victim has "mental health challenges."

While police officials did not confirm the races of the suspects or victim, video from Chicago media outlets appeared to show someone off-camera using profanities about "white people" and President-elect Donald Trump.

But, as AP reports, police said it's too soon to determine whether the attack was racially motivated.

Investigators will "determine whether or not this is sincere or just stupid ranting and raving," Duffin said when asked about the language used in the recording.

 

The video also shows bottles of alcohol in the room during the attack.

 

Officers were called to a residence on the city's West Side Tuesday evening where they found signs of a struggle and damaged property.

Police said that around the same time, officers on patrol encountered the victim on a nearby street. He was taken to a hospital in stable condition and later released, police said.

Still no reponse from president-elect Donald Trump on this violent act. But Newt Gingrich has chimed in, warning that the U.S. was "at the edge of a terrible period" after a Facebook Live video surfaced in which a disabled Chicago teen is seen being tortured amid chants of "f— Donald Trump."

"If this had been done to an African-American by four whites, every liberal in the country would be outraged and there would be no question that it is a hate crime," Gingrich said in an interview on "Fox & Friends."

 

"We are right at the edge of a terrible period — which I know President-elect Donald Trump wants to avoid — of having a deep bitter division in the communities in a way that makes America very hard to govern."

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One month ago, the highest-valued private company in the world, with a valuation of $68 billion, Uber got in trouble with privacy advocate when it was revealed that the ride-hailing company can now track its passengers’ locations after they are dropped off and even when their app has been closed. As revealed in a new update to Uber’s app, the global taxi service could collect passenger data up to five minutes after a journey has finished.

On its website Uber said: ‘Uber collects your location data from the time of trip request through five minutes after the trip ends, including when the app is in the background.

The firm defended itself by saying that the data will cut down on the frustrating back-and-forth often experienced by customers, as drivers try to ascertain exactly where their passengers are.

And while mobile apps tracking every habit of its users is hardly new, a new twist emerged this morning, when Uber sent out a notification to its users, accusing none other than New York City of demanding that it hand over all its “sensitive” passenger info data, including “where you’re dropped off, as well” in an attempt to “to piece together the full details of every trip you ever take,” a move which creates “serious privacy risks.”

From the email sent to clients:

Today, New York City requires Uber and other companies to hand over a lot of sensitive personal passenger data, including where you’re picked up on every trip. Now, New York City wants more. They’re trying to force companies to tell them where you’re dropped off, as well.

 

In other words, they want to piece together the full details of every trip you ever take. Several independent privacy experts have said this policy creates “serious privacy risks.” And that it would give the government “and anyone else who accesses this information a comprehensive, 360-degree view into the movements and habits of individual New Yorkers.” Click below to send a clear message that enough is enough.

 

https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?&text=.@nyctaxi%20I%20don%27t%20want%20my%20private%20Uber%20trip%20data%20in%20a%20government%20database.&hashtags=TLCDontTrackMe

 

Yours is the most powerful voice in this debate. We need your help. New York City doesn’t need this data and they’ve shown in the past that they cannot prevent it from becoming public.

Considering that the government is already in the process of launching it own “Ministry of Truth” to crack down on opposing media viewpoints, we don’t find this latest attempt of government and municipal overreach surprising at all.

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